Easter

We had a great Easter! We were definitely burned out by the eventful weekend. I had done a garage sale on the Friday, which is lots of work, but it was successful and having my friend Bree help out, not to mention my in-laws taking the boys for the morning. Then Saturday was Vienna's party and then Easter Sunday, along with packing as much as possible here and there. To say the least we were so burned out!

We tried hard to get a family bunny nose picture in our Sunday clothes, but it wasn't working out.

This little boy got a new bow tie from the Easter bunny and looked so handsome, however his big brother and icon, was wearing his handsome cowboy boots and to keep up, Everett decided to wear his Paul Frank rainboots...I didn't fight the battle and yes he clomped right into Sacrament a few minutes late wearing them. Sometimes it just doesn't matter.

This year the Easter Bunny filled and hid eggs for us to find and that was lots of fun! We each had our own colors.

Everett's were blue like his jeep, he sure loves that color.

The Easter Bunny brought Lincoln a new tie (which he hates wearing) so I convinced him to put it on just for a picture and he forgot about it until 1/2 way through sacrament. See the boots, those actually look goods, unlike the younger counterparts ensamble.

We got a family bunny-nose selfie, but it was after naps. 

We were grateful for the reminder of Our Saviors resurrection and the reminder that each and everyone of us will be able to live again and if we are sealed together for time and all eternity in the temple, we will be together as a family again and nothing is more special to me than knowing that!

Vienna's 6th Birthday Party

Vienna has wanted to have a "friend" party for quite a while and as a way to say goodbye and to give her some closure before we move. So I began asking her what kind of theme she would like. WE talking about another rainbow party from her 4th B-day, but when she said "Harry Potter" I thought that was brilliant and so we ran with it and boy was it so much fun! We had watched the first few movies and we had started the book, so she was aware of many things..despite having our house in boxes we made it work and all 10 kindergarteners had a blast.

Here is the Birthday girl in her crazy Birthday dress she bought with Grandma on her B-day date...all dressed up like Harry Potter with her glasses, scar and wand.

I couldn't get these all in order n a quick way, so things are going to be all over the place.

After diagon alley we went to Hogwarts and took a few wizard classes. 

Here we are in charms class where we learned the "reducto" spell and turned our shrinky dinky into a  tiny charm.

Streamers

We had a scar maker and our Honeydukes Candy Shop wizard

everyone started out by going to Gringotts bank to get their money to buy their supplies at diagon alley. It was a fun site to see.

Vienna was very lucky to have so many friends join in the fun and was lucky enough to get some great and very thoughtful gifts.

Here are the Harry Potter Glasses

Waiting to go into HOgwarts

Here is Gringotts Bank

We had Bertie Bott's every flavour beans, Jelly slugs and white bellied toads to purchase

HEre are all our sweet guests all Harry Potter-ified. So cute!

Vienna's ice cream cake was a huge hit! I may always do this from now on.

Peggy did such a great job with the scars, I'm so glad she was there to help!

The wand shop, Mike was amazing and made all of these wands. They turned out pretty amazing!

Running right through Platform 9 and 3/4 was quite the hit, we had to do it a few times.

Oh how I love the magic!

I'd say Potions was the biggest hit and prefessor Snape (Mike) did a great job!

So many gross ingredients...

The kids loved the reactions and their reactions were quite hilarious as well.

We did 2 very fun and very messy ones and the kids got to do their own

Wouldn't it be fun to attend a real potions class

The 'elephant toothpaste' was by far the best reaction

After classes we headed outside to play some games of quidditch and that was perfect while I cleaned up and got ready to do cake. The weather was lovely!

The Treat Bags..

I wish I would have taken a picture of each item inside because they were so cute. There was a chocolate frog, shimmery golden snitches (gold gumballs), test tubes of Bertie Botts Beans, jelly slugs and all their other goodies from throughout the party.

Vienna absolutely adores her teacher Miss Brantley and will miss her terribly. She wanted her to come to the party so I told her and mostly did it just to let her know Vienna's sentiment, but she said she would stop in and I asked her specifically to NOT bring a gift and of course she thought of the best gift ever...it was a cute little Beanie Boo Leopard because she wanted her to always remember her friends at Ruth Livingston Leopards. She has slept with it everynight since and even wanted to get another one with her birthday money and so she got a boy one to go with her girl one. So sweet!

It was a treat to have a party for her. She was so thrilled and excited I dare say more than Christmas and that made it more than worth it. We had a really fun time with all her sweet friends. I'm grateful for Grandma and Grandpa who came to help and Bree last minute who took on the roll of photographer all on her own, to which I am incredibly grateful.

