Family Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt - 2015

Over the weekend, we once again hosted our annual Family Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt.  This one had the largest number of attendees to date.  With 47 adults and 49 kids who RSVP'd "EGG-cellent" (a.k.a. YES!) to our Evite - we were ready to make this another fun, memorable event for all of our guests!

All of our amazing friends brought so much delicious food - I'll be sharing a few of the recipes soon!

We served lots of champagne, and had vodka, cranberry juice, and OJ available.  Our coolers were filled with tiny water bottles, tiny sodas, juice bags, Coors Light (sorry Dad), and "not Coors Light" (a.k.a Modelo Especial, Blue Moon, Rolling Rock, and Shock Top).  I decided to label the cooler tops to avoid having to lift each one to figure out what was in them.   I also went with smaller water bottles and sodas this year because we always find the larger ones partially consumed and abandoned!

In addition to all of that, a few of our guests brought their own concoctions - Gretchen always delivers with a cocktail in this beautiful dispenser - recipe for this Gin Fizz coming soon!  Also, a home made pepper infused vodka was brought with everything to make the perfect Bloody Mary. Lastly, another friend made some changes to a traditional Incredible Hulk  cocktail (served in the mason jar) - we called it "Arizona Hooch".  

I love buying goodies from Oriental Trading for this party.  We filled buckets with hacky sacks and paddle balls to decorate the tables, threw mini beach balls around the yard, and purchased egg fillers for the 1600-ish eggs that were "hunted".

For the kiddos, we borrowed our friend's bounce house, our friend Mindy did a great job painting faces, and we hired Tim "The Balloon Guy" to make balloon creations for all of our small party goers.  

About an hour or so into the party, The Hubby and I collect all of the dads to disperse the eggs in the common area near our home. The dads love this tradition (at least that's what I tell myself) and have become quite efficient at the process. They have learned over the years that throwing the eggs across the grass doesn't work because then they just come apart.  We also freeze all of the eggs filled with chocolate ahead of time in an effort to prevent a big, melty mess once they are being opened. 

We create a little parade to walk across the street, and once there, I let the little ones go first and then have to listen to the older ones complain about it.  I stall with them by taking selfies and singing songs.  This year - a few of my friends took pictures of me with all of them as well - I love those!   The kids end up having overflowing baskets by the end of the hunt accompanied by big smiles on their faces!  

Before heading back to the house, we ask our guests to separate their treasures from their eggs so that we have the eggs back for next year's party.  

We had a lot of fun hosting the party once again this year!  I love to see everyone's photos - all of our guests always have happy faces and look so festive all dressed up!  Thanks to everyone who shared photos with me to post here!  

We always have an annual photo of the "girls" and the "guys".  Whomever is around gets in the photo and the women always require more photos of themselves than the guys.  Shocking, I know.  :)

Thank you again to all of our friends who made the 2015 Annual Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt a success!  Cheers...and we WILL see you in 2016 :)

Easter Party Favorites......

Over the years, The Hubby and I have hosted many Easter Brunch/Egg Hunt parties.  Our first one was in 2009, I was pregnant with our 2nd child and my oldest boy was just 2 1/2 years old.  Our very good friends from Cincinnati were visiting with their (then) elementary school aged boys and it rained.  Fortunately, we only had about 25 guests, the kids were all toddling around, and we "hid" the eggs around our basement.

Since then, our Easter Party has become an annual event and we have heard from numerous guests that because of us, Easter is now their child's (or even their own!) favorite holiday.  I will say Easter is pretty awesome here in the Valley.  We are pretty much guaranteed to have sun, it won't snow (I grew up in Denver - it snowed or there was at least snow on the ground on Easter), and there is potential for swimming.

I took a year off in 2010 because of the new baby, hosted again in 2011 and have hosted every year since then.  Every year is so much fun!  I used to prepare dishes, craft cute decorations, etc. but we have so many wonderful guests who bring fantastic food to share - I put more focus on the fun, the eggs, and the cocktails.   A couple of years ago, rather than buying new paper plates for the party, I went through my pantry and found all of the partially full stacks of plates & napkins from prior birthdays, holidays, and baby showers.  Perfect.

Starting in 2014, I even planned Easter "dinner" because of the over-stayers we had in 2013.  Easter Tacos were a big hit and may become a tradition.

Here are some of my favorites from past Easters...

Orange Julius Cocktail (bottom right in photo).  This was a mid-party decision to start serving these. Easy, refreshing, delicious.

Tex-Mex Deviled Eggs (bottom left in photo).  Kind of a lot of work for a large crowd, but worth it for an intimate gathering.

