to tell you the honest truth

christmas '08

The boys were awake at 5:20, but I held them off until 6:00.  During this time, I helped Taylor finish his homemade heatpacks for his brothers.  He is such a thoughtful person.  The boys were so excited and hoped to get a new memory card for their game cube.  Instead, they were surprised to get a Wii!  Pete and I had no idea how cool this system is.  I am thinking of getting Wii Fitness after the baby is born!  The biggest surprise was the dirtbike though, something the boys and Pete have been talking about for about 5 years.  So far they are taking turns getting rides from Pete.  It will take some time and instruction for Caleb and Taylor to be able to ride on their own.  Isaac and Austin both got new scooters.  Austin also got his first bike and Isaac got some rollerskates.  He's been wanting some for awhile.  :)

Caleb and Taylor on the Honda XR 80. 

Taylor playing Wii Sports...I think he is boxing. 



Austin with his Spiderman Jet!



Isaac with his rollerskates on!



Pete also surprised me well, even though I told him not to because I am spending extra on the baby's room.  He's a very sweet hubby that way. 

Although we had so much fun with the presents this year, I think one of my favorite things about Christmas this year is that Austin keeps talking about the "new big star in the sky" that appeared when baby Jesus was born.  It is amazing what things they remember and what means the most.  With the older ones, it is nice to see their faith and testimony of the Savior increase as we talk about the true meaning of Christmas.  It is a magical time of year when the Spirit of Christmas is in our homes.  Pete explained to the boys that if you take off the "m-a-s",  you are left with the "Spirit of Christ". 

Here are some snow highlights:

Austin inspecting the snow on his mittens.


















Austin wasn't too happy after his super fast sled ride with Dad!




Taylor trimmed bushes out of the way for a sledding path!



My little stud.



Caleb is such a sweet older brother, helping Austin get ready to sled.



Having a blast!



Pete and Isaac crashed. 



Caleb and Austin.

  

I had such great intentions with treat making this year, however with my growing belly, some days are just not good.  I seemed to be able to have enough strength for standing for making one treat at a time and by the time I felt good for more treat making, my other ones would be being eaten and acquiring that "day old" taste.  I also kept forgetting an ingredient or the store would be out of something or the snow just kept us indoors.  Anyway, not too successful giving away treats even though I actually made things a few different times.  We managed to share a couple plates and I did take a picture of my dipped pretzels!

We also took NO PICTURES of our evening with Jeff and Julie and their kiddies the day after Christmas.  We feasted on Cheddar Potato Soup, Spinach Cranberry Salad, Cheese Fondue, Spinach dip and Chocolate Fondue for dessert!  This was so much fun!  The boys (big and little) all got crazy with the Nerf guns as Julie and I chatted while doing a little crafting.  We are good at tuning out noise.  :)  A fantabulous evening!!!

Here's also another craft I did this season:

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!  (Sorry for the super long post!)

'twas the night before christmas....

This cute tag image was created by Tanya Whelan, a favorite fabric designer, of Grand Revival.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with Paul and Kerri and wished we could have spent more time visiting.  Dinner was fabulous, the treats were plentiful, the kids decorated gingerbread cookies and we opened gifts.  If you want to see more, Kerri took lots of pictures.

Our tradition on Christmas Eve is to open new jammies and read the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible.  This year it was slightly different because this month we have been following a scripture advent from The Friend Magazine, a children's spiritual magazine put out by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It began at Jesus' birth and has gone through his life, in chronological order, telling the stories of the miracles he performed, his death, his resurrection, his visit to the America's and even Joseph Smith's experience of witnessing God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.  Our family has enjoyed doing this so much, and the boys have been so interested and attentive learning more about Jesus.  The scripture passages were relatively short, not taking more than 5-10 minutes each.  Some nights we would miss reading, so we would have a little catching up to do, and it still didn't take more than 20 minutes.  We would just do as much as the youngest ones were cooperating for.  We noticed that as it became more of an expected routine, the more reverent even the little ones were during the readings.  We still have tonight's scripture to read.  A great thing to do at anytime of the year.

join us!

