Adam and Heather Hayes

Baptism, Red Hair, Sledding, and Volleyball

11 Mar 2010 20:32:44 GMT

Wow, it's been a long time since we've written. So here is a catchup blog post.

Erith was baptized in January. Everything went marvelously.

Heather decided to dye her hair. It was a very beautiful red. I took a picture right as the sun was setting with a nice yellow glow which really accented her new color.

We went sledding a lot of times over at the "pit". The girls practically begged every day to go sledding. So when they couldn't get enough from our little piles in the front yard, we'd take them over to the pit and have some fun. Watch the wideo at the end of the post for some of the fun.

Volleyball has begun for me and we just had our first tournament. We won 8 of 8, which made me a very happy coach, including a match where we came back from 8-1 down to win 21-25. I also got the opportunity to go play on a co-ed team over in Driggs. It was a blast. Once I get some nice footage together I'll post a video.

Erith turns the big 8!

14 Jan 2010 21:55:12 GMT

Andi stayed an extra day over Christmas to be there for Erith's birthday. I'm so glad she did because I sure needed all the help I could get with that house full of girls!

Erith got get ready for baptism stuff from Mom and Dad.

The girls made marble magnets.

They played lots and lots of games. (Each one took a shockingly small amount of time) They played musical chairs, pictionary, Jenga, pin the candle on the cake, duck duck goose, and probably a couple more!

Cupcakes for the party and the cake for the family, Erith got her first taste of trick candles! Erith got some fun gifts from her friends and I think everyone had a fun time. Happy birthday Erith!

Christmas and Birthdays

08 Jan 2010 04:45:35 GMT

Have you ever needed a break from partying? That's how December was for me. Don't get me wrong, I loved getting together with family and friends, eating delicious food and playing games, catching up. But boy is it nice to sleep in and let the kids make messes again! Speaking of messes, as you can see, Clara had a spectactular Christmas morning.

Our List of Parties:

Adam's birthday

Ward Christmas party

Elder's dinner party

Christmas eve

Christmas day

Erith's birthday, this was her first non family birthday party. I can't believe I have an eight year old! I'm so old!

New Year's eve

New Year's day

Erith's baptism

Dolls, dolls, dolls. We entered the world of Target made "American dolls" this Christmas. Tricity paid half to get one earlier this year. She got a canopy bed for Sophie. Erith got MaryLynn, and Vi got Jenna, whom is 18" tall but not from Target. Clara got a baby doll that can drink and wet (and 2 potty books).

The girls got up at 6:30 am even after Adam they could get up as early as they want. (grrrr) Vi and Clara don't cope with being woken up early very well.

I bought these little baby crib and high chair for Clara, they aren't very sturdy, I won't go the cheap route next time.

I somehow got the most spoiled this Christmas. I don't think Santa or Adam stuck to the budget.

Adam got lots of painting stuff and a remote control helicopter.

I gave the girls my old tea set so they could use it with their dolls. One tea cup was immediately broken, I can see why everything is made of plastic these days.

I have to say, seeing the excitement in little kids' eyes sure makes Christmas morning magical!

Merry Christmas from the Hayes

24 Dec 2009 22:57:15 GMT

We had a pretty successful Christmas photo shoot last week. Aren't we a cute family? I can't believe it's Christmas already. Where has December gone? We have had a ward party, elder's party, 3 school programs, lots of temple work and christmas candy making. I guess that's where December went.

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Family History Fun

24 Dec 2009 22:48:30 GMT

Thanks to everyone who came to help with baptisms for the dead.

We had 94 names we baptized and confirmed that day plus I sent my cousin Sterling and his wife 20, plus we gave some 3rd cousins of mine in our ward 30 male names a month ago. It has been a lot of fun, more fun than updating the blog I'm afraid...

As you can see from the picture, we will have a lot of sealings to do once all the individual ordinances are done.

A full day of Halloween fun

13 Nov 2009 18:21:24 GMT

We had the most eventful Halloween this year since we got married. We carved pumpkins the family home evening before the big day.

Vi was quite the opinionated girl about her pumpkin. She had the smallest one, and she drew the face she wanted on it. She drew so small, I decided I could take a few liberties, like make the tiny mouth into a nostril and then put another nostril on the other side... BIG mistake! "That's not what I want! I don't want my pumpkin to have a mustache!" She wouldn't let me put a mouth below the nose, so it didn't have a mouth at all!

My aunt and grandma had this fun halloween magazine at my sister's bridal shower, that is where I got the idea to make mummies and snakes for lunch. The mummies are pigs in a blanket, made with croisant rolls and the snakes are mashed potatoes with green food coloring. The eyes are sliced olives and the tongue is a carrot slice/shred. My kids LOVED it and keep telling me their ideas on how we can make ghosts and witches with food next year.

