Well at least they have some character!

A few weeks ago Knoll (a great furniture company who has a dealership here in town) hosted a free photo shoot with some of their "classic" pieces of furniture. It was fun, but the kids had had no nap and were really not in the mood to sit still for a photo shoot. There are a couple of good ones, but I guess these at least show some of their character! They do always keep me laughing!

What would I do without those funny faces?!

Fried Friday

Well, blog followers...I feel kinda fried today. I am mentally drained. I have a project that is consuming my world which is good in the financial aspect of life, but not so good in the mental aspect. I am tired of working too late, I am tired of trying to keep everything straight, organized and done well. I am mentally and physically exhausted but I am still trying to maintain some health and some sort of balance in my life...which can be hard to do at times.
Here is the truth though, there are alot of other things going on that are contributing to the mental overload. Some of you already know this, some may have an idea, and some this may come as a complete and utter shock...but Tim and I are separated. For some reason that is actually really hard to type out. He got an apartment two weeks ago and I can't say that I have completely and utterly broken down yet, but I am sure it is to come. I have probably been too busy with work and typical things to dwell on it, which maybe is a good thing.
I have been dreading to post this, but at the same time I don't want to live in a fantasy world that all is perfect at the Hess household. I am not sure that any household is, but when you think that yours will be able to stand the test of time and then that becomes a question it can be hard to swallow.
It was a mutual decision, to take a break, step back and figure out what it is we truly want and hopefully regain the visual of how much the other person truly means to us and be able to make a decision how to move forward. Tim and I have been traveling on a road together for quite awhile, we met almost 13 years ago at Purdue and started dating shortly afterward. The road was amazing, adventurous, fun and so different from any other road. I think we traveled lots of different places, up mountains and down and were able to stay so close. But a few years ago we started hitting pot holes and those pot holes would get patched and then new ones seemed to appear or ones came back and seemed even larger. Eventually we got stuck. Stuck in a big hole that nobody could seem to get us out of. We tried lots of different ways but nothing seemed to work. Sometimes I felt like I was just digging the pothole deeper instead of helping us out.
So we decided that maybe some space would be good. Maybe we had been stuck in that pothole for too long together and maybe if we helped the other person out then maybe we could see the situation better than looking at it from inside the hole.
So that is where we are at, at least as simply stated as it can get. I ask for your support of both of us, your prayers that our hearts can be healed and that we take this time to focus on ourselves, heal ourselves, draw closer to God and then let Him lead us in the direction that we are meant to go. I want to say thanks for all of those who are already doing those things. Keep it up! Prayer is a powerful thing.

Wordless Wednesday- Just Like Mommy (except I tend to wear pants)

Interview with Lucas

Saw this on facebook and also on my cousins blog, thought it was cute. So I "interviewed" Lucas and wrote down the exact words he said.

All About Mommy
By Lucas (Age 4)

1. What is something mommy always says to you?
Don't call names.

2. What makes mommy happy?
love.

3. What makes mommy sad?
when I don't listen to you.

4. How does your mommy make you laugh?
by playing jokes, hehehe.

5. What was your mommy like as a child?
a baby.

6. How old is your mommy?
4.

7. How tall is your mommy?
umm...all the way to the top.

8. What is your mommy's favorite thing to do?
to work.

9. What does your mommy do when you're not around?
be scared.

10. If your mommy becomes famous, what will it be for?
fighting bad guys.

11. What is your mommy really good at?
reading a book.

12. What is your mommy not very good at?
putting me in timeout.

13. What does your mommy do for her job?
work on computer.

14. What is your mommy's favorite food?
slimedogs.

15. What makes you proud of your mommy?
when I call you beautiful.

16. If your mommy were a cartoon character, who would she be?
a cartoon.

17. What do you and your mommy do together?
clean up.

18. How are you and your mommy the same?
we both have green shirts.

19. How are you and your mama different?
i dont' know, you're a girl.

20. How do you know your mommy loves you?
like being friends.

21. Where is your mommy's favorite place to go?
to stores.

Thankful Tuesday

My children are amazing. I seriously cannot get enough squeezes from them. I am definitely not a perfect mom by any means, and I am sure some days I rank lower on the scale than others. Having a two and four year can be interesting with just the amount of things they say and how they say them. Sometimes you are suprised, sometimes you are bewildered and sometimes you just have to smile...or even cry. Lucas was so sweet today, and I would have add it to my top 10 favorites. Random out of the blue he comes up and gives me a hug and says:

"Mom, I love you"

So I picked him up and squeezed him and told him that I loved him too. Then he says,

"Mom, you are the most beatuifulestest girl in the whole world".

