Adam and Heather Hayes

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!

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.

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!

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

Crazy Hair Day was the most WOW.

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!

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. 

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.

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!