Sugar Cookies, Gingerbread, and Piano Oh My!

Tis the season to make gingerbread houses for FHE, decorate sugar cookies, and eat way too many yummy desserts!

The dessert making trio. We also had a piano recital/family home evening in there to celebrate the girls' talents. I swap teaching (this is my first time "teaching") with my friend Melanie so our kids don't end up like the piano teachers children that don't learn piano. Elizabeth had to pull out the bug eyes in every picture.

All four girls singing their song Christmas Bells.

I caught the very moment they heard it was time to eat dessert. Oh my little sweet tooth girls!

Santa Time

I have never pushed the Santa thing but here are the girls sitting on Santa's lap at our ward party Saturday.

Here's something Elizabeth wrote in school the other day relating to Santa with the interpretation in parenthesis in case you can't read 1st grader.

"deer sanu. I donte bleve (believe) in you beecus they make up the randeer (reindeer). do you rilee have randeer do you. I wot a pupee a reel ulive pupee just bun (born) and can fit in my hand and veeree veree ceoot (very very cute). crismis is my fafrit halluday (Christmas is my favorite holiday) beecus my brthday. Can you make it snoe on my brthday crismis eeve?"

I think she might be disappointed because we are definitely not going to get a puppy (don't even go there with me) and it looks like we'll have a warm Christmas for Denver without snow.

Our Christmas Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope 2010 was a good year for you. Here in the Carlsen household we are trying to become true Denver-ites enjoying nature and all the cultural aspects here. Eric and I took a cross-country ski lesson together and hiked two 14ers (mountain peaks over 14,000 ft) in one day, we camped as a family, and enjoyed plays and many museums. Our big family adventures this year included celebrating our big 1-0 anniversary by going on a cruise in January while the girls stayed with Grandma in California, going to Utah for my sister Melissa’s BYU graduation in April, a weeklong camping trip with Eric’s family to Yellowstone in July, and another trip to California in October for my sister Patricia’s wedding. We even have a new member of our household, at least for a few more months—my sister Melissa who’s going to Honduras with the Peace Corps in February.

Eric has kept busy this year with bicycling (he got a new road bike and loves it), river rafting in June, hiking a 14er with the guys in August, playing football, basketball, and being a great dad and husband at home.

Alicia I have kept busy this year with the kids and activities (now I know how some of you feel as chauffeur). I started working part-time from home for a CPA and got my enrolled agent license (basically CPA just for tax). I ran two 10Ks and a 5K this year and did a duathlon (run-bike-run). Last weekend I even tried my hand at downhill skiing and it was fun.

Elizabeth (7) makes our house full of energy. Since she is now a full-day first grader and you can tell when she comes home because the house gets energized once again. Elizabeth loves arts and crafts and started taking piano lessons (I swap teaching with a friend). She still loves being read to and right now is really into the series Magic Tree House.

Rachel (5) likes a little bit of everything. She is in preschool four days a week and absolutely loves it (hopefully the love of school continues). She likes crafts and coloring, enjoyed this year’s season of soccer that I coached, and is now in ballet. Rachel is just starting to read and it’s fun to hear her sound words out.

Evelyn (2) is getting to be a little talker. She is still our happy girl with some typical toddler tantrums thrown in. She loves to dress up and try on multiple pairs of shoes and other accessories and is a great cuddler with Aunt Melissa.

“To the American People: Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world.” ~ Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), American president. Presidential message (December 25, 1927).

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011!

The Carlsens

Our Little Artist

At what age "should" they "know better?"

The effect of Turkey

I know it's late, but we did have a great Thanksgiving. One nice thing about having family in town is you don't have to travel far for dinner, a 15 minute drive is good for us. We spent the day at Lisa's (Eric's sister) house. After eating way too much yummy food, we watched "How to Train Your Dragon" (Rachel's birthday present), played some games, and ate even more food in the form of dessert. I just love this picture of Eric and Evelyn in the after feasting festivities.

Honduras Look Out!

After an almost year long application process, my sister Melissa found out yesterday that she's going to Honduras with the Peace Corps helping with the HIV/AIDS program. Being the dutiful older (and embarrassing) sister, I took a picture of her with her letter.

We will miss you when you leave (yes even Elizabeth) but we are so excited for your adventure! Maybe Eric and I will just have to join you there for a visit.

I'm a whole hand now!

