Easter 2013

Did you all have a great Easter? Ours was quite nice. The only negative is that it seems the cold Ellie has been fighting off for the past week finally hit her yesterday, with a rather runny nose and a bit of a fever. She had a rough night last night and we're all pretty tired today, but the doctor thinks it is just a cold so hopefully she'll be as good as new soon. And yesterday she was a real trooper with all the Easter activities we had planned! She's such an angel.

Actually, to start at the beginning of our Easter celebration, we have to back up a couple of weeks to Ellie's First Meeting of the Easter Bunny. She did so well with Santa, we were very excited for her to meet the giant holiday rabbit so we headed out to the mall to make this introduction as soon as the Easter Bunny showed up. Not only is Ellie a pro at meeting holiday icons, but she also is quite fascinated with bunnies these days. Just prior to meeting the Bunny himself, we were walking through stores and she was excitedly pointing out every picture of a bunny we saw. So, we figured this would go well, and we were not wrong. As soon as she caught sight of the guy, she was pumped.

"Dad, are you seeing this? It's the bunny mother lode!"

Both the kids in front of and behind us in line screamed bloody murder at the sight of the guy, and one refused to even go near him. But not our brave, bunny-loving Ellie. She happily plopped right down on his lap and took the most adorable Easter Bunny picture there ever was.

She's totally relaxed. 

I'm obsessed with this picture.

That girl is seriously the coolest.

On Easter Sunday proper, our first destination was Easter church at 9:00 a.m. As she has been recently, Ellie was a church all-star. She sat quietly for the first portion of the service, then spent the rest munching on Cheerios, playing with a couple of little Easter toys we brought for her, and charming the people in the pew behind us. After church there was an Easter Egg Hunt on the lawn, and although Ellie was still a bit young to actually participate this year, we took her out to watch the big kids hunt those eggs. A fellow little one ended up with two eggs herself and kindly shared one with Ellie, who very much enjoyed putting it in and taking it out of her basket.

Easter sharing

Clutching her little egg

Egg in the basket!

After the Easter Egg Hunt

After church we came home for a few minutes and gave Ellie her Easter basket. The Easter Bunny was pretty good to her, bringing a new book ("Oh, The Places You'll Go"), a stuffed bunny, a bunny sippy cup, toys for her new sandbox (a birthday gift from Mama and Daddy), a tin of snacks and lots of plastic eggs filled with Cheerios and raisins. She was pretty pleased with the whole thing, especially the snacks.

The Easter Bunny came!

Checking out her haul

 Left: What else is in there? Right: Digging into the snacks already!

We then had to pose for our annual family Easter picture, naturally. Because it's not really Easter until the dog is humiliated in bunny ears.

W. Family Easter Photo, 2013

Ellie with her parents

With my dad

After that we tried to get poor Ellie to nap for a bit, but without success. So, it was off to our next destination: Gramz's house for Easter lasagna with Eric's family, and my dad joined us as well. We spent quite some time sitting outside in the sun, and Ellie had a great time crawling all around the carport and in the grass (read: getting dirty). She was a bit out of sorts though, so she would occasionally take a whine break until someone carried her around. Poor dear.

Checking out Gramz's lawn decor

Kelley and Toni

Ellie cuddling with her mama while her Nonnie admires her

A new Pillow Pet from Great-Gramz!

Left: Being comforted by Auntie Kelley; Right: Quiet time with Great-Gramz

Dinner itself was awesome. Kelley made the lasagna this year and did a great job. Ellie even had her first real family holiday meal and partook (read: smeared all over her tray) of some lasagna and ate quite a bit of bread. She would not, however, touch the dessert I offered her (as usual, there was far too much dessert to choose from: icebox cake, cheesecake and French silk pie. Mmmmm). As you'll see when I get around to recapping all of Ellie's birthday festivities, this kid apparently hates sweets. Birthday cakes did not go over well either. Forget cake and frosting and delicious pie, she says. Bananas and steamed carrots are apparently where it's at.

Lasagna and bread for Easter dinner

Our final destination was the hospital to visit my grandmother, who is currently there on the rehab floor after a fall a couple of weeks ago. She was very pleased to see all of us and Ellie was a hit with nurses, doctors and patients alike. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures there! But it was a nice visit.

Ellie did surprisingly well in the car on the way home, although she was starting to fall apart a bit.

Poor sweetheart.

When we got home we fed Ellie her dinner then put her right to bed, the poor thing. She definitely had a fever by that point and was just plain old worn out. What a trooper she was all day! We'll be taking this week to relax at home so she can recuperate before we set off on any more fun adventures.

As for the rest of this week, now that Ellie's party, her actual birthday and Easter are all finished, hopefully I'll have some more time to get caught up around here. I still have jury work for the next few weeks, but I'd love to carve out some time to get this blog updated a bit. I have lots of fun things to share with you, as we had a busy March and much of it has been neglected because there just hasn't been time to share it. If all goes well, hopefully this week I'll be telling you about Ellie's birthday party, which was fantastic!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend and have a great week!