Happy Birthday Daddy!

 The boys were more excited for Darin's birthday than Darin!  We baked a cake, made cards, decorated with streamers and ballons.  Kenny declared it "The best party ever".  Darin and I weren't so sure about that:-)  But we did have a fun evening together.  I was just happy the cake turned out (high altitude baking doesn't seem to be my forte:-(

Father-Son Bonding

It was beautiful here over the weekend, so Darin decided to touch up the paint on the chairs we hauled back from the old Tiger's stadium.  We can't wait to reassemble the two chairs and mount them back by our fire pit!

The Bolthouse Lumberjacks

Where do they come up with this stuff?  No lack of imagination in this house!:-)

Beautiful Day = Boys at Play

Our buddy Ian came over to enjoy the beautiful day.  The boys lived in the yard, shoveling snow into the blow-up pool before moving on to the sand box and trampoline.  We LOVE Colorado winters:-)

Our little recyclers

We got home from an afternoon park play and the boys were laser-beam-focused on raiding the recycling bin and creating.  They used half a roll of tape, which was well worth me having some peace and quiet while prepping dinner:-)

Super Heroes Hungry Hippo Challenge

 John's Superman Stance is quite impressive!? 

 The three superheroes playing Hungry Hippos.  They LOVE this game, but there's always controversy with rule following:-)

 Jacob (aka Spiderman) wasn't too into posing.  His moves are best captured on video!

Sunday Morning Superheroes!

Clean-up Time!

If they were yellow, I would swear they were minions!  (from the movie Despicable Me:-)

Winter Fun!

Home Sweet Home

We had a trying drive back from Michigan, through snow, and sick with a nasty virus.  We were so thankful to stop off at my parents for a day of recovery while they entertained the boys!  The final trek to Colorado was much easier!  Now we're home sweet home enjoying all the Christmas presents.  John was the only one willing to wear the art smock.  Jacob would rather show off his chest:-)

 The boys used paints from Grandma & Grandpa Erb to paint face pictures from Todd & Deanna.

We were all teasing John that his guy was bloody!

Christmas Eve in Michigan

 We made it safely to Michigan and didn't waste any time getting to the good stuff:-)  The boys had a ball opening all the gifts from Grandma Bolthouse, Uncle Brad, and Uncle Todd & Aunt Deanna.

 The new toys kept them busy for the rest of our week in Michigan!

We spent Christmas Eve and Great Aunt Kathy's house with the rest of the Gronda clan.  It's always a fun party...the boys especially liked it this year...they were trolling around for sweets the whole time!

An Early Christmas in Iowa!

We stopped in Iowa for a couple of days on our trek to Michigan.  It was fun to be able to celebrate Christmas in person with my family:-)

 Grandma & Grandpa Erb had yummy food to make it festive, and lots of presents to spoil us!

 This Spiderman car & action figure were a favorite...all three boys fought over it:-(

 Another favorite was a cash register with lots of pretend money:-)

Great Grandma & Grandpa Erb spoiled us some more.  While the presents were wonderful, the time with our precious family was the best gift of all, and one that will be with us the rest of our lives:-).

Kenny's PreSchool Christmas

 Words can not describe the drama that was this day!  Kenny and Mommy had differing views on appropriate attire for the Christmas party (Mommy won!).  But Kenny put up quite the fight....which was only reignited when we arrived at school and his best friend (Preston-pictured above) was wearing jeans:-(  Kenny managed a couple of smiles!

 The class sang three songs for the parents before the party started.  After the first song, Jacob tried to help himself to the donuts.  I explained there were three songs and the food would be after the songs.  He very loudly checked with me after each song....oh Jacob:-)

The Bolthouse boys enjoying the party food (notice the J's are wearing button-down collared shirts.  I changed them into these "party" shirts to make Kenny feel better about his attire.  Oh my....I'm tired just thinking back to that morning.