The Infamous Easter of 2015

You may remember the Infamous Easter of 2013?

Well, 2015 ended up being quite a doozy as well.

Easter weekend itself was quiet and lovely. We took Iyla to a local Easter egg hunt, complete with a visit from the Easter Bunny. The egg hunt was hilarious. All of the kids were lined up in a huge circle awaiting the signal to go gather eggs, and when the signal came, Iyla made a beeline toward the Easter Bunny- caring nothing about collecting eggs (I grabbed a couple in her honor!)

She loved watching the Easter Bunny from afar, but wasn't too hip to get up and personal with him.

Curious observation from a safe distance

The terror! 

"Papa help me!"

Come Easter morning, Iyla made out quite well with her loot:

I fully blame infertility for this Easter spoiling, as I had just come off an unsuccessful IVF cycle and only have one kiddo to properly dote on. Plus- that play house was a mere $11 at a local resale store!

New books to read and color in

We hosted an Easter celebration with my family the weekend after Easter proper. Iyla was super excited to wear her fancy dress (she's a girly-girl through and through!), and promptly went to work devouring many "Mimi crackers" from my mom.

Here are a few shots from our day with family:

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We all couldn't get enough of sweet baby Sam! Seeing Iyla with her admittedly made my Mama heart ache; I so hope that someday she gets to have her own baby sibling to adore. 

I still can't stop laughing at this shot

How the teenage boys spent the day

Dinner time! Per our norm, we catered most of the meal. I am not super adept in the kitchen, as evidenced by my burning the dinner rolls while trying to heat them up (I ended up cutting off the burnt bottoms of every.single.roll).

Cake!

We had a lovely day with everyone. Come evening, Iyla was happily singing and dancing when I noticed it was past her bedtime. She gave goodnight hugs to the family and we headed upstairs to start her bedtime routine. 

I set her down at the top of the stairs and let her know it was time to sit on the potty. Instead, she made a beeline for her room- saying she wanted to go 'ni-night' first. She was one tired little girl! 

I followed Iyla into her room to grab her pajamas, then watched as she ran toward her bed, tripped, and fell face first into her bed's wooden toddler rail.

I knew instantly it was bad. Every hair on my body stood alert as my heart dropped to my stomach.

In the few seconds between Iyla's shock and her subsequent wails I scooped her into my arms to comfort her and assess the damage. I immediately noticed a large gash on her chin, and yelled down the stairs for someone to please send BC up quickly.

When he arrived he took one look at her and said we needed to head to the ER.

Our poor baby girl was SO tired and confused and just wanted to go to bed. Instead, I had to carefully change her out of her blood-soaked Easter dress and into comfy pajamas toward the long night ahead. I told her we were going to have a silly night, and that she would get to watch lots of her beloved videos on the iPad.

We got to the ER at 8:30pm, and would remain there until 12:30am. It was a long night to say the least, filled with waiting room after waiting room. The worst part was having to restrain Iyla while they gave her sedative medicine up her nose. Gratefully it worked quickly, and 10 minutes later she was in a very chill, loopy zone. BC and I were amazed at how calm & compliant she was- looking around the room at all of the assembled staff, then turning to watch her iPad while the doctor administered 5 stitches.

Brave girl resting post stitches 

The next morning I asked Iyla if she remembered going to the hospital for her boo-boo. She surprised me by replying "yes- it was so beautiful." Indeed, she did love the fancy colored exterior lights at Dell Children's Hospital, and I just love that this was her overall recollection of the night.

The irony of it all? We had just converted Iyla's crib to a toddler bed so she wouldn't climb and fall out of bed. Then that little bugger goes and falls INTO bed, splitting open her chin. Go figure!

I am happy to report that Iyla has completely bounced back from her injury (save for some sleep deprivation), and life has resumed as normal. She is one tough little girl!

"I have 5 stitches. Whatchu got?"

I'm thinking that next year we'll ask my Aunt Sheri to host Easter. We are 2 for 3 in Infamous Easter debacles, and it may be time to shake things up- lest this become an annual tradition!