After-Easter Eggs

Yes, After-Easter Eggs.
That's what you call it when you dye your eggs two days after Easter.

See, what had happened was
I bought dye for the Eggs way back in the end of February.
And then March got so busy for the two weeks before Easter.
My parents came.
People got sick.
Macie went and turned one.
And then all of a sudden Easter was over.
And I had two dozen eggs in my fridge.
And dye that lay untouched.

So the day after Easter,
I boiled my eggs.
And the day after the day after Easter,
We made them pretty.

At least we did it, right?

The Hunt

This year we had beautiful weather on Easter day, so we decided to hide some eggs in our front yard.
The boys were a tad bit excited.

They had so much fun hunting for their eggs.
Macie thought it was all very silly.

But Macie sure did enjoy eating the cereal out of her eggs while she watched them.

And then her brothers joined her on her blanket.
They all enjoyed some of the spoils of their hunt.

And then the boys took off and raced for the cul de sac, where there is always something fun to do.

And Macie watched it all from her blanket.  She just loves watching her brothers.

When we went inside the boys were so excited to look at all their eggs.
And even more excited to find that a good deal of them were filled with money.

It was a perfect egg hunt on a practically perfect Easter day!

First Easter Do-Over

This was Macie's first Easter.

She was 11 days old.
We went to visit her in the hospital in the afternoon.
Charlie was in Arizona with his cousins.

I went into her room alone.
We were still keeping the chaos of our children away from our healing daughter,
Who needed all of the peace and quiet she could get.
Just three days earlier she was finally clear of her two chest tubes, ventilator and arterial line.

Andy let me go first.
While he played with Ephram in the many kid-focused waiting rooms Evergreen Hospital holds -
I held my little girl for the longest time yet.

40 minutes.

And I stared at her for hours longer.


I remember it being an overwhelmingly peaceful and calming visit.

I remember feeling like we were being pushed to happy places,
And by pushed, I mean that I could feel the prayers and energy of friends and family
Pushing into my baby's room.
It was that palpable.
And I was so glad for it.

I sheepishly went out to the lobby after something like three hours to give Andy his turn.
I hadn't meant to stay so long before giving him the chance to see his daughter,
But I was pulled to her and I just couldn't leave that room.
Because while things were so much better than they had been days before,
My baby was still in a hospital on her first Easter.

We couldn't bring anything to put in her bed yet.
No little stuffed bunnies.
No shirts that said My First Easter.
I didn't pick her up from bed as we woke in the morning.
Instead, I woke well-rested.
Not the way a mother of an 11-day old should be.
We couldn't bring her downstairs with us in the morning to peek at what had been left to find.
I couldn't hold her freely.
I couldn't even nurse her.

So although I was so grateful and happy and relieved,
There was conflict in knowing that it wasn't quite right.

I wished my baby girl a Happy Easter.
I spoke with her about the miracle that we celebrate with this holiday.
The miracle of life.
And how appropriate that seemed given the eleven days we'd just survived.
And then I promised her that the next Easter would be a little more enjoyable.

So this Easter, 2013,
Was not my baby's first Easter.
Technically her last "first" holiday was St. Patrick's Day.
But I don't care, I gave her a first Easter do-over.
We had a fantastically wonderful day.
(Even if we did have some pretty good colds.)
And I still gave thanks for my own little miracle of life.

Easter Bunny Baskets 2013

Well, it happened again.
Somehow that bunny got in my house and left baskets full of toys and treats for my children.
And on Easter morning they were there, waiting to be discovered.
Again.

Ephram was the first to find his.
He was probably most excited about his Pez candy.
And then his new Lion, whom he named Simba.

Then Charlie.
Charlie saw his polar bear and was instantly enamored.

And then my little Macie.
She's easy to please.  She loves everything.

The Easter Bunny brought us quite a few new Legos and fun things to do.  We enjoyed our morning hours just playing together.  It was a great start to the day.  Thank you Easter Bunny!