First of all, I must confess....I have never been very good at serving others.  It really has been a weakness of mine, for reasons I won't get into.  It has been, however, something I have always wanted to get better at and have pondered about many times.  Lately, I had been thinking about it again when my October Ensign (church magazine) arrived.  The cover story is titled "Service in the Community".  In the article, members of the church from various locations share the ways they have served in their communities.  Some are in small ways, others in bigger ways.  The point is, it doesn't matter how, it is just that you take the time to do something nice or helpful. 

I decided we needed to take some drastic measures here in the Horsley home, as far as service goes.  I talked to Pete and he agreed, and we made October our month of doing service.  Maybe it seems like a  normal thing to some, but for us this is, unfortunately, new.  After deciding this, I have had 4 people from church come by with treats, flowers, baby clothes, and kind words or offered assistance to us when we were in a bind.  Is this a confirmation of my feelings or what?  One of the days, Austin was asking for cookies and I told him we didn't have any cookies today.  About an hour later we received some delicious pumpkin cookies at our door!  Anyway, these efforts made by somebody else, in our family's behalf, has been very helpful to me.  It has gotten our family out the door with some goodies of our own to deliver.  I am so thankful for this! 

Last night we took out our first couple deliveries of cookies and candies, with each of the kids doing something to get our boxes ready to go.  We decided we will be doing something every week this month.  We have talked about some different ideas with our kids and they have helped decide who to take things to.  Pete and I talked on the way home from our deliveries about how much this can teach the kids.  We think it is a great way to get to know people.  A lot of times at church, we only have time to say hi as we walk by each other in the hall, but chatting to someone on their doorstep for 5 or 10 minutes creates a different kind of connection, for the whole family.  We noticed how it helped our kids be patient and kind and use manners when we were at someone's door.  Doing this in the evening was a great way to end the day because it was a positive experience and it calmed everyone down for bed. 

One thing we plan to do is join Pacific Fabrics in making and donating handmade hats and scarves to those in need in our community.  I wanted to make sure everyone knows because I think this will be such a fun family activity that I know a lot of you would enjoy doing.  They do have flyers at Pacific Fabrics, but here's the info: 

October 1st - November 5th Donate hats and scarves that have been knitted, crocheted or sewn from fleece fabric.  The goal is for 1000 hats and scarves!  They ask that you keep in mind that most homeless people are men when choosing your colors.  They do have a free instructions for making fleece hats in all sizes though.  You take your things to the Pacific Fabrics near you. (For Puget Sounders).  

Normally, I wouldn't feel comfortable telling other people about "the nice thing I did", it could seem braggy or showy.  The reason I am posting about it though is because when I have read about what someone else has done to be serviceable, it makes an impression on me.  Even if I am slow to respond.  Hopefully, someone out there will want to do something nice this month too!

I would love to hear what you do because I need some ideas!  :)  In the Book of Mormon, it says "by small and simple things, great things are brought to pass". (Alma 37:6)       

the little things

(*Small Edit*  I just added a baseball picture of Pete and Taylor I forgot about when I first did my post!) 

Isn't it the little things that make up life's big things?  We have been trying to focus more on those little things that really do make life better.  It is strange when your kids get older and suddenly they are more aware of the life around them and also that as a parent, you are more aware that they are more aware!!  That can be a scary thought!! 

Family Home Evening is something that our religion highly encourages us to do.  Typically to be held on Monday evenings, but of course, any night that the whole family can get together is perfectly fine.  We are encouraged to spend time teaching our children values and also doing activities that build family unity.  My friend recently did a post about something their family did for fun on a FHE night....building structures out of marshmallows and toothpicks! (thanks for the idea, Jodi!)  My kids loved it and want to do it again!  We still opened with a prayer and a song and then just had fun building.  Austin was hilarious putting bazillions of toothpicks in his marshmallow person that he stole from me...it looked like an abominal (sp?) porcupine.   Here is just a sampling of our works of art!  This is a great activity for all you people with little ones and don't know what to do.  (big people like it too!)

about fifty more toothpicks were added to Austin's creation above!