Yesterday was a special day. Rachel turned 5!

What we love about Rachel.
--She gets so excited about her birthday. She started counting down once November hit.
--She definitely has an opinion about what she wants and even picked out her own Barbie and was great about letting me wrap it and keep it in my closet until her birthday.
--She loves to dress-up and pretend play but can also get down and dirty in the great outdoors and climb everything.
--She'll still sit and color forever, making rainbow patterns and all.
--She likes to help bake.
--She likes to read the Bob books to me.
--She's a really good sister to Elizabeth and Evelyn and a great daughter.

We love you Rachel!

Christmas Project

Make The Mantel Christmas 5x7 folded card

Get custom photo Christmas cards online at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Somebody stop me...I'm out of control!

Lemon Buttermilk Chess Pie

Spice Cake

After having my manhood called into question from all the baking I think I have to admit I have a problem. Hello everyone, my name is Eric...and I have a baking problem. Even so, I haven't been gaining weight, but this week was a little tough with the snow and a bum knee, I wasn't able to do any physical activity. Beside bake that is...mmmmm.

Crack Cocaine Coated Pretzels

Supposedly they're coated in "yogurt," but I'm on to you Sprouts. There is no way these pretzels are covered in anything less addictive than crack cocaine. Seriously.

While waiting for a prescription to be filled in Albertson's I stumbled on a Southern Living special food magazine edition. The yumminess was too much to resist, this is the first creation from the magazine: Buttermilk Pumpkin Pie. It tasted good, although mostly just like a regular pumpkin pie. I'm not sure the buttermilk flavor was strong enough to really notice. But it sure looks nice :-) Mixing 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg in the whipped cream sure adds a lot too. Rest assured we will be showcasing more recipes from the magazine. Those Southerners know how to eat!

Our Japanese Halloween

No, we didn't go to Japan for Halloween but we were Japanese, complete with our own samurai! I think when it comes to Halloween, I'm a kid in a grownups body because I love to dress up and I couldn't miss out on the Japanese action and Eric, the good husband and father that he is, went along with it.

What we have to show for our pumpkin carving "creativity" this year. Eric pulled out the drill and I don't think we can go back to hand carving again.

Got worms? I don't know if others fully appreciated this one.

Wedding Bliss

This past weekend Eric got an early Christmas present in the form of a new brother-in-law, aka another person to break up the estrogen at family reunions. We went to California and saw my sister Patricia (Tricia, Trish, Mrs. Pineda--how weird does that sound!) get married to Danny Pineda. They were married in the Los Angeles LDS temple and had a reception in the beautiful backyard of Ruth Gulden. Thank you California weather for stopping your drizzling action for 24 hours so we could have an outdoor reception!

I must say, it was fabulous being the sister and not the mother of the bride with all the craziness of wedding planning--you did great mom. I know my time will come for that with 3 beautiful girls. I definitely had some fun sister time.

Getting mani/pedis

Helping at the bridal shot, having a raging bachelorette party

Attending the wedding & reception

The fabulous candy bar--my sister Theresa is a genius!Cutting the Cake
And of course decorating the car (I mean I had absolutely nothing to do with that--it was all dad).

Love my sisters and I'm so excited for Tricia's new adventure into married life!

Announcing for the first time, Mr. & Mrs. Pineda!

Following in the footsteps of their aunt

All the beautiful nieces

One of the many possible pictures for the Bartholomew family Christmas card.

Siblings
Maybe the Carlsen Christmas card?This wedding brought back memories of our special day. I can't believe it's been 10 years for Eric and me and we still like each other :)

Where's the Fire?

Friday we went to the Denver Firefighter Museum and learned how to stop, drop, and roll! The girls looked really cute dressed up as firefighters!

Take me out to the Ball Game 2

Even though the Rockies aren't in series playoff contention anymore, we still went to their game against the Dodgers Monday night, hey it was free. You could say our allegiance flip-flopped to whoever won the game (Dodgers in this case). Since we grew up in the LA area and went to many a Mormon night for the Dodgers (famous for Dodger dogs) and now our home team is the Rockies it didn't really matter who won. I must say, baseball is a pretty boring game. It's more fun to people watch at the games than watch a bunch of guys standing around waiting for someone to hit the ball. It's also a good place to teach your daughter about beer and how it's bad and addictive.

For the girls, baseball games are all about the cotton candy.