If you've been looking for permission to simplify your kids Easter baskets.... Read this.

If you don’t know who I am, my name is Diana Rene and it is my purpose and mission to help overwhelmed mom’s take their home back from the clutter, and simplify their life and calendar so they can not only breathe again - but can spend their time doing what they want instead of picking up after everyone all the time.

If you’ve been following me for ANY amount of time, you know i’m passionate about helping moms simplify their lives, declutter their homes and create more time to spend with their families.

Today, I want to talk about Easter baskets.

I KNOW this may ruffle some feathers, because being a mom in this generation and in this time of social media, keeping up with the Jones's feels like its of the utmost importance, right?

If we aren’t doing the same (or more) as all the other moms in our feed - then we must not really love our kids THAT much, or want the best for them.

We must not be the cool mom.

I *totally* fall into that trap at times, it’s almost impossible not to.

So with that said - know that if you do big extravagant Easter baskets - I. Am. Not. Judging. You.

I promise.

But amongst the 2,000 mom bloggers that are giving you all the ideas to make the most epic Easter basket for your kiddos this year (and maybe even making you feel inadequate if you can’t do pottery barn kids baskets) - i’m here to provide an alternative to that.

I’m here to give you the permission, and to ask you to give yourself the permission to focus on other things this year instead of the Easter basket madness that seems to have developed over time.

I want to talk about how instead you can create an Easter morning experience for your family that is far better than ANY Easter basket you could ever buy or create.

Growing up, we never had any extravagant Easter baskets - and I can’t remember any of my friends talking about getting them either. In fact, we didn’t get any giftson Easter. No new toys, summer supplies, sidewalk chalk, swimsuits, flip flops - nope, none of it.

What did we get?

A basket. With some candy in it, but mostly empty to be able to hold things for our Easter morning hunt, which I have SO many memories of.

Instead of plastic eggs, my mom and dad hid jelly beans allllll over the house and yard. I was one of four kids, and we were all super competitive - so Easter morning was intense.

I remember trying to beat my two older brothers to get more jelly beans than them.

I remember my Dad hiding some in crazy obscure places because he thought it was hilarious when he told us there were three more and we couldn’t figure it out.

Then we would become a team to find those last ones, and sometimes? We would never find them.

We would then find a stale old Jelly bean in November when we were getting something out of our closets because my Dad never gave in to tell us where they were.

I seriously have the best memories of my childhood Easters with zero presents, and I believe that letting go of extra gift-giving holidays is important.

This is ALL coming from my belief that one of the BEST ways to improve your experience as a mother and simplify our lives is to slow the flow of new items coming into our home.

NO amount of decluttering or purging or organizing will impact you and give you a more peaceful and simplified home without creating a plan for slowing the flow --

And one of the ways we can begin to tackle that RIGHT NOW is when it comes to Easter.

So let me walk you through what we do Easter morning, and maybe give you some things to consider...

I know how my Mom and Dad did things. But me? I’m a bit of a germaphobe, so the idea of candy that my kids will put into their mouths just sitting out in the open isn’t my idea of a good time - so I do plastic eggs with one jelly bean inside each.

My girls run and laugh and have the time of their life, and when they find all the eggs - they ask us to go hide them again so they can look for more!

I make bunny shaped pancakes (or sometimes i’ll make them the week before and freeze - to make Easter morning even easier), and we get ready for extended family time in our spring-ey Easter attire.

They don’t miss the extra toys or gifts because they have so much fun - and it’s uninterrupted time with mom and dad all playing together.

I can say with 99% certainty that my girls will grow up to have great memories of Easter morning that have nothing to do with gifts, but just pure fun and excitement.

If that sounds WAY too basic for you - there are about 1 million things you can find on pinterest as activities to do on Easter morning. Find something (or a couple of things) that you think they will enjoy, and do them!

What do you want your kids to remember?

One more bonus to this idea? It takes a whole lotta pressure off Mom in the days leading up to Easter. The stress of finding the perfect items to fill the basket in an already busy time of life is eliminated. And not having to pick up all of those toys day in and day out when your kids get tired of them after a week? Even better.

If YOU are a busy Mama who wants to simplify your home and life so that you can spend more time with your family doing what you love, instead of picking up after them all the time -- be sure to join the FREE decluttering challenge that begins Monday, April 15! It’s only 3 days long and has super simple action steps for you to take in the margins of your busy schedule (because the last thing we need is more to do, am I right?) You can register at this link here: https://dianarene.com/3daychallenge