I didn’t think that we would do very much for Easter this year. Our family already made a big effort for Passover, and since we are Jewish, Easter is not really our holiday. We usually go to some kind of neighborhood egg hunt and get together with family for brunch, but that’s about the extent of it.

I figured this year, we would do a small hunt in our backyard with the meager supplies we already had in the house from previous years, which after scrounging around, was two empty Easter baskets, two sets of bunny ears and eight plastic eggs. My kids were never taught to believe in the Easter Bunny so that wasn’t something I was worried about. They know the adults hide the eggs. My plan was to put Trolls Laffy Taffy in the eggs (we got them in the mail from a promotion earlier this month) and just hide them in tough spots so there was a longer search. Done.

Harlow had bigger plans.

“Eight eggs, Mommy? That is not enough for an Easter Egg Hunt!”

She was also not satisfied with the Laffy Taffy offering, since we had already been eating them all week. So, she took it upon herself to scour the cabinets for anything that resembled candy. Luckily, we are the kind of house that does have random pieces of candy lurking behind the bags of chips and boxes of cereal. She found three Hershey kisses, two random Godiva chocolates, marshmallows, gum and a big bag of M&M’s that she used to make mini packs with plastic wrap. Then she wrapped each piece of candy individually in construction paper with tape.

In the end, we had 33 “eggs” to find. I guess we have our official family easter bunny.

While I hid Harlow’s homemade eggs in the yard, Mazzy and Harlow got dressed up in their Easter Sunday best. Harlow put on a cat and butterfly dress, selected by Mazzy. It was a hand-me-down that Mazzy remembered wearing on Easter a few years ago.

Mazzy wore yellow overalls, which seemed pretty on point too. She also had the idea to hide a few toy squishies to make the hunt more interesting. I keep a bag of them in the closet for random rewards.

Whenever we have gone to an Easter egg hunt in the past, there are zillions of eggs strewn on the grass so that kids can find them easily. The hunt is always more about speed than smarts. This time, since the kids are older, we had less eggs and no other kids to compete with, I tried to find trickier spots so the hunt would be more challenging.

It turns out that our backyard is PERFECT for an egg hunt. I found so many good spots!

I actually might have made it a little too tricky by camouflaging the eggs amongst flowers of the same color and putting a few up in branches so the girls had to look up as well as down. It took them a long time to find all of them.

They had a blast though! Harlow was so proud that she helped make the most of our hunt this year.

As I was running around taking photos of the girls searching for eggs, walking around the trees, down the dock, up the swing set, through the garden, back in the little wooded trail with the flowers, etc… it reminded me that the backyard is really what drew us to buy this house in the first place.

We weren’t crazy about the style of the exterior of the house, but the yard felt really special.

Of course, Mike and I never imagined that we’d be quarantined here for months! It’s definitely made us feel like the purchase was worth it. As much as I miss NYC, it would have been way more stressful on everyone to be in a small apartment with no outdoor space.

I know so many kids aren’t getting the chance to be outside right now, and I recognize how lucky we are to have this option. I feel very grateful to have the space, and even more grateful as the weather gets nicer and the flowers start to bloom.

After the egg hunt was over, Mazzy thanked Harlow for all of her extra effort. A rare moment.

I have to hand it to Harlow. She really is the master of her own fun. I love how she takes it upon herself to make things special instead of being disappointed that something didn’t meet her expectations.

I’ve heard lots of similar stories about parents cobbling together their Easter this year— using Halloween buckets for Easter baskets, hiding old toys instead of candy, etc. As far as I know, the kids all still had a great time and felt like the day was something special. I think it’s a great reminder that smaller celebrations don’t necessarily take away the fun for our kids. Sometimes, it even adds to it.

For us, Harlow was proud of her work, and Mazzy was appreciative. There was no crying at the egg hunt. Just two sisters having more than their usual amount of fun.

In a lot of ways, our egg hunt kind of summed up our overall quarantine experience— make do with what you have, try to make the best of things, and appreciate what you’ve already got.

How did your family celebrate Easter?