Palmyra Girls Trip

This past weekend four of us girls piled in the Madsen's car and we took off Friday morning for Palmyra, New York.  There was threat of some pretty heavy snow, so we left early enough to miss it, and it ended up not being bad at all.  We ate some yummy Mexican food at El Jimador that night and then watched chick flicks and did face-masks in the hotel until bed time.  Most of us slept through Lisa's snoring just fine, and then Saturday morning we got up and got ready to go to the Palmyra Temple.  It was awesome to be in the Temple that's situated right in front of the Sacred Grove and there's such a special spirit there.  After the Temple we stopped in at a cute little burger and ice cream joint that was SO yummy and stuffed ourselves silly!  We had so much fun taking time off from being "mom" and just enjoyed a weekend away chatting, eating, relaxing and most importantly serving the Lord in His holy house.  Thanks ladies for a great time, and thanks Dean for holding down the fort while I was gone!   

First Day of Spring

Well it finally happened....the first day of Spring is here!  DQ was offering free ice cream cones to celebrate, and we can't pass up free ice cream.  We rushed over before Dean and the boys took off for Wednesday night activities at the Church and we're so glad we squeezed it in!  Now if the weather would just cooperate and start warming up.

Mini Cakes

Years ago we made little personal sized cakes and everyone got to decorate their own.  Somehow the boys were reminiscing about that lately and began begging to do it again.  Braddock spent an entire week home sick from school and he and Bridger and I needed something to stay sane, so we whipped up the cakes and frosting so we could all decorate cakes.  It's so fun to watch each person's personality come out in the way they decorate.  

 

New Car and an Anniversary

On Tuesday, March 12th, Dean drove to Ohio after school and came back with some new wheels!  Last year he was sideswiped and then rear ended in two separate instances, neither of which were his fault, but when your car is worth next to nothing in the first place, the insurance doesn't help much.  Lucky for us Grandma and PapPap were getting a new car and passed on their old one to us.  It was such a blessing to tie us over until we were in a better place to invest in a new car.  Dean scored a great deal on a 2016 Kia Soul with only 43,000 miles on it, so we're hoping it lasts us for MANY years to come.  And he's already got it all geared up with BYU stickers on the back.

Just a few days later we got to drive the new car to the Columbus, Ohio Temple to celebrate our 13th Anniversary.  Mom and Dad were nice enough to watch the boys and we had the best day together.  Over the last five years that Dean's been the Bishop it's been tough to go to the Temple together because he was often in the baptistry with the youth of our Ward.  It was so nice to get to do Sealings and an Endowment session together and remember the sacred covenants and promises we made to each other and to Heavenly Father 13 years ago.  It was fun reminiscing as we spent 7+ hours in the car about all that's happened throughout our marriage.  How grateful we are for the ups and the downs and the lessons we've learned and will continue to learn.  So glad we're on this journey to eternity together!

The End of an Era

 It's come with a wave of mixed emotions as Dean was released as the Bishop of our Ward on Sunday.  It's amazing to think what we've gone through over the past five years and how we've grown physically and spiritually as a family.  It has been an honor to be instruments in the Lord's hands for good, and it's kind of hard to let that all go.  It's become such a part of our lives and our identity as a family, but it's been impressed upon us several times this week that we will continue to serve and be the Lord's servants just in different capacities.  We've grown to love our Ward so much and of course that won't change.  How grateful we are for the miracles we've seen and the lessons we've learned.  God is so very, very good.

A Harry Potter Party

Well took us nearly a month to finally pull of Tanner's birthday party, but it was worth the wait because we had so much fun!  Last minute a few kids ended up not being able to make it, but we threw on a happy face and plowed through and it honestly didn't even matter because we had a blast anyway.  And both those kids brought cards and gifts to school the next day which was sweet.  Since it was Tanner's 11th birthday we played up the Harry Potter theme and being HUGE fans, we may have gone a little over the top.  Haha!

Invitations:

Decor:

 I couldn't resist printing off our Halloween photos to pop in our living room frames.  Well one thing led to another and every frame got a Harry Potter themed sign or photo.

 Activities:

 

We started with the sorting hat stuffed with all sorts of goodies, but most importantly it had tiny envelopes sealed with the Hogwarts wax seal that declared their house assignments.

 They got to mold Mandrakes from clay which took the rest of the party to bake and then we quickly painted and assembled them as the kiddos parents were arriving to pick them up.  They turned out super cute!

 Each kid got to make a "Monster Book of Monsters" notebook.  They all seemed to love them.

 And we braved the glue guns to make wands.  A wizards pretty useless without one!

  Tanner was so into making his that it would take a week, so he still hasn't finished his up yet!  Haha!

Tanner put on a quick potions lesson for us.  The kids were all enamored by it.

Painting their Mandrakes

We finished up the night by watching "The Goblet of Fire."  The movie's so long we didn't quite get through it, but they all had fun watching what we could squeeze in.  It was funny listening to the girls as they critiqued Hermione's dress etc.  Such a different world than I'm used to with all my boys!  Haha!

The Food:

And what's a party without food!?  We of course had to eat in the Great Hall.  We had Butterbeer (turns out it wasn't that great), Felix Felicis (the luck potion and it was YUMMY!), veggies from Proffesor Sprouts garden, Gryffindor Grapes, Broomsticks, Golden Snitches, and Chocolate Frogs....and pizza.  I'm sure they ate pizza in the Great Hall sometimes right!? ;)

And we didn't even end up getting to the cake until all the kids had left....oops!  But Tanner made this awesome replica of the cake Hagrid brought Harry on his 11th Birthday....

 The Spoils:

The kids each went home with all their crafts as well as tattoos, pencils, Harry Potter glasses, bookmarks, Bernie Botts Every Flavor Beans, and some chocolate in case of a Dementor attack.  You can never be too safe!

I always love party planning and prepping, but then my social anxiety gets the best of me when it comes time to put the party on, but as I powered through we really did have the best time, and even more importantly Tanner loved it.  And Landon will be having the same theme in May, so it was worth all the work to get two parties out of it!  Success!