Easter Egg Hunt

We had a marvelous Easter party yesterday. I've determined the formula for complete success in party throwing. Plan every detail of the party on the day before you send out the invitations, then forget about it completely. No use in carrying it around with you and stressing out. Premade food is a must. I hate cooking and rushing and worrying about recipes and then trying to clean the kitchen and get all those dishes washed and put away before guests arrive. Begin to decorate (NOT clean) the house as soon as you wake up. Tablescapes and so on will make you feel organized and more cheerful and then you can clean right up until the first guest arrives without worrying what else is on your to-do list. Besides, you wander around dusting aimlessly anyway, may as well make it your plan. Don't change into your party clothes until after your shower -- DO remember to shower and change. I threw a party once and realized just as my guests were leaving that I was still in my nightgown! I was so stressed out rushing around before the party that I didn't even notice and everyone was too polite to say anything. Before you shower go walk around the exterior of your house. The inside may be waxed and polished within an inch of its life but the outside is what guests see first and it could probably do with a bit of tidying up.

I used to love to organize parties, hated to actually throw them. Now I have found entertaining nirvana. :-)

We had a craft station set up with brown paper bags, crayons, stickers, and Easter stamps and stamp pads so guests could decorate their egg-finding bag. Then we all headed out for the Great Hunt. I hid 54 eggs. We decorated them ourselves with a variety of natural dyes: turmeric, tea, spinach, beets, blueberries, and red cabbage. The red cabbage ones were awesome!!! The cabbage leaves made beautiful swirly designs on the eggs where ever they touched them. Next time I know to nestle the eggs in the mass of leaves instead of pushing them to the bottom of the pot. Blueberry was a gorgeous indigo color with little speckly designs where the disintegrating skins had come into contact with the eggs. Turmeric was a wonderful bright gold color. Beets were a forgettable light brown (which surprised me, I was expecting pink) -- identical to the tea color. Spinach was a very very pale green. Lovely though. Our hunters found 53 of the 54 eggs which I thought was awesome! Natalie led my family of finders with 10. Leah checked in with 8 and Rebecca 3. From what I understand from Nancy, who walked around with Rebecca, she was very choosy about which eggs she decided to pick up.

Then it was inside to count the eggs and snack on M&Ms, gumdrops, and shortbread cookies. I had the candy leftover from decorating Natalie's flower cupcakes from her birthday party so it cost me almost nothing to throw this party and I got all that candy out of the house! I also set out some Easter books (The Golden Egg Book, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, The Bunny Who Found Easter by Charlotte Zolotow) which the children read and they played with the rabbit hutch and our finger puppets and the play kitchen. Overall it was a very fun and successful party.


Egg Dyeing Instructions

Here are the notes I made from yesterday. First -- and this is important -- set out your pots and determine how many you have. Then pick your dyestuffs from there. How many small pots (blueberries, beets), how many large pots (spinach, red cabbage). Strong dyes like turmeric can be heated up and then set on a potholder while the burner is used for another pot. We had six so turmeric and tea soaked on the counter. Place your dyestuffs in pot. Red cabbage is a great one for kids to tear up themselves. Add the eggs. Remember for things like spinach that it will decrease greatly in volume as it cooks so quite a few eggs can be added to that pot. Add some white vinegar to help fix the color and fill the pot with cold water. Bring to a boil, push the eggs under the dyestuffs (they will tend to float up to the top) and then hard boil as usual. For some people this is turning off the heat and letting the eggs stand, which is what we did. Some boil their eggs the entire time. Scoop eggs out with a slotted spoon (you can leave them in longer as long as you keep an eye on how long the eggs are at room temp and caution guests not to eat them if longer than 3 hours) and place on a cooling rack to drip, then into the egg cartons and back into the fridge to wait for the hiding time.