Boys Monthly Letters

The boys have posted their December letters to their blogs. You just need to click on the links to the right -->

The Deed Has Been Done!

I can't believe we really did it. Neither Dave or I were certain we could go through with it but this afternoon Dave took Eric to Cookie Cutters, a kids haircut place. We just had too many people, not just strangers but family as well mistaking him for a girl, saying he was "pretty enough to be a girl". It was just time for him to lose the golden locks. Here he is before ...

... and here is Eric now! I am still having to get used to it and I think it will take some time.

Christmas Morning

I have a sneaking suspicion that we were done opening presents long before most of you were even opening your eyes. Our boys are such early risers and this morning Brandon was up at 5:06 asking if he could go downstairs and see if Santa had come. It was shear torture for Brandon to have to wait until 6:00 before we would let them go downstairs.

Santa brought Brandon & Eric remote control dinosaurs! Wow!! And Grandpa Pat got them some walking/ roaring dinosaurs also. They got lots of neat things. Kyle was very content to just sit in his chair with one little toy and just watch all the goings on. I would like to say that the kids were extremely grateful and thanked us over and over again but ... well, they are already talking about what they want for Christmas next year. We love our kids but Dave swears that next year they get one Santa gift and one gift from us.

Dave spoiled me as always. He got me a Blackberry Pearl which I have no idea how to use. I have never had my own cell phone so this will be a new thing for me. He also got me lots of other little things. Plus I got a new digital camcorder before Thanksgiving as one of my "Christmas" gifts so I am thoroughly spoiled. I have a very wonderful husband who loves to spoil me. My dad got me a Christus statue for my mantel that I had been wanting. Thanks dad! And Ryan & Alisa gave us a FANTASTIC gift. Babysitting coupons ... one for each month of the year. We will definitely be using those!

I got Dave a couple pairs of basketball pants, a really nice pair of leather boots to wear on his motorcycle and filled his stockings with some goodies. I feel bad that I didn't have more things for him to open but he keeps saying that his motorcycle was his Christmas gift this year. Dave is the type that just goes out and gets what he wants when he wants it do it's hard for me to get him anything because he pretty much has what he wants. I tease him that he is turning into Clark ... impossible to buy for!

Merry Christmas everyone and I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas day and take a moment to stop and think about the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas Memories

Dave & I have had many wonderful Christmas's together so I put together this little slide show as a way to help remember each one. Merry Christmas everyone!

Twas the Day Before Christmas

Twas the day before Christmas and all through the valley ... Was snow, Perfect for sledding with our cousins!

Followed by a huge Christmas Eve party at Grandma Chris' like none other. Boy can Grandma put on a party ... she is amazing!

Then off to our home for new Christmas PJs, cookies and milk for Santa and off to bed.
(While mom and dad spent the night putting batteries in toys.)

Christmas at Grandma Norberg's

We went down to Lehi tonight for a Christmas party at Grandma Norberg's house. It was a wonderful evening and the best part about it was that Grandpa Norberg was able to be there! Aunt Nina & Uncle Jim flew in today from Washington so we had a lot of the Norberg family there. I wish so much that Kathleen, Erin, Shane, Kristi and Trace and their families could've been there as well to join in the festivities. I am sure Grandma & Grandpa would've loved to have seen you all.

Also, today was Kevin & Brenda's daughter Heather's 5th birthday so we celebrated that tonight as well. The kids had so much fun playing with glow sticks and being crazy. It was a really fun night! Thanks grandma for putting it on!

Starring: Brandon & Eric, Abby, Halle & Gwen, Marcus & Heather (Jake & Mitchell are way too grown up to be in this one!)

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Every Christmas the boys look forward to decorating sugar cookies.

Brandon is getting better at decorating his.

I swear Eric waits all year for this one day. As always he eats more then his share! And his decorating skills can use some practise.

It's actually super funny to watch Eric decorate. He LOVES sprinkles and just shakes and shakes sprinkles on his cookies until someone stops him!

I have a sneaking suspicion that our cookies won't be featured on the cover of Martha Stewart Living this year but the boys sure have fun ... maybe next year :)

Party Party

Today was a day full of parties. This morning we had our ward Christmas party. The boys love it because they get to go in their PJs, have breakfast with their friends and run around the gym like wild animals! Then this evening we had Dave's company party at Madeline's. And to add to the festive feeling of the day we got a lot of snow today. The boys had fun playing outside and Dave even took them for a ride around the neighborhood on the 4-wheeler!

Elves are Milling Around

We sure picked the right night to go over to Gardner Village and see the Elves. It wasn't too cold, there was almost no one there and the boys had so much fun checking out all the elves.

Even Kyle stayed awake and enjoyed the evening. :)

Gingerbread House

We had a great time tonight decorating our annual Christmas Gingerbread house. The boys had a lot of fun. Brandon concentrated on decorating in clear patterns. Eric on the other hand, probably ate more candies then he put on the house. He kept saying "Just one more". Kyle was already asleep ... his time will come.

The boys love nothing more then spending time with dad!

Barnhisel Family Birthday Party

We hosted a family birthday party tonight to celebrate the November (Dave, Jack & Lydia) and December (Amy and Melissa) birthdays. It was a lot of fun. Thank you all for coming. Happy Birthday!

I apologize that I don't have more pictures. I find when I am the host I am very bad about taking pictures. I will do better next time. :)

Barnhisel Family Christmas Card

Congrats Grant & Kelly

Congratulations Grant for winning his weight class in the city wide wrestling meet finals for 7th grade!!

And Congratulations Kelly for making the High School swim team!!!!

Great job guys!

BTW - Happy Birthday Dad!!