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Last week I caught some pictures of a little baseball action in the street.  I loved how Austin knew just exactly how he was suppose to stand when holding a bat!  I love his little fishy pants too!

Gordon B. Hinkley Tribute

My friend posted this video on her blog and I just love it.  It is just a few minutes and plays a song by Josh Groban, which makes it all the more perfect!  We watched it for part of our Family Home Evening last night and I know some of you will really enjoy it.  And surely get you teary.  Thanks Cammie!  :)

Watch Gordon B. Hinkley video

the origin of Christmas

Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus

Last night we had a lot of fun making nativity people for Taylor's school presentation.  We were totally amazed that the public school would even offer this as a suggestion for a holiday report.  They had a number of different ideas, one of them being The Origin of Christmas.  Taylor wanted to do this one so he could tell everyone the true meaning of Christmas...(the sweet side of Taylor).  He also wanted to inform everyone that there was no such thing as Santa...(the not so sweet side of Taylor).  I explained to him that we need to be respectful of how other people celebrate Christmas and not ruin the traditions that others have in their family.  We do not, in any way, whenever possible, encourage our children to believe in Santa.  To me, it feels like I am telling them a lie so I am very uncomfortable pretending he is real.  Isaac has been asking about Santa and I reply by telling him that some people believe in Santa.  If he is talking about Santa, we just listen.  Taylor is very logical about the whole thing and also figures that kids who don't get a whole lot for Christmas because they are poor, just think that Santa doesn't care about them and that is unfair to them. My mom said that she told us that Santa wasn't real when we were young, but I don't remember that.  I still had fun as a kid "believing in Santa" or that we "heard reindeer on the roof".  I think a kid believes what they want to believe.  I told Caleb when he was about 3 1/2 that there was no Santa and just about a week ago he was telling me that last year he still believed that Santa was real.  Go figure.  One story real quick... The year Caleb was 3 we told him there was no Santa and taught him that we have Christmas because that is when baby Jesus was born.  We read lots of stories about Jesus and really focused on it.  I will never forget Christmas morning when Caleb came into our room and I said "Caleb, do you know what day it is?"  He said "Yes, Christmas" and I said, "Do you know what is downstairs?"  His eyes got really big and he said with the brightest happy face..."Baby Jesus".  That experience continues to remind me to keep teaching my kids about the real reason we celebrate Christmas and to keep perspective when we want to get wrapped up in the commercialized version of Christmas.  Heck, who says shopping isn't fun?!  We all love seeing our kids be excited about presents under the tree.  All in all, I don't understand the point in making such a big deal out of a make believe person instead of making a big deal out of the person that IS real.  We choose to make a bigger deal out of Jesus than Santa.  We still enjoy traditional Christmas songs and enjoy the fun parts of the Christmas season just like everybody else, we just try to focus on the real reason we have Christmas.  Anyway, here are some pictures of the making of the nativity people.  Taylor is also taking in peppermint bark for a treat after his presentation.  YUM!

We all had a little giggle about the way Caleb accidentally drew the eyes on this mad looking angel.  Even Caleb laughed so it was okay.

The Three Wiseman

Now this is King Herod, who is not part of the Christmas Nativity Scene, but Isaac has recently learned at church about how King Herod wanted to kill the baby Jesus, because he was a "gelous (jealous) king". (Isaac can't say his "j" sound so it comes out "g") He wanted to make the "mean king".  I made the mean face and Taylor made the sword.  Isaac wrapped him up in the red felt.

After the nativity was all done, the boys really started getting into other people they could make, just then, Taylor jabbed his finger pretty bad with the scissors and that was the end of people making.  The boys fell asleep to Star Wars around 10/10:30.  The next morning I woke up to Caleb showing me he had made Yoda and Count Duku.  Taylor made Richelle a witch.  Fun stuff.