Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the...

Gingerbread man time! Every year we try and decorate these cute little guys. The funny thing is no one really likes gingerbread. We all take a bite, maybe 2, eat the candy off of it, lick the frosting, and throw the rest away. (luckily I made the frosting so it was DE-LICIOUS) Oh well, I guess it's all about the experience.

 

Feeling Nostalgic

This week Noah turned 10. I got a letter in the mail from my Stake President giving me Adam's baptism date. I  started teaching Seth how to read. I set up Joshies 2 year well child check...I am feeling nostalgic. I thought I would go one step further with Noah's birthday post and show some pictures of him as he has grown up. It took me 2 days, but I sifted through every picture I ever saved over his 10 years. "sigh" it really does go by so fast...

This is Noah's brand new baby picture at the hospital. He was an adorable baby who loved to eat and hated to sleep. Not much has changed today.

When Noah was 1 he loved to play with cars and trains. His 2 absolute favorite things in the whole world were his binky and his mom. He never left home without them.

I just like this picture. He is still 1 in this one.

This is his 2nd birthday. He really loved Thomas and Bob the Builder. He was speaking full sentences and singing a lot of basketball John. Anyone remember this song? From the Jazz? He loved it!

For his 3rd birthday he was already into soccer. I just can't get over how much hair he has! Still to this day he has so much. I don't hink he will ever go bald. This picture was taken before he bit through his lip so he has his beautiful mouth before the scar plagues him.

This is him at Christmas time at 4 years old. He was in pre-school doing so well. He loved to play legos, and still addicted to sports of any kind. He started playing on his first soccer team that spring.

This is his 5th birthday. He was into star wars and video games at this point in life. I want to apologize for the hair do, but i can't. If you know Noah at all you know that he did his hair (and everything else in his life) the way he wanted to. I have no say. This hair-do is all his!

For his 6th birthday we went to chuck-e-cheese. Noah still loves food, star wars, video games, soccer and is starting to get into baseball, but can't play yet.

He is 7. I can't believe it. He is into hot wheels, and Utah Football!

He finally turned 8 and got baptized this year. He is really getting good at soccer and getting awesome grades in school. We moved to our brand new house in Centerville and he is making a lot of new friends.

His 9th birthday pictures kind of stink, you can probably tell by the one I chose. Noah played on his first baseball team this year and made all-stars. He won multiple awards and trophies for playing chess in tournaments on the chess club.

Here he is the big 10. He is such a handsome boy. I wonder what the next 10 years hold for him.

Double Digits

Yesterday my oldest son, Noah, turned double digits. He is officially 10. We had a fun day planned for him and everything ran smoothly. I asked him a couple of weeks ago, check that, I told him a couple of weeks ago that I refused to make a cake that had anything to do with football, baseball, basketball, or soccer. There weren't going to be any fields or courts of any kind on the cake. I am tired of doing this because it has been every birthday for all of them for their whole lives. So, I told him I was making a monster cake.

 He had to go to school so I took some Costco cream puffs to school for him to share with his class. After school we opened presents and picked up a couple of his friends. When Ben got home we went to Chuck-A-Rama and in true Chuck fashion stuffed our faces! Then we took the kids to jump, slide, dive, slip, and play dodge ball at Get Air. We bounced the night away and came home to eat cake and ice cream then called it a night.

I am so grateful to have Noah in my life. He is not only my first born, but my favorite Noah in the whole world. He is kind, thoughtful, smart, fun, athletic, and loves everyone. He has a testimony of Jesus Christ and knows that he wants to be a good person. What more can you ask in a son? I love you Noah! Happy Birthday!

It's been a while

I haven't bought gas with my Smiths card for a while. When I went to fill up my tank today I had a $1.30 off per gallon reward. It made my gas very, very cheap. When's the last time you've seen gas at this price? I say again, it's been a while.

Festival of trees

Every year around August I get a call or text from my sister Carina asking me if I want to help with a tree for festival of trees. Carina has been involved with the festival for a long time, but for the past couple of years my mom and sisters and I have decorated a tree and dedicated it to my mom. She is the strongest, most lovely, selfless, brave and wonderful woman I know. I am so proud to call her my mother and I like to call her Moner every once in a while. She fought a good fight and beat cancer. She is currently cancer free. My whole family is so grateful to have her in our lives. So, we take the opportunity to celebrate her life, and support her in her battle every year by dedicating a tree to her. 

