Easter Basket Fun

I had fun putting together Almi's Easter basket. Next year I will focus on more of the meaning of Easter but for now it is just an excuse to buy some fun things for her. I was going to get some of the usual Eastery candy that is sold this time of year but then I read the nutritional labels. Ugh. I couldn't do it. Too much added junk! Do you know how difficult it is to find candy without artificial colors and dyes and high fructose corn syrup?! Darn near impossible. After reading that tartrazine (yellow dye #5 and I don't know why the Wikipedia link isn't working) can cause anxiety, depression, blurred vision, hyperactivity and even cancer and is outright banned in some countries there is NO WAY I am going to allow my daughter to consume anything with that added! And other dyes and additives aren't much better. Let's just say there go the Peeps and the jelly beans. But there are so many alternatives that she can still enjoy. She can have chocolate and Whole Foods sells candy without added colors and dyes. I bought her some bunny-shaped fruit snacks from there. I can fill these plastic eggs I bought. The white ones were from the thrift store. $.40. For the whole bag. The colored ones were only $.79 so they were cheap, too! I can decorate the white ones with these stickers or put them inside for her to use. Yeah, I'll probably put them inside for her even though I find stickers stuck all over the house and darn if they aren't hard to get up.
I decided to get her some other fun things to go along with the chocolate eggs and the fruit snacks. Mmmm... chocolate! (what?! ?I had to open the bag to sample them to make sure they were ok for her to eat!) But who says Easter baskets have to be all about candy anyways?! I have some other fun ideas. She likes wearing headbands but she snaps the plastic ones in half so I bought a pack of fabric ones to put in the basket. I also found this cute Elmo shirt at the consignment shop for $3.50 when I was dropping off the things I was donating. How cute is this shirt?! I mean seriously! I love it! (By the way, I've made almost $100 at the consignment shop. Sweet!) She also loves Play Doh so this will be fun to have in the basket. And bubbles? She will be thrilled!!

Here she is with her Easter basket last year. Awwww, she was so tiny!





What's in your child's Easter basket?