Easter isn’t a hectic holiday for all families, but this year it was for mine. My side of the family got together on Saturday at my house. My daughter had a friend’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese that she attended on Saturday night. Then we spent Easter itself with my husband’s parents.

Yep. I’m tired.

And of course, there’s all the Easter candy. The kids got the big chocolate bunnies from my mom, small ones from my husband and I, and small ones from my husband’s parents. Suffice it to say they have more than plenty of chocolate.

So now we’re off to try and recover from all the craziness.

One of the basic rules we have is that each kid can keep their candy separate a few days. After that, it all goes in one bag. They’re actually looking forward to this, since I told them they could smash the big bunnies into pieces at that time. What child doesn’t love destruction? I just have to figure out how to keep it from making a mess all around. Probably have to break them a little myself and throw into a Ziploc first.

There’s a trick to coping with the excess of Easter candy afterward. A couple tricks, I suppose really, and it just depends on what works for your family.

For my kids, they get some candy each day, but still pretty limited. Just less of a limit than usual. The further we get from the holiday, the closer our control of their candy consumption gets to the usual limits.

The candy usually lasts us a few months, especially the chocolate, which ends up in the freezer after being broken into pieces.

Then there’s the real trick… winding the kids back down.

I think it generally works pretty well to get things back onto a normal track as soon as possible after a holiday. The kids are all wound up from the change in routine, and getting them back on routine quickly really seems to help matters most holidays.

This time some of that is pretty easy. My daughter’s school has spring break starting in about 2 weeks, and school does mean some sort of routine is being established for her. I know a lot of schools are doing spring break this week, which of course means more challenges for parents dealing with that.

Today’s routine is pretty much one of relaxation. No friends over today, since there was plenty of social time all weekend for the kids. I might end up watching a friend’s son a few days this week, which will mean changes in our schedule, but since he has a leg injury, the kids won’t be allowed to get too wild around him. I’ve found that a single, really relaxing day does a lot for winding the kids down from an excess of excitement, especially if I also rebuild their routine.

Easter eggs don’t all have to be dyed using those store bought kits. One of the things I want to try this year is a tie dye appearance for our eggs. I found these instructions for them on another site. We have some crayon shavings already, which I think we’ll use. They were going to be for a project making new crayons until I remembered this.

Boil the eggs as usual. As they boil, get out several paper plates (no plastic or styrofoam). Spread out the crayon shavings, with just a couple colors for each plate, according to the combinations you want on the eggs.

Do not cool the eggs. Instead, roll them in the crayon shavings and put back into the egg cartons to dry.

I love this idea since it means no need to buy an egg dye kit. The kids love to sharpen crayons, so crayon shavings are something we have plenty of. Obviously, you want the crayons to be of the non-toxic variety, which I think they generally are anyhow, if your kids will want to eat the eggs.