Adam and Heather Hayes

Adam got the privilege of taking pictures at his brother Josh's wedding recently.

We had a brunch at The London in Idaho Falls. 

Steve got a lesson on how Americans don't use a knife and fork correctly.

They were sealed in the Idaho Falls temple.

They had a reception here that night and one in Oregon a week later.

Our girls had a blast.

If you haven't already heard about this from my side of the family, my parents, brothers, sisters, married-ins and I are doing a cancer relay July 11th.

Our team has to start out with the first lap done by our cancer survivor, Landon, then from 6 pm till 6 am we have to have at least one person on the track walking or running. 

Why? to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

We are selling white paper bags called luminaries to line the track that night.  They are $10 and we will put the name of any cancer victim of your choice on it, and their names will be read as they light the candles in them for the relay.

Besides the luminaries, our team is trying to raise $1000 dollars for the American Cancer Society.  If you would like to find out more or help our team in it's goal, go to the link below to donate. Even $5 would help!

Relay for Life Link

We got a surprise visit from Adam's sister Andrea over the President's Day weekend. My girls were very excited! At Sunday dinner at Grandma Hayes' house we had all of Adam's brothers and sisters and us married-ins and a girlfriend. That's the first time since Kami's mission farewell, so almost 2 years. It was a packed house, it was great. Then on Monday we went sledding with anyone who could come at the Ririe pit.

Tricity really surprised us. She's usually the one who gets tired first. Not on President's Day! She was energizer bunny! Up and down the slopes, usually at the steepest points.

Vi did okay after she fell asleep for a while. Erith was go go go as usual. Adam tried to practice snowboarding on a child sled and it didn't work too good.

But alas he did quite well on his first snowboarding trip ever. He was very sore before he started, (from club volleyball starting) so you can imagine how sore he was after. In fact he's passed out on the bed right now and I decided to write this blog because it's way to early for me to go to bed! I even went down three times. (Shhhh! Don't tell my doctor!)

It's been a busy few weeks for us! Erith started kindergarten after getting a cute new haircut by Aunt Jaleesa!

She feels very grown up and smart now that she rides the bus and has homework.

Tric had to wait till last week to start her second year of preschool at a lady in our ward's house. She loves it. She was very bored while Erith was gone to kindergarten so now she feels grown up for a couple hours three days a week. I send them to this preschool purely for social reasons. I've taught them everything they learn at this preschool before they start pretty much (colors, ABC's, numbers, a simple curriculum). But they love it and the teacher makes them a nice scrapbook each year packed with pictures so it's worth it to me for just that!

Poor Viola doesn't know what to do in such a quiet house while they're gone. She usually falls asleep! It make me feel kind of boring!

My girls have been very patient with a busy set of parents. We finished the shed and filled it with all our stuff with help from the whole family. Grandpa Stuart Purser has been coming over a lot to help us with our projects.We framed in the garage door hole when we put it on the shed and now we are wiring and soon to be insulating our old garage/new office. It is such a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it. Our poor kids waited in a shopping cart for 2 1/2 hours while we picked out lights for the new office. Then there wasn't enough room in the trunk for them so they held them on their laps! It made me remember hating to go to home improvement stores with my parents because I knew the ride home would be an uncomfortable one. (My dad didn't get a truck till after I was married so I usually had 2X4's pressed up against my cheek in the mini van! Good times!)

Anyway, besides getting the office done Adam has to have 3 websites done for a land developer before the Parade of Homes which is... Thursday. Plus all the millions of others that wish they could be done that soon! It's been a juggle we aren't used to doing but we can do it! I just hope we find some good interns once the big office is done because, I am a lousy website assistant! I get tired and cramped quite fast! Yes Adam, I do appreciate you!

Well, Adam just told me in a frenzied voice that there is a skunk in the old garage/office, so I'm off to try to get it out! Wish me luck!

I got a new calling a couple weeks ago.  I am now the scout advancement AND committee chairman.  February is scout month, and I've been working tirelessly on the scout banquet I'm conducting and giving the advancements out at this Thursday night.  I'm very excited to be in scouts again!  I'm just a little stressed to learn and prepare for this big event so quickly.  Yes, you heard me right.  I LOVE scouting, I like to get away from the estrogen of my house and get my hands dirty with the boys.  Not that my new calling has much to do with dirt but, it's close enough.

Adam on the other hand, became our ward's Elder's Quorum President on Sunday.  He feels a bit more weight on his shoulders now.  He will do great.  He's wonderful, that's why I married him! 

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!

I figured it is my turn to give everyone an update.

I made my goal of losing 30 lbs. I got back down to 175 which is about the weight I was when I graduated. I haven't been below 180 since before I got married, so I was very surprised to make the goal. I've been hovering around 175.5 and 177 for the past couple of weeks, so I didn't just "bounce" up after losing it either.

I rode my first horse last Friday. We went up to Daniel's house and I got my first ever chance to ride a horse. It was ok. They told me that trotting isn't the most enjoyable and that I should go gallup, but I'm not sure that I enjoyed that any more than trotting, but that could have just been because of how far down the stirrups were. (I have short legs and Daniel has really long legs.) All-in-all it was pretty fun. Darcy threatened that we should go for a trail ride. So we'll see how/when that happens.

T-ball. Heather finished her season (I'll let her tell you about that more herself.) But from my position as designated 3rd base coach, I thought her team did excellent. Heather was soooooo patient with the kids.

Erith and Tric were on her team and they did amazing. Tricity hit two home runs this season (which is pretty hard to do in T-ball.)

Erith keeps getting taller and her long legs kept her ahead of most anyone (even when I thought for sure that she would get out, she always beat them to the base... even if the ball was hit directly at the base she was running to.)

Overall Heather's team had a winning season and I am very proud of her and the girls. 

I've started painting again. I haven't painted in a lot of years, and I've never done oil painting. I did water color when I was in high school, but I haven't done anything since then. I convinced a very nice lady in my ward to teach me how to oil paint. I've been planning this for a while and had asked for oil painting equipment last year for Christmas, so I had most everything I needed to get going. I've completed two paintings so far, one an abstract picture based off of a Paul Klee painting that I really like. The second is a still life of a couple of bottles. I think I'm getting better and I'm really enjoying painting again. I had forgotten how much fun it can be.

Well there is my update. I'll get the pictures out here as soon as I can for people to see. Please let me know what you all think.

We were married in October 2000 but didn't go on our honeymoon till June 2001. 

Here Adam is at Disneyland 9 years ago.  Below is Adam as he is today.  Has he changed?

We definately have a better camera now!  I was 2 months pregnant with Erith by then, and got nauseous after almost every ride, poor Adam thought I was a pansy. (this picture is space mountain for the 3rd time in a row, that was my closest moment to puking.)

We are in the very back of this Splash Mountain picture.  We've definately grown since then, no more sharing a log!

As fun as it is going to a theme park as a couple, going with kids was 100% more magical!

Nine years, no regrets.

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!

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.