To plan the Easter wonderland, you will need to decide what you need for the party. First, you will need invitations, decorations, and delicious treats and beverages to satisfy your kids and their friends.

The invitations can be a creative project for you and the kids. To make the invitations, cut out an oval from cardstock. Decorate the front of the egg any way you like and put all the details for the party of the back of the invitation.

The decorations are also an important part of the party. This is a chance to transform your home to an Easter wonderland. Buy or make your own egg decorations. You can make Easter eggs out of paper, Styrofoam, craft foam, yarn, or many other materials and hang them all around the house. Frankly, you can’t go wrong with it.  Additionally, you can decorate the house with flowers to give it a total feeling of spring. Pink tulips and yellow daffodils are popular this time of year.

The meaning of Easter for the kids, the egg hunt, is actually not hard to plan inside. It is just like a outside egg hunt. Purchase plastic eggs and put toys and candy in the eggs.  Have special eggs for any toddlers you have at the party.  Choose a few different eggs to represent a larger prize. Decorate the areas where the kids are allowed to search and make big signs where they are not allowed to enter.

The treats and beverages for the party need to be delicious and healthy. Try making sandwiches with a bunny-shaped cookie cutter. You can have a variety of meats or simply serve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Serve them juice for beverages, which they will surely love.

With the help of these Easter ideas, you will be sure to satisfied kids after a trip to the Easter wonderland.

Try these, though:

Eggs Au Gratin: Slice six hard-boiled eggs. Make two cups of white sauce (a quick way is to heat two cups of milk, whisk in two tablespoons of quick-blending flour, and season with salt, instant bouillon, or Parmesan cheese). Put the eggs in a baking dish, cover with the sauce, top with shredded cheese, and bake at about 400 until the cheese begins to brown (about 20 minutes).

Eggs a la Bennett: This starts the same way as Eggs Au Gratin, but takes a little longer. Make the same white sauce and pour it into a baking dish. Cut six eggs in half and take out the yolks; mix them with anchovy butter and chopped onion or chives and put them back into the whites. (You can certainly vary the filling.) Arrange the egg halves in the sauce, cover with bread crumbs and bake as above.

Scalloped Eggs: Chop four hard-boiled eggs, make a cup of white sauce, and chop up a cup of cold cooked chicken. Layer a baking dish with eggs, chicken, sauce, and so on until it’s all used up. Cover with bread crumbs and bake as above.

If you just want to take deviled eggs a step further, Mrs. Rorer suggests putting the two halves of each egg back together after you’ve stuffed it, then wrapping it in tissue paper and twisting the ends. This would be nice for a potluck, especially with tissue paper in spring colors.

And this bears repeating: To keep that dark green ring from forming around the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, put it in cold water as soon as it’s finished cooking. But if you don’t, the egg will still taste fine. Anyway, if you’re covering the cooked yolks with white sauce, probably no one will notice.

What you will need:

1 white, hard-boiled egg per guest

white crayons

egg dying kit

white poster board

markers

glue or stapler

How to make the place cards:

Write one guest’s name on each egg.  (Don’t forget to make an egg for yourself.)

Dye eggs according to directions on egg dying kit.

Allow eggs to dry.

Cut poster board into 1-1/2″ x 7″ strips.

Decorate one side of each strip with flowers, pastel polka dots, or other spring designs.

Using a stapler or glue, form a ring with each strip, making sure that the decorative side is facing outward.  About 1″ of poster board should overlap, so that the circumference of the ring is 6″.

To assemble:

Place one ring on top of each place setting at the table.  Top with the appropriate egg for each spot.  (Note, do not place eggs on table more than 15 minutes before dinner to keep them fresh and edible.)

While decorating the house in full Easter gear can help your kids get into the holiday spirit for Easter, keep in mind that the most important decoration parents should make are Easter eggs. For many kids, Easter eggs are what Easter is all about.

One of the more creative Easter egg ideas are Melted Crayon Eggs. Melted Crayon Eggs are very popular because when the crayon meets the shell of a just boiled egg, the wax softens and make colors swirl on the outside of egg gorgeously.

