Merry Christmas II

Here are some more photos from this week:
















On the Saturday before Christmas we make cookies for Santa. This is Kevin making sure they taste okay. (Unfortunately we forgot to leave any for Santa. Good thing he still left presents.)
















Ethan obviously helped decorate.















Another one of Kevin eating. He's a picky eater but when he finds something he likes he eats it.
















Ethan with his Christmas morning loot. One of his favorite things he got was this cool remote control car.















Kevin with his loot.





















Santa left a banana in Darren's stocking again. He wasn't too happy about it, but the boys thought it was pretty funny. They are still talking about it.
















Jacob didn't care much about his loot. He just wanted to read his new lady bug book.















Kevin holding up his game boy. We need to set some reasonable limits on that. Anybody got some good ideas?

Merry Christmas!

Here are some pictures from the past two weeks. It's better late than never.














Bartholomew Christmas Party - The kids with their new pajamas and blankets that Grandma Bartholomew made them. It was tough to get this picture because they were so rambunctious (sp?)















Bartholomew family Christmas party - LaCee, Ryan, Jeff, Tracie and Grandma Christiansen
















Bartholomew family Christmas party - Grandpa Christiansen, Dave, Rose
















Bartholomew family Christmas party - Jared and MaryAnn getting cozy. It looks like LaCee doesn't want to watch them get cozy.















Bartholomew family Christmas party - Keith, Delene, Ami, Gary
















One of the activities LaCee planned for the Christmas party was for the kids to decorate cookies. We never got around to doing that so she left the stuff with Rose and we had some of the kids do it the next day. This is one of Kevin's cookies.





















Decorating cookies - Ethan, Kaitlin, Luke





















Decorating cookies - Kevin, Heather, Jared

Happy Birthday, Ethan!

Today is Ethan's 4th birthday. He started off the day by opening up his presents first thing. This is a picture of everything he got. He played with every single one of them through out the day. Then, as is our tradition, he got to choose a place to eat. Off to McDonalds we went. Sorry, I didn't bring the camera but it's just a typical McDonalds with a playground that you've all seen. After dinner we came home and had cake. He also helped make the cake. I frosted it and he did all the decorating.

FHE treats

Tonight it was Kevin's turn to pick the family home evening treats. He chose brownies but Darren was trying to talk him into egg nog shakes. Kevin wouldn't budge so Darren and Ethan went out and got shakes for them, anyway. Here are some pictures of the events.















Kevin showing the empty brownie batter bowl. He read the recipe and made the brownies with just a little help from me. The sooner he learns to cook the sooner he can start making dinner.















When Darren got home with the shakes he set his on the table and then went into the kitchen to get Ethan's ready. When I turned around and looked, Jacob was on the table ready to grab the shake.















But when Ethan offered to share some of his, Jake didn't want any.





















Ethan enjoying his shake.




















Darren enjoying his shake.

O Christmas Tree

When my visiting teachers were here a few days ago they were laughing at our Christmas tree. One of them said I should take a picture of it to remind us of our Christmas 2006 tree. So I thought I would take it one step further and put it on my blog. Can you tell we have a toddler living in our house? (And an almost 4 yr old?)

Santa Claus Visits

Friday night was our ward Christmas party which included a visit from Santa. It was fun for Kevin and Ethan but not so much for Jake. Luckily Santa was a good sport. And Darren was ready with the camera for a good shot.














Now for a little story without a picture. We were sitting in Sacrament Meeting today singing the opening song (which was Joy to the World). Ethan turned to me and said, "Mom is this song Joy to the World, Barney's dead?" You can tell what Kevin has been teaching him.

Bird guest

So this morning was a typical Saturday morning. Ethan woke up early and wanted to watch TV. So Darren, being the good dad he is, took Ethan downstairs and put Bugs Life on for him. Then he came back to bed. A little while later we heard him screaming at the top of his lungs. I was afraid he had thrown up since Jake had been doing that all day Friday. When I got down there he looked terrified and said "There's a bird in our house!" I believed him because that's an odd thing to make up but I didn't see a bird. So I was trying to get him to tell me where it went when, all of a sudden, a bird came flying into the family room. I screamed. It was scared and kept flying back and forth between the rooms downstairs. We didn't dare try to go upstairs because that's where the bird was. So I called Darren on the intercom on our phone. I don't know what he was expecting me to say when he answered but it wasn't, "There's a bird down here." He said calmly, "That's wierd" and then came down to check it out. Turns out it was Northern Flicker (woodpecker). He got it to go upstairs and then managed to pin it up against the kitchen window with the tray to the highchair and caught it. When it was safely out of the house our morning returned back to normal. I don't know what I would have done if Darren hadn't been there. My knight in shining armour. I'm sure my mom will appreciate this story.

