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!