The Most Important Job

Bed time was a total beast tonight.

I was doing bed time solo, which is totally fine.  Lukas was being a professor and I am totally good with that, thrilled in fact!

It's a very rare occasion, but BOTH of the guys were screaming and fighting bed.  Normally bedtime is lovely.  We have worked hard to create a sweet bed time for our sweethearts and they really do well with it.  Also, normally, either one or the other is "acting out".  (note the quotes)

It just goes to show you that even the best parenting plans don't always work.

Tonight however, they were both completely exhausted, overly exhausted.  Therefore the fight.

As I was getting frustrated and worked up, irritated and a little defeated, I was reminded of something I read awhile back:

"Remember, you are not managing an inconvenience, you are raising a human being."  Kittie Franz

I don't know who Kittie Franz is, but she came through for me tonight.  It had to be divine intervention, but I remembered that quote out of nowhere and it calmed me down.  It changed my disposition.  Suddenly I wasn't irritated standing in the hallway.

I took a second look at my wonderful baby (which yes he'll always be) and reminded myself that he's only going to be like this for a small time.  I watched his little eyelids drooping.  His chubby hands resting by his face.  I appreciated that all he needed was to have me near him.  To provide that comfort for him.  He doesn't need it most nights, but tonight for whatever reason he did.  Now all I am is so thankful to him for that.  I needed that reminder.  That reminder to SLOW down.

What was I really going to be doing instead anyway?

And you know what.  They both went to sleep.  Now they are peaceful and resting for another inconvenient yet wonderful day.  And I can't wait.

Every Year

On C's first Christmas, our family went to one of our wonderful friend's annual boat parade parties.

This is one of our FAVORITE Christmas traditions.  The food is amazing, the company is superb, there's a trombone group playing carols, and the boats all put on their best Christmas lighting gear for a lovely parade.
That year, the hostess gave me a potted Amaryllis plant.  She gave it to me with the idea that I could "transplant" it into my "garden" and enjoy it from there.

I can't think of any other time that I've ever planted anything.  Seriously.  That's rather embarrassing, but gardening has never been my strong suit of mine.  In fact, I have deemed myself a "dead thumb".  Even so, I figured I'd give it a try.  I enjoy gardens.  I love pretty flowers.

3 years later, here it is:

I love this thing.  I have such a weird amount of pride for it.  I planted it, and it stayed alive.  That deems this probably the most resilient plant ever, but I don't care.

In fact, I have taken a picture of this Amaryllis every year since the first year it bloomed and it is becoming a tradition that I really look forward to.  This year it's even expanded and has two big stems meaning 4 flowers!

Sometimes it really is the little things that bring joy and make my heart sing so loud.

Cotton Ball Painting

* I linked this post up to the Linky Party found here.

Yay for Spring.  Yay for spring break!

Last week I was reading the Bower Power Blog (this post). She and her son did this very same project and I completely got the idea from her, but I wanted to share it with you!

We started with some plain brown paper taped to our fence:

While shadows of clothespins danced above their heads

We chose 3 seasonally appropriate colors of paint.  This next part probably wasn't my best move, but it wasn't too bad either.  I used acrylic paint and watered it down a bit.  That made this into a craft that was done by the artists in their underpants to avoid staining.

We dipped the cotton balls into the paint and got them pretty saturated.  We wanted them to be heavy enough to throw.  Then we got them out and had a great time pitching them at our canvas.  Some of us stood a little closer than others.

Look at that spring sky!  Ooh la la!

We also got out some paint brushes in case we wanted to add that texture to our painting.  Which we did.  In the end, we got this:

Wow, this picture turned out dark....

Later while it was drying, C said, "It looks like flowers."  I agree.  Especially in the bottom right, it looks like flowers on a stem.

He then went on to say, "and people, and a horse."  Apparently it's abstract!  I do think that this was a super fun painting activity.  It was very satisfying to see the cotton balls splat up on the paper and stick there.  We also were able to re-dip and throw the same cotton balls again.

On my summer bucket list:  Giant ice cube toy excavation

3/14

Today is March 14, 2014.  This video shows you what I was doing on March 14, 2011, exactly 3 years ago.



C Laughing from Kelly Hefty on Vimeo.

