mt. scott... part 2

ever since our first trip to mt. scott, grace has been begging us to go back. whenever we are on i-44 and driving past it, she will look out her window and say... there's mt. scott... can we go there today? too cute. so, we waited for the right time and the right weather and we took the trip. it was just as windy as before, but grace and raegan love it anyway.

where a kid can be a kid...

several weeks ago we took the kiddos to chuck e cheese. this was quite an adventure considering it was my first trip ever... that's right folks... i had never ever been to chuck e cheese. in that great city of jefferson where i grew up there was no chuck e cheese and as a result, we spent all of our birthdays at the roller rink (which i think is better anyway). the girls had a great time and played for hours. me and jack pretty much just hung out most of the time.



grace was excited to stand and have her picture taken with chuck e cheese, but raegan was truly terrified... she wanted nothing to do with him. i don't blame her... maybe we will plan her birthday parties for the roller rink too.

jack is back

oh yeah... and so is tony!

who can resist a girl in heels?

pictures from peru

ok, i couldn't resist posting these pictures that elder clark sent us last week! can you believe that aaron is actually smiling and not making a funny face? we are so grateful for his desire to serve a mission and love the work he is doing. we miss him!

jack's blessing day

sunday bryan blessed baby jack at church. it was such a wonderful blessing and i love hearing him speak as he is inspired about what blessings our children will need and receive in their lives. he is such a great husband!

we love all things papa

aren't they cute?

who likes to party?

so, grace didn't quite make it to midnight...

but raegan partied all night long...

and we rocked out with rock band...

a new year's eve adventure

ok, so grace has been inspired. by her lovely cousin aurora. a few days ago, aurora cut her hair. it came as a surprise to all of us since aurorita loves her long beautiful hair. we showed grace the pictures, and grace loved it as well. for the past few weeks, i have been contemplating cutting grace's hair short, above her shoulders. after aurora took the plunge, grace said she wanted her hair cut like aurora's. jackpot... off we went to get it cut. (i'm not as talented as rachel who cut aurora's hair herself).

so, we are driving to get it cut and grace is so excited. we enter the salon and she begins her haircut. i discussed with the stylist that i wanted it to be a short little bob just above her shoulders. she suggested that we stack it a little in the back and make it a little longer in the front. i agreed thinking this would be a good style for grace. as the hair started to fall away, i could tell that grace was getting a little sad. when the stylist finished, i thought her hair looked beautiful, but as we walked out to the car, the tears started to fall. grace was hysterical by the time we actually got to the car and her main concern was that her hair was never going to grow again. i tried to soothe her and let her know that her hair would definitely grow back and next time she got her hair cut she didn't have to get it cut so short. i called home and alerted everyone that grace was quite sad about how short it was (and it was shorter than i had anticipated) and told them not to mention how short it was, just how cute she looked.




after several hours of convincing her that she looked so beautiful, she finally started to like her haircut. and today she told me that she doesn't want to have long hair, she just wants to keep it short! my how the tables have turned.

oh yeah...

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!