Decorating the Christmas Tree is Fun! ... right?

I guess I owe my parents an apology for the pain I (me and my siblings) put them through as children while putting up the Christmas tree. I remember every year we fought over who got to put the top on the tree and who got more tinsel to throw on the tree. So many of these things you think should be fun family activities more often then not I am learning turn out to be patience testers for the parents ... as was putting up the tree this year. We tried to put it up last night but the stand was junk and wouldn't hold our old fake tree up straight. Dave spent FOREVER fiddling with it (not in the best mood) trying to get the tree to stay straight. I suggested duct tape (which I am sure would make my father proud as he believes that duct tape can fix anything, including the hem on his pants that are too long). We finally sort of got that taken care of only to find that half of the strands of lights on the tree were out, some for no apparent reason, some looking black and burned out. We finally gave up and threw the non-working lights and the tree out and Dave went to Home Depot today and got us a beautiful, pre-lit tree. So this evening we were on to the picture perfect family tree decorating activity for the Barnhisel family Christmas tree. Not exactly. Even before the tree was done being decorated Eric had broken an ornament and I was ready to string my wild and crazy boys up on the tree as well. Decorating the Christmas tree is supposed to be fun, right?

This picture represents the night very well.

But at least the tree is up and Dave did a beautiful job on it!

Boys Monthly Letters

The boys have posted their November letters to their blogs. You just need to click on the links to the right -->

Thoughts - "Home" for the Holidays

We were able to go to my "Home" town in Colorado for Thanks- giving this year which was wonderful! We are now "Home" for the remainder of the holidays and happy to be home. As we were driving home from Colorado I had some time to just think. How was this possible you ask? Well, Dave had his headphones on listening to music on his Zune which he likes to do while he makes that long drive to block out the road noise. Brandon and Eric were each playing their Leapsters and Kyle, who was having a tough time sleeping those last couple hours was still content so long as he was holding mommy's hand :) Anyway, I got to thinking about a lot of things which seemed to make more sense at the time but seem sort of jumbled now as I sit down to write them. I will start out by saying that those of you who know me know that I have always been really good about keeping a journal. I have kept a journal since I was seven years old and every day since I was eleven. But the last couple years I haven't been quite as good about it because to be honest, most of my days are pretty much the same and I don't always have a page worth of things to write about. Because of that I have started to write weekly instead of daily. Well, I haven't been really great about that either and find myself playing catch up a lot of the time so I am thinking that the best way to continue my good journal habits is to put this blog to good use by adding my thoughts and experiences that I feel like sharing. They may or may not be interesting to anyone else but I will put them here for posterity anyway. So back to my thoughts as we were driving back to Colorado, as jumbled as they were. I guess the main gist of them was that I was thinking about what I was thankful for, aside from the obvious things. At that moment, I was grateful for portable DVD players, Leapsters, and a mini-van with adjustable seating arrangements. I don't know how our parents did these long road trips without all these luxuries that we now have at our finger tips. I was grateful for a husband who is willing to make the 8 hour drive with 3 young kids (boys no less) so that we can see my family, even though he isn't the sort that loves to drive. I was grateful that he had his Zune to make the drive a little easier for him. I was grateful that for some reason, I have been blessed with the three easiest babies in the world who sleep well, eat well and are just for the most part really happy. I am grateful that I got to spend 4 days with my family. I am grateful for a wonderful father who loves to have the choas of a house full of his kids and grandkids and prefers that over quiet. I am grateful for an incredible mother who was too perfect for this world who I know that I will see again. I am grateful for a six year old son who reminds me of that often by saying things like "I am sorry that your mom died but don't be sad, you will see her again after you die." I am grateful for sisters who are fantastic examples to me of great mothers who help me see what I can do to improve just by watching them. And I am grateful for this wonderful holiday season. I couldn't help but think about the story I saw on the news earlier that day about the man who was trampled to death by a huge crowd of people trying to get into Walmart to shop that morning in New York and it made my heart sick. His poor family, to have their loved one die for such a ridiculous reason. It makes me sad to see what Christmas has become and I just hope that we can all take a step back and realize what really matters this time of year. Those were the things that I was thinking about during those last couple hours, on the way back from Colorado. I am grateful for that time that I had to just think.

Home for Thanksgiving!

We were so happy to all be together for Thanksgiving this year at dad's house in Colorado. The only person from the family missing from this picture is Kyle who was already down for the night when we took this picture. And I know ... Eric is in his PJs. He changed once during the afternoon and I bribed him with chocolate chips to get dressed again but when he changed again later in the night I gave up.

Dad and his kids.

Kathleen was the head chef! She did a fantastic job!


As always, I made the pies. Dad wanted at least 10 pies and so I spent all Wednesday baking pies!

Grandpa O'Berry, Uncle Dan, Aunt Judy and David all came over for the feast!

The three little girls were like peas in a pod ... little princesses!

Eric & Audrey almost finished off the vege tray between the two of them.

The cousins had a great time running around crazy!
13 grandkids for Grandpa Pat.

Barnhisel Thanksgiving

Thanks to Chris for putting on an early Thanksgiving party since many of us will be elsewhere for Thanksgiving this year. It was so nice to all be together this year.

The meal was fantastic and the boys had so much fun with their cousins!

The Holy War

BYU (The Lord's Team) vs. Utah

At the beginning of the game the commentator mentioned that the rivalry runs so deep with this game that it divides families. Our family is proof of that.

Dave's family all Bleed Red while my side of the family is True Blue through and through.

For some reason everyone always ends up at our house to watch the big games. Wonder why? :)

But in the end, Utah trounced on BYU 48 to 24. Better luck next year BYU.