Fairytale Ball

At Kevin's school every year, the second graders hold a fairy tale ball. That means they learn to waltz, pick 6 or 7 different partners and dance in front of their parents and any other friends or family who want to attend. They also dress up like fairy tale characters. Kevin wanted to be a troll but we couldn't decide how to dress up like a troll. So he was a dragon, instead.













Kevin and one of his dance partners. I don't know her name.













More dancing... (they are wearing dance cards around their necks so they know the next person they are supposed to dance with.)













And still more dancing...













Kevin and Aurora.

















Kevin and his favorite partner. I asked a lady I didn't know to take this picture and didn't check it afterwards. It might be hard to tell what we are doing but we are doing the waltz. He had to help me out a few times. It's not the most attractive picture of me but it's the only one I've got.

Darren's Birthday

At the beginning of this month we celebrated Darren's birthday. He's one year older and wiser. Here are some photos of the celebration:













Darren blowing out candles on his birthday cake. He always gets a pound cake on his birthday because that is his favorite kind.












Opening presents. The boys always want to help. It takes all of their self control not to open them for him.











And, of course, Ethan had to give Darren a banana for his birthday. I think Darren is supposed to look mad in this picture but he really doesn't.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARREN!!

Catch Up

Okay, I am finally at Tracie's house so I can put some pictures on my blog. It's going to be a long one. Here goes.

The boys' hair was getting really long so I decided to buzz it.















Before Kevin got his hair cut. (I think Ethan's before picture got deleted.)















After the haircuts.
















Paninis made on our fabulous panini grill. (Darren took this picture.)















Last Monday it snowed quite a bit. After shoveling the driveway (which was very tiring because it was a wet heavy snow and we have a long driveway) Ethan, Kevin, and I made a snowman. It was a lazy one because I was tired.














Jacob after eating one of those fun dip candies that Ryan and LaCee sent us for Valentine's Day. (Darren also took this photo.)














Kevin with his new glasses and cool glass case. (I forgot to switch these around before putting them on here and it is taking too long to put the pictures on so it has to stay like this.)














Darren took this picture of the boys together and I thought it was cute.
Below is just another one of cute boys.

TV

I have a lot of great pictures to post on my blog but I can't do that until I get to a computer that I can do photos with. Like the snowman we made yesterday, or the hair cuts I gave my boys, or the sandwich Darren made. They will all just have to wait. For now I'll just share the current highlight of my winter. When you have small children you can't go out and get entertained as often because you have to get a babysitter or take them with you. (It's great on days when babysitters actually call you and ask you if they can babysit - thanks, Katie. By the way, I don't recommend seeing "Catch and Release".) So a lot of our current entertainment is watching TV in the evenings. And there are some very good shows on right now.
Sunday nights : "The One That I Want"
"The Apprentice".
And this Sunday is the premier of All Stars Amazing Race. Can't miss that! Thank goodness for DVR when shows are on at the same time.

Monday night: "24"

Tuesday night: "American Idol"

Wedensday night: "American Idol"
"Lost". If you haven't started watching Lost don't start now. But go rent the first two seasons at a video store and get caught up because it is one of my very favorite shows. I highly recommend it.

Thursday night: "The Office"
"Survivor"

And Friday and Saturdays we usually make Jon and Kristi come over to our house so we can put our kids to bed and play. That sounds like we are addicted to a lot of shows, doesn't it.

Melting!

Yesterday, when I left work, I noticed something amazing. Puddles! Do you know what that means? It means snow and ice actually melted yesterday and are supposed to continue melting the rest of the week. It also means the temperature actually got above freezing. Can you believe it? Frigid January is over! So maybe the groundhog prediction is true and there really are only two more weeks of winter. (Darren also noticed we have crocuses trying to poke up in our hot spot on the north side of the house.) Exciting times.

Winter

So today was the second day this year school got canceled. It was -32 with the wind chill factor. Darren said it finally got to 0 degrees at noon. I'm so glad there's only one full month of winter left. I love a fresh snowfall but I hate the hard crunchy ice and snow that doesn't go away because it's so freakin' cold. Here is a picture of our dining room windows.

Fondue and chocolate party

A week ago we had a pretty fun party. Jon and Kristi have a fondue set and just got a chocolate fountain for Christmas. So they brought both of them over and we had a party. At the party were Darren and I, Jon and Kristi, and Tracie and Jeff. Our kids were there for the first part but they didn't last very long. We dipped bread, ham and pineapple in the cheese and all sorts of things in the chocolate. Strawberries and Ritz with peanut butter were my favorite. We decided not to think about all the calories we consumed. But it was fun. (Jon brought his Mom's computer over to see if it worked on our internet and, obviously it does. So it's just our computer that doesn't work. It's going to be a couple of months before I get regular updates.) Oh, and Darren took this picture.

Yesterday morning we found out all of the schools in the Upper Snake River Valley were closed due to wind chill temperatures below -20 degree. (Except BYU-Idaho - they don't close for things like that) Anyway, Kevin was very excited that he didn't have to go to school. We decided to paint their model car/airplane they got for Christmas. So here they are hard at work and here is the finished product. Oh, and by the way, I am playing catch up since our internet isn't working at home. So there are a few more new posts below this one. I can't do regular weekly updates until I get internet at home again so please bear with me.

When we were in Utah the last time, Darren was very impressed with Shandy's ability to wray Dexter's dirty diapers up really small. So when we got home he tried it with Jacob's diaper. His don't go quite as small as Dexters.

Don't tickle Carrie!

This is what happens if you tickle Carrie:

New Years

Here are pictures of our rockin' New Years at Carrie's house. I'm using a different computer at the photo lab and don't know how to use everything. I also have three wild chidren with me and have to hurry before they destroy the photo lab so I won't give too much detail on the pictures. The party consisted of Pat and Carl, Carrie and Sam, Darren and me, and five rowdy boys.

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.