A Fun and Puzzling Easter Egg Hunt

Last Easter, when Madeline was four, we decided to blend both sides of the family together and try our hand at having one Easter egg hunt. In the past she had always ended up with multiple egg hunts. One with the side of the family, one with the other side, maybe a community egg hunt and maybe one at home with mom and dad. It was just too much. So we simplified and hosted Easter at our house. Luke and I also decided to nix candy loaded Easter eggs. We wanted to come up with something fun and different. What we wanted was new Easter egg hunt ideas. So we got to work brainstorming.

After some thinking we decided to extend the egg hunt fun even beyond the actual hunt a bit. I found a cute 60 piece puzzle with a mare and foal on it. We filled eggs with pieces of the puzzle. Some eggs had more than one, some only one. On Easter Madeline woke up and couldn’t figure out why there were no eggs to find spread through the house or yard. This was all a part of our plan. We simply said the Easter bunny would come when he could and that he would be so sneaky and fast that no one would know he was there. After everyone had arrived we sent everyone out into the front yard so Madeline could show off her 2-wheel bike riding skills. While everyone watched and ooohed and awed, Luke and I went to worked setting up the hunt. While Luke hid the puzzle piece filled eggs all throughout the backyard I set out a special message from the Easter bunny to Madeline complete with the prize if she was able to complete her task.

Jump up and down and shout hip hop hooray!
It’s time to hunt without further delay!
Go out the place where you play in the sun,
that’s where you’ll find all the Easter fun.
Then like you always do, just like is you habit,
put all the pieces together and you get to keep this cute pink chocolate bunny rabbit!
Hoppy Hunting,
The Easter Bunny

After her bike riding show Madeline and the family returned to the house to find what the Easter Bunny had left. After reading the message and figuring out the clues Madeline set to work finding the eggs. She zipped through the yard filling her Easter basket – a new bike basket for her bike – with plastic eggs in varying shades.

Then the puzzle fun began. We opened all the eggs and she focused on finishing that puzzle, both for the joy of finishing the sweet horse puzzle and to earn the Easter bunnies final prize, a chocolate Easter bunny.

Last Easter was a win all around. We all had fun, candy played a very small role in the day and we were able to sprinkle a little extra magic into our daughter’s day. We’ve made a similar decision for this year. I’m not sure what we’ll put into our eggs just yet or if we will skip the plastic eggs and have fun hunting for our dyed Easter eggs, but candy will not play much of a role in our hunt or basket this year either.

Do you fill plastic eggs or do you hide dyed eggs? What fun things do you fill your Easter Eggs with? What fun Easter egg hunt ideas are your favorites?