A Lot Like Christmas

When I was little my family and I went out to a tree farm and then Faye's Cafe to cut down our Christmas tree. I have such fond memories of picking out the perfect tree. Sometimes Dad would have to wrestle it down, but there is something magical about walking in a forest at Christmas time. My own attempts to recreate this magical event for my children have been largely unsuccessful. Then as I was perusing the paper what to my wandering eye should appear, but a little ad about Horse Haven Farms and how the tree proceeds go to helping the animals. They have a bouncy house and a train ride along with a petting zoo and a pony ride. It sounded perfect. So I convinced Daniel and away we went!
 It was fun. The kids loved feeding and petting the animals and I loved hearing about their farm. The trees were varied and beautiful.

Here's Lizzy putting the finishing touches on our tree.

It snowed the next day. Just enough to dazzle the eyes.

Then we went to our ward party where Both Daniel and Lizzy performed.
Met Santa at Home Depot.
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Celebrated My birthday in style:
 And went to the Fort for their Christmas festivities: 
Later Daniel and I went on a Lantern Tour which I highly recommend! I learned so much!
We had the privilege of hosting my parents for Christmas. We went down to the Portland Temple visitor center, went to see the lights and made sugar cookies.


Here's a great action shot of Christmas Day:
 Poor Grandma was constantly dodging things. We received a wonderful gift: cousin's snowball fight. There was a snowball for each cousin on the Bartholomew side. It is so fun to play with.
  
It was an excellent Christmas!

You Say it's Your Birthday

The Holidays start in a rush around here. We had Charles turning 3 just before Thanksgiving and then we went up to Bremerton for Thanksgiving when a scant week later both Devon and I celebrated our birthdays. It has been a crazy few weeks and I haven't even sent out my Christmas cards yet! Ack! I feel like time is just rushing on and I'm trying to stay afloat. But I digress... So here we are celebrating the good times:

From Charles Birthday

From Charles Birthday

From Charles Birthday

From Charles Birthday

And since we are such nerds we just had to go to the Doctor Who 50th annaversary in 3d!

From Doctor Who 50

From Doctor Who 50

From Doctor Who 50

It was Amazing!

Things That Matter

I wax philosophical in my old age. To wit.. I have been thinking a lot lately about life and all it's abundance of beauty as well as it's dearth of ugliness. It is amazing to me to witness the pure joy of my children running, laughing as they chase around. Equally amazing is how often I am shocked at the crudeness of man. Hurting others for gain or amusement. It is at times like these that I am thankful for my knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For I know that with faith I can not fear. And I do not. I understand that trials await me and I am aware that pain is inevitable. Losses to be had and tears to be shed, but I remain ever hopeful in the reality of my Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ. For with His aide I can withstand all the buffetings of Satan. I can have hope for the future and Joy in the moments as they come. For they do come.

What's up with that?

So I don't know what is wrong with all my slideshows. Sorry, I hope to have it fixed soon. Bear with me!

Con-ical

We went Convention Crazy this month. On Labor day we attended Kumoricon really to see the Tip toe Through the Tardis panel. It was not at all what I expected. Mostly they just called up all the cosplayers to share. Don't get me wrong 3/4 of the reason I wanted to go was for the cosplayers, but I was hoping for a more whovian event. Alas. I think the origional song that was preformed was the best part. Then we strolled the park and took pics. I met Miss. Frizzle

From KamoriCon

and Suki from Avatar the last air bender.

From KamoriCon

That was fun.
Here's the link to my other pictures.  Then we went to our first Comic-con Rose City Comic Con. It was so fun. We took the kids and they had a blast identifying the cosplayers. The kids section was LAME, but the thai bowls were excellent. We had a great time and I took lots of pictures. My favorite was the cosplayers from the movie 9:

From Rose City Comic-con

And this super cute couple

From Rose City Comic-con

And here's the link for the rest of my rccc pics.

Photo Dump

So I have been way negligent on keeping up the blog. Ack! So "Let me explain. (Beat) No, there is too much. Let me sum up." Bonus points if you get the reference!  While we were on our way home, Devon joined the crawlers club and quickly advanced to cruiser. As of last week he is officially a free stander and I await his debut as a walker any minute now. 