This year Carina thought, and we all agreed, to try our hand at a wreath. After some research we decided that the next big thing in wreaths was to make them with tulle. So, we went with it and made a wreath with tulle and named it "just tulle-in' around". (My dad came up with the name...who needs college). Anyway, it was a great time creating this wreath. It sold for more than we thought, which is great for the Children's Hospital.
The best part of the whole experience was setting up the wreath. When we got there we had 2 planter boxes for our 2 small Christmas trees. We got put in a space with a tall, skinny door. Not nearly enough space for our wreath and planter boxes. So, Steph and I proceeded to move the doors next to us over so we could have more space. As we moved them the metal stands that the doors were stabilized on scraped on the floor and made a horrific screeching noise. It sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard times 100. Plus, it was amplified by the fact that we were in a huge echoing building. We figured first come first serve, right? We were laughing so hard we nearly wet ourselves. Maybe you had to be there.
Anyway, I love you mom. I look forward to creating many, many more trees/wreaths, and memories over the years with you.

 

An evening out

Last month Ben went out of town for a week and towards the end of the week I was spent so I took all the boys out to Chili's for dinner. I saw it as a fun night out to get away from the daily grind. No cooking. No clean up after dinner. The boys picked what they ate so no whining about what we were eating. I really enjoyed dinner.
I had 3 people comment on how brave I was to bring ALL of my boys out in public. I didn't feel brave. I felt relaxed, relieved, and happy. Funny how perspective can do that to people. What seems an insurmountable task to one is doable to another. It was a fun night out with my cutest ever boys!

Once in a lifetime

I am a lot behind in my blogging posts this year. Because my husband prints my blog in a book every Christmas for me I am going to ask him for an extension so it won't be printed until next year so I can catch up. My goal is to post a new entry followed by an old one. Hopefully, by the end of the year I am completely caught up and ready to tackle next year! Wish me luck!


As many of you may know when Ben and I were newly married he told me of a dream of his to run for and become the Governor of Utah. At first this was a silly dream to me as I am not much into politics. However, after looking more closly at the gig I realized if Ben is the Governor I get to live in the Governors mansion. I then latched onto that dream and made one of my own.

A few weeks ago Ben got an invitation in the mail to have dinner with the Governor, at the mansion. It was for everyone who helped out in his re-election efforts. Ben helped him out in the initial stages of his campaign until the convention then dropped out. Anyway, we...the Horsley's were going to eat dinner in the mansion with the Governor. It wasn't the same as living there, but it was beautiful none the less. Adam and Seth and I counted 5 Christmas trees, 3 kitchens, 2 studies, 3 stories (there may have been a basement, but we weren't allowed to go see), 1 beautiful staircase, and 1 ballroom. We only got to see about 1/3 of the house. As I walked around the mansion I was snooping into the kitchen and Governor Herbert came down a back staircase that was blocked off and caught me. We exchanged pleasantries and I apologized for intruding. Little does he know it will all be mine someday...(maniacal laugh!) It was a lovely evening and a once in a lifetime opportunity. Here's a picture of my cute family on the staircase. A nice man who couldn't figure out Ben's phone took the photo so sorry it's blurry, but documentation none the less.(Noah isn't with us. He chose to go to basketball practice instead of hanging at the mansion with us.) He's lame!

Fall spoils

This year I was lucky enough to be able to grow a garden. My neighbor let me plant in his plot. He also gave me access to his two peach trees and his grape vines. I tell ya, this fall has been busy but so much good stuff to eat!

Tooth fairy time again

Adam hasn't lost any teeth since kindergarten. He's had this loose tooth wiggling around for almost a month. Finally, last week he was watching a movie and started wiggling it with his finger and pulled it out! He was so excited! He put it under his pillow and got a couple bucks. It's amazing how long it took him to lose another tooth. Almost 2 years. Someone told me that kids lose their teeth in the same order and time frame they grow them as babies. I don't know if that's true, but he did take a while longer than Noah to get teeth. Here's a picture because I just love this picture! He's so gorgeous with or without teeth!