We are looking forward to having a 6 year old around the house! 

She is quite something special and we hope that we instill in her just how special and loved she is.

March, (before Vienna's B-day Party and Easter)

March has been good to us, we have been SO busy with becoming business owners (who knew there could be so much to do???) along with packing our home, finishing the paperwork to sell our home and buy our new home, not to mention all the festivities that happened during the month and did I mention packing? We still managed to enjoy the time we have and make the most of every (literally every) minute.

We had a leprechaun bring us special lucky charms cereal (this is a real treat) and gave us green milk

For dinner we managed to find and eat several things that were naturally green, instead of using food coloring, so that was nice.

The kids looked so cute all decked out in green stuff!

We went up to Spokane to take care of some business and got our E's little backpack for the trip and he would not take it off. Its funny how each one of our kids have gone through a backpack stage, where all they want to do is carry it around and fill it up with things. I love it! There is a cuteness and a sign of independence in it.

It was pretty heavy but that didn't even faze him. 

Our church had an Easter Egg hunt and the kids had a blast. I had to do it alone w/o Mike b/c it was a work saturday, and it wouldn't have been bad if I wasn't in charge of it and had to be there 2 hours early and stay for cleanup. Luckily Grandma and Grandpa joined us for the actual event, that was extremely fun and helpful to have them there. (luckily that was my last church responsibility here)

I have the cutest new nephew that I wont get to meet until late June. Here is Owen with his big brother Parker. So many boys on the McAllister side! Wowsers!

I got Mike tickets to "the Producers" for Christmas and I was super excited about our date and to see a show that he loves so much. Of course it fell on a time when all of the YW from our ward were out of town in Spokane for Time Out for Women, so I had no babysitters at all. I asked someone from another ward for some referrals and none of those girls were available, however she did say her daughter was brand new to babysitting and might do it. That didn't sound too appealing because we wanted to do a real date and go out for dinner first...but with no other options we tried her. We didn't get to do dinner or anything fun before. Well, it turned out to be a nightmare and my entire night was spent texting this sweet, too young of a girl that my kids walked all over, all night. I missed most of the show, but at least Mike got to enjoy it. Her first text started with "Vienna and Lincoln want to sleep in Everett's crib, is that ok?" which has never happened in anyones lifetime, with a million thing in the middle to "Vienna just threw up, what should I do? (which never really happened and my gut told me that, but to be certain I asked Peg and Alan to go over and check it out) Needless to say, when the show ended earlier than we had expected and should have been excited to go out for dessert or a drink, I was so pissed off by the whole night that we just came home. It was aweful! With my other sitter(s) my kids do amazing and everything is wonderful. 

Normally I cut all my boys hair, but during the winter it has been super annoying because I can't get them naked and do it outside, so its been in the tub or in the bathroom and then hair is everywhere, so we decided to take them to Great Clips opening b/c they were only $5/cut. They all did really well and I'm glad I didn't have to spend $60 bucks.

Easter Party at Grandma and Grandpa's

This was their first year doing an Easter party, and it was lots of fun! We got to eat dinner, then the kids got to put together a variety of lifesize Easter puzzles and with daylight savings being the day before we had to wait much longer for darkness to fall so we had a dance party while we were waiting, then the kids all got flashlights and had to follow their string of yarn all the way around the yard to find their Easter basket. It was lots of fun, the kids had a blast and it was nice to do a family get together. Hopefully we can still do them, even though we are moving to Spokane.

Lincoln was so lucky to have preschool with Mrs. Tonya this year. She was one of Vienna's teachers last year and I will be so sad to not have her for Lincoln next year, but I feel really good about his new preschool teacher up there as well. 

Such a cute bunch of friends. 

Lincoln's ears were to big and he spent most of his time pulling them up or walking funny so he could see and less time finding eggs. Lol, so cute and such a blustery day.

These are my sweet buys with their (gross) bunny nose suckers from their goodies from Granma and Grandpa's. They worked wonders while waiting at my new OB office for my first appointment with the caboose of our family, baby #4. The night before in our hotel room, we did videos with each of them individually telling them the news of having a baby in my tummy, the videos are so darling and I'm grateful for the idea my dear friend Aarika gave me to do them. It was fun to hear the heartbeat and I actually ended up having an ultrasound too so it was fun to see our little peanut. I'm already 14.5 weeks, so only 6 more weeks until I find out what we're having! Can't wait!

I'll be back tomorrow with Vienna's friend party details and Easter...