I made suagar cookies in the morning and the girls decorated them after lunch.

We had a hard time deciding what to be this year. They finally decided on this: Erith and Vi were ballerinas, Tric was a witch, and Clara was Barney!

We went to the Trunk of Treat Halloween extravaganza in Ririe starting quite early. Adam entered the pumpkin carving contest and won the "scarriest" prize.

They had soup and chilli, hay rides, a spook alley, pumpkin carving contest, and of course the Trunk or Treat. There were a lot of kids! I went through 2 big bowls of candy and still ran out before they had all come through. Thank you to Josh and Emily for taking my kids around and letting me steal pics off their blog. It was a fun day!

Crazy Hair Day

13 Nov 2009 17:57:57 GMT

The girls loved doing something different each day for Red Ribbon Week.

Crazy Hair Day was the most WOW.

The Mormon Wonder Woman

26 Oct 2009 02:25:19 GMT

Right before I got sick I had a Mormon Wonder Woman day, my friend had a whole wonder woman week recently and so it inspired me to document my one Wonder Woman Day.

I cut by hand 20 pints worth of beef roast chunks, and canned them.

I made rolls, cookies, and soup for a friend's family who was sick.

I babysat a four year old.

I set up and started tieing a quilt for a family whose house burned down.

I had a clean kitchen the whole day. (who cares what the rest of the house looked like, right?)

I "burried" a dead pet cat. (Vi came into the house cuddling a cat, and said "Mom, I have a cat, I think it's dead." I told her to put it back where she found it and go wash her hands. Where she found it was right where all the kids were playing outside, so I had to get rid of it pronto.)

Adam is pretty happy I'm finally using the quilt stands and frames he made for me two years ago for the first time. I really got on his case to make them for me so I could tie this exact quilt, but alas, all the parts and pieces have sat in the basement family room for 2 years untouched till now. Well, Wonder Woman Days don't happen every day!

Cough cough fever cough

26 Oct 2009 01:34:35 GMT

I just told the ladies I exercise with that I didn't get flu shots because they don't always guess the right strain that hits this area. After Tric and I coughing and running a fever for 3-5 days and tagging the next kids in line right as we got better, I'm having second thoughts on whether the flu shot is worth it! I was pretty sure on Thursday that I wouldn't be able to go to my sister's wedding on Saturday, but I took all the vitamins and medicines I could think of, and prayed and thought possitive thoughts and I got better unusually fast and made it to the wedding. Now I just have to get Vi and Clara over it. I do have to take a moment and brag about the good husband I have. He has played the breadwinner, cook, carpooler, and nurse this week with a very cranky wife. When I'm sick, my insulin doesn't work well at all, and so my bloodsugar was running higher, and when I'm high, I'm a GROUCH! He puts up with me somehow, and keeps cold rags on 103 degreed foreheads, and I really appreciate it.

What Adam Has Been Up To

02 Oct 2009 06:32:16 GMT

Well, here comes another quick update for posterity sake on what I've been up to.

Work has been going well and I'm scrambling to keep up. It feels like I just run and run. I just signed up with the new family search and I'm loving it. It is my escape now to search for people. We did a quick trial run and got 3 families ready for the temple and then Heather and I did a whirlwind day of everything for one family from baptisms all the way through to sealings. It was really fun to go through for people that I had gotten from family search and turned in. These next ones will be even cooler because I'll have done the research and finding myself.

I also helped out a buddy of mine that needed another player for his city league softball team. I went to 7 games and we won 5 of the 7. It was a lot of fun. We did a couple of games a week, so it seemed like a lot in a short amount of time. I got to play 1st base the whole time which brought back great memories from childhood.

I fixed the deck, (see the other post for in the middle picture). It seems to be holding up well and we'll see what happens after a year has gone by how they hold up.The stain seems to be working so that is great compared to our first attempt at protecting the deck (the paint wore off within weeks in some spots last time)

I also did a number of days over at another friend's house helping them move some trees (little trees from 1 1/2 feet to 7 feet tall. I'm guessing I helped out with 1500ish trees of the 7500+ they moved. It was fun even though I got sore fingers and a couple of blisters out of it.

Erith and Tricity helped me the other day go get potatoes and deliver them to a bunch of people. One of the farmer's daughters in our stake did a young women's project and gave away a bunch of potatoes. All you had to do was show up, pick them up, and haul them off. Erith and Tric had fun picking potatoes with a little bit of dirt clod throwing (mostly at me).