And admist the tears that started to roll, I whispered, "Thanks buddy...you have no idea how much that means to me".

Cousin Fun

Well after the water park adventure we headed over to the in-laws and got to see my new nephew again and the kids got in some more good cousin time.

Baby James is getting big (and cute) pretty quick!
Lilly wanted to hold him, but also kept chomping on her carrot...already a multi-tasker.

And this is Lilly and Noah chilling out watching a movie. Too cute. I guess I would have to say it was definitely a cousin filled weekend...but can't beat that! I am glad they are all close in age, can't wait to see what it is like when they get older!

Wordless Wednesday...My Latest Creation

Water filled weekend...

Well there is alot going on here at the Hess', and I will fill you in, but this week I am going to play catch up with some fun pictures. Thought I would share some pictures from our Indoor Waterpark adventure two weekends ago. The kids and I headed up to Northern Indiana with my the rest of my family and had a wonderful water filled adventure.

Lucas and Lilly pretty much stayed in the toddler area without getting too adventurous with the bigger slides, but they had a great time. Loved turning the water on and off, splashing, swimming (in 8" of water), going down the smaller slides, the lazy river with mommy and would every now and again venture over to "the BIG bucket". Don't get me wrong, the toddler area was cool...but the water was always warmer there for some reason...hmmm.
It was great hanging out with my sisters, brothers-in-law and of course all my nieces and one nephew. The kids loved playing together too...and chasing eachother down the hallways and riding on the "train" (aka: luggage cart).

Lucas was obsessed with my water camera and carried it all around for me. He really used it more like a boat and not neccesarily a camera though. Not even sure where it is now, but if we find it we will actually develop it and see if anything turned out. (I got these pics from my parents).

Hannah won these glasses with her arcade tickets. Too cute.

And the family shot by the horse (of course!)
Thought this pic of my parents was halarious..and this is what I meant by the "BIG bucket". There was a giant bucket that would fill up and then spill over when it got full...and if you weren't paying attention it could kinda freak you out and definitely get you wet. Needless to say there was alot of screaming when the bucket dropped (at least by Lucas).

Thanks for the great trip mom and dad!!

Hang time

Two weekends ago we headed to Kokotown for Lucas' bud Ethan's birthday. The party was held at a gymnastic place which the kids had a blast.

Here is Lucas, Lilly and the Birthday boy in the foam cube pit...which kinda turned into a mosh pit of 1-4 year olds.
Lilly and Aly climb across one of the "circuits"

And here is Lucas swinging from the monkey bars. Good upper strength- need to get both of them into some sort of tumbling class or karate or something. What do your kids enjoy?

Taking each day as it comes...

Seems to be my response as of late when someone asks how I/we are doing. Nothing has really changed, kids still seem to be fighting off ear infections and we end up at the doctor about every two weeks (can't wait till those bills start rolling in). Lilly got a second round of shots today for her double ear infection and if those don't work the next step is tubes, which I am fine with as long as it actually works.

