Easter Bunny photos through the years

We used to make a big deal out of Easter when the kids were small. Every year, we would attend multiple egg hunts -- community egg hunts, egg hunts at friends' homes, egg hunts at our home.  At some of the bigger events, they would get to see the Easter Bunny, and they would treat him like a big celebrity.  But for some reason, I never made a big deal out of Easter Bunny photos. The Easter Bunny was not a big part of my childhood and I've always found him a bit creepy (as you can tell from the photo below, Baby Pea agrees with me).

Now that Easter is coming around once again, I'm realizing just how few photos I have of my kids with the Easter Bunny. I'm desperately hoping that we have some Bunny photos stored away in a cd somewhere, because I could only find four. After all the Easter celebrations we've enjoyed, just four. I still maintain that the Easter Bunny is creepy (again, check out The Pea's face in the photo below, she definitely has her suspicions), but it's not about me.

The Bunny might be creepy, but my kids are adorable, and now that they're grown and almost flown, I wish I had more of these photos.

Honestly, I wouldn't even have thought of taking photos with the Easter Bunny this year had I not been contacted by the Great Mall of the Bay Area. We were on Spring Break last week, and it's not like we need an excuse to visit the Great Mall, so why not?  After seeing the resulting photos, I'm so glad we did it, and I regret that we haven't been doing this every year.

Families with young children, let this be a lesson! Get those Easter Bunny photos taken! No matter how cheesy you might think they are, do it. You may need to bribe them once they turn 8, or even threaten them once they turn 12, but it's worth it. Suprisingly, once they get a bit older and start thinking of themselves as cool almost-adults, they might even pose with the Easter Bunny voluntarily, the same way they will happily ride a carousel because it reminds them of their long-gone childhood. My 15 and 13 year-olds put up zero resistance. One day, when they're actually grownups themselves, I think they'll thank me for it.