In order to make the Melted Crayon Eggs, you will need white eggs, an empty egg carton, tongs, and crayons. Below are the instructions to how to make it:

1. Hard boil the eggs, remove them from the water with tongs and place them in an empty egg carton. This must be done by a parent.
2. Take one egg out and put it on a plate. It is wise to only color one egg at a time.
3. Color the egg’s top with crayon’s tip, or grate a crayon and sprinkle bits of pieces over the egg.
4. Turn to the egg’s underside and color it carefully because the wax is very slippery.
5. When finishing coloring, leave them out to dry for an hour.

The Melted Crayon Eggs are very easy and fast to make. It only takes about 30 minutes to make a dozen eggs. The process of making the eggs is fun for both the kids and the parents, since parents can allow kids to get involved, which is some very valuable bonding time. That might be the best Easter celebration a parent can ask for.

This year I thought we’d try to re-insert the deeper meaning of Easter into the cultural celebration. I took the original Easter story and mixed it into the 21st century Easter festivities and sprinkled in a little visual aid invented by Charles Spurgeon in 1866. The result is a simple, inexpensive project that is fun and inspirational.

You may have heard of Spurgeon’s “Wordless Book”. It’s a simple evangelistic tool that expresses the means to salvation through a series of colored panels. It has been amplified and expanded over the years to its current form.

We hid five large plastic eggs in increasingly difficult places, so that they’d be found in the correct order. As each egg was found and brought to the front, I explained the significance. There are lots of great resources online where you can learn more about the wordless book, but the short version is:

Black represents sin. (It won’t be easy to find a black egg. We used the tops of two panty-hose containers connected together. If I had it to do over, I think I’d just spray paint a regular plastic egg.)

Red represents the blood of Jesus Christ, which was spilled on Good Friday of the Easter story.

White represents perfect righteousness, which can be claimed by believers through the sacrifice Jesus made. (It is harder than you might think to find a white plastic egg, but they are out there.)

Green was not in Spurgeon’s original wordless book, but it was added later and fits appropriately. Green represents growth in Christ over our lifetime.

Gold was likewise a later addition to Spurgeon’s original. It represents Heaven, or the eternal reward for those who believe. (We settled for a yellow egg. In retrospect, a spray-painted gold egg would have been better.)

So, there you have it – inexpensive, simple, and effective. We took the wordless book and made it bookless, too. I hope you find this tool useful and fun for your children at Easter.

However, the best thing you could do for your kids when they’re going on their egg hunts is to try to stay away from those pastel colored bags in the stores. All of those Hershey eggs, Reese’s eggs, and chocolate bunnies, are delicious treats, but your family will not benefit from them. Sure, it is fine to have a few here and there, but the amount of candy that kids get on Easter is a little insane. You know those Cadbury Creme Eggs? The ones that are oh so delicious and that only come out at Easter time? Well, compared to an everyday chicken egg, a Cadbury’s Creme Egg does have one  thing about it that makes it “more healthy” than a real egg- less cholesterol! But other than that, there is not much more to brag about. For example, one egg is 170 calories with 54 of those calories coming from fat. One egg has 6g of total fat with 3.5 of those grams coming from saturated fat and accounting for 9% and 18% of your percent daily value of fat (respectively). There are 28 grams of carbohydrates with 25 of those grams coming from just sugar. A little scary huh? And that’s just the plain Cadbury egg.

So, when you fill up those plastic eggs this year, try to stay away from the sweets.  If your kids are used to getting sweets, give them a few treats here or there. They’ll get over the fact that they didn’t get loaded this year pretty quickly (though it may take a few days). But hey, they’re kids.

Here are a few ideas for healthier snacks.

• Cheerios, Fruit Loops, or Kix
• Trail mix, mixed nuts, or Chex pretzel mix
• Raisins, dried apricots or other dried fruit
• Marshmallows
• Cookies
• Granola
• Popcorn

And if you’re feeling really gutsy–coins or dollar bills.

I hope your kids don’t get too upset about the switch this year!