She is getting to be such a big girl. She has really been loving on her babies lately and dressing them and wanting things "just a certain way" (have no idea where she gets that from). She is DEFINITELY a two year old and everything is MINE. She adores her older brother, doesn't like kisses from the dog, loves to "dance" with daddy whenever she can, and is content just to be sitting in your lap. She is doing good in her big girl bed...but we have found her playing in her room in the middle of the night (probably due to waking up with the ear infections), and once at nap time I heard a noise after I thought she was already asleep. I open the door and she was trying to reach the wipes on her dresser. I ask what she is doing and she turns around and says "wipe eye" and it is then that I realize her face and hair are covered in Vaseline...nice. If you don't remember this pb incident, Lilly LOVES anything that is like lotion and I had obviously screwed up and left the vaseline within reach. Not really as messy as pb, since vaseline is actually made to absorb into your skin, but needless to say her hair was kinda greasy for a few days. So the next step was the Paci, but it is hard to take that away when she is not feeling well. So we thought we would jump on the potty train...but the girl does just not seem to get it. Underwear, pull-ups, naked. She just doesn't seem to understand that she just peed, care that she is wet, or even bother to tell us after the fact. If you ask her if she just peed she replies with "I am fine"...well that is funny b/c you are sitting in a puddle of urine. So needless to say she has sat on the potty 30 times in the last few weeks and not a single drop has made it in. We will keep trying though, one day it will have to click...right?

Lucas is supposedly on the mend, his double turned to a single and he just finished antibiotics for that one and the doc peeked in his ear yesterday and thought it looked good so far...we will keep our fingers crossed. We are still doing breathing treatments once a day until "flu season" is over. Below is a picture of Lucas having his dino get a breathing treatment, similar to this pic with santa, but kind of ironic since he is in dino pj's and his dino is in robot pjs...for some reason I just think that is funny.

He is your typical four year old boy (from what I can tell). Definitely testing his limits and boundaries (every second). Wanting to eat all the time...but only things he likes of course. Asking ALOT more questions than ever before, about how something works, why something is the way it is or why that particular person in the movie did it this way or that way. No more quiet movie watching for us! This was our conversation a few weeks ago while we were driving:

"Mom, when are we going to cut all the trees down?"

"What? What do you mean? Why would we cut the trees down?"

"Well, I figure we need to cut them all down to fix them."

"Why, what's wrong with them?"
"They are broke. If we cut them down then we can tape all of the leaves back on them."

(Well...that is on way to do it, I thought...and I went into the explanation of the seasons, reminding him of fall and spring and all that jazz). I guess when spring hits I will have to make sure we watch all the tiny buds starting to grow on the trees. So fun.

Another conversation I did not really think I would have with a four year old (but why not?) was at the dinner table. In between trying to get him to sit still and actually eat some applesauce he says, "Mom, why is Jesus hanging up there?"

I turned to look where he was looking (wondering if Jesus was standing on the deck), then I saw the crucifix hanging next to the sliding door. So I began to tell the story about why Jesus died on the cross for us (interupted by alot of WHY's?) and that we keep that cross hanging there to remind us of how thankful we should be that our sins are forgiven b/c he loved us so much. He seemed content with my answer at the end of the conversation and I realized how amazing and open such little minds are. And of course I was reminded how Jesus is everywhere and always watching over us no matter what, and if it wasn't for that I am not quite sure where I would be.

My new Creative Outlet...

So, I have started a little hobby that is both fun, creative, and even green! Maybe this will go somewhere and maybe not, but right now it is the perfect outlet for me to use my God given ability and have fun at the same time. I have so many ideas in my head and hope to get even more detailed and intricate since really what I have done so far is pretty simple. I have wanted to post a blog, but wanted to be able to get a few under my belt so you can see a variety of what is available (so you can think about what you are wanting next of course!)

Below is the 1776 American flag which I did for a client of mine.

The reason this art can be considered "Green" and Environment friendly is because I am taking old vinyl wallcovering samples that would have normally been thrown away and instead am placing them into art. So you not only get an amazing custom art piece with great pattern, texture, and color but you are also helping the environment! The canvas' can either be painted, or completely wrapped in wallcovering and if you want to go really green, we can even use cardboard instead!

So below are some pictures of the pieces I have done so far. I will do a bit of explination of each one and how it came about. Most of the pieces have been inspired from different images found in many different places.

I had this idea of this type of art in my head since last fall and really just needed something simple to get it started. When I saw my nephews new bedding for his room, I thought this would be a perfect way to see if my idea could work. Then for Christmas I did a coordinating truck as well.

This was for my brother-in-laws bathroom and I took the giraffe image off of their new jungle themed shower curtain.