Why did I choose to sing Spice Girls circa my days in 5th grade, 1997 to my 7 month old?  I have no idea.  But I am so glad that I did.  If you're wondering why it's bouncy, just know that some really good dance moves surely accompanied this amazing rendition of that song.

As a baby, C was happy, but he wasn't always "laugh out loud" happy.  His laugh today is still from the soul and super contagious.

That gummy smile.  His happy eyes.  Those pointy ears.  His bald head.

Apparently more than just my heart felt like singing on March 14, 2011.

House and Home Project

* I linked this post up to the Linky Party found here.

Okay, back during New Year's I posted on the TBMB about a corner of my house that I wanted to update.  It was the entry way and "command center" of our home and it was driving me nuts.  There was a broken shelf with 2 pegs that held all of our bags.  It was a dull color.  The floor had shoes strewn about and the counter was annoying me.  So I decided to get on it, you can see the first steps that I took in the link:  Before picture

So the counter was cleared.  A basket in a drawer helped me to organize my keys and phone and such. But I still didn't love the bag area and I couldn't stand the shoes.

Then we went Target.  We were going to get some command hooks and stick them on the wall.  I wanted each of us to have our own hook.

But then we didn't like anything.

Ah, Target, you are so smart.  I was walking by one of the seasonal displays in the storage bin section and there they were.  Bright, beautiful animal wall hooks.  They were metal, there were 4 animals.  We were in love.  (I tried really hard to find a link for them and could not for the life of me.)

We took old shelf down, and put up new hooks, even though the wall was now unevenly colored (even more).  We had this...

Our entryway is perpendicular to this wall,
so this is right when you walk in.

Yay for hooks.  Yikes for wall!  And still, no fix for the shoes.

I wanted a bright and bold color to complement the bright colors of the hooks.  Navy blue might have been nice too.  Or a mustard yellow.  Here's what I came up with:

Venus Tea by Behr

This color also happens to be the color of my living room wall.  It's leftovers were in my laundry room!  Score!

So I patched up holes, taped and painted.  This took me two coats and an entire week of nap time.  Really.

One step closer!  Now the shoes (finally)  I was at Home Depot and saw the awesome plant hangers that the link sent you to.  I took the brown plant growing stuff out and bought just the frame.  I put it on the wall and VOILA!

Organized, bright, colorful command center!  I'm the giraffe, Lukas is the green pig (by process of elimination), C is the dark blue rhino and T is the Kelly green elephant.

My favorite part is that the shoes are off the floor and by the door ready to go.  Yay for putting a small but important amount of responsibility on the small guys!

Who would've thought that a post about a tiny section of my house would be so detailed?

Exactly What I Want

Over a month ago (pre-minivan, post T's ER trip) Lukas and I had the honor of watching our friend debut as a St. Pete debutante.  We got all dressed up and had so much fun.  I'm not going to lie, we looked pretty snazzy. (293)

When our babysitter arrived we tried to find an area of the house to take our "formal" picture.  We stood here and took this shot.  Meanwhile, I was thinking to myself that I would have to crop the "house" out of the picture later.

Then I saw the picture.  Immediately, I knew that I didn't want to change anything about this shot whatsoever (except maybe that it was taken on my phone and could be slightly more clear. 294)

This is what our life looks like right now. No matter how dressed up we get.  Toys are strewn about, sippy cups are always in weird places, our furniture is either over-sized or miniature.  And I love it.  I love it all. (295)

Balls are SO fun, don't get me wrong.  We had a blast (and took other pictures too).  But I am so grateful for the ball that I get to have here at home. (296)

Now hopefully I can remember that feeling the next time I step on a puzzle piece.

A Clean 2014!

I love Christmas.  Really, I do.  I love the decorations and the memories and just everything!  I did want to share the decor around the house with you.

276

The real point of today's post however, is that I LOVE January 1st.  That is clean up day in our home.

I wanted to title this post, "Naked" but I thought that title would bring in viewers of a genre that I didn't intend for.  : /

But naked is how I describe the January 1st Hefty home.  I spent yesterday doing a serious purge.  We don't have a whole lot of stuff to begin with, but we still managed to have unused items anyway!  I didn't even add any decorations because what we had was enough!

My two purging rules/mantras this year were:

1.  If I haven't used it in 2013 it's going.
2.  "Have nothing in your house that you don't find to be useful or believe to be beautiful."  (William Morris)

I think that deep down, I am a wannabe minimalist when it comes to decorating.  I think that what it really is though is that I'm a minimalist when it comes to cleaning.  For example, I have entire pieces of furniture that I'm kind of like, eh, do I need that?  The truth is, I really just don't want to dust it.

