She's A *Rock Star* Egg Collector

Easter started early here in Hawaii. On Friday, to be exact.

It wasn't supposed to start so early, but unfortunately The Easter Bunny didn't do such a great job of hiding the big stuffed duck that was to be for Moana on Sunday morning... It was in the laundry room and I forgot about it while folding laundry on Friday... and then when my adorable little toddler started squealing with delight and pointing and squealing and pointing and squealing, well, there was no pretending that the big stuffed duck did not exist. So she got an early Easter prize.

The duck was actually sent by my mom so I told Moana that she should say 'thank you' to Grammy for sending it. I got her version of Thank You Grammy! on video in the middle of all that hugging of the duck...


So Sunday morning arrived and the Easter Bunny left a basket for Moana downstairs by the sliding glass porch door... and on the door were some window cling-ons of The Bunny and some colored eggs. This was very intriguing to Moana. In fact, it took her several minutes of staring at that bunny on the window before she would even go near it. Even the basket was not enough of a draw to get her to go near the door. She just stood about 5 feet away and talked to herself while staring at the bunny on the window. Eventually, with lots of encouragement from mommy and daddy, she worked up the courage to go pick a toy out of her basket. She pulled everything out one by one. Pretty cute.

The Easter Bunny also hid a couple of eggs around the house. The real purpose of this was that she needed a little training in Easter Egg Hunting because the real Easter Egg Hunt was going to be a highly competitive event around the neighborhood. Moana was going to be up against several boys that were over the age of 2! She was clearly the underdog so we had to put in some extra training time. It took her a while to catch on, but with some (ok, a lot) help she managed to find all the eggs hidden around our house. Left up to her own devices she would have been perfectly happy with the first three she found. No need for more. But we are pushy parents and tried to teach her to get a little more greedy.

So right at 10:00, even though it was raining, we headed over to the neighbors. Yes, we don't let a little rain get in the way of our fun around here... Basket in hand, Moana was ready. See?

Easter Egg Hunting is such a great activity for toddlers. We really had a lot of fun out there! And the joy continues on... this morning Moana grabbed her basket and dumped out all the eggs and then collected them all back up and returned them to her basket. Over and over. The Easter Basket is like the gift that keeps on giving...