First Holiday with Three Kids

Maternity leave is still great, wonderful in fact.  This baby of ours is growing like a weed... at her one month doctor's appointment she was already 11 lbs on the dot.  Oh and tall... baby girl is tall, in the 97th percentile for height.  So the milk-makers are working and doing what they're supposed to do, which is always nice to have proof of.  Not that there was really ever any doubt, considering the delicious rolls she is sporting.

Said rolls have actually been giving us trouble, in particular the neck rolls.  Oh my poor little baby. So Olive came down with just the most terrible baby acne at about 3.5 weeks old. It was truly hideous and made me sad every time I looked at her, but I knew that was all it was. Classic baby acne. Ugly, but not really a bother. Best to do nothing. It will go away within a few weeks or months and life will go on, with a few less pictures to document than would normally be taken. ;)

But then last Thursday all of a sudden her neck was just lookin... Not right. It was no longer just the acne that covered it, it was red and wet and swollen and smelly, and definitely painful. No doubt about that part. 

The girl has endless rolls for a neck, and said rolls had clearly become infected. So I tried a few things, hydrocortisone, aquaphor, and 24 hours later it was WAY worse.  Assuming it was yeast, we attempted some Nystatin cream we had lying around from back when I had thrush with Gus, as well as Nystatin powder from my mom, but that didn't seem to be doing much either so I went on a mad Googling spree and confirmed what my mother-in-law had suggested the day before.  A Lotrimin and Desitin concoction on a completely dried area, the Lotrimin to kill the yeast and the Desitin to sooth and provide a drying barrier.  And it really did work miracles, even though it was a horrible process at first because the application was clearly really painful for Olive.  :(  Except for the part where I blow dry (on cool) her neck rolls after her bath.  That part she actually LOVED (go figure) and continues to love because now my life is all about keeping those little neck rolls dry at all times, which apparently is key.,

Huge digression, because none of that has anything to do with Easter other than the fact that I am embarrassingly vain and was SUPER sad that my baby girl was going to have not only terrible baby acne but also a red, swollen, flaky white (from the thrice daily jock itch and diaper cream application) neck on her first Easter.  Yup.  I'm ridiculous.

So Easter.  Man, I love Easter.  It is just such a low-key holiday... jelly beans and baskets of trinkets and pastels and cute fluffy baby farm animals and egg hunts and ham and cheesy potatoes.  Of course, Jesus, that too of course.

The Easter festivities for me kicked off on Friday when Lisa and I had a shopping date and I got to pick out my first and most likely last size 3 month Easter dress.  Oh and a tiny itty-bitty white cardigan because we live in Minnesota, of course, and for the record, that tiny itty-bitty white cardigan was one of my most favorite purchases ever.  It was like some sort of milestone as a mom of a little girl and it made me irrationally happy.

I also picked up a few little things for the boys' Easter baskets and frankly, just had a wonderful time shopping for baby stuff and hoofing it around the mall with my best friend and her baby.

This year we were to spend Easter with Dan's family, so Saturday afternoon we went to my parents' house to dye eggs, and for the first time the boys were both super engaged and excited about the endeavor.  They absolutely loved it, and only a few eggs were cracked during the process.









On Easter morning the boys slept until 6:30 am, and for those whom don't live in this house and thus don't realize, this is TRULY amazing because they both like to rise by 6:00 and I specifically remember at least one of them being up before 5:30 last year.

I went too crazy last year with Easter baskets, like bought a bunch of real and big toys, and I didn't want to continue with that precendence.  I don't know what I was thinking last year, but no.  That was not going to be how we do Easter.  Lucky for me, the kids are both little enough to not really remember these things super clearly.  So this year we did candy, beach towels, sticker books, a few Target dollar section trinkets, and one little special, yet cheap, toy for each of them.  Everyone was happy with this route and I think we'll stick with it.  The boys were excited, but not greedy, and the sticker books and tiny toys came in handy in church.

We are sort of in the market for a new church, but have not been very dedicated to making any permanent decisions, especially considering the fact that we haven't been wonderful about attending church regularly over the last few years.  So when my mom suggested joining them at a new church just down the street from us, I figured it was as good a chance as any to test a church out.

I liked it.  Still don't know.  We will see.  But we do have a kid that needs to be baptized at some point.  ;)



After church we drove out to Dan's aunt's house, who does a lovely job of hosting Easter each year.  The boys LOVE going to aunt Pam's house, and had been talking about it for the last week. All of their cousins plus Aunt Pam's incredible collection of awesome toys plus an egg hunt AND a Pinata and an unending supply of candy all day... it makes sense that they were looking forward to it.  

I can't believe how tall and mature this kid is looking... my little ALMOST kindergartner!

Dan was saying and doing silly things to get some non fake cheese smiles.

And the Pinata!  An Easter tradition.

Unfortunately it lasted through a few very minimal beatings from just three little kids, and then just dumped open.  Target should be ashamed of itself, very poor cupcake pinata construction.

Somehow despite the fact that it lasted all of 3 minutes, tears were avoided.  So I'd declare that still a win.

My baby girl, cooing and smirking at her aunt Kirsten.

I just CAN'T.

Conveniently her neck had healed quite a bit and a lot of her acne had cleared up, just in time to show off how perfect she is in every way.