You’ll need:

· 3 eggs
· 3 tablespoons milk
· ½ cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
· 2 cups flour
· ½ teaspoon salt
· 2 packages (or tablespoons) yeast
· ½ cup dried cranberries
· 2 tablespoons sliced almonds
· a little white frosting

Set your bread machine (another break with tradition!) on “dough”. The eggs, milk, and butter should go in first, then the other ingredients, except for the frosting, with the yeast on top.

When the machine is getting near the end of the cycle, preheat the oven to 450°. Grease the inside of any large empty tin can you happen to have. Coffee cans are good, but you can make two smaller loaves in tomato sauce cans, too. In Soviet times, people (who weren’t really supposed to be celebrating Easter) used tin mugs.

Make sure the oven rack is positioned low enough to hold the can standing upright.

Put the risen dough in the can and even out the top. Bake 15 to 20 minutes. If the top of the bread begins to brown too quickly, cover it with aluminum foil.

Be careful taking the bread out of the can. Let it cool a little before covering the top with frosting – but try to eat it when it’s still warm. That’s when it’s best.

Handmade Easter Cards: This is where you can get really creative. Start with a variety of cardstock, pom-poms, glitter, and other various embellishments. You and the kids will have so much fun crafting your own personal Easter greeting cards.

Bead Ducklings: These are so easy to make and so cute to look at.  Start with colored round beads (wood or plastic doesn’t matter) in at least two different sizes. Trim 6 inch pipe cleaners to about 3 or 4 inches, then glue a small craft feather near the top. Thread the smaller bead on top and then thread the larger bead in the middle. Bend the ends of the pipe cleaner so they look like feet. Draw a set of eye and a beak on the top bead to complete the craft!

If you have small children, make sure you supervise these activities for safety reasons.  Do not try these activities with children 3 and under.

Hard-boiled eggs or emptied shells, elaborate patterns or solid colors, dye, wax, or both – there always have been lots of options. And now there are more ways than ever to whip up a batch of brightly colored eggs for Easter.

Egg coloring kits have come a long way since my childhood, when they consisted of a few dye tablets and a spindly wire holder for the eggs. They still do make that kind, if you’re feeling nostalgic. But you also can get kits that let you make glittery, sponge-painted, or stenciled eggs, and more.

(Anyway, if you just want a simple, low-cost, solid color dye, you can make your own out of water, a little vinegar, and food coloring.)

Stickers and/or crayons may be the way to go for very small children. Regular markers are probably not such a good idea, especially if you plan to eat the eggs.

However, some egg stencil kits come with special non-toxic markers. No guarantee that they’ll taste good . . . For years, this was my favorite way to color eggs with the kids. The stencils let anyone do a beautiful job.

This year, I’m leaning toward egg sleeves. These are made of shrink wrap; you put the eggs in them and dip the whole thing in boiling water. Of course, this takes a lot of adult help. But it’s an easy way to put really elaborate designs on your eggs – even if your fine motor skills, like mine, are lacking.

There’s an egg coloring kit for every taste and every skill level, so shop around online if you don’t see what you want in stores.

Healthy Snacks
Since the kids will get their fill of sweets with the candy-filled Easter baskets, it would be a smart idea to serve a tray of fresh veggies or crudites for everyone to snack on. Save time, and purchase a tray of pre-cut crudites including carrot sticks, celery, cherry tomatoes, and olives. If you want, add some salsa or ranch dressing for dipping.

Deviled Eggs
This classic recipe has been around forever for a reason: they are crowd-pleasers and make excellent hors d’ourves! Start by hard boiling whole eggs, then set them aside to cool off for at least 20 minutes. Next peel the shells off, then cut each egg in half and scoop out each half’s yolk filling into a bowl. Set your hard-boiled halves aside, and mash the egg yolks until they’re almost powder-like and add whatever seasoning or condiments you’d like. Stir well, and then take a small spoon and place some filling into each egg half. Do this with each half until they’re all filled. Once you’re done you either can serve them right away or keep them refrigerated until the guests arrive.

Beverages
Since you cannot serve refreshments without beverages, make sure you offer some cold drinks at your Easter egg hunt party. Keep it family friendly and serve ice-cold lemonade or limeade. Keep a pitcher or two of this beverage on hand to make sure that everyone is satisfied. You also could serve light alcoholic beverages for adults if you’d like.