Merry Christmas to the Horsleys!

This year was one of the best Christmases that we have ever had. We enjoyed the 3 days of Christmas with family. Christmas Adam with Ben's family was very good. Ben's mom worked really hard to make it a great evening. She planned a great meal, a luminary activity, 12 days of Christmas, and gifts for everyone. It was a great night.

We always go to my parents house for Christmas Eve for our "Festival of Foods" which we did this year. It was the best food we have had in a long time. We had crepes (sweet and savory), Chicken Tiki Masala, Southwestern Eggrolls, Sushi, Summer sausage with cheese and crackers, Brazilian cheese balls, and so many other yummy things. Ben even made homemade Lasagna with pork and bacon sausage. It was really good, I will admit I was surprised. Let's just say, he doesn't cook much. We usually spend the night so my parents can watch the kids in the morning, but as not to overwhelm my poor mom this year we went home. Christmas morning with just us was great! I really enjoyed just doing our own thing. 

Adam got a turtle and named him Melman...although we still don't know if it's a boy or girl.

Noah woke Ben and I up at 7, but none of the other kids were awake so we took him down by himself. This is him and I waiting for Ben to get the camera ready.

Jo Jo loved all the toys, boxes, wrapping paper, and bows everywhere. He was so busy all day long because we didn't clean any of it up.

Noah and his stash!

Seth with his loot!

My favorite gift was this book. Ben took my blog and printed it in a book for me. It was wonderful!

Jo Jo got a blow up car ball pit toy. Everyone is loving it!

I didn't think I would enjoy going to church on Christmas, but it added something special to the day. We are so blessed, and it was a great day to celebrate our Savior's birth and remember all that he has done for and given us.

To poo or not to poo? That is the question.

As all you moms out there know potty training is a hard time of life on a kid and a mom. Mostly the mom, because it's one thing that you have absolutely no control of. You can provide stickers, charts, candy, promises of toys, and dinners out, visits to parks, play lands, grandmas house, the list goes on and on, but you cannot do it for them.

For the kid because I can only imagine they are thinking, "you want me to what?" "I don't think so mom." "That just confirms that you are crazy mom."

After working with Seth off and on for about 4 months I think he's got it! For the past 2 weeks he has consistently used the bathroom by himself. I rarely have to ask him, "do you have to go potty?". I haven't cleaned up any messes, and I don't hesitate to take him to the store, a restaurant, or anyone Else's house. By George, I think he's got it!

Now I am going to post a picture that Seth made me send to Ben last week because he was so proud of himself. Don't be offended.

Noah...my 9 year old

No one would ever believe that Noah is 9, but he is. He was so excited for his birthday party. Of course he chose to have his friends over and play football out in the freezing cold. If you can believe he asked me if he could play barefoot because he gets better traction. My answer was simply, "uh......NO!" Ben was a great sport and played with them. Then they ate pizza.

opened presents

played a trivia game to see how much his friends knew about him

had cake and ice-cream

Brock, Kelby, Cole in the back

Adam, Stanton, Noah, Jacob, and Ethan in the front

and played more football. The highlights of the evening were 3 of his friends gave him a football. 

It was funny to me that his friends all know what he needed. His old one was in pretty bad shape. I made a cake that looked like a pokeball. It was not my best work, but good enough for my gracious son. 
I am so grateful to have Noah as my son these past 9 years. I can remember when he was born. I love how kind and thoughtful he is. Especially towards me. He always observes my moods and is the first to ask, "are you okay mom?" He is an awesome student, a great friend, and a wonderful big brother. He just adores his little brothers. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH! We love you so much!


p.s. sorry some of the pictures are fuzzy, it was really hard to get all these boys to hold still for a picture.

Family photos 2011

We had new family photos taken this past couple of weeks. I felt really bad because Josh hasn't had professional pictures taken since he was 2 days old. Now that he is almost a year old I felt it has been long enough. It is so hard to keep up with that 4th child. I hear people say that all the time, but it is so true. The more kids you have the less pictures you take, scrapbooks you make, new clothes and toys you buy, new recipes you try, nice decor you buy for your house, restaurants you go to without a play-land, and and what was I talking about. Loss of memory goes with it too. Here they are.

 

Introducing...Seth's best friend

On September 7, 2011 Seth turned three. He asked for a kitty for his birthday. We found him this cute kitten and for the past 6 weeks she has gone without a name. When Seth was asked what he wanted to name her he would say jello. Ben wanted to go the sarcastic route and name her spot, and of course Adam and Noah come up with the classic white pet names like snowball, and ghost. I am happy to say that last night we finally decided on a name for the kitten. Seth always calls her Kitty Cat so we shortened it and named her; 
Drum roll please........KC (Kitty Cat)

 

Seth loves the stuffing out of her!

Josh is 7 months old in this video. Seth was hitting the table with his hands and for whatever reason Josh thought it was hilarious. I love baby laughter.

Number 3 turns 3

Seth is my third child. He in turn gets left in the dust when it comes to pictures and blog posts. I have yet to get professional pictures taken of him since he was about 9 months old. Yeah, I know, boo hoo for him. Well, he turned 3 last week and of course my post is coming in late. For the past month I have been asking him what he wants to do for his birthday and every time he says in his cute little way, "wanna go ta shuckee sheesh mom." When I ask him what kind of cake he wants he says, "shoclat." When I ask what he wants on his cake, meaning how he wants it decorated, he says,"shocolat." So, with grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and brothers in tow we went to shuckee sheesh with our shoclat cake.

