Adam and Heather Hayes

Well, I saw Viola with some scissors walking to the bathroom garbage can this morning.  I didn't see what she dropped in the can.  (A clump of hair)  I took the scissors away and told her not to play with scissors.  Then I saw the clump of hair on the floor.  I picked it up and said "Vi why did you cut your hair?"  She said " I want my hair pretty." 

I tried so hard not to smile, but it was so cute!  Adam freaked out worse than I did.  He likes girls to have long hair, and according to him it was finally getting long and cute.  I was going to have my sister cut Vi and Erith's hair in the next couple weeks anyway so I just thought it was funny! So, it's decided, ear-length it is!

Tricity and I were not enjoying the morning de-tangle of hair anymore and so we thought she should get a haircut. 

The problem is, Adam likes LONG hair on girls.  He did not support the haircutting plan.  I knew he REALLY wouldn't support the Locks of Love amount of hair, so... we did it on April Fool's Day without telling him!

When we got home I told Tric to tuck her hair in her coat and go up to Adam and say "I have the longest hair in the family" and then flip her hair out and say "April Fool's".  He told me "That wasn't funny" immediately after that; but, I think it's grown on him.  He drops compliments about it occasionally. 

I think it's cute, and 10 inches less of it to go through each morning is AWESOME!  I hope Locks of Love makes a beautiful wig for a little girl with cancer with it.  Three of Adam's sisters have donated hair to that cause, and now Tric has joined the club.

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!

My sister Jaleesa is the haircutting and now Mary Kay beauty queen of the world.  She is helping me get over my beauty aversion.  She convinced me to cut and frost my hair before I had Clara, which I have absolutely loved.  Then she practiced her new Mary Kay party pitch on me and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, and actually convinced me to care about how my skin ages and... wear foundation! I am actually wearing foundation on days that I go out in public.  I never thought I'd see the day.

Well she came over again this week and showed Erith, Tric and I how to put on... eyeshaddow, eyeliner, blush, and lipstick! Am I turning into a mom of girls or what?  Next thing you know, she'll be teaching me to frenchbraid and other girly hairdo's. 

If I had a million dollars, I'd pay J twice what the JCPenney salon is paying her and have her come over every morning and beautify all 5 of us girls every morning. But alas, I don't, so I guess I'll have to grit my teeth and do some kind of simple hairdo on all 5 heads all 7 days a week, all my life long... Who knows, maybe one of these days I'll actually like hair!

Erith idolizes  J, Santa got her a Barbie head to practice hair on for Christmas.  (When we weren't watching Vi took some sissors and cut two chunks of hair off that night) She is so proud of the... unique hairdo's she comes up with.  I might just get lucky, and have Erith take over the beautifying when she's old enough!  

I've got to admit, I have got some cute, cute little girls.

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

Crazy Hair Day was the most WOW.

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.

For Family Night we frosted and decorated Halloween cookies and took them around to people in the ward.  This was Vi's first time doing it herself, and she did quite well!

We almost forgot to carve our pumpkins this year.  They made such lovely decorations as just...pumpkins.

Erith and Tricity drew their own designs on the pumpkins the day before Halloween, and we carved them as they were, no modifications. 

Erith's ^   and   Tricity's v

But, since Vi didn't really get the whole draw a carvable face on the pumpkin idea, Adam carved his own design.  Have you all read or seen The Sorcerer's Apprentice?  A childhood favorite of mine!

Tricity decided to be Belle for Halloween, like Erith was a couple years ago.  Erith was a witch with green hair.  (We have an orange hair option as well.)  Vi was going to be a bunny but Halloween night she got all grouchy with me and insisted on being a frog.  So she was.  Clara wore her Halloween candy clothes and a witch headband for the picture.

We went to the community Trunk or Treat and to a few close neighbors and primary teachers.  Then we went home and got what Erith and Tricity used to call "stummyaches."

This was our first vacation in our new SUV.  It was nice, and very different.  Our Saturn Outlook is an 8 passenger vehicle, it's like a short suburban; thus one person had to sit way in the back.  The other 2 back seats we folded down so we would have more room for our stuff.  This is a sampler of our vacation pictures.  To see TONS more go to the IMAGE GALLERY up above and then click on 2008 vacation.

Monday we left home early in the morning and drove to Ogden and went to the Eccles Dinosaur Museum.  It was mostly out of doors, which we weren't expecting, but they had made some very cool dinosaur recreations/interpretations.  There are a bunch of different dinosaur museums in Utah.  This was not the one I went to in elementary school.

