Easter Egg Hunting

Last year Adelaida attended one Easter egg hunt, and somehow managed to walk away with three eggs. To accomplish that remarkable feat, I had to walk her over to an egg, point to it, say excitedly, "Look, Adelaida, an Easter egg! Can you pick it up?" and wait patiently for her to examine it, decide she would like to touch it, and finally pick it up and hand it to me. Collecting three eggs took about half an hour.

This year, she had three Easter egg hunts -- despite not practicing since last year, she did very well in all three hunts! Of course, Easter egg hunts are really an excuse to dress Adelaida up in adorable dresses, and fortunately I got several pictures of her hunting eggs.

The first hunt was with my Moms group. The kids were divided into "little kids" (under 2) and "big kids" (ages 2 through 10). The hunt started with the kids who were four and over running out and grabbing all the obvious eggs they could find, then hunting for the more hidden ones. By the time Adelaida picked up her basket and walked out the door, the only eggs left were hidden in tall trees, under ledges, and otherwise difficult to see. I saw a few and steered Adelaida toward them, pointing them out to her so she would see them and pick them up. She got three eggs this way, then a generous older kid saw Adelaida walking with an almost empty basket, put one of her eggs on the ground in front of Adelaida, and let her find it. It was the high point of her hunt!

The second hunt was with our playgroup, which consists of about fifteen kids, all of whom are within three months of Adelaida in age. The eggs were "hidden" in plain sight on the ground and there were about a dozen eggs per hunter. She carried her basket over to each egg, set the basket down, picked up the egg, carefully placed it in her basket, and then went in search of another egg.


She managed to carry the basket quite well by herself, without losing too many eggs.


When all the hidden eggs had been found, Adelaida sat down to examine her goodies.


Done with eggs, several of the kids gravitated to Gracie's playset.


The third hunt was at our neighbor's house, with kids aged one to 16, but each age group had a well-defined area to look in. Adelaida was one of two one-to-three-year-olds, and there were approximately fifty eggs in their section. Adelaida collected a lot of eggs! Dale helped carry the basket for her while I took pictures.


After collecting a few dozen eggs, Adelaida just wanted to carry the basket around.


We had fun at all three East egg hunts. I can't wait to see what Adelaida will be doing at the Easter egg hunts next year!