St. Patrick's Day and More

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Did you eat any fun foods?  Did you get pinched?

Before St. Patrick's Day, here are a few pictures from Art Night at the school.  I had a Relief Society meeting that night, so Lee took the kids.






Cal has been interested in Origami lately.  Lee bought him a beginners Origami set, but it's been kind of frustrating for him.  Hopefully he'll pick it up again soon. 










For a boy scout merit badge we had to do a family project.  Clark agreed to my idea of cleaning out some outdoor crawl spaces under the house.  They were filled with junk from the prior owner and we never got around to cleaning them out.  Like Elden's get up?  We did a little bit of yard clean-up too.  I love our trash pick-up here.  They took all the junk we left at the side of the road.  YAY!


The same day that we did the family cleaning project, I left early that morning to spend some time with my sisters Stephanie and Lois before Stephanie moved to Indiana.  Come back Steph!  We went to Ellicott City, Maryland.  It's a super cute town near where Lois lives. We enjoyed walking around, visiting shops, talking and eating!  It was super fun.  We all bought some cute things.  I bought your Father's Day present Lee.  He he he.  


Stephanie is expecting a baby boy the first part of August.  So exciting!


We ate at this yummy joint.


The food was great.  Loved the fries.  The roast beef sandwich and Au Jus dip were great.... though I realized I'm not a roast-beef-sandwich kind of girl! I do love a good Arby's sandwich though.  Go figure.


We had a lovely time.  Thanks to our awesome husbands for hanging out with the kids so we could have this time together!

Cal has also been doing a lot of drawings lately.  Love the lettuce stem inspiration!


I volunteered at the school the day before St. Patrick's Day to help with school pictures.  I should have taken a picture with Elden too, but didn't.




Saw this sign and thought it was kind of funny.  I don't drink Coke, but thought this was clever.  I'm so glad they didn't use "wifey".  I've seen that word floating around lately and can't stand it.  I told Lee to make sure to never refer to me as his "wifey".


St. Patrick's day arrived!  We all had green on in some way or another.  One of Lee's team members cut out a tiny four-leaf clover for him to wear on his shirt.  Not sure if Clark wore green....


Shanna and Haley made these fun shirts at Activity Days.  Activity Days is for girls 8-11.  They do fun crafts together, along with learning skills, teachings from the scriptures, etc.  Shanna and Haley love it.  Seems like Shanna didn't want her picture taken this particular morning.


Our last class for Financial Peace University was that night.  Lee and I got this cute arrangement for our friend Kim.  She is a member of the church where we taught Financial Peace and came every Thursday night to unlock doors and hang out while we had the class.  It was so nice of her to give up her Thursday nights!


Before class we had corned beef and cabbage.  My kids aren't too picky eaters, and actually LOVE corned beef.  There are some things they don't like, but they are old enough that if they don't want to eat the food items for dinner, they can have water for the rest of the night, nothing else.

Here we are after out last class!  Lee and I really enjoyed coordinating it, and are planning on doing so again in the Fall.  Our kids were sad it ended.  They were enjoying their mid-week movie night! Our group consisted of five couples and three young adults.  During the nine weeks of classes as a group they paid off $22,000 in debt and put $10,000 into savings! Pretty cool! Can you spot Lee's four leaf clover?


We found Haley that night asleep with her finger pointing at a word in a book.  Too cute. 

Elden Turns 7!

Wow, my baby is already 7!  Seven is my favorite number, so I'm somewhat partial to the age.  Elden requested a BB-8 cake, so I did the best I could.  It would have been awesome to have used a spherical cake pan.  But I improvised with what I had on hand.








It didn't look so bad once put together.  After sitting overnight it did sag some.  Elden still loved it though, which was the goal anyway. The night before his birthday I was feeling somewhat crummy, and even skipped out on attending our penultimate class for FPU.  Thankfully Lee headed it up.  I finally felt better around the afternoon of Elden's birthday.  And it probably was the fact that Cal prayed for me to get better while he was at school that day.  So sweet.


