Such An Eggciting Easter!!!

Okay, I know that was a super lame title, but it really was a very exciting Easter - quite possibly the most exciting one we will ever have!  For the big news, scroll to the bottom.  Otherwise we will start by talking eggs.  And cookies shaped like eggs.  

The kids and I flew to Missouri on the Monday following General Conference.  Spring Break - hooray!  Grandma Allphin was so fun, sacrificing all the stuff she needed to do that week in order to watch the kids for me while I galavanted around town with a realtor.  She even allowed massive messes to occur in the name of decorating cookies and eggs.  (And lego battles and car shows, but those are just a given.) 

 Max was always around doing his thing.

Clay even made it to MO for a long weekend!

I told my mom she looked like Martha Stewart in this one, and I think she was offended.  I meant it in the best possible way.  She is decorating eggs with her grandchildren, looking all done up and polished in her super-awesome kitchen.  We experimented with all kinds of techniques, including everything to do with crayons, rubber bands, and stickers.  What a woman!

Now on to even more important things:  we went to the Kansas City Temple Open House!  Tickets for the tours sold out online within hours of them going on sale for that Saturday, but we were lucky enough to get a tour anyway.  It was actually during VIP tour time, so we promised to not take any of the delicious food or amazing presents if they let us see the temple.  

We were really exciting to take the kids, since this will be our temple when we move.  It was beautiful, of course.  I was surprised that it wasn't a smaller temple, but a good-sized one.  I loved all the murals and paintings - really exquisite.  Max was absolutely awful, but we shouldn't have expected anything less from him in public.  The good news is, he was so enthralled by the chandelier in the celestial room, that he kept quiet for that portion.  Thank heavens.

Our most memorable moments from the tour (besides Max screaming and me getting ushered into the youth waiting room) include seeing the "baptism tree" as the tour guide kept calling it (otherwise known as the baptistry) and learning how they hand-cut patterns into the carpeting by drawing the patterns with marker and cutting it out with scissors.  The tour was a really great experience, and we were so glad to be there!

My brother, Alex, came with us since my parents were giving tours at the same time.  He is an awesome uncle, and the kids love him to death.

After the temple tour, we headed back to the hotel (we stayed in Kansas City overnight) for a swim in the pool.  It was way too cold for me, so I lounged poolside while Clay played with the kids.  Max was hilarious and dangerous at the same time, trying to jump in when Clayton wasn't looking.

Audrey and Luke were like little fish.

Alex kept me company.

Back to eggs!  After a wonderful Easter morning of Sacrament Meeting with my parents and another Sacrament Meeting to see Clay's cousin's daughter's baby blessing, we ate a fantastic dinner and headed out in the glorious weather for an Easter egg hunt!  

The loot.  Yes, Alex participated.

Max searching for a peanut m&m that fell in the rocks.

Grandma sneaking candy from Max's eggs.

I loved seeing my kids following my dad out to inspect the garden.  He was getting them all hyped up to help in his garden this summer.  Luke especially loved helping to cut the asparagus that we ate for Easter dinner.

Things I didn't get a picture of: (1) The baby blessing.  Little Eva is so darling!  (2) Playing with our "cousins".  Clayton's cousin, Rebecca, and her husband, Brad, let the kids and I come play with their kids during the week.  Luke and Jacob as thick as thieves.  They were wonderful hosts, as usual, and they didn't seem to mind talking houses with me the whole time.  (3) Our realtor.  His name is Don Caudle, and he was fantastic.  Of course it is a realtor's job to help you find a house that you like, but he seemed to really take us under his wing and walk us through every little step of the way to buying our first home.  (4) Probably a bunch of other stuff, but that's it for now.

As if that all weren't enough to constitute a great Easter break, we found this beauty and our offer was accepted!  We will close on June 18, and then we will finally own a home!!!  Okay, the bank will technically own it for a while, but you know what I mean.  It has been a long road for us to this point, and it all seems very surreal, but we are beyond excited.  

How's that for an action-packed week!

As a final note, I have to record a quote from Luke.  The week we got back from Missouri, Luke had his friend Sarah come over to play.  I asked her what she did over Spring Break.  She told me she went with her family on a cruise to the Bahamas.  "Wow!" I said.  "That sounds like fun!"  "It was," she said.  Luke burst out with: "That's nothin'.  I flew on two airplanes, and my buddy Alex showed me some magic tricks."  Good thing we didn't spend money on a cruise to the Bahamas.  It looks like our kids are pretty easy to please.