Happy Easter!

I love Easter. I love that the sun shines no matter how cold it is outside. I love the music and the church meetings. I love new dresses and spring colors. I love thinking about new life and what Easter really means.

We had a wonderful Easter yesterday. We watched Lamb of God in the morning, went to church, then had a nice evening with our family. It was a beautiful day!

Here are some pictures. Earlier in the week I'd gotten together with a few friends and made Easter baskets. We had fun making them, and they turned out so cute! These are our Easter goodies. Alaina especially likes trying to shove a whole egg in her mouth.

Here is Alaina in her cute Easter dress. I love springtime and bright colors!

Mixed Emotions

I have been going into my Dad's office for the past couple of months to work a little bit. It's tax season and things are crazy down there, so my parents could use a little extra help and we could use a little extra money so we thought it would be a great thing. It's been such a blessing. Brad's job is flexible enough that he comes home and watches Alaina while I go in for a couple of hours. It works out just perfectly. I'm thankful we've done it, but (you knew that was coming) sometimes I just miss my baby.

As nice as it is to get out of my house for a couple of hours, I've discovered that it's much more fun to play with a baby than it is to put together tax files. Sometimes I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. Some days I just love going into work, and other days I just. . . don't.

It's made me think a lot about working while Brad is in Medical School. It would be so nice to have just a little bit of money coming in while we're drowning in loans, but at what cost? We've been looking into jobs that might allow me to work from home or take Alaina with me. That would be ideal. Who knows what we'll end up doing. For now, I just feel. . . mixed.

A small accident

Yesterday I put Alaina on the floor with some toys while I did a few things on the computer. She was still in my line of vision, so I thought she'd be fine. When I turned to check on her a couple of minutes later, she had blood all over her hands! Somehow she had grabbed our scrapbooking paper-cutter, taken it all apart, gotten the razor out of its plastic covering, and sliced her finger open. I don't know how she did it! I'd seen the paper-cutter sitting there beneath our desk, but I thought: "There's no way she can reach that, and it's heavy for her to lift." I guess she's a little more dexterous than I thought. And a little smarter too: I don't even know how to take that thing apart. She didn't even cry! She just sat there looking curiously at her bloody hands. After rushing her to the bathroom and cleaning off her hands, I saw that it was only a small (but deep) cut on one finger. Nothing a band-aid can't fix. I'm just glad I looked at her when I did, before she stuck the razor in her mouth or something. Geez! I'm going to have to baby-proof my house. . . or not be a negligent mother, one or the other. I'm happy to report that she's fine now and happily sucking on her band-aid. And the paper-cutter has been safely stored in a drawer out of her reach.

Cabin Fever

Brad and I have cabin fever. It's a new experience for me. I used to be sad when the snow started melting because it meant the end of snow forts, sledding down the hill in our front yard, snowball fights, and ski school. Now I can't wait for it to go away. Brad and I have decided that snow is only fun at Christmas and if you can play in it. Christmas was three months ago, and with a baby we can't really play in the snow. So we're stuck inside. When we do venture out we have to bundle Alaina up and, though she looks very cute, she's not very thrilled about the three layers of clothes and two blankets wrapped around her.

We were tricked into believing Spring was here last Saturday. The sun was shining through our windows and we could see the snow drifts melting into big puddles in our parking lot. We decided to take Alaina for a walk to see the ducks at the Nature Park. When we stepped out of the car, we realized we'd been fooled. That tricky little sunshine looked a lot warmer than the 27 degrees it actually was outside. So we ended up outside for about 5 minutes before we put our little red-nosed baby back in the car.

The sun is shining again today. I think Alaina and I will sit in the weak little patch of sunlight coming through our windows and look wistfully outside while we wait for Spring to come for real. With the way things are going, we could be sitting here until June. Let's hope not!

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Lainy has had a hard week. We started her on vegetables, as promised, and she loves them (yay!). The problems came with her (how do I put this delicately?) digesting them. Lets just say that after not going #2 for four days, our little one was quite distressed and so were we as we tried to help her. We called her doctor on Thursday and among his prescriptions were prunes and a warm bath. The prunes went down okay, but she still wasn't feeling very well. I decided we'd have a little fun with the bath, so I pulled out our swimsuits.

Lainy had never been in a swimsuit before, but she was thrilled once she had hers on! She waved her arms, kicked her chubby little legs, blew raspberries, and cooed. . . it was adorable. I filled the bathtub with warm water, found all her water-proof toys, and we got in. I think I had as much fun as she did! We splashed our hands and threw her toys for over 45 minutes. After a long week, it was just what we both needed. Not only did it help Lainy feel better, but we had a lot of fun in the process. I liked that order from the doctor!