Peeps Pops (top left in photo).  These take a bit of time, but the kids LOVE them.  They are sugary and Easter-y.

Carrot Napkin and Forks (top right in photo).  I received TONS of positive comments on these! Didn't take too much time to put these together, but they made a nice impact on the buffet table.

Citrus Sangria (center).  Serving a signature cocktail at a party is always fun.  It makes it even easier to drink dispenser when you have a crowd!

You can see more about my Easter 2012, Easter 2013, and Easter 2014 on my blog.  We are very excited about our upcoming Easter 2015 Party and I will be most certainly sharing photos!

2013 Family Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt

Once again this year we hosted our annual Family Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt.  We have held this party for a few years now, this is the 2nd year it has been on the "kinda big" side.  When we hosted the first one, all of our guests offered to bring something for the buffet - I took them up on it then and have ever since! 

The invitations are all sent via Evite, this is a casual event so in my opinion, Evite is a perfect solution.  If you are using Evite and are looking for guests to bring something, you can create a list and have them "sign up" as they respond.  I didn't want to be too restrictive around what my guests brought so just asked that they add in the comments their dish of choice.  Once I started to get a few responses, I compiled a list in the details section so others could see what was still needed.  Evite also lets you see how many kids vs. adults are attending your event.  That's certainly helpful when planning food, drinks, etc.  This year we had 70 guests planning to attend...half kids, half adults. 

We kept our decorations simple.  Setting up tables and chairs outside, covering with colorful (easy to clean) vinyl tablecloths, lots of fresh flowers around, and cute masks and bunny ears to get into the fun of Easter.

We kept the food inside the house but the party outside.  This year it was a great day - warm weather with an overcast, perfect to keep the sun out of everyone's eyes. The kids were entertained with crafts at the "kid tables", our play area, an awesome face painter (contact me if you are in need of a talented face painter and I can get you her info), a corn hole and ring toss game, and a bounce house courtesy of some friends who own one (how cool is THAT?)

Photos Courtesy of Gretchen Wakeman Photography

Photos Courtesy of Gretchen Wakeman Photography

Photo Courtesy of Gretchen Wakeman Photography

Once again, our buffet was full of yummy food - and this year I made none of it!  I knew there would be plenty, so decided to have one less thing to do.  We had everything from potato dishes to quiches to fruit/veggies to salads, including a Chicken Salad with Mango, to muffins - so much to mention.  And of course the desserts!  Lemon bars, cake pops, so good! 

Photo Courtesy of Gretchen Wakeman Photography

For drinks we had coolers filled with water, sodas, juice bags, and beer.  We also had a citrus sangria, champagne, vodka, orange juice, and pineapple/orange/banana juice.  At some point during the party, an Orange Julius Cocktail was introduced....you'll have to read more about that in my blog post here.

Photos Courtesy of Gretchen Wakeman Photography

Last year we really raised the bar on the amount of eggs we filled for the hunt....1200...for about 30 kids!  We had about the same number of hunters this year - so went with the same number of eggs.  One tip from someone who lives in a warm climate, if you are filling any of the eggs with chocolate, freeze or refrigerate those eggs until the party - that will help prevent a big melty mess when the little ones open their treasures!   This year we filled the eggs with some candy but also goodies from Oriental Trading Company such as sticky hands, erasers, and bouncy balls. 

We have a nice common area across the street from our house, so about 20-30 minutes before the hunt, the hubby collects a few other dads to head over and spread out the eggs.  Once they are ready, I head over - parade style - with everyone else.   I let the littlest ones go first, usually 2 and unders, then 3s and 4s, then everyone else.  The most fun?  Making those older kids WAIT!  While I give the little ones time to get out there, I ask questions of the older kids....and get "NO!" after each question....."Should we sing a song?  Should we tell a story?  Should we sit and rest?"  Once I know the small ones are out of the way I ask "Should we hunt for eggs???"  Then I get a big "YES" and they are off!

Once all of the eggs are gathered, we collect back the empty eggs.  It's very green of us, I know.    Everyone sits down around a laundry basket to separate their eggs from their prizes.  Prizes back in their Easter baskets, eggs back in my laundry basket. 

Photos Courtesy of Gretchen Wakeman Photography

Many of our guests left shortly after the egg hunt, a few of our closer friends hung out for the day. The dads took the kids swimming and we found a few frozen pizzas to heat up for dinner. Yes, dinner. This all day tradition will likely continue in the years to come - I have already decided to plan some sort of a "second course" for next year!

