First Easter Basket!

So Easter is basically here, I don’t know how that snuck up on us so fast! We’ve had a busy month, St. Patrick’s Day fun (we didn’t really do anything for St. Paddy’s, but I did make some yummy desserts), we’re building an office, we decided to go for a little getaway to Door County, my grandma just had knee replacement surgery, I’m planning a psuedo birthday party/Gears of War themed lan party for this weekend, Aliceana is getting into everything lately (she just learned how to eject discs from the PlayStation and was gnawing on our only copy of Borderlands 2 just the other day), and for some odd reason I have the organization bug and feel the need to organize everything in our home (probably something to do with Aliceana becoming more mobile and getting into everything).

So yeah, it has been hectic around here! I’m ready for a break. I’m hoping for a nice boring April!

When it comes to Easter and parenting my first thought goes to the Easter basket. I wanted to make it extra special too, especially since we were bad parents and didn’t do anything special for Aliceana’s first Valentine’s Day.

This face deserves an awesome Easter basket, right? She was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day here with a piece of broccoli.

My plan of attack was to do all of our shopping at Target, and we did it early too! I made sure we were ahead of the game so we got our prime pick of Easter goodies. I think it was the first week of March or maybe even the last week of February when we did our shopping.

First stop, the dollar spot. We found a board book, Elmo rattle (we already have this rattle from Beth @ Arrow in the Eye, but this thing is like baby crack. Best toy ever. It’s small enough for Aliceana to grip easily and it makes nose when she shakes it.) Disney princess socks, and a rubber ducky that she can play with when daddy gives her a bath (bath time is a sacred Aliceana and daddy time ritual that I can’t mess with).

Princess socks! We chose Belle (because she’s the best Princess ever) and Ariel.

Here you can see the Elmo toy. It’s truly awesome, and I don’t think my Target store has them anymore. I should have grabbed a few more just in case, oh well.

We also bought her a Sassy brand cell phone, the buttons each have a different feeling texture and they all make noises when pressed. Then there’s the Laugh and Learn remote control. I’m hoping that if she has the remote she won’t be as interested in our real remote controls. It’s highly doubtful though.

We bought her a fluffy bunny too, it’s not an Easter basket without a fluffy bunny plush!

All the loot in it’s packaging.

I’m probably weird, but I like to remove all packaging and make sure all toys are put together and turned on when I give them to her. I don’t want to have to spend time cutting open packages when she can go straight to having fun. I did the same thing at Christmas time.

Tada! I used tissue paper because it seems safer than fake grass, and Aliceana has a tissue paper fetish ever since unwrapping Christmas presents. She’ll probably enjoy the tissue paper more than the toys.

Oh, and this shows you how we are most definitely first-time parents. We had the cart loaded up with all of her fun new toys and whatnot, and the last thing we grabbed at the store was her Easter basket. It’s adorable and all..but it barely fits her Easter bunny. I guess we’ll bring it to Grandma’s house in case we want to let her go on a mini egg hunt (you know, set some plastic eggs right in front of her and act amazed when she grabs them) I think I might fill a couple eggs with some of her Graduates puffs, it’s a little more appealing than broccoli! haha

What are you doing for your littles? Any new or fun traditions, I would to hear about them!