jack, raegan, grace

all i want for christmas....

is a big fat red kitchen... well, maybe those aren't the exact words that came out of grace and raegan's mouths, but that is what santa heard. and santa spent a lot of time putting the kitchen together on christmas eve. so, here they are... raegan is already talking on the phone. she must be telling santa 'thank you'.

now that's a mess...


and jack slept through it all.


fortunately, we can all once again find our inner rock star.


and after a couple hours, jack decided to join the land of the living. he can't wait to play rock band.

christmas eve

on christmas eve we decided to make our pies for the next day and some cookies for santa. grace and raegan were great helpers... they helped to eat all the dough off the mixer attachment. we made yummy cherry cheese pie and pumpkin pie... then chocolate chip cookies for santa.


after we finished in the kitchen we began with our christmas eve tradition of opening one present.


as usual, we all opened pajamas. and here we are with our pjs on.

mount scott

slightly north of us is a mountain... yes, right here in oklahoma we have a mountain... mt. scott. ok, ok, so its not sandia crest, but it is as close to a mountain as we can get. so, we decided to take a trip up. it was pretty nice out... but extremely windy. i mean, if you are grace, you better plant your feet or you might blow away... so, we drove up the mountain and got to the top and started to climb around on the rocks and then take a family picture. raegan was not too excited about being on top of the mountain... as documented here...


she was 'afraid of the water' and did not want to go in the water... what water? you ask... well, that big lake behind us in the picture and way below us. her depth perception must be off...

on the other hand, grace loved it...


she actually cried when we told her that we had to leave. nice.


after a while of sitting in the car, raegan decided to give mt. scott another chance. and this time, she had fun.

amedd holiday ball

on 13 december, bryan and i attended the amedd holiday ball on post. we have a smashing time... well, it was pretty fun. we sat at a table with all the dentac residents and ate some yummy food after the thousand toasts we had to do... good times. it was actually fun to get all dressed up and have somewhere fun to go! i told bryan that we have to go to all the balls since he bought his dress blues. he has to have somewhere to wear them!


here is a picture of all the dentac residents. left to right... major caldwell, captains horspool, dahlke, jusino, kim, furdek, and hoffman.

jack cayetano horspool

03 december 2008
9:26 pm
8 lbs 1 oz
20 inches

so, we went into the hospital wednesday morning for an induction. we arrived at about 8 am and started the induction at 10 am. things progressed slowly and sometime around noon i received some pain medication which swiftly put me to sleep.

bryan thought this was a good shot of my labor reading material... nice.

well, after a few more hours the pain increased and we called for the anesthesiologist. around 8 my water broke and shortly after we had a new family member... baby jack.


grace and raegan came with grandma kathy to the hospital on thursday. grace loved him instantly and wanted to hold him right away. i think she will be an excellent helper. raegan was interested in him for about 5 seconds. then, she hopped off the bed and started playing around the room.


well, jack sure was red when he was born and after a while the pediatrician visited and told us that jack was dat (direct antibody transfer) positive. apparently, when he was in the womb, my body recognized his blood type as different from mine and tried to attack it, resulting in a lot of red blood cells. unfortunately, this also is a cause of jaundice in babies. so, they took some blood and jack was in the mid-level risk for jaundice. because of this, we had to stay an extra day and jack spent almost 24 hours in light therapy.


prior to his light therapy, i swear, he never cried. actually, once, he cried... when he was first born... then... even when they gave him his shots... he never cried. until the light therapy. man alive, he really hated it under there. after about being in the therapy for about 12 hours, he got used to it and was happy to be there. after his therapy, they took some blood to test his bilirubin levels and he had moved to the low-risk zone. they took another test after 6 more hours and he remained in the low-risk level and we were finally able to go home! yay!


jack sure was glad to get out of that box and finally be held! and so we prepared for the trip home.


the girls and jack have adjusted well to being home and we have enjoyed being home as a family. the girls love him and are great helpers.

incredible pizza

so, we took the girls to oklahoma city a couple of saturdays ago. incredible pizza is 'like chuck e cheese, but way better' according to everyone. the girls had a blast. they have an entire room with arcade games, mini golf, mini bowling, go karts, and much more. i guess it was our last big outing with only 4 family members.