They had lots of photo face hole places to take pictures and the kids insisted on sticking their heads into EVERY hole!

They had places where you could dig up or brush off dinosaur bones and eggs.

There were real fossils and fossil replicas inside. Oh, and one robotic dino display.

After we were done at the dinosaur museum we drove to Midway.  My cousin Camille lives there and we stayed there that night.  We had an excellent barbecue lit by torches AND glow-in-the-dark earrings!

Tuesday we started the day with cute hair for once! (Thanks to Camille)

Then we went fishing!  We didn't catch anything, but we'd rather catch nothing than catch a duck, right Camille? :)

Camille invited a family of cute little boys to come along and teach my cute little girls how to fish.  Fun fun!

Then we headed to our hotel in Salt Lake City.  We dropped off our stuff and then went to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum by riding the TRAX.

The Kid's Museum had a ball blower machine, a house, farm, grocery store, water works, TV station, helicopter, magnet wall, and tons more.  Its was pretty fun, but again, I was disappointed it wasn't as cool as I remember MY children's museum experience being. :)

Then we went to Temple Square.  The kids were pretty tired by then so we didn't stay too long.

We went back to the hotel to swim in the pool and sleep.  Erith and Tricity learned to float that night in the pool, that is a big accomplishment for them!

Wednesday was Lagoon Day!  Adam's whole family and Uncle, Aunt, and Cousins met us there for a day of fun!

This is Vi with her Uncle Gabe.

LagoonABeach was NOT a good idea for 2 adults with 4 little kids. Let's just say we got to play for less than an hour before Vi had a BAD accident in her swimsuit (Which was the only accident she had all vacation I might add) and I couldn't find Adam with our locker key. :(  And to top it off I am now 3 little girl swimsuits less than when I got there. One I THREW AWAY, the other 2 were accidentally left there. So this is the only picture I have of these cute suits, sniff.

Adam's family took the kids so Adam and I could go on some thrill rides like Wicked and the Colossus.  I was too chicken to do the Spider. I don't do a lot of spinning.  Then we did some all family rides, like the train as you see above.

Erith and Tric even did the WHITE ROLLERCOASTER! That was quite a step up from the kiddieland rides they did all day.  Vi rode the merry-go-round about 8 times that day!

Thursday was our last day and sadly we didn't charge the camera so there aren't a lot of pictures of this day.  We went to Hogle Zoo then This is the Place Monument then to Ogden to have dinner with Adam's sister Andrea. Here's what we have:

This is the Place is much cooler when you can go into Pioneer Village but we showed up 5 minutes before they closed. Darn.

Well, it was fun to play more, drive less this vacation.  We recomend all the places we went if you are planning a vacation for little kids! (Lagoon is for everyone of course!)

Well, we made it through another very busy Christmas season.

It seems like we spent most of December running here, there and back again. (However, we didn't do any running the week of Christmas because of the weather. Then we just spent our time digging out our driveway time after time. Luckily, Santa was able to beat the weather and make it a very nice Christmas for us all.

The girls had a blast with their new gifts. Erith got a doll that she could "do hair" on. Tricity got a microphone, it just happened to be connected to a karaoke machine. Vi got her very own laptop learning thing and Clara got her own care bear. Mom got the Twilight series and hasn't surfaced since. I got a sander and a jig saw as my main gifts, plus some other fun Wii stuff.

Overall it was a great Christmas. My sisters spent Christmas Eve at our place, which means we stayed up really late talking and playing. Everyone had come over the night before to have our "Hayes Christmas" on Christmas Eve. I'm still the leg wrestling champion and we didn't have any bruised heels or broken egos this year.

Well, we loved our vacation, but we brought home something we're not crazy about. 10 pounds each! (Adam and I)  So the day after we got back we each weighed, frowned, and decided we needed to make some serious changes.  I know it's boring to hear about other people's weight loss but, I figure the more people who know, the more you can all help us to stick to the plan.

Our Plan: To lose 30 pounds each by July 1st.  We've been at it 5 1/2 weeks so far and today I was down 18 pounds.  Adam is down 22.

We were eating over 3000 calories a day, we are cutting that in half, so 1500 calories a day.  And at least 6 hours of excercise a week.

