Adam and Heather Hayes

Well we've been off the radar for quite a while, but with good reason. Just over 7 weeks ago Heather's water broke. This was a big surprise and we were very nervous about everything. Heather checked into the hospital and has held up quite well. I've been here trying to take care of both "mom" and "dad" responsibilities. Here is what has happened.

Viola Graduated from Pre-school

Viola has been attending Onda K. Smith's "Touch Your Heart" pre-school. She graduated and didn't fall asleep during the program (those of you that don't know the story, I'll try to post the video someday, but it might just end up on America's Funniest Home Videos.

School's Out for the Summer

This means that we have a lot to do including watering, mowing, and maintaining everything around the house. Luckily for Heather's plants it has rained a LOT the last 7 weeks so I've only had to water a few times. However, I have had to mow the lawn a lot. Tricity has stepped up and started helping more and more with the mowing and does a very good job. I still do around the trees and the tricky parts, but she does the bulk of the "wide open mowing".

Plus the kids have been having fun with my parents/brothers and sisters and Heather's parents/brothers and sisters.

The kids have bounced back and forth during the day to Heather's parents or here with my mom or sister, or sister-in-law, or friends in the wards' houses. The kids have thoroughly enjoyed the different activities which have included bowling, jumping on the trampoline, making "crystals", hiking, and many, many other fun activities.

Visiting the Hospital

This happens often. We've tried to make it at least every three days if not every-other-day to see Heather. We really enjoy getting to see her and it gives her a break from the monotony. Heather has loved how many people have come to visit her while she has been on bedrest for these past 7 weeks. We've officially been in the hospital 53 days. The baby was 25 weeks along when her water broke and she is now 32 weeks along. We have 12 days left until the scheduled C-section.

Boise Trip

I went to Boise for a business trip and met with a number of clients (both existing and new). Normally Heather would accompany me, but I had to fly solo. I really missed her and the fun we normally have, so I didn't hang around too long and came back as early as I could (I left at 4:30 in the morning, and I'm not a morning person).

T-Ball and Pitching Machine

Erith and Tricity have been playing Pitching Machine and Viola has been playing T-ball. They've done great! This last week it rained and hailed on them during the games, but they stuck it out.

Viola was a little worried that she didn't know how to play yet and needed more practice, but she has done very well.

Tricity and Erith are both great hitters and are getting better at fielding.

Viola's Birthday

Viola will shortly be turning 5 but with Heather in the hospital we are just going to open her gifts from us on her birthday, so we had an early birthday party for her with my family. Everyone had fun and even my dad and mom got into the action and did the monster mash on "just dance" on the Wii.

Overall it has been a very busy 7 weeks. I'm looking forward to 12 days from now when our newest baby will make her appearance and getting my beautiful wife back.

Happy Valentines Day!

Today started off great with some yummy homemade pancakes.

They were heart shaped for the special occasion.

The girls loved their chocolate.

They also had fun making chocolate covered strawberries and some very special sugar cookies.

I guess this is our announcement. We are 3 months along with baby #5. Heather has had a few complications this last couple of weeks so keep us in your prayers. Everything is still ok, but Heather will be taking it easy for a few weeks.

Sorry it has been so long since we have updated the blog. We had an amazing Thanksgiving. Heather did an amazing job with the turkey and we all ate very well.

I also had a great birthday. We had a lot of fun playing band hero until our fingers were so sore we could hardly move them. I also had fun up at Jackson with my family. Remind me not to compete on weight lifting with my "little" (6'1 and probably at least 260 lbs.) brother. I could hardly walk the first day (510 lbs on leg press twice) and then I couldn't pick up my arms the next day (I'm still sore and that was over a week and a half ago).

Now we are just getting ready for the Christmas season.

I've been doing some painting in the meanwhile and have really liked how they turned out.

These three are all taken from Leonid Afremov's paintings. After doing the first one, I watched a video on his technique and did the second one in more of his true style with mostly just the palette knife.

I really like the colors, the reflections, etc. I think I might do one in this same style with the Idaho Falls Temple, but I have to figure out the layout first.

Let me know what you think!

I have updated the Teton painting because I didn't like the way the reflections looked. Here is the updated version. I'll post another picture soon as well.

I've finished another painting. I liked the way the sky/clouds turned out and some of the mountains. The trees are ok, but I still need work on my water reflections.

Heather took some "in process" pictures of my painting.

So you get to see my glorious studio. :)

On a side note, apparently Clara got into the lotion, but used a little too much.

It reminded me of a similar experience from when I was that age. (My mother will get a kick out of this). I painted my friend's face with Desitin. I though I had done the best job until I saw what Clara did. She wins hands down.

Well I've finished another painting. I'm not as happy with this painting as with my boat painting, but that is the way it goes some times.

I almost abandoned this painting a number of times because I didn't like the way the colors were coming together and there were a bunch of little things that just seemed wrong. But, overall it was fun and I learned quite a bit while doing this one. Let me know what you think.

This last Saturday I had the chance to play in a 3 on 3 tournament in Rexburg. We won the "A" Division. I played with a couple of my friends, Amy and John.

It was great. I had a blast. We started at about 9:00 and got done at 6:00. They had two parts to the tournament, a pool play and then a bracket part. We did ok at the beginning and got seeded 3rd (even though they did the seeding differently than they had originially told us).

We played the 2nd seed and won. Then we played the 1st place seed and won. They we ended up playing the 2nd place seed again in the championship and won that as well, so we ended up going undefeated in the backet play.

I'm very sore from 9 hours of volleyball, but it was well worth it.

I am continuing to paint so I will continue to post paintings as I finish them. This was a very fun piece to do. It has more of a "classic old oil painting" look to it.

The original painting was done by William Bradford and is called "Fishing Boats on the Bay of Fundy". This one had more small detail and it took a white to figure out how to get the waves to look like actual waves.

I was going to take my painting stuff up to the Quinn reunion (Heather will post on that later), but we filled the car to popping as it was without my painting stuff. The reunion was a blast and now we are in the heat of things with Jaleesa getting married tomorrow.