The Egg Hunt

Ok, it's finally here.  The Easter Egg Hunt post.  I hope it doesn't disappoint since I'd been working on the actual party for so long.  It was a blast.  I was worried that it could have been rained out, but the weather dried up and even though the ground was damp beneath the grass, it turned out to be just fine.

I could probably do a post on just the flowers alone...and maybe I will at some point.  One of my MOST favorite things to do is to arrange flowers.  I bought about $50 worth of flowers from Whole Foods and the rest I got from my neighbor's garden...way more from my neighbor's garden.  Amazing stuff.  Here's a peek at a few of the arrangements.

All of the flowers were in things like antique mason jars, tin cans, and old timey milk bottles.

Everyone came around 10am and brought brunch items with them.  We had quite the yummy spread.  By 10:30 everyone was eating and around 11am we sent all the menfolk out to hide the eggs.  We have found to maximize fun for all ages, it's best to divide up hunting areas by age.  Ages 3 and under hunt in one space (where eggs are obviously hidden), 4-6 in another area (getting trickier hiding here), and ages 7 and up all hunt in my neighbor's yard where the dads really have fun hiding!  Works out well and all the little kids aren't having to fight bigger kids for obvious eggs.  Plus, each child hunts til they find 12 and then are encouraged to help one another.  Was a good time had by all I think.

I really love having new people I've never even met come to the party...family and friends in town of our friends.  And even better than them just coming is when it's obvious that they honestly had a good time!  Of all the compliments I could receive about my home or hostessing...that is definitely the best one for me.  And I think that's a compliment to our friends as well!

This was the set-up in the dining room where the food and coffee station were.  And I'm shooting myself for somehow not getting pictures of my favorite drink station outside.  I've been refinishing a china cabinet and a dresser lately, but they were just junking up the garage unfinished, so I moved them outside and had drink dispensers in the cabinet and cups, napkins, etc on the dresser.  It was so cute!  (So if anyone who came has a picture of this...I'd love a copy!)  The perils of hostessing...last minute finishes didn't make it to the photo memory card!

I found these cute aqua sandwich boards at an antique store probably 2 years ago and got them for $15 each.  I finally got around to painting them with chalkboard paint last week and I'm super pleased with how they turned out.  I've put them out in the past and just taped a sign to them, but I LOVE the way they look with the chalkboard on them.  We even used one later in the day for a lemonade stand (with the leftover lemonade from the party.) 

View of the hunters and gatherers in the front yard and on the back porch.  

One day I want to screen in that porch....ahh the list of things to do...

It was raining the night before the party and I had several things that needed to be put outside the next morning, so here's a little entertaining trick that I pulled out to make sure I didn't miss anything.  A quick little sketch of my front and back porches with notes and pictures of everything I needed to remember.  Never a bad idea to draw out what you want to get the idea of what you're putting.  And even though I forgot to take a picture of the drinks on the back porch, you can at least see the general idea of what went on back there!

Sorry it's taken me forever to get this posted!  Tid Bit turns 5 this Friday, so in addition to getting the Egg Hunt undone in our house,  I'm re-doing things now for a bluegrass themed birthday party tomorrow.  This is just the month of parties around our house! 

I'll go ahead and tell you not to be expecting anything as elaborate as Little Bit's 1st Birthday because I have a a kryptonite around here called sanity and sleep.  And I couldn't be more thankful that Tid Bit actually requested cupcakes!  I'm still making a more elaborate cake that he wants to take with us to a Bluegrass festival in NC this weekend, but I'll tell you more about all of that later on too!

In the meantime though I have some musical note sugar cookies to churn out this morning and a bluegrass table to set for tomorrow's birthday party!

PS. Let me just say that while this isn't the best picture of me, I do love the fact that the way I'm holding the baby makes my waist look about half of it's normal diameter...this is the result of creative baby holding, not a sign of restraint with Easter Candy consumption.