Photos Courtesy of Gretchen Wakeman Photography
 

The Bubbly Hostess Taking A Break....Photo Courtesy of Gretchen Wakeman Photography

Thanks to my friend Gretchen for taking a bunch of photos.....I have failed at this job two years in a row now, it's hard to host a party and take pictures at the same time!

Easter Party - 2012

Over the weekend, we hosted a very successful Easter Party!  This annual Family Brunch and Egg Hunt is always a ton of fun and proved to be a great day for us again this year!

I started with an Evite, I think this a great tool for casual get together.  You can easily track guests, people can identify how many adults vs. kids are coming, guests can leave comments - it's super easy!   This year we had almost 60 confirmed guests and half of those were kids!  All guests showed!  Yea!  There are almost always no shows at a party - but not this one!

When I started this tradition a few years ago, I had planned to make all of the food, but have a lot of generous friends who offered to bring dishes to support the buffet!  This part of the tradition has continued!

I did provide food suggestions to those who offered.  I made an apple, Italian sausage, and egg casserole, supplied turkey sausage and Canadian bacon, as well as Peeps Pops - everything else was supplied by friends!  We had fruit, cheesy potatoes, veggies and dip, a green salad, a pasta salad, a broccoli slaw, a quiche, and muffins.  The dessert table was full of colorful cakes, cupcakes, Rice Krispie nests, homemade Oreo cookies, and small buckets of jelly beans.   The dessert table was a little heavier on the food than the buffet table, but that's OK!   I was so busy with the party, I never did take photos of the brunch buffet or the dessert table!  Shame on me!  I'll remember to do so next time!

I also wrapped the green forks in orange napkins to make carrots!  Thanks Disney's Family Fun for the idea!  I only wrapped the forks (instead of a fork, knife, and spoon) because I wasn't all would be used!  I did make spoons and knives available, but have a lot leftover (as expected) and can use them next year!

We had all of the food set up inside, but had the bar set up outside.  We had juice boxes, water, beer, OJ, Bloody Mary mix, vodka, white wine, and of course, Champagne! 

For decorations, I used simple vinyl tablecloths for the kids tables and adult tables, we had lots of umbrellas in the yard and lots of flowers!  I also had a bucket of Easter pinwheels (bucket is actually used at Christmas and is full of rock salt that holds candles) - the rock salt held the pinwheels just fine!  I didn't place it very well, however, not very many kids saw them! 

For fun, we set up a few yard games on one side of the yard, hired Balloons by Tim (aka The Balloon Guy to my boys) to make fun balloon creations for the kids (he does AMAZING work and the kids wait SO patiently for him!) and had the always popular bounce house set up!  We also made sure there were lots of balls, footballs, Frisbees, bubbles, and other yard toys available for the kids to use!

For the egg hunt, we decided to use the common area across the street from our house to "hide" the eggs.  We got a lot of egg fillers from Oriental Trading Company like stamps, tattoos, bouncy balls, sticky hands, stationary, stickers, and slap bands.  This was about half of the eggs - the other half were filled with candy!  I did keep the candy eggs together and stuck them in the freezer the day before the party so that we wouldn't have any melted chocolate on our hands when kids opened up their eggs!

The hubby took about 4 other dads out to the common area to spread out the eggs and asked for "5 minutes" - I said, I'll give you 10.  15 minutes later, they were still scattering eggs!  He said there were about 1200 eggs out there!   More than I originally planned - but I always want the kids to have an overflowing basket full of eggs! 

We all had so much fun - I can't wait until next year!

Peeps Pops - Perfect for Easter

I first saw these cute little treats on Gimme Some Oven's website and then they started popping up everywhere! 

I used 2 bags of the Candy Melts by Wilton for 24 Peeps, I had leftover chocolate, but wanted to make sure it would be deep enough for easier dipping!  I also added a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil before the batch started to melt to ensure it didn't dry out.  They were a big hit at our Easter party this year!

Ingredients:

Peeps Pops
Makes 48 Peeps Pops

4 packages of Peeps (12 count each)
2 bags of Wilton Candy Melts to 24 Peeps (I made 24 white chocolate and 24 dark chocolate)
Sprinkles
Lollipop Sticks
Vegetable Oil

Melt the chocolate (I always use a double boiler, the microwave method makes me nervous!)  Add about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil to the chocolate before you begin to melt.  Push the lollipop stick into the Peep, I stuck these in fairly far so they wouldn't fall off!  Dip the Peeps pop in the melted chocolate, cover with sprinkles, set on wax paper and allow the chocolate to harden.