here are the pictures of us playing mini golf. the girls did a round, then me and bryan played. they really enjoyed actually playing by themselves.



they had this one game where you you sat and it simulated a roller coaster. grace loved it and rode it probably 5 times. the first time raegan rode it, she rode with bryan... and i guess she liked, it... but when we put her on the seat herself, she cried. i guess it was a little too much bouncing around...

all in all... a very successful day!

twilight, anyone?

so, we ventured out last night to see twilight at midnight... yes, with all the teenagers and girls, but there weren't too many girlish screams. we had a great time and enjoyed ourselves. the movie... yeah... didn't love it... or even like it... but it is what it is... and what i expected. i'm thinking i should give it another chance since bryan said he would go with me if i wanted to see it again. we'll see. maybe after the initial viewing i will be able to look at it as a form of entertainment not related to or based on a book i adore.

honestly, i can never get enough...

'in the 16 months i've been doin' this... i've lost 8 pounds, my job, and my girlfriend...' love it!

tree trimming

well, last week i decided i wanted to put up our christmas decorations. so... its a little early, but i was definitely in the mood. so bryan and i put everything up before he left, except we did not decorate the tree. since he left yesterday for his atls (advanced trauma life support) training in san antonio, the girls and i were feeling a little lonely. so we decorated the tree. grace and raegan were very anxious to put up the ornaments, however, they are slightly challenged in the height department, so all the ornaments ended up around the bottom of the tree.

raegan likes to put all her ornaments on the same branch. nice. they had a really good time, though. grace, raegan, and i finished up today with adding the angel, some ribbon, and the lovely glass balls raegan loves so much. and here is their finished product... with some help rearranging the ornaments

there's a mouse over there...

remember this?

well, when that big field gets mowed and it gets colder... we get these...

we caught this little guy on saturday night... he was number 4... and the first one we caught alive... just saturday morning, bryan said to me... i think we got rid of all the mice. yeah, right.

we just love to look at bugs...

and play in baby jack's crib

halloween

ok, so this is way late, but here are the girls on halloween. grace was dorothy from the wizard of oz , again (yes, same costume as last year... maybe next year we can be more creative) and raegan was a ladybug (same costume as grace 2 years ago... nice). the girls had a good time trick or treating. it was the first year we have taken them around a neighborhood and grace was thrilled. raegan was frightened of all the outdoor toys (see video) and scary costumes and she quit early with bryan. i finished up with grace and they got some good stuff.



at one house, they has all these scary things, so we told grace to go stand up next to this treasure chest and we would take her picture... she went up and right on cue the pirate skeleton came out and the picture is great... she was pretty scared.

raegan's first experience with a pixie stick was quite entertaining...

and here is a nice halloween surprise for you... bryan... as napoleon dynamite...

he was allowed to dress up for halloween and this is the costume he chose. nice...

5 little monkeys... courtesy of auntie rachel

auntie rachel taught grace and raegan this little song this past summer and raegan goes around singing 'and snap that monkey right out of that tree' all the time! i love it!

sneak peak

ok, i guess it really isn't a sneak peak since halloween is tomorrow, but we took this picture before our ward fall feast. the girls and i dressed up and we had yummy chili and played games with the ward. they also had trick or treating in a few classrooms. the girls got a bunch of candy (mostly eaten by bryan and me) and had a great time!

pumpkin patch? or a waterpark where they dumped the pumpkins they bought from walmart?

so we took grace's little preschool class to a pumpkin patch today. let me say, not much to it (yes, it was at a waterpark), but the girls had a good time.


don't you love the volleyball net in the background?

when we first got there, another class was running around and they asked us to wait until they were finished with their activity and so the girls gravitated to this alligator and spent most of their time there...



after they were given the chance to roam the pumpkins, i tried to get grace and raegan together for a little picture, but they weren't too excited about it. they mostly wanted to run around and look at the pumpkins. but when the time came to pick out their own pumpkins, all the girls wanted the little baby pumpkins. i tried to persuade them to get a bigger one so we could carve it to make a jack-o-lantern, but they weren't too interested in that... they just wanted the babies...

for those of you who care...

17 july 2008

23 october 2008

yeah, i thought this was so hilarious...