From Aug

From Aug

Lizzy was stricken with a urinary tract infection which left her bed bound with a fever for 3 days.It was scary and exhausting for all of us. At the Doctors she was asked to give a urine sample. The collection "hat" scared her to death. She wouldn't go. For hours she wouldn't go I finally took it home to bring in a sample thinking that she would be more comfortable at home. She was just so scared that she wouldn't even try.  I felt pretty helpless pleading with my 5 year old to pee.  Finally she said that she had to go. It had been 6 hours. She yelled from the bathroom, "I did it!" I was so relieved, as I am sure she was as well! Then she said to me, "You know how I did it? I said a prayer and Jesus told me to take a big breath and it would be all right and it was!" I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for loving his little girl and helping her do something hard. She was so happy.
  After that, the next big thing is School! Lizzy is officially a elementary student. Where has the time gone? Her teacher has only been teaching 2 years and she is from this area and just the sweetest little thing. Lizzy really enjoys going. The first day we were so excited getting ready for the bus. She has a classmate who is at the same stop so she has an instant friend. Her bus driver is new too so that is fun. When the bus came Charles was right behind Lizzy on the bus, I had to grab him and he just cried and cried that he couldn't go to  school. Here everyone thought that I was the one who would beak down! I love having the quiet time. The boys are so easy now.

From School

You can just see Charles scrambling aboard. He wouldn't be consoled until I gave him a pickle, then he was fine. Now he is an old pro. He talks to the kids while we wait for the bus to come and he grabs my hand to go home as soon as they get on the bus. It's working out. We have only had 2 near death experiences in the 2nd week when Charles ran immediately across the road and cars had to stop for him, but other then that I think were are doing fine. Before:

From School

After:

From School

   That's life I guess. Pickles make everything better. So  we went to the zoo, the fair both here and in Kitsap and OMSI again, where we saw a crazy boat on the river:

From Aug

 We celebrated Charlies Birthday with exploding candles and had ourselves a grand old time. Stay tuned for more action! Same bat time same bat channel...

Regale --Away

Any hoo, hello! I have had some amazing events transpire lately which have now left me time to catch up on my long awaited blogging. Whew! Who's excited? This Girl! So on with the Show!
As I said before, (you may recall, or not that's cool too)  We left our house in search of easterner clime. We drove through the night to get to my brother's house in UT. I had had the brilliant idea of driving through the night~ Ha! Both boys threw up on me, Devon did twice. They had a continuous crying fest.(I'm louder then you, oh yea, listen to this!) then Daniel spilled root bear on my head. Not a good idea. Don't do it! So we made it to Sal's and crashed. Then we went to church. Afterward Charles took off and Daniel went to find him, but some neighbor had called the cops and it was all quite embarrassing, but amusing. We celebrated my niece's birthday and had a great time. Next we stopped in Limon for the night:
 
Aren't they cute? Then headed out for Kansas. It was a much better trip this time! I didn't get anything on me! Yea! I think we were all relieved to turn into The Bartholomew's culdesac. After a nice night to recover we set our sights to the Lego Experience! 

From Kansas

It was a blast! I hate to admit it, but this was my favorite thing we did on our trip. There were rides and slides and of course Legos! Lizzy and Grandpa made wonderful racing cars while Charles manned the button to start the races.

From Kansas

And how's this for a three generation shot?

From Kansas

 A love for Legos goes deep. Needless to say, if you get the opportunity to go Lego, do so! We celebrated the 4th of July at the Blacks home. Their neighborhood has a parade, complete with police escort this year, followed by an ice cream social and water fight. I told Daniel to bring another set of clothes because I just knew he couldn't turn down a water fight, but he said that he'd be fine.

From Kansas

 It was fun and the kids were worn out completely. Then we went to Monkey Bizness to play with the Markhams. Oh, you want to see a picture of Daniel flying? Of course:

From Kansas

I wonder it this was Daniel's favorite part? Hmm. Anyway Then we checked out, Kaliedoscope It was a bit chaotic. Charles kept running up to every man there and hit them before running off again. He keeps me on my toes all the time. Lizzy really enjoyed it. Then we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house for some excitement:

From Kansas

From Kansas

We had a great trip. On the way home we stopped to see my Grandmother.

From Kansas

We had a nice visit with her and then went to Temple Square and the Conference center. Daniel had never been there before. It was a great end to our trip.