All in all it has been a crazy summer and I think we've accomplished a bunch.

Carrots and more carrots

15 Sep 2009 19:54:01 GMT

I have been canning like crazy since school started. So far this year I've canned: green beans, carrots, roast beef, cherry juice, apricot juice, apple juice, plum juice, apple butter, peaches, and strawberry-peach jam. Here is a picture of the last of our garden's carrots.

On the right, you can see why you should thin your carrots. They grew into some twisted funky looking blobs. I have 2 rows of potatoes left in the garden and that's about it. I didn't grow enough tomatoes or onions to do salsa, so I'll skip that this year. Gotta love harvest time!

Building Stairs is Fun to Do

10 Sep 2009 22:13:02 GMT

Well the other day the bottom step of our front deck broke. It has been threatening to break for the past...umm..... 4 years, so I knew this day was coming. Heather and I have a bad habit of not being able to "just fix things". We normally say something like this:

You know, while we are at it, we should replace all of the stairs,
and if we are going to replace all of the stairs, why don't we extend the stairs to be the full length of the deck,
and since the new stairs are going to need stained, why don't we sand and stain the whole deck while we are at it.

So our simple fix a bottom step turns into quite a large project. However, we are always happy with the results, it just takes longer than a quick fix (just look at our bathroom project to see a similar pattern of just tearing out the carpet to a complete master bathroom makeover.

I just finished sanding the whole deck today and we'll probably be doing the stain tomorrow. The above picture was taken when we finished installing the new stairs but before any sanding began.

We've also done some modifications to our blog. Hopefully pictures from now on should be expandable (horizontal pictures that is) by hovering over them and clicking if a magnifying glass comes up. Let me know if you have any problems with the new feature. :)

The Charlie Brown Dance

30 Aug 2009 05:52:54 GMT

Adam has a small assortment of songs he plays on the piano really well. Our girls alway request "The Charlie Brown Song" and they dance and dance to it.

Adam set the camera on the piano bench and then started playing it so we could capture this cute pastime. The dance is different every time, and usually all 4 girls are upstairs, to join in.

Feeding the Ducks

30 Aug 2009 05:47:57 GMT

For family night the other day we went to feed the ducks in Idaho Falls. I had quite a collection of old stale things that no one would eat so it was a fun way to get rid of it! We fed the ducks and shared with a Chinese tourist family the cereal we'd dumped all over the ground.

We went to the temple grounds afterward and talked about how important it is to go to the temple and be sealed together. It was really hard for Vi to resist picking the pretty flowers.

First Day of School

30 Aug 2009 05:40:44 GMT

Erith and Tricity have started school again. They are really enjoying it so far. They have lots of friends on their bus route, and it's the shortest amount of time they've ever had to ride.

Vi, Clara, and MOM really misses them while they're gone. Erith and Tricity help so much with the little ones. When I hear Clara screaming to get down from her highchair, my natural inclination is to say "Erith can you get Clara down from her chair?" But alas, I have to do it. And when it gets way to quiet I want to say "Tric can you see what Vi and Clara are doing?" But now, I find them, or just Clara covered in permanent marker plus my front entryway covered in permanent marker, just a few minutes too late. I should have taken a picture but I was too mad.

So, I am relearning to shut the bathroom doors all day long so I'm not cleaning up toilet water, and not leaving things on the kitchen table that a 16 month old can easily pull a chair up to and make a mess in. I am determined to buy some child proofing devices. My old rubber band-it-shut trick doesn't work on this trouble maker!

Vi has grown up enough that she's okay passing on the trouble maker mantle to Clara. Vi has bonded with a kitten this summer and they spend a lot of time together. The kitten just lets her pack her around, arms around the tummy, squishing her quite hard at times. I keep asking Vi what the kitten's name is and she always says "Baby Kitten."

Oh, and no, I don't let my kids outside in their pajamas...

Vi cuts her hair AGAIN

30 Aug 2009 05:25:04 GMT

The day before Adam's sister Sarah got married, I was in my bedroom reading a book when I saw out of the corner of my eye, Viola in the bathroom. I distinctly heard the sound of scissors cutting something.

I said "Vi did you just cut your hair?" She bends over and starts picking up pieces of hair in a hurry and putting them in the garbage can. "I didn't cut anything." It took me a few minutes to find the lucky spot on her head. If I part her hair to the side, there's enough on top to hide the short hair nubs underneath.

Just in time for lots of family pictures at Sarah and Logan's wedding. Oh well, at least the bride and groom looked gorgeous!