Tis the Season

After a few days of begging, the boys finally got me to get out the Christmas stuff. As soon as the Christmas tree was set up they were all gung ho about putting on the ornaments. I was thinking, "Wow this is great, they can do all the decorating." But they soon grew tired of it and I had to finish the rest.




















Kevin putting on an ornament.















Ethan pulling stuff out of the boxes.















Jake pulling things out of the boxes. Check out Jake's shiner he got a couple of days ago. (below)

Children's Museum

Darren has pretty much covered our Thanksgiving and I didn't take any pictures of Friday. But here are some pictures from our Saturday at the Children's Discovery Center and Temple Square.














Kevin and Carson piloting the life flight helicopter.




















Kevin climbing the rock wall.















Ethan dressed as a horse in his stall. He wasn't very excited to pose for me.















Carson, Kevin, and Ethan being news anchors.















Ethan giving Darren a ride in his car.















Kevin operating one of the machines in the water play area.















Ethan, Carson, and Kevin playing with the ball activities. This one Ethan is at was like the game, Plinko, on the Price is Right. I've always wanted to play that game so I tried it here. Unfortunately I didn't win 10,000 dollars.















Jake and Ethan pretending they are beavers.















Kevin, Jacob, and Ethan playing with the water.















Kevin and Ethan riding Nellie, the horse.















Darren took this picture while we were waiting for Parker to finish singing with the sister missionaries. I think it looks pretty cool and pretty realistic (meaning little boys have a hard time holding still.)

Dogpile

These picture don't really need much explanation. I have three wild boys and they do wild and crazy things. But they were having fun together on this particular day so I decided I'd better capture it on film.

A Sunday Bread Treat

Here is a real Sunday treat for you. I got this recipe from a basic skills Relief Society activity. I'm not really sure who to give credit to but it is delicious and pretty easy.

Refrigerator rolls

2 Tbsp yeast (2 packages)
1/2 cup warm water
1 Tbsp sugar
1 cup boiling water
1 cup shortening/margarine (or half and half)

Dissolve yeast and 1 Tbsp sugar in 1/2 cup warm water. Set aside. In large bowl, put boiling water and the shortening/margarine.

Add:
1 cup cold water
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
4 eggs

Beat well and add yeast.

Beat about 8 cups flour (2 cups at a time). Dough will be quite sticky. Cover container and place in refrigerator overnight. Dough will keep about a week.

Take dough from refrigerator and shape as desired. Raise until double (3 hours) (perfect for while you are at church). Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. For whole wheat rolls, substitute stone ground flour for 1/2 white flour.

Cousin lunch

We were jealous of the Utah "cousin dinners". So we decided to have our own Rexburg "cousin lunch". We went to Craigos and had a great time. The first person to name all the people in these pictures wins. Oh, and one more thing not related to this lunch. We are missing a library book that is due today called "Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight". Does anyone remember seeing that when they were here this past weekend?

My weekend photos

Whenever a lot of family members with blogs gets together for a fun weekend there are always similar stories and pictures shared on the various blogs. This is my version:
















Kevin and his brothers after the baptismal service. Jake looks like he's about to run away.




















Kevin and his dad before getting baptized.




















Sunday morning all of my boys were in white shirts and ties (except Jake). I couldn't resist taking a picture. Of course, Ethan's shirt was untucked before Sacrament Meeting even started and his tie was off 3 minutes after church started. But, he sure looked good before he left.




















The boys insisted on a silly one so here it is.





















Here's LaCee and Jake bonding.















Jake with his first ice cream cone.

















Some of our overnight guests - MaryAnn, Jared, LaCee, Ryan. Curtis, Shandy and Dexter were our other overnight guests but I didn't get a picture of them.















Here's the icecream scooper. You had to be careful. If you didn't watch him and tell him when to stop he would just keep making the ice cream cone higher.
















4 sisters and the ice cream party.