Either way, January 1st just feels good.  It's a wonderfully fresh new start, even for our little house and home.  (277)

Make sure you check back tomorrow to see about some 2014 goals that we have.  :)  

2013: Another Year to Make My Heart Sing

*Reason 474 can be found on the Ten Thousand Reasons Blog Facebook Page

I just wanted to share some of my favorites of the year:

January

Sicky Kelly

February Touch the Truck

We played at Lego Land

Dressed up for Easter

Turned 1

Decorated

Got our Big Boy Bed

Went to Maine

Turned 3

Played with Friends

Danced at the mall

Drew more friends

Posed as a family on our bench

And had a great time!

All of these pictures can be found in the blog posts throughout the year.

Also in 2013,  I pledged to raise money for Autism Speaks and run the Disney Princess Half Marathon, began contributing to the Tampa Bay Mom's Blog, attended Bridgepoint Church, and went back to work half day.  Thank you to all of you who have listened to my heart sing!

It's been quite a year, but I have a feeling 2014 is going to be even better!  See you next year! (275)

Crafty Christmas Part I (474)

I'm not crafty.  I'm pretty bad at it.  Having said that, I got a teeny tiny bit crafty this Christmas.  Nothing over the top.  Nothing eye roll worthy.  Just some simple and sweet things.  Let's face it, sweet and simple, (and inexpensive) were the things that met my fancy here.

Like this:

This is really lovely at night with the lights from the tree lighting it.  But this "not a photographer" hasn't quite figured that out yet (see here if you don't believe me!) You can kind of see the lights twinkling in the reflection on the bottom left corner of the frame.

Here's what I needed:

1.  Computer print out with letters you want to use.
2.  Pretty paper of your choice
3.  Scissors
4.  String (I used baker's twine)
5.  Tape

Here's what I did:

1.  Find a font you like.  I tend to stick to a really chunky font with very few hard edges to cut around.
2.  Make the letters large enough to fit the letter sizes you want and print.

3.  I created a stencil out of the letters that I was going to use often using the cardboard from inside the package of paper that I used.

Because the paper that I was using was sparkly and textured, I turned it over to the backside and traced the letters BACKWARDS so that when I cut them out, they were facing the right direction and any pen marks were left on the back.

 4.  With the letters that were only used once, I simply cutout the paper with the font on it.  I did this on the front side of the paper because it didn't matter without the tracings.

.
5.  I kept count of the letters that I needed and crossed them out as I created them.
6.  Then I cut, cut, cut until I had all of the letters.
7.  At that point, I was ready to hang my banners.  I put frame hanging nails on either side of a large picture frame in the living room and tied the string on.
8.  Craftier people may have done this next part differently, but I used Scotch Tape to attach the letters.  Even looking at it right now live and in person, I can't see it.

And there you have it!  I wish that you could see the sparkles that are brought out in the letters, but you'll just have to use your imagination!  

Merry Christmas to All!

For

Unto

you is

born this

day in the 

city of David

a savior which

is Christ the Lord

Luke

2:11

472

Merry Christmas to you!  

Thank you for another year of sharing joy and listening to my heart sing!  (473)

From my family to yours!

What's Cooking on this Fine Christmas Eve?

Oh boy, it's finally here tomorrow!  I am so excited!

Source

After tonight there will be 2 new home chefs in the Hefty kitchen!  Yep, tomorrow morning, when they hop out of bed, they will come out to find this beauty for them to work their magic in.

I for one am overly excited to eat some delicacies created here.  I'll let you know with some live shots later, until then, I am going to try not to blow the surprise!

Have a very joyful Christmas Eve!  We are going to "Jesus' Birthday Show" (AKA The Bridgepoint Church Christmas Eve Service) at the Mahaffey this evening and we are all very, VERY excited!

Food Challenge Day 3

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Breakfast:

Water all day long
Green Tea
Pancakes again- still yummy!

Lunch:  Okay, I'm sorry, I don't remember what I had for lunch today.  This is how much I need to work on the lunch area of my life.

