How To Have a Fun Spring Break and Easter With Boys
The key to a fun Spring Break with boys in our house is a balance of fun and relaxation time. We don’t want to be so busy that we’re overwhelmed, but too much boredom breeds fighting in my experience so far. We usually stay at home (in town that is), but we plan little activities throughout the week. Here’s how we had a successful (for the most part) Spring break this year.
Spring Break with Boys: Days to Relax
We took Monday and Tuesday to relax and hang out at home. Most of us are introverts (the jury is still out on the youngest little man), so we need time away from big crowds and lots of noise. We had intended to do something on Tuesday, but Colorado weather had other plans…snow plans that is! The semi-outdoor activity just wouldn’t have worked, but we were happy to stay home another day.
This would have been a great day to play outside in the snow, but our cable line fell into the yard from the weight of the snow. Winston sure enjoyed the snow that day though!
We found things to do inside instead. Color and bug sorting from our library was lots of fun!
Spring Break with Boys: Museum Day
We love the Denver Museum of Nature and Science! I recently discovered that our library has free passes to the museum and several other places around Denver, so we went for free! Since it was Spring Break for many of the schools in the Denver area, the museum was a mad house. The lesson we learned that day was that we should get up early and be there when the doors open on busy days like that. We got one of the last parking spots!
The boys had fun trying to put shapes into this cube with gloves on their hands. It was a little tricky!
It was neat to see the different designs they could create with these magnet shapes.
Climbing on this dinosaur is a favorite for all kids who visit the museum. Things got a little crazy when our boys climbed on her!
The museum staff set aside a room that day with thousands of blocks for building. This was my favorite activity of the day, because it was QUIET! Hardly anyone had discovered the room, so we sat and built for quite a while.
It was a cloudy and chilly day, but the boys were good sports and posed for a picture in City Park before we headed for the car.
Spring Break with Boys: Library Day
We like to go to our local library every week for story time, anyway, so we decided to do that as usual and bring both boys along. Our library isn’t just a place to find books! There is a lot to do and different toys for play.
Spring Break with Boys: Zoo Day
We learned our lesson after going to the museum earlier in the week, so on zoo day we got up early and got to the zoo right when they opened for members. It was so nice! We started at 8:30 and didn’t come across a crowd until about 10:30. It’s like we stayed ahead of everyone until that point. We do the zoo A LOT, so we didn’t feel like we had to make it an all day thing. Leaving at about 12 was perfect. It let us miss most of the crowds and still get to see plenty of animals.
Tropical Discovery at the Denver Zoo is always a favorite.
Easter Activities
During a regular Spring Break we might do something special on the weekend. This time we had a built in holiday with Easter, so we had plenty to keep us busy.
Egg Dying
We started with egg dying on Friday night. We like to do a few different methods. Regular egg dipping, volcano eggs, and shaving cream are our favorites. The shaving cream is never quite as awesome as I think it’s going to be, but it’s still fun. Every year I think that we should try dying eggs with things like blueberries, red cabbage, beets, etc, but we still haven’t tried it. Maybe that’d be a good summer experiment.
Saturday Easter Celebration
We had our small group from church over for an Easter lunch and egg hunt on Saturday. Then we all went to one of the Saturday services together. We don’t often go to the same service, so it was fun to do it all together.
I took the eggs we dyed the night before and put together a cute Easter centerpiece. Since we don’t hide the real eggs, it was a fun way to still use the dyed eggs.
The kids really enjoyed the egg hunt…
…and all the fun prizes in the eggs.
Sunday Easter Celebration
On Sunday some of our family came over for lunch and another egg hunt. The boys Grandma brought confetti eggs that the boys and their cousins got to smash in the front yard. The egg hunt was fun as usual and then we had time to relax and play outside while boys showed their cousins how to roll down the hill.
Easter Favorites
Food
Here are a few of the recipes I made for our Easter celebrations.
Roasted Brown Butter Honey Garlic Carrots
Cheesy Crockpot Potatoes (our friend made these for our small group lunch. They were so good I decided to make them for the next day.)
Egg Fillers
We like candy, but we didn’t want to overdo it on sugar this year. We did a little candy, and here are some of the other fillers we used.
Fruit snacks
Animal crackers
Egg Dying Techniques
Traditional egg dipping: we use food coloring, hot water, and vinegar just like we did when I was a kid. Add some drawing with crayons into the mix to make them extra special.
Shaving cream. I also saw that someone did this with cool whip this year. I have a feeling that we’d digress rather quickly into eating it, so we stuck with the shaving cream.
Volcano eggs. Baking soda and vinegar have so many uses, but this has to be one of the most fun. It’s been a favorite of ours for years and years.
Every year we (or at least I) like to take an Easter family photo, but this year we got a few.
Note the monster truck in a certain someone’s mouth. We’re just going to go with it, and embrace the silliness.
We had a wonderful Spring Break and Easter and hope you did too!
