Easter has always been a bit of a chaotic time in our house, as for the last few years it has clashed with the boys birthdays and as a result has always seemed a bit of a lesser event than I would have liked.
There has always been too much else going on with birthday parties to organise, presents to wrap and the boys already on an excitement overload with the birthday buzz and so Easter, although always still celebrated, has felt sort of secondary to everything else going on.
This year though it fell far later in the calendar than usual, which meant it was a good two weeks after their birthdays. This gave me chance to finally feel as though we could do Easter properly - anyone who knows me will tell you that I am ALL about the occasions and I love to celebrate every single one (much to Jons dismay as he would much rather let these things slide with little to no fuss made!). My motto on celebrations has always been Go Big Or Go Home, so it's always irritated me that our Easter's have felt as though they were only given a nod of acknowledgement.
The Easters of my childhood were always done well - there would always be gatherings of all the cousins (I had 60+ cousins, so you can imagine how epic these events were!), there would usually be a Good Friday trip to somewhere like Gullivers World or maybe a day trip to North Wales, there would always be new clothes as was tradition in our family and these would usually be nautically themed, and there would always be an abundance of Easter Eggs - enough to last us halfway to Christmas usually!
So this year I was really keen to recreate a similar kind of Easter for my kids.
On Good Friday we did the traditional family day out and headed to Crealy theme park, you can read more about our day there over on my travel blog but suffice to say we had a lot of fun!
Saturday was a relaxing day, as my parents took the kids out for the day leaving Jon & I chance to enjoy a VERY rare childfree afternoon together- of course most of it was spent food shopping, picking up last minute Easter supplies and doing other tasks around the house but we did manage a half hour escape to the seaside town of Brixham where we got to have a peaceful walk and enjoy an ice cream in the sunshine - it may not sound like much but for two people who so rarely have the chance to go out alone together it was very nice!
It also gave me a chance to take some photographs of the new clothes I'd been treated to by the lovely people from Nutmeg at Morrisons - I so rarely shop for myself since the boys came along and when I do, I have an awful habit of limiting myself to the sale rails so I often feel that I don't even know what I like anymore. This denim shirt dress was probably not something I would ever have looked at in a store, but honestly? I absolutely love it! It is possibly the comfiest item of clothing I've ever owned but I think it looks really nice on - It felt like the perfect outfit for anything from school runs to cinema dates, and I know I will be getting a LOT of wear out of it over the coming months.
On Easter Sunday, the boys had us up at crack of dawn wanting to know if the Easter Bunny had been! I managed to stave them off for long enough to open their Easter Baskets from us - I started this tradition during Tyne's first Easter and have kept it up ever since, I love organising the baskets for them and they really love digging through them to see whats inside.
After that we headed out to see if the Easter Bunny had visited - Luckily he had left some eggs in the garden for us so Tyne and Noah grabbed their baskets and set about finding them all. I don't think Noah really knew what was happening and was more interested in stopping to open each one, so Tyne took advantage and ended up with most of the loot!
The sneaky bunny had found his way indoors while we were hunting which was very handy as it helped us to lure the kids back inside ;)
After the egg hunt was done, we spent the afternoon watching Hop and scoffing far too much chocolate - we saved room for a nice Roast dinner though!
I wore another outfit from Nutmeg on Easter Sunday as the nautical stripes of the t shirt felt appropriate for the occasion, I absolutely love the dipped back as when you do so much bending over to scoop up little ones you do worry about your jeans dipping so this gave me a lot of reassurance! The t shirt was so comfortable and, after ending up covered in chocolate, I can also confirm that it washes really well too!
I also wore the plain denim jeans I was sent which was a bit of a first for me as although I love jeggings and high waisted jeans, I have never been a fan of "normal" jeans at all - I always find them too stiff and uncomfortable, and very unflattering on me but I actually really liked this and was surprised by how comfortable they were. The sizing was also very generous as despite being a size smaller than I would usually buy, they were actually a little big and I could have done with a size smaller.
Easter Monday was definitely our favorite day of all, as we headed over to my Mum & Dads holiday caravan for a BBQ - the weather was perfect, it stayed lovely and sunny all day which meant that the kids were free to run around the caravan park with their cousins to their hearts content. There are rarely any other people around so we usually have the whole place to ourselves which is really handy!
My mom had set up an epic Easter Egg Hunt for the kids across the entire caravan park, which they all loved - they followed the clues and collected their colourful eggs along the way, before finally finding the elusive golden eggs! They then headed back to open them up and see what treasures were inside for them, before taking part In the Easter Egg Tombola to see which big egg they'd each won!
After a yummy BBQ dinner, there were egg & spoon races, 3 legged races, wheelbarrow races, and games of football and badmington as well as an Easter Pinata to dig into - it really was a lovely family day!
So that was our Easter 2017 and it's safe to say that we are now all shattered and could do with a few days to recover!
How did you spend your Easter this year? I hope you had fun however you chose to spend it!
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