Karate!!!

Noah has been taking Karate this past year at the Y and has really excelled. It's been exciting to watch him take interest in something like this an get excited about it. He took a class with some of his church buddies so that added some extra excitement each Wednesday evening. He's learning to count in Spanish and in Japanese and has already tested for his orange belt.

I still can't believe he's old enough to be in Karate and have a schedule of afterschool activities! Maybe it's more that I can't believe I'm old enough to have a son in afterschool activities! Ha, I'll save save that for another post!

Anyway, here are some pics of his orange belt testing day. Very exciting!

'horse' stance!

stretching!

Noah leads the knuckle push-ups... so tough!

little orange belts

showing off their moves!

Orange belt!

Orange belt test

Family Photo Shoot 2011

So, we finally bit the bullet and hired a professional photographer to take some pictures of our family this year. And I'm so happy we did! Whitney Hardie is a good friend of ours and worked magic with our 2 energetic (and very cranky that day!) boys. It could have been disasterous... I mean really horrible. But she managed to capture some great shots amidst the tears and tantrums. Wow, family pictures can be really stressful... who knew?!?

I was really worried we wouldn't get any shots without Gabriel red-eyed and red-faced and Noah chewing on his sleeve while making a funny face, so you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to see the end result! And our genius photographer had us finish off the shoot at the playground, a place that pretty much always makes them happy!

Thanksgiving in Oregon

We decided to fly out to Oregon and spend Thanksgiving with Jon's family this year. It was a fun little adventure and a great way for me to get out of hosting :) We ended up taking the whole week because it just isn't worth flying all the way out there with 2 kids and that wicked time change only for a weekend. So, we made nice trip out of it and had a great time.

Nana and Grandpa were exceptional hosts as always and the kids made themselves right at home! They love all of the extra attention (and pretty much avoid us at all costs) from their grandparents and aunts and uncle. Baby Eliza is not so much a baby anymore and that was really fun to see the cousins interact with each other and get along so well (at least Noah and Eliza got along really well!) Gabriel soon realized that Eliza was taking attention away from him so playtime was closely monitored from then on!!! Noah was really sweet with Eliza and they became fast friends.

We filled our week with lots of INdoor activities, seeing as it rained pretty much everyday we were there! Not surprising, but I think I am slightly surprised everytime we visit Oregon as to how little we actually see the sun! Luckily, we have awesome relatives that found super fun indoor playspaces for the kids and we had a great time. We hit the Children's museum, did a little bowling, and we even went to an indoor water park! The rain stopped for one day -- just enough time for us to go help Nana and Grandpa cut down a Christmas tree and see the Zoo lights at the Oregon Zoo!

Noah was a little concerned about missing the few days of school before Thanksgiving (so obsessive!) so we talked to his teacher and she suggested making a travel journal of our trip as a homework project while we were gone. He's pretty much in love with his teacher and will do anything she says, so it didn't take much convincing that that was the awesomest thing to do ever! So, now we have a lovely travel log of our trip and some fun pics to boot...

Enjoy!

Cousin time at the Portland Children's Museum!

a bowling lesson from Grandpa... starting him young!

(the Horeys are serious about their bowling)

Christmas tree farm

3 generations hard at work!

awesome Christmas colored kettle corn --yum!

Zoo lights!

making Grandpa's famous Christmas cookies

(wouldn't be a Horey family Christmas without them!)

helping Nana and Grandpa decorate their tree!

After all of those Christmas preparations, we were ready to head home and get our apartment decorated!

Thanks for such a great trip!

Halloween and more pumpkin fun!

I was determined not to let Halloween get crazy this year! Last year it seemed like it was a bit of overkill with a million parties to try to make up for the fact that we didn't trick-or-treat on Sunday. I love having Halloween on a weekday - Monday was perfect this year!

It seems like pumpkins took over our home this year... Here's round 2 of pumpkin painting, and we couldn't forget the jack-o-lanterns -- luckily, Jon was on jack-o-lantern duty this year! I had zero energy left when that came around!

I had a great time volunteering at Noah's school party. I think I'm finally finding ways that I can help out at his school without feeling too overwhelmed, and I'm so grateful for that. The Halloween party was right up my alley -- I brought a fun pumpkin craft for the kids to do and helped hand out treats. Noah has such a sweet class and his teacher is really great.

The ward party was also a great success this year! Jon helped organize it with the YM/YW, and everyone seemed to have a great time, even barring the freak snow storm we had that day! What, SNOW?!? It was bizarre... it knocked down trees, put out power, and covered the roads for the first time this winter. Yikes, I'm so not ready for winter yet! Luckily, I had just finished gathering winter hats, gloves, scarves, etc. so we were prepared!

Finally, on Monday night, we set out to trick-or-treat with some friends. This was probably our best Halloween night we've had in the city to date. The kids had such a great time going store to store (gotta love trick-or-treating at Chinese Restaurants and Dry Cleaners) and then smashing into elevators of buildings and going floor to floor. People put pictures of pumpkins on their doors if they were welcoming trick-or-treaters in the few buildings that we went to. It was tons of fun! We're already planning our route for next year :)

And finally, the little goblins... not so much goblins as completely cute Captain America and Thomas the Train!

fortune cookies, anyone?

our friend from church that let us crash her awesome building!

smash into the elevator and go to the next floor!

the neighborhood pharmacy

cuteness!

saying goodbye to Uncle Caulin...

We decided to spend the weekend at grandma and grandpa's house to have one last get together before Caulin left on his mission. The boys love going up to the "country". We hit the playground, painted pumpkins, and walked the "Walkway over the Hudson" while we were there. It was fun to hang out with Caulin and make some nice memories before he headed off to the MTC.

While we were saying our goodbyes, Caulin told Noah he wouldn't see him again until he was 7. It was really interesting to watch him process that! He kind of laughed and thought it was silly and kept telling Gabey, "You're going to be 4 when Caulin gets back!" But then later that night before bedtime, I think he realized what that really meant and got really sad. Then he started asking me how old I was going to be when Caulin got back and he thought that was hysterical!

Good luck on your mission, Caulin -- you're gonna rock it!