Dinner:

Chicken and veggie fajitas.  We roughly followed this recipe from 100 Days Blog.  We didn't use garlic or mushrooms.  I learned that I really enjoy yellow peppers.  I'm not a huge fan of the green ones.  I love onions.

We used rice tortillas and I liked them.  They were chewy and took a second to get used to, but I liked them.  I put Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, organic salsa, and clean white cheese.  This meal was really yummy.

How do I feel?
Still tired from yesterday's workout, both in sleep and in muscles, haha.  Totally worth it though!

I also don't feel frustrated with my eating.  I still feel okay.

Bench Makeover

We have a bench.  (465)

It was left at our house when we moved here and it lives on our front porch.  This bench was not even something that I liked very much, but it has become a bit of a tradition in our house.  It started with Cameron's newborn pictures with the amazing Andrea Walls of Off the Walls Photography (link)...

Photo Credit:  Off the Walls Photography

This was also our Christmas card picture that year.  That turned into the following year's Christmas card picture in the same spot.  The tradition continued with Tate:

Photo Credit:  Off the Walls Photography

It even made it's way onto the beginning of this blog!  This is last year's Christmas card picture and first banner of 10,000 Reasons blog!

But this is what it looked like:

 Let's get it up close:

Yikes.  Maybe if I were going for a nice weathered look, okay.  But I'm not.  I thought about tossing it and starting over.  A new tradition on a new bench.  After thinking about it, I realized that some spray paint and some previously owned paint might just do the trick.  For a lot less money!  If not, no harm.  

So, as the couple at the YoungHouseLove blog would say, "While I was spraying, I was swaying," and here is an after shot:

Perhaps I should have removed the chalk from underneath, oh well, this is a real bench folks!  

At first I hated it.  It stood out like a sore thumb, but time has changed my mind.  The metal is an Oil Rubbed Bronze spray and the paint is the same white as my laundry room and play room.  Plain white, as is in can. (466)

Coming soon:  Christmas Card on Bench :)

Clark Griswold Day

Boy, I feel like I have so much to share this week!  Isn't it funny how that works out?

Anyway, December 1st in our house is known as Clark Griswold day. (460) It's the day that we bust out the ladder (I really think that this is the only reason we even have a ladder) and the lights and hang them up.

It's Lukas' favorite tradition (haha).  He usually ends up doing all of the work while I "coach" and take pictures.  Meanwhile, the guys "help" too.

Really though, Cameron was such a helper.  The only thing we worried about with him was that he would step on a bulb and break it but he was so cautious and didn't step on even one.  He was very involved and a lot of fun.  Oh, I quite like this age! (461)

The highlight of the evening was definitely the ladder.  

And this year, Lukas got to have 2 little helpers.  (462)

We don't go crazy.  I like to think of it as minimalist lighting, the only thing that's not minimal about it is that we use colors and not white lights.  We do one row across the house.  Though it is simple, I absolutely adore it every year! (463)

Lukas even said that this year was the smoothest of all light hanging years. (464)  We put the lights in the right direction, we had matching, working sets that spanned across our house, we have lights with hooks attached and even hooks for the cord at the end of the house.  This is the first year that we didn't have to buy anything to accomplish this goal!  Yay!

This Christmas

Below I have listed our family's 2013 goal activity list.  These are the events that we would like to do/traditions that we would like to implement in our home for Christmas.

I do have some events for Lukas and I (such as watch Christmas Vacation, attend our work Christmas party, and the annual Boat Parade party) and we also get to do a lot of shopping, but I wanted these to be family events.

So far we have put up our Christmas lights (post coming) and watched the Grinch.

To me, the experiences are the gifts.  I hope that my guys can grow to appreciate these moments as well. (459)

Throwback Christmas

Now that it's December, I wanted to let you know that I L-O-V-E Christmas. (456)

I was just thinking back to last Christmas and I wanted to do a sort of "throwback" to the posts from last year.

We had our hilarious, and naturally most popularly viewed post about failing at Christmas photography.

Original Post

We talked about the importance of having the kids involved in the Christmas festivities:

Original Post

We climbed to new heights and took part in some family traditions (aka, Clark Griswold day)

Original Post

And even found a way for me to enjoy wrapping presents with results that I adored:

Original Post

My favorite things about Christmas are the simple, experience-based enjoyment of one another.  I can't wait to see what this year has in store!   (457)

I also wanted to share a post with you that I found helpful and spot on!  You can read about it here (458)