2009 Camping Vacation

17 Aug 2009 18:54:25 GMT

We had a lovely week of family fun last month. I forgot to take pictures, so I'll try to tell our story the best I can with words. Well, we do have a few pictures.

Adam's family stayed with us at a cozy A-frame cabin in Island Park from Monday evening to Thursday morning. We started with a big crowd Monday night and slowly shrank in number by Thursday.

We went on a rafting trip from Big Springs to Mack's Inn. I failed to take the camera, which is a shame. It is a slowww float and we saw a moose and got sunburned! There was another rafting group who kept "racing" us, it was fun even though we lost. (They only had 1 adult and 3 youth, we had 5 adults 3 youth, HEAVY RAFT!)

Mostly we ATE a lot and played Super Nintendo and board games. The cabin had cable, indoor plumbing, and 2 bedrooms and a loft which you can see above. So now you know how much we were "roughing it!"

We toasted marshmallows in the fire pit one night, but alas I have no pictures of that.

After we left the cabin Thursday, we went to Mesa Falls. My dad told us about this place on the way were you can feed the fish. Once they know you're there they just jump like crazy for the bread or chex or the fish food you can buy in a vending machine.

While we were feeding the fish we shared some chex with a retired marine from California and he told the girls he would give them a special coin if they promised to be very good little girls forever. So they promised and they got these unique coins with his name, rank, awards, and a little map of where he served in Vietnam. You can see one of the coins in Tricity's hand below. He followed a few minutes behind us to the lower falls and then up to the upper falls.

Of course I didn't get a picture of him with our camera but we took one of him and his friend with his camera at the lower. It is a beautiful place. I can't believe it took me 27 years of living in Idaho before I went to see these beautiful landmarks in my own backyard.

We did remember to take pictures here. There are lots of BIG pictures of us at Mesa Falls in the Image Gallery under 2009 Vacation.

We ate cold cereal at Mesa Falls for lunch and then headed to Aspen Acres for my Quinn family reunion. Camp was all set up when we got there and everyone was playing games and doing puzzles while the rest of us showed up.

We had to set up our new tent for the first time (in the scorching sun) and then we joined in the fun too.

We were literally right on the golf course. The one time I went golfing a ball rolled under my aunt and uncles tent! It was a fun course, as long as I could hit the ball, right Adam and Ranae!?

We made the cutest cards one day and threw goldfish crackers on people's shaving creamed heads for a prize, and made eclairs over the fire and if you want to see any pictures of any of this fun stuff you'll have to go to my cousin Camillle's blog, because unlike me, she takes pictures of everything going on!

Saturday, the last day, my wonderful aunt and grandparents watched my kids so Adam and I could go to the Playmill with my parents and siblings in West Yellowstone. We saw Guys and Dolls, and it was so funny! I highly recommend it. Here we are with some of the actors afterward.

You can see why I don't take pictures, Blurry! We took Bethany's boyfriend with us and afterward we took him to Mesa Falls! So here Adam is looking like a hottie.

and that was our vacation!

The Before and After Bathroom comparison

23 Jun 2009 05:24:40 GMT

I know you've all been waiting months for me to finally post this, so here it is.

As you can see, we are no longer assaulted by 1972 when we walk through the bathroom doorway. The toilet is all one color and NO CARPET!

This may not look very different, but the medicine cabinet and mirror are tons bigger now. The cabinetry has no holes or broken runners. The sink is not baby blue and the vanity top is all one big piece, easier to clean and less caulking. I used to have 2 drawers, now I have six. I don't have anything in the bottom 2, it's wonderful!

The cabinetry is new and beautiful. I have several more shelves now to keep me organized. The tile is beautiful and not near as cold as I thought it would be.

Goodbye blue porcelain, hello jetted tub and cultured marble. I really like taking baths and showers now. We got a bent shower curtain bar and it is amazing how much more elbow room there is. The cultured marble is pretty, sturdy, and very easy to clean and I would recommend it to all who like how pretty tile is but don't have the patience to clean the grout.

Jail, just visiting

23 Jun 2009 05:01:08 GMT

While we were in Boise, we had some time to kill so we went to the temple. Then to the opposite end of peaceful places, the old Idaho State Penitentiary for a tour.

It was a self guided tour and not that exciting. But the pictures are cute!

We stayed till an announcer said "We are closing in 15 minutes, please head to the front if you don't want to be locked in for the night."

Adam didn't think this was as funny a picture as I did.

You wouldn't lock me up would you?

Vi and Clara on the sidelines

23 Jun 2009 04:45:26 GMT

I think my kids are cute in these pictures.

Clara can walk and run now as you can see. They love to watch t-ball from the sides, or the inside of my leg. Cute, cute