We are hungry a lot, but it isn't taking as much too make us full now.  We've eaten out twice since we started and knowing we were eating 1500 calories in one meal was really hard to swallow.  That is a huge way to make a difference I think.  We ate out almost every meal for the week of vacation and those calories add up fast. 

Having our 2 lane highway ripped out while they make it a 4 lane plus turn lanes, has cut down on our going to town.  Which means saving money on gas and saving money and calories on eating out. 

These changes seem to be working for us, help us keep it up!

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!

Day 6: California Adventure

We didn't get to bed till super late Tuesday night, so we had a late start Wednesday morning.  (Plus I felt like we should take it slow so Adam could have his daily health issue.  But, he didn't have any more problems that trip!)

Wednesday was the coldest day of the trip.  We had shorts and short sleeves thinking, it's hot in California.  But alas it was windy, overcast and sprinkled on us a couple times!  We should have brought some warmer things!

We started out in It's a Bug's Life and rode Flik's Flyer.

We let Andrew take the camera for a while, it's nice to see us all together.  It was kind of cool to see what it's like to be tiny like a bug.  I'm used to the opposite, too tall to see the underside of things.

We did the spinning ladybugs next, and like I said, Andrew had the camera.

Adam, Clara, and I chose to be together so we wouldn't have to spin more than necessary.  Ugh.

Our girls were terribly impatient to drive the bug bumper cars.  They all feel it empowering to be the driver.

Wonderful Drew stayed out with Clara who was too short and took pictures.

The rides seemed a bit short and non thrilling after the wild night we'd just had, but this vacation was for the kids. 

I didn't go to Disneyland till I was 18 for my senior trip and I wanted my kids to have some fun kid memories. 

The Heimlich ride was more a ride for your senses than anything.  We traveled through a watermelon rind that smelled and felt wet and juicey, and an animal cracker box that smelled like some of my favorite childhood snacks.  Like I said, not thrilling but creative.

This bug land place had SO many fun places to take pictures.  We didn't put a dent in the possibilites. 

They had a fun 3D bug show with a stinky stink bug, black widdows coming down from the ceiling, and wiggley maggots.  I love 3D shows like that.

Wade joined us and brought us lunch.  Clara had a tradition of falling asleep through every meal.  It was so cute to see Vi share the stroller and hug her till they both fell asleep.

Oops, I forgot to flip that pic.  After lunch we went to the forest rangery part. 

They had a cave to tell you what your inner animal was.(Adam was a skunk!) rope bridges, tire swings and Clara's favorite: rock slides!

Poor Vi barely made the height measurement at the bottom of the swings, walked all the way up the rope bridges to the swing ride just to be told she was too short to ride.  She cried and cried and said, "That lady thinks I'm little and I'm not, I'm a big girl, waaaaaaa!"  Gotta love it!

Adam took Vi back down and while he was comforting her, she decided she wanted to get a picture with Brother Bear.  Good idea Vi!

The lines at California Adventure averaged about 30 minutes except the next two: Mickey's Fun Wheel and Toy Story Mania, those were looooong. (probably an hour)

The fun wheel was way too high for Adam's taste, I was afraid he might toss his cookies for the third time on that one!  It's a huge feris wheel with most cars on rollers.  Vi and Clara put on their brave faces.  Andrew, Wade, Jerica, Erith, and Tric were making theirs rock and roll like crazy!

Toy Story was a shootem up video game ride, I was terrible, Andrew and Wade smoked us.  Then we went to the tortilla factory for free tortillas and the sourdough bread bakery for free sour dough.  Then we ran into these green army guy musicians.  That was pretty cool.

We went to a super cool Aladdin live production.  Who knew you could get a 45 minute Broadway show at California Adventure at no extra cost!? We then had dinner in the brr cold and split into groups again.  The big kid group did Soarin' Over California (which is VERY cool, if you're on the front row you don't have feet dangling above you and it really feels like your're flying into the green screen!) and California Screamin'.

Screamin' is pretty intense!  It was Erith and Tricy's first upside down rollercoaster!  Erith said she was too scared to scream, Tric asked, "Did we go upside down yet?" Yep! (Get Fast Passes to both, like we did!)

Yeah right Wade, even a ride pro like you couldn't fall asleep on screamin'!  Then the boys took off to play stake volleyball.  I'm not sure where Ryal and Cory took the little ones while we were gone.  I believe they did King Triton's carousel more than once.  We girls met up with them and watched the electrical parade, then the second it was over Ryal, Erith, Tric, me, and yes Vi, did Hollywood Tower of Terror! Sleeping Clara stayed with Aunt Cory.