The elephants are an image I saw in a PB Kids Catalog, I actually embellished the ears and bird's wing with beads, but that final pic is on my other camera.

This was my first "commissioned" piece by a friend of mine. It is now hanging in her dining room and looks amazing. She found a picture online that she liked and we took that concept and converted it to three painted canvases. Then using multiple nuetral patterns, and a touch of flair out came a very simple and organic art piece.Here is a close up so you can see the different patterns and how they compliment each other.

This is the first original original from MDH (meaning I just made it up). It is more of a modern piece that I did for a friend of mine who actually is a product rep for the wallcovering and has given me lots of discontinued samples to play with. Thanks Misty!

And this one is actually for her boss. He hasn't seen it yet, so don't ruin the suprise! I wanted to do something for his new office and since I know he loves both wallcovering and golf- how can you get any better than this right?

Honestly, the pictures really don't do these pieces justice because there is always a glare and the details just do now show up. But I would love to get your opinions. It is alot more fun creating different things for different people, working with the colors they are wanting or colors they have existing in a room. I love to hear their ideas for what they are looking for and then trying to figure out how I can help them create something they will love. Let me know if you have a blank spot on your wall you need filled!

Our Snowman...

Well, thank God I did find my camera yesterday (not in the snow, but under the bed?) So thought I would share the pics of snow play especially for those of you who are in warmer climates but are seriously missing the snow (I know deep down you miss it just a little). It is melting pretty quickly here the last few days but maybe we can play in whats left of it once more today.

Yes, that is a mouthful of snow.

hiding behind the "snow fort" from daddy's snowballs...too funny.

The beginning of the snowman...which Lucas seemed to enjoy climbing and kicking more than helping to build.

The finished product, Lilly thought it was pretty cool to "dress him up". Right now there is not much left of him, and I think next time we will build a little snowman family.

interesting find

I was planning on showing some snowman/snowball pics but can't seem to find my camera...which is a little worriesome considering that the last time i used it was outside....in the snow. hmmm. So I was using our old camera today and found some pics that Lucas had taken over the last few months and thought since I hadn't posted any "Infamous Lucas pics" in awhile I might as well blog about something!

Of course you have the "toy" pictures...they were tons more but I will spare you a picture of each of his different cars.
I thought this pic was great b/c it captures what Lilly's hair looks like 70% of the time. It's called fine 1/2 curly hair that is always in knots...is there a name for that?

and this was a great close up of why I don't typically let Lilly wear white clothes...

there are always funny shots of daddy when Lucas is doing his photog, he is so photogenic isn't he?

and this was my favorite this time around. a little dark, but such great detail! Gotta love a 4 year olds mind at work! There are a few more I will save for another day. And please say a prayer that I can find my other camera...not in the snow.

What happened...last weekend

Last weekend we headed up North to Decatur to go to Tim's uncles wedding reception. It was fun and Lucas and Lilly seemed to take over the dance floor for about the first half of the party! I was out there for awhile, which can be a little embarassing when you are trying to dance with a 2 and 4 year old and everyone is watching because they are so adorable...and I am sure I just looked like an oaf, and only about every 3rd song was really "danceable" if you know what I mean...but you do what you do to entertain (and show off) your children.Here is the happy couple. Congrats!

And here is Lilly with some dance moves. She would grab the edge of her dress and spin around and around. It was oh too cute...and good thing it had a built-in underskirt!
And thought this pic turned out cute although I look way cheezy.
We forgot our camera so I thought I would throw a shout out to Tamara for sharing the pics! Hope we get to see everyone again soon...hopefully before Easter!

Throwback Thursday- Baby Gym

Well I am trying to sell a few things on Craigs list to both make some money and get rid of stuff I don't need in my house anymore. Might be selling some baby items too, and of course every time you bring something out the kids always want to play...right? Always the case everytime they see the Baby Gym. This time it was just extra funny because they are both so big and it made me think of the last time they were both on it....

and you thought they only entertained 4 month olds!
this week (above) two years ago minus a week (below)
did you see any difference? ha!
and here is almost four years ago...and that is lucas and the dog, not lucas and lilly. hahaha. they do grow so fast don't they?