Adam, Adam, Bo Badam

FYI-This post was written over a month ago when it was Adams belated birthday. Now that his birthday was three months ago and super belated I am feeling ready to post it. Here we go...

So, here I sit with a second child who is 7 years old. What can I say about Adam. He is one in a million. Adam brings much joy to my life and he is a wonderful big brother to Josh. He loves to help with the baby, who is mot much of s baby any more. He is very smart and did very well in the first grade, and starts out awesome in the second. He loves legos, drawing, being dramatic, teasing Seth, and sleeping. He is so clever, and funny and makes me laugh every day. I love him so much, and look forward to seeing what he will accomplish this year, and see who he will become as he gets older. Here are a few highlights of Adam's 7th birthday.

 

Mud Flaps Rule!

This past Saturday I did something that goes against all my standards of cleanliness. I participated in a mud run. I'm not sure how long they have been around, but this is the first year I have heard of it. So, without hesitation I signed up. They set it up at the Throttle 215 motor cross park in Rose Park. The track was already there, they just muddied it up. I spent the morning wading, jumping into and over, trudging threw, slipping in, swinging over, crawling through, splashing down in and throwing a lot of mud. It was hilarious fun. Although I loved making fun of the relay teams that were super intense, and in it to win it, I think my favorite part of the race was killing it on the monkey bars. Not once, twice, thrice, but four times. I was amazed! I haven't done monkey bars since middle school. Probably because I haven't seen any that are taller than me, but it was still amazing. I ran the 3 member relay race with Stephanie and Janae. We had a mud in places mud should never be. Good times! I will definitely do it again next year.

Before the madness

After the madness

I'm just starting my first lap. Not looking too dirty yet.

My favorite obstacle was crawling under the chicken wire. This is Janae doing it!

Wading in the bog

The giant mud slide where I drank a lot of muddy water. YUCK!

Heidi Rocking the monkey bars

Getting muddy

 

My two biggest fans

The boys battling while I was playing in the mud

Seth waiting for his turn

Seth, where's your shoes?

Oh, they're stuck in the mud!

Summer in thirds-part 1 of 3

I'm sure this is happening to all of you as well. The summer has flown by so far. The middle will begin to get slower, and then the last third will seem to never end. School will not get here fast enough, I am sure of it! However, The summer is 1/3 over and I think we have crammed in some pretty fun stuff.
First of all, baseball season ended and both boys teams had horrible seasons. However, Adams team fought back in the tournament and ended up in third place. It was really fun to see him succeed. He likes baseball because it isn't a full contact sport. He doesn't like being pushed around so he excels at it. Noah tried out for and made the Centerville B all-stars team. The most exciting thing for him was he got his first jersey with his name on it! 

  

 We've already had many lemonade stands so the boys can earn a little spending money. We live on a road where a lot of people walk/bike/run/and drive by, so they do pretty well. My favorite moment was when the boys were selling lemonade and otter pops and this huge water/crane type truck pulls up and stops in the middle of the road. Other cars were having to drive around this huge truck. I couldn't help but get my camera and take a picture of Noah stretching as tall as he could get to give this huge guy his pink and green otter pops. It was so cute. 

 Adam turned 7...I will make a post just for that later. His birthday lasted all week, and we did a lot of fun stuff.

My volleyball team landed in last place at the end of our session. We only won one game the entire session. We entered the tournament in dead last. We were at the bottom. Do you understand what I am trying to say? We didn't do well. We  played our hearts out in the tournament, and miraculously we ended up playing in the final match to win the whole thing. Just kidding this is life, not Hollywood. We lost, but it was so fun to actually fight our way back. Yeah! That was my "go mom" moment.

We went to my first REAL game. The boys have all been before, but not me. It was crazy loud and more fun for me to watch all the fans than the game, but that's how I roll. I'm a people watcher.

 

I hit a home run in out stake softball tournament!

Ben turned dum, dum, dum...35! AHHHHHHH! Ain't he cute!

Carly got baptized.

Couple of camp outs. I will post them later because there are a lot of photos. 

Anyway, you get it, we've been having fun! I will report on the second third after it has happened. Hope your summer has been fun for the first third as well!