An early start to Easter

The clocks rolled back an hour whilst we slept and brought an early start to Easter Sunday. Charli was first awake, wombling into our bedroom at what would have been 7am, but was now a sharp 6am.

“Can I go hunting for eggs in the garden?” she excitedely asked. It was dark, she was wearing her p-jays and the Easter bunny had decided not to put any chocolate outside in case the hedgehogs got it.

“After breakfast, when it’s light, we’ll do an Easter egg hunt. Has the Easter Bunny left you a surprise in the lounge?”.

“Yes and a card. Can I get start getting ready for the day now so I can eat chocolate?”

The Easter bunny had, indeed, been very generous and had even left a beautiful card for each of the girls. Charli had so many questions for the Easter Bunny that she decided to leave a card and letter.

Charli’s letter to the Easter Bunny:

Turns out our bunny is called Eggley and yes, in answer to Charli’s questions, he is fluffy and does enjoy fun holidays from time to time. In fact after delivering eggs to all the good children he said he was heading to Mt Ruapehu to chill out in the snow. He said not to worry about him getting cold as his fur would keep him warm.

So whilst the Easter Bunny caught up on sleep from delivering all the eggs we tucked into a breakfast of pancakes with fruit and lashings of maple syrup. Charli and Sophie made the table look extra special with their creations of Charli’s woven mats and Sophie’s tissue paper tulips.

After breakfast the garden was divided up for the girls to hunt for their eggs. Those little eggs turned out to be the best entertainment as the girls continued to play with them for a good few hours after the hunt was finished. They set up an ‘Egg Olympics’, which involved doing various activities depending on what colour egg they picked up; including the chicken walk, bum wiggle and more regular stuff like star jumps and rolly pollys on the trampoline! All very helpful in burning off that sugar overload!

Just to make extra sure they burned off the sugar (and for our health too – due to ah hem, excessive consumption of belgian chocs – especially moi!) we headed to Oriental Parade. The girls cycled along dodging croc bikes and buggies, whilst we power walked to catch up (fueled on coffee of course!). We hung out with the skateboarders at Waitangi Park for a while (with Sophie looking on in awe as she tried to do her thing on her little board). Unfortunately our fun got cut short as a southerly rolled in, but Te Papa wasn’t far away. Dan the super Dad took the bikes back to the car, whilst us gals shifted gear quickly to the warmth of Te Papa for lunch.

Later in the afternoon we headed up to a friend’s place for more Easter Egg hunts (with thankfully not too much consumption, but more running around).

The day finished with Charli and Sophie rugged up in the lounge watching a movie by candlelight with their Daddy. I, meanwhile, snuggled up in bed at 7pm with Alice. It seemed strange to be dark so early, but kinda nice and cosy too.

It’s now 3am and Alice is snuggled on my chest after a big feed. Back to bed for us. The house is so lovely and quiet at this hour.

It’s been a fabulous Easter and I was glad the girls could answer my question as to what Easter was really about with, ‘Jesus rose from the dead’. It’s nice they know it’s not all about the chocolate (though that was definitely very high on their minds!).