Count Your Blessings

2016 has been an amazing year. I am so very grateful for everything.

I'm going to sleep each night counting my blessings. 😀

Christmas Weekend!!

Oh my Goodness!!  It is Christmas weekend!!!

Yesterday, Phil and I received a gift from my brother and sister-in-law in Phoenix.  And today, the boys received Christmas cards from my sister and brother-in-law!

A "man crate" from my brother. Tons of candies
from "back-in-the-day". How awesome!!

I'm actually still debating sharing that with the boys. Those are candies from MY childhood that I miss!  :-)  lol... (Ok, maybe I'll share.)

Today, all five stepsons received a letter in the mail from my sister. Their gift?? A $5 gift card to McDonald's!!  They loved it!

Cody* said, "OMG! $85??"

lol... "No Cody. That's $5. The thing before the 5 is a DOLLAR SIGN."

Jake* said, "I'm getting a Big Mac!"

(He could probably eat two of them, honestly!)

How super nice and thoughtful of my brother and sister and their spouses.  😃💗 Thank you!!

*Names changed for blog

Work Compliment

Today at work, we had our Holiday Luncheon.


While I was sitting and eating with co-workers from different teams, one of them said to me, "Jennifer, my family and I were at the Peoria Rivermen hockey game the same night you and your husband took your five boys."


Oh boy... Where is this going??  lol...


She continues with, "Your boys were behaving so well, that I had to tell my two kids to sit down and behave like all five of those boys right there."


aww...


That made me smile!  I told her, "Thank you! I am so so very lucky that they are such great boys!"

Arabic

My oldest stepson is in World Languages class in 7th grade.

World Languages... I have no idea what this means...

But, right now, he seems to be learning ARABIC! Wow!

He made a point this evening to find me watching TV and tell me that he could write his name in Arabic. So... I made a point to go out to the kitchen (homework area) to watch him write it and even take a picture of it!  😁

Any guesses??

The First Thanksgiving!

... for THIS Horstmann family... 

 

I thought of this big huge plan... But then got busy with everything... So we just had a small Thanksgiving with Phil and the boys.  Sorry y'all... the thought was there.

 

The fine china came out...

INCLUDING fine cups. 😊

Instead of a huge turkey... I went to Hyvee and got turkey breasts.  I think the boys wanted an actually turkey, but... oh well.  😊  We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and crescent rolls.

 

Quite a nice spread...

We asked the boys what they were Thankful for and this is what they said:

• A large family.
• Dad and Jennifer.
• Jake* was thankful for dad, Jennifer, Matt, Chris, and Logan...
• NOTE:  He was not thankful for Cody.
• Dad keeping his job at Caterpillar.
• A roof over their head.

 We all enjoyed our first Thanksgiving dinner together.

 

Our helpers after dinner...

We even had two "volunteers" help clean. Ok, maybe they didn't volunteer, it was actually their first time to do dishes and we were teaching them.  But, guess what? We got done so fast and the kitchen is now SPOTLESS!

 

TA-DA!!

Wonderful, first, Thanksgiving dinner.  💓💓💓

 

 

 

*All boys' names changed for story.

 

 

Twins' Basketball Practice

I don't know if the twins have ever played "organized" basketball before. I don't think they have. I'm sure they've played basketball in somebody's driveway. Or, maybe they've played basketball at school.  Anyway. We were watching them play basketball...

And they did really well... There was nothing wrong at all... 

They learned how to rebound, they learned how to dribble, they learned passing,... 

And then...

Wait... What...? 

Uh oh...

Where is she going??? 😂😂

Practice was over shortly after... Luckily the little girl with the shirt over her head didn't run into anybody.  😂😂

Housekeeping Items

Where do all of the clothes go?  They've got to come into the house. For 5 boys. Lots of clothes. So where does it all go?

Today, Phil and I cleaned out clothes for the boys. FIRST, we started with the middle brothers. What can we pass down to the twins?

Then... We moved on to the twins room...

Things got a little weird... :-) 

But, we made some good progress and got FOUR large bags of clothes out the door... 

And straight to Goodwill!

PHEW! Very productive day of housekeeping... We even picked up a few things from Goodwill for the boys! (Hey, why spend so much money when they are just going to grow out of them in less than a year anyway???)