I love Easter, even more than Christmas. I love to wear a spring dress and dye eggs and celebrate with family. For years L and I had Easter all alone. It was hard living in upstate NY, going to church in the snow and coming home with no plans.

Apart of me felt that same sadness that loneliness again when I realized we would have to do Easter here at home-just the three of us. I’ve loved going to my in-laws house the last few years for Easter. We dress up, go to church, and take pictures in the sunshine as a family. We have hot crossed buns and eat hard boiled eggs. We ALL get Easter baskets (because that’s how my mom-in-law is).

Like many of you I am sure it was hard to not be with family.

But we still had a great time.

In the morning Z did a hunt for dyed eggs. Once they were collected we ate a few with homemade hot crossed buns (just like if we were with my in-laws).

We also were able to video chat with both sets of grandparents-which helped us not feel so far removed from them on this special day!  Z opened his Easter basket which I put together with a combo of gifts from the grandparents and ourselves.

Z was too excited to nap so while L tried to give him “rest time” I prepped everything for an afternoon plastic egg hunt. This reminded me of egg hunting with my parents as a kid and the hunt that we can usually do at our church. We put little treats in the plastic eggs such as bunny gummies, small plastic toys, and jelly beans.

Z loved getting treats and some new outside toys to play with in this surprising sunshine!

It was not an easy day to be fair, Z was in a mood all morning and so was I (blame the stress of trying to pull this off on our own and hormones). Z didn’t want to take pictures with me. That was this mama’s only wish for the day. Finally we got some really great post-egg hunt action shots-thanks to L and his patience.

For dinner I decided to reflect back on our time in upstate NY where our tradition was to roast lamb. This time I did a Middle Eastern rub with veggie sides, pita bread and hummus. I knew we would have leftovers so I chose something we could easily turn into Gyros the next day.

Since Z didn’t nap we really had no chance to live stream or watch church but we read the Easter story and finished the Lent calendar Z has been so patient with.

Overall our unexpected Easter at home had some great moments and Z had a blast.

What did you do to make Easter special this year?