Remember Where's Waldo?  Where's Viola?  It was a pretty scary story line (Twilight Zone) and it is probably too much for an almost 4 year old, but I didn't think she would behave for Cory while we went, so I took her, and she did it!  I told her it was all pretend and she was extremely proud of this picture. "HER picture".

Vi threw a huge fit on the way to the car.  She wanted me to carry her, not Ryal, not the stroller, give me a break kid, you're heavy and I'm tired!  Another late night, got kids to bed and did 2 loads of laundry.

Day 7: Drive to San Diego to see Trevor at Camp Pendleton

My brother has been at Camp Pendleton since last summer when he went to do marine boot camp to join the marine reserves.  He tore the cartilage off his hip while doing the usual drills and whatever and was declared physically unfit enough to finish. (2 weeks before his graduation no less) He has been sitting in the the hospital wing for 5 months waiting for his discharge papers to come home.  It's very depressing and he longs for company, so we came to visit.

He can't leave the base, he got leave to have this visit with us, and they have an awesome rec center to play and eat in, so we played and ate.

We bowled 2 games at the bowling alley and then had lunch, hamburgers and pizza. (There were about 4 choices on the menu)  Vi wailed on her big sisters at bowling! (Bumper buddies and a ramp helped!)

Then we hit the free arcade.  Trevor's favorite game is this shoot deer and elk game, I think he liked having a gamer like Adam for competition.

I couldn't pry the sunglasses off Erith's face this trip!  That was a dark room!

Tric loved the basketball hoops game, Clara loved the one thing she could climb on by herself and reach the controls!  Vi had too short an attention span to do much of anything.

I had to give them my driver's license to get the air hockey puck and paddles, so muscle men, don't hit the puck hard enough to jump the table and lose it!

Speaking of losing things, Clara lost one of her shoes and it took forever to find.  Guess where it was? Behind the propped open door, that tiny triangle of space was the last place I thought to look!

We got Trev back a tad late for his 4:00 cut off, oops, bad shoe.  We're glad we could see him.  We zipped back to LA without too much traffic trouble and then climbed in the passenger van for an Angels game!

Praise to Andrew again for the tickets and chicken burgers hot and ready in the van when we got there just in time to leave.

This is our family's first major league baseball game. 

We didn't have as much red as the average fan.  But I did buy a t-shirt before we left.  I know, I am a junkie for vacation suveniers!

The angels did not win I'm afraid.  They lost to the San Diego Padres 5-2.  The whole experience was awesome though, being able to buy hotdogs and peanuts from your seat, the great american pasttime.  I have to say though, Adam playing here at Tauphaus Park moved tons faster! (no raking the dirt!)

Surprise Tricity!  When we got back from the game this was waiting for us!  Andrew is magic, I'm telling you!  Tricity's surprise princess birthday party!

Day 8: We drive 11 hours to Andi's in Ogden Utah, goodbye California, Wheelers, Trevor, we love you!

Only a cool sister like Andi would let 6 people crash her one bedroom apartment at 12:30 AM!  Thank goodness she did because we were having a hard time getting that far, all the way home would have been misserable!

Day 9: Conference, birthday presents, meeting the infamous Mike, and Fat Cats.

We finally got to meet Andi's best friend she's been hanging out with for 3 years.  We met up for a between sessions lunch.  I liked him a lot, we need tall men in this world like him!

This Fat Cats place had a ton of fun things to do, but we just didn't have enough time to do all we wanted before conference started, so we settled for Jazzi style bumper cars and ice ball. (skee ball)

It was a fun ending to a fun vacation, I'm very glad we went.  I'll write about Tric's birthday later, and that's all she wrote!

Well last week Clara decided that she was going to grow up.

She started crawling last week (more of a two armed army crawl, but she is getting up on her knees more and has done some "actual" crawling since then). Also, Heather brought her in and said she had something in her mouth. I looked and she had just cut two teeth. Normally the kids get all droolly, fevery, and down right unhappy. Not Clara. She has been just as smiley and happy as ever.

Now she can put herself in a sitting position from crawling and back to a crawling position. When she does it she gets this big grin and you can see her thinking, "See what I can do." She is also jabbering quite often now. Erith and Tric swear she said "mom" the other day. I think it was just more jabbering, but who knows.