Easter Sunday is only a few days away, and I am loving every minute of this spring holiday. It was especially precious to me to see Jude waving palm branches in church on Sunday with all the other little ones, up and down the aisles of the church. We’ve also been busy dyeing Easter eggs (one of my favorite Easter activities!) and enjoying the spring weather. In all my mean Mom glory, I’m already contemplating how I’ll dispose of all of Jude’s Easter egg candy so I can control the amount of sugar pulsing through his already-hyper little body.

But it seems we have a brand new tradition! Do you remember a few months ago at Christmas when I won the big Treetopia Christmas sweepstakes? They sent me the most beautiful white tree that I fell madly in love with. Can I just tell you that I’m still mourning the end of Christmas? I really wanted to leave it up all year long! So when they emailed me a couple of weeks ago, I clapped and squealed with glee. Treetopia has just come out with a gorgeous line of Easter trees inspired by the German and Austrian traditions of hanging Easter eggs on tree branches and they wanted to send our family one to enjoy too!  I googled Easter trees, and that opened up a whole new world of traditions to me that I wasn’t even aware of. So a few days later, a box showed up at our doorstep and Pink Dazzling Diva tree has now taken up residence in the front living room.

Jude practically danced with excitement at the opportunity to decorate a whole new tree. This tree is particularly whimsical as it has that fun, wavy shape to it. Wouldn’t a pair of these be fun for a Dr. Seuss-themed party? I keep imagining all the fun ways I’m going to reuse it!

Saturday was a day of hunting eggs and decorating the tree. I really wanted to get Jude involved in the decorating so he and I took a little trip to Michael’s where we found some darling felt flowers and little button stickers. I wanted to keep the color scheme as colorful and bright as the tree. I wasn’t too worried about it being super Easter-y, as I love to have bowls of Easter eggs sitting throughout the house as well. As we were checking out, Jude comes up to me with a chocolate chick that he had started unwrapping. “Ok,” I steam, “We’re buying this too,” I say to the checkout clerk.
“That’s part of a set of 5,” she retorts.

“OF COURSE IT IS.” Five dollars more later (FIVE DOLLARS FOR EASTER CHICKS), we were out the door.

With the addition of a few yards of pompom trim and some ribbon, we happily decorated our hot pink tree. Isn’t it happy and cheerful? Since Jude is all about the eggs this year, we kept them off the tree and in a bucket just below for easy access.

I couldn’t resist these little fluffy chicks. Jude has also started hiding them inside our Easter eggs and – I am not even kidding – sitting on them like a bird in a nest. He is like Horton sitting on his egg. Then they hatch out, and he christens them with nice 80s names like Jennifer. Guys, I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

Oh, did I mention that Mom’s birthday is on Sunday? Every few years, her birthday lands on Easter. All of a sudden, it hit me like a ton of bricks. We didn’t even get to celebrate Christmas as a whole family because Mom was so sick this past year.  So I’m thinking it would be so much fun to take the Easter tree over to our family Easter lunch to help celebrate her birthday and put all her presents under the tree since she didn’t even get to enjoy Christmas this past year in light of all the health problems she endured.  We have so much to celebrate this year on her birthday!  Yes, an unusual tradition, but most definitely a memorable one!

Big thanks to the super-sweet people at Treetopia for sending us such a fun tree! 

Treetopia is giving away an Easter tree to a lucky fan! To enter the Treetopia Easter tree giveaway, become a fan of their fabulous Facebook page and provide your email address and name. Listen, folks, if I could win it (and I never win anything), then you could win it too! Contest ends April 8, 2012.