Ah, Easter. One of my favorite holidays for many reasons – it’s spring, there are plenty of adorable bunny-themed matching outfits for kids everywhere to look adorable in and of course, the highly anticipated egg hunts at school. My kiddos, Annie (5) and Ollie (3) look forward to their school egg hunts for weeks leading up to it. They helped us fill all 32 plastic eggs with candy of their choosing (and you better believe they snuck in plenty during this process) and we even laid out the perfect outfits to match the unseasonably warm (aka stormy) weather. As we arrived to school the morning of the egg hunt I was feeling like I had it all together. Kids were dressed! Annie had her Easter egg bow in place! Eggs were stuffed! We were on time! No one was crying! Then we started walking towards the entrance, seeing other excited kiddos walking with their parents, when Annie turned to me and asked, “Did you bring our baskets?”

What baskets, I thought.

Oh, we only have 15 baskets of all shapes, sizes and designs at home that they kids have been passionately playing “Easter bunny” for weeks but then, at that moment when we needed two baskets, there were none. Of course.

Think, Katie, think.

I led the kids back to the car and started searching in the hot mess that is our Subaru. Bless it, it doesn’t matter how many times we clean out all the tiny socks, school papers and half-eaten apples, it somehow ends up still resembling a college dorm room. I instantly regretted not allowing my kids to play “Easter bunny” in the car, as there were no baskets to be found. I found a random small bag for Ollie, who could have cared less, but what about Annie? Then, I saw it.

My Kate Spade purse.

I quickly dumped out all the contents, handed it to Annie and smiled.

To her credit, and to prove she truly is my daughter (even though she is my husband’s twin), she said, beaming, “Oh this will work perfectly! Plus, it’s fancy.”

That’s right, my child marched proudly into school with a Kate Spade purse as her Easter basket and I’ve never been prouder of us both. We were quick on our feet, getting creative when we had to and no one cried. She didn’t question my choice and I didn’t guilt-trip myself. We laughed and then laughed about it with their precious teachers who of course, had extra baskets, just in case.

Being a mom is full of moments where you feel like you have it all together and then very quickly, you see you don’t so much. We are often so dedicated to being superwoman that sometimes, way too often, we take it all too seriously. We forget to laugh. We get down on ourselves when we don’t get everything done just so. We get so caught up in the grind and the to-do lists that we somehow become immune to spontaneous laughter and joy. We get stuck. We get lost. We take ourselves too seriously. We beat ourselves up for things that really aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things and worse, we rob ourselves – and our kids – of a good belly laugh.

So I have a message for all of us moms:

Laugh! Every chance you can.

Don't take yourself so seriously.

Look for the FUN.

Embrace the joyful moments.

We mamas are the ones who set the mood for our families, and don’t we want to show our kids we can laugh at ourselves? Don’t we want them to see that so many things aren’t a catastrophe, but chances to get creative with a plan b?

Take it from me, the mom who gave her five-year-old her Kate Spade purse as her Easter basket for her school Easter egg hunt. We laughed and you know what? She loved it and you better believe we laughed about it at the dinner table that night. After all, who doesn’t want a fancy Easter basket?