free easter printable!

yup, you heard that right! The girls at happy happy art collective decided to make our April group project fun and free printables, just in time for spring! Head on over here to check out the goodies that Denise, Muffin and Lauren came up with!

For my piece, I decided I wanted to do some sort of activity type placemat. You've been there... it's easter dinner and old Uncle Joe is taking forever and a day to eat that fancy spring green salad that your kids all hate. They're getting antsy waiting for the ham (and bunny cake...keepin' it real, here) to arrive. This after getting super hyper with a bag of jelly beans and chocolate eggs in their system, right? What to do? Well, time to hand out the crayons and this fun placemat. When they're done finding the eggs, they can turn it over for some quality doodle time!

Growing up at my house, the old bunny gentleman was a rather heartless fellow. I'm sure most kids have an egg hunt or two to fill out the day, but the bunny that visited our house also hid the baskets! And hid them well. So well, it was not uncommon to still be searching looong after sundown. I can still picture my dad sitting in the living room, smoking his pipe (which he often did on Sundays) reading the paper, while thoroughly enjoying our angst and total misery as bedtime approached and we STILL had not found our baskets. Cruel, right? As the youngest of five, it was also common practice for my older brothers to rub it in, claiming that they had found mine hours ago, and couldn't believe how stupid I was for not having found it already. One of best places he ever used was in the waste basket. Yeah. Imagine this... your basket (somewhat hermetically sealed) in the bottom of the trash can with a "clean" liner on top. Kinda twisted, right? But the all-time winner, would have to be what he pulled on my oldest brother... the basket was tied to a string, dangled below his bedroom window on the back of the house. Who thinks like that??

Like all family traditions, I carried this one on with my own kids, much to the dismay of my husband. However, I usually cave and start giving hints by mid afternoon or when they start crying in utter frustration. Good Easter fun! 

Happy Easter!!