Seth is such a light in our lives. He makes me laugh every day. Even harder than Ben could make me laugh sometimes. (That's saying a lot because Ben is a self proclaimed comedian.) Seth is so happy and loving. Happy birthday buddy! We love you!

First day of school

Ready, Set, Go! Here it is again, first day of school. Adam is in 1st grade and Noah is in 3rd grade. I can't believe it at all. It is amazing to me how fast summer went by. They both rode their bikes to school and had a pretty good day. Hopefully the rest of the year can be good too.

What do you think?

Should I be mad when Adam says to me, "Our baby Josh is so damn cute!"

Where have I been?

Clearly I have been missing in action for a while. It all started with the beginning of summer. Then my computer broke. Then my camera broke so I started taking pictures with my phone but didn't know how to get the pictures off my phone. BTW I still don't know how to get them off so there aren't going to be any pictures with this post. I will figure it out soon so I can get some pictures up. Wow, then followed by a broken foot and 6 weeks off my foot. I am just trying to stay afloat so there hasn't been much blogging.
With that said I am going to attempt to catch back up. This summer was filled with lonely Lagoon passes, unpunched Classic skating dollar days passes, cancelled vacation plans, unscheduled sleepovers, good intentions and 2 camping trips that actually did happen. Due to my broken foot summer has been a trial, but here we are back to school. With a lot of help I got my school shopping done and the boys are good to go.
We were able to get some camping trips in this summer which the kids enjoyed. The kids got to go to Classic and swim a few times with Bens sister. Ben took them to Lagoon a couple of times. Other than that I sat around with kids sitting around with me.


I am still just sitting around...waiting for my foot to heal.

More to come soon!

Adam is 6

After having a broken camera and computer I am going to spend the next few posts to catch up on missed events.

Adam turned 6 on June 19th and we went to Classic with one of his friends and his brothers. We skated, jumped on the bounce houses, and played on the Pirates Cove. His birthday cake was the 3 dinosaur eggs off of Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Shelly, Eggbert, and Yoko. He had a great time, and is excited to be 6.

Josh is 4 months-He's actually 5 months old now-This Never got posted....OOPS!

Time flies when you're babies are growing. He is 4 months old now. He is doing really well and sleeping anywhere from 6-8 hours at night. He loves to laugh at his brothers, Adam in particular, and here are his stats from his well child check.

Weight: 16lbs 7ounces or the 75%
Height: 26 1/2 inches or the 90th%
Head: 17 1/2 inches or the 90th%

In true Horsley boy form he is getting chubby, but no one expected the huge jump in height. We may just be working towards that baskeball team after all.

Mow, Mow, Mow the lawn

Isn't it great when the grass starts to grow and turn green in the springtime. I  love it when people start mowing the lawn and you can smell the fresh cut grass in the air. Because we came from the condo where all our yard care was taken care of for us we don't have all the fun tools that you need to maintain a yard. So, Ben took some money and bought a gaggle of tools so we can. Noah is now mowing the lawn, and he loves it. It is crazy to me how grown up he is. I think that Ben is going to teach him how to use the edger next. Watch out!

Flashback

I am a little late, but here is my flashback to Easter weekend. Here are some pictures of our Easter. We had a great weekend participating in multiple easter egg hunts. We had Easter dinner with my parents and a bunch of cousins. Noahs friend Ethan's mom had an easter egg hunt in their back yard with grass that was at least 12 inches long. I'm pretty sure they will shoot some egg pieces and candy out of their lawn mower when they mow. It was a fun weekend!

The Voice Baby, The Voice

I am a bit of a weirdo but I absolutely LOVE realtiy shows. My latest addiction is the Voice. Over the years I have predicted with great accuracy the winners of many reality shows. So accuratly that Ben says, "if I were a bettin' man I would bet on your predictions." So, just for fun I am going to predict who I think will take it all on "The Voice". I will follow my predicted contestant through the journey of the show and we will see how I/they do. Hopefully in the end coming up a winner. Here is the link to his audition clip for my guy, Javier. He is amazing and I think he will take it all.

http://youtu.be/tTUvxHf9g3U

Young Astronauts

This year at school Noah joined a group called Young Astronauts. They had lots of afterschool activities and meetings where they learned about NASA, outer space, rockets and stars. They took a few field trips to places like Hill Aerospace Museum, Hansen
Planetarium, and space camp. He really enjoyed it. To end the year they have an awards ceremony and give each student a certificate for completing all the requirements to be a jr. ranger. Then they shoot off the rockets they have been working hard to build. It was really fun.

Here is a video of his rocket launch...

Lunch with Grandma

Is there anything more nostalgic than walking into an Elementary School Cafeteria and being blanketed by the aroma of cafeteria food. I used to love lunch time at school. I usually brought a home lunch, but as a kid I loved to buy school lunch when I could. That may seem strange, but it was a real treat for me. The boys school hosted a Grandparents lunch day a few weeks ago and wanted to post it. Grandma Leta came and ate with us. Thanks for sharing this day in our lives with us.