Here is the big birthday boy!  Elden is doing well in school and to my delight, isn't the smallest kid in class either!  It was a couple of years before Elden made the growth charts.  Not that I put much into them. But when your baby isn't even in the 5th percentile, or even 1st percentile, but negative zero-eth percentile, it was kind of nice when he could be tracked on the charts!  We are very blessed with his terrific health, good mind and kind spirit. His teachers have said a few times how Elden gets along with everyone at school, and is well behaved. Elden sometimes asks about his twin, which is sweet.  He's convinced the twin is a boy.  Maybe someday we'll find out!


Me trying to re-arrange BB-8s saggy-ness!






Elden brought popsicles to school for a treat and I met him for a little bit during his lunch.  That night our friends Mindy and Andrew came for dinner and the party.  It's been fun including them in on our kids' birthdays as they don't have any children of their own.  Elden's friend Kaden, and his family came for the party.  It was so great having them there.  Kaden's dad is into mountain biking too and he and Lee went on a ride the other week.  (Too bad on Lee's decent down he must have hit a rock or something and broke a couple things on his bike....)










The fun $2 bill from Grandma and Grandpa Bartholomew.  Elden received three books from the Frankes--we are currently reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle, a Lego set from his friend, a Lego set from us, and a Lego NexoKnight too.  Cal and Haley emptied the dishwasher for him that morning. Cal gave him some Pokemon drawings he sketched himself.  Haley bought him some treats (juice pouches and cheese puffs) and Haley bought some Pop Rocks and mega Smarties for him too.  As you can tell, Haley likes to show love by giving gifts.  I am very much the same.  I love sending packages!  Ask my siblings. Oh, and he requested a Puma lunchbox, and we delivered.  It's kind of funny, Elden knows "brand" names of things, when Clark barely learned what Nike was back in 3rd and 4th grade! Interesting how that all pans out...


Happy 7th, my sweet Elden.  Can't believe you are getting baptized next year! 

Cal, Cal & then some

Winter has drawn to an end and it's been so lovely outside lately.  I've enjoyed the mild winter!  We still have been having hot chocolate here and there.

A little while ago Elden told me that this is how Grandma Bartholomew holds her cup and he likes holding it that way too.  So funny.  I have no idea how my mom holds her mug!


I recently made some new pillow cases! I bought some down inserts from IKEA.  I just bought two because I wasn't sure how I would like the quality.  So far they been fine.  Not super plush pillows, but for ones that kids mess with all the time, maybe IKEA inserts are the best for now!


I love curling Haley's hair on Sunday.  Shanna rarely lets me.  By the time we get to church though almost all of the curl has fallen out. 


I did some curls that same Sunday too on Shanna's hair.  The following week she wouldn't let me.


The kids' passports arrived!  YAY!  We are headed to Canada this summer, and since we will need the passports in the near future (we don't necessarily need them for Canada) we went ahead and got them. 


And thankfully their birth certificates came back too!


I did a couple things with Cal this month.  First off every year the 5th graders do face masks.  Here is Cal prepping his face with vaseline. 


First his partner covered his face.  Then Cal returned the favor when he was all done.












The treated gauze hardens quite quickly--in about 3 minutes.




Another little random....I made another pillow cover....


I used a placemat from Target, just like the pillow in the photo above.  Yep, it's made from a placemat!


I thought it turned out really cute!  Here is the placemat/pillow stuffed, but not sewn up yet on the seam.


Our family attended the performance of Mary Poppins, put on by our local high school.  It was fun seeing Katie Walker's picture of Mary Poppins in the program.  Katie Walker is one of our young women at church. 


Lee here is talking with Rad Dansey, our old principal.  I've seen him a few times this school year and it's always so great to see him.  We had a terrific new principal, but I sure miss Mr. Dansey. 


The other Cal event--we made a homemade banana cream pie!  He was treat for our family home evening one night and requested pie.  I had some extra time so we made everything from scratch.  I should do more things like this with my kids, but I don't.  Glad I actually took the time this time around to show him about pie making!














Not a pretty picture of the slice, but it was so good!  I haven't had banana cream pie very much, but this was the best I've every had.  It was yummy.  Thanks Cal for being a patient learner too!