Holiday mash up.

[swamp]

Our Easter treasure hunt this year featured a mix of holidays. 

We started out with a note from Billy the Leprechaun telling the kids that in exchange for building leprechaun traps and trying to catch him, he stole their favorite toys and hid them with their Easter candy. They then had to follow a bunch of clues to find their treasure chest that had their toys as well as Easter candy. 

Did we scar out kids for life?  

[milee]

Nope.  Sounds like you're building creative kids with a good sense of humor.

[Deleted]

Love

[973beachbum]

My kids asked if we could do an Easter egg hunt at our house this year.  I told them they could hunt for Easter eggs on the beach like all the other kids.

When will they realize that their life is anything but normal?

Yours sounds more fun that ours was though.  All the eggs on the beach had in them was a toitsie roll or salt water taffy.

[mmhmm]

That sounds super, swamp!  I'll bet the kids had a great time.  What a good idea! 

[milee]

Mar 31, 2013 15:47:14 GMT -5 973beachbum said:

My kids asked if we could do an Easter egg hunt at our house this year.  I told them they could hunt for Easter eggs on the beach like all the other kids.

When will they realize that their life is anything but normal?

My youngest son and I went to the Easter sunrise service on the beach this morning (no eggs, just singing and the sunrise).  It was gorgeous, one of my favorite events of the year.  When DS was too young to go, I'd do a morning run on the beach during the service so I could be running and listening to the singing at the same time.  Love it. 

[Nazgul Girl]

   Hell, no.   Your kids will remember these great hunts for years to come, and besides, it's good that you're educating them about the antics of Billy the Leprecaun.   It's always important to introduce them to mythological facts early in life.

   My daughter is only slightly scarred because when she was young, I told her the truth about Zorro.  Well, not really Zorro himself, but his evil twin brother, Orroz.   He would take his sword and make the sign of the " O " in the air, and he rode and evil black horse named Odanrot.   

   Another time, when she asked me why the sign for the gasoline station had a shell on it, I was able to enlighten her about how the Shell oil company got its name.   I explained that John D. Rockefeller was a greedy, rotten man who stole oil claims away from innocent owners through all sorts of bad deeds, and that he was so evil, he named his conglomerate " Hell " Oil.   However, when he went to patent the name of his company, the U.S. patent office wouldn't let him have a company with such an evil name, so he had to change it to something nicer, so he chose " Shell " Oil.    But, he kept the red and yellow colors so that they would remind everyone of the flames of Hell.  

    She was about eight at that time of these "facts" , and was quite enchanted with them both.   We used to drive around singing " Orroz, Orroz, Orroz " while making the sign of the "O".   We also had many a discussion about why we shouldn't buy any Shell Oil.   

    I think she's okay today....I think.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Nice!

this is the third year we've turned the Easter egg hunt into a competition. Plastic eggs filled with kooky directions and a points assignment. Musical, academic, tongue twisters, physical, and just plain silly challenges. 

Theynmustnlike iterates they've been talking about it in anticipation  for the entire last month.

But making my kids compete against each other will probably scar them for life.   

[Malarky]

Awesome idea, Swamp.

This is the first year I haven't hidden eggs for my kids.  Even as teenagers, they've enjoyed it because there were always age appropriate surprises inside. 

I've also usually put them sort of present in the baskets.  This year I stepped outside the box a bit and put in whole pineapples.  The look on their faces was priceless. 

[Happy prose]

No egg hunts this year, but speaking of scarring kids, does anyone have any good April Fools pranks planned? I get my DD (21) every year. I plan to put food coloring in the toilet before she wakes up. I'm also going to tape the roll of TP. She has her boots on the top of the stairs ready for work tomorrow, and I stuffed newspaper in the toes. Any ideas?

[Apple]

Lol, love it!  They need to learn to stay a step ahead of those sneaky leprechauns!

We had crappy weather one year, and egg hunts don't seem to be as fun with an only child, so I did a scavenger type hunt for him, each egg he found had a coin or piece of candy, and a clue as to where he'd find the next egg.

We always did a "present hunt" for Christmas, similar to an egg hunt.  That started the year I was pretty sick and wanted to sleep in.

[Wisconsin Beth]

God, I'm boring.  I did the baskets and just left them on the kitchen table.  Told DH that I wasn't up to doing the plastic eggs and if he wanted the kids to have them, he could go dig them out of the basement.  Needless to say, he was fine with no eggs this year....