9.30.2007

My Husband











My husband...

What is his name? John Clark Hecker- Husband, Father, Son, Graduate Student, Executive Secretary, Psychologist, Tennis Player, Golfer, Mountain Climber

How long have you been together?
We met on August 1st 2002-engaged on October 19th 2002-married April 25th 2003! That's over five years! Time sure does fly by.

Who eats more? He has the capability of eating more but I eat more through out the day. He'll leave for school in the morning with maybe a PB sandwich and won't eat again until dinner...are you kiddin' me?? I have to have three meals and almost always have to have a snack in between...I'm on my preschoolers schedule!! Can you tell. He does love candy and treats though...I can't eat as much of that as he can.

Who said I love you first? John did! When we were dating he would leave me love notes taped onto my apartment door. That's actually where he first said that he was falling in love with me. It was a really sweet letter and of course...I scrapbooked it!

Who is taller? John is...thank goodness. With me being as tall as I am and loving heels as much as I do, I can occasionally be taller than him.

Who sings better?
Hmmm...that's a good one because we are both not so great. We both enjoy it though and that's always fun. He actually can be really good when he sings some songs. He can melt my heart with his attempt at seranading me.

Who is smarter?
Well, with him going to school so much and me watching Barney and Caillou all day, I think that he's passing me up! He has always been really good at complicated math but has recently also become very good at writing!

Whose temper is worse?
Johns!! I think it's all the stress that comes from being in graduate school. I have my moments of breakdowns too of course.

Who does the laundry?
ME!! John has attempted to do his own for a little while but has realized that he just didn't have anytime. I feel like I do laundry all the time. Just when it's finally all folded and put away, the baskets are full again. I have put a ban on my family before...cursing the next person to get their clothes dirty.

Who pays the bills?
We actually both do. He deals with the cars, school, and loans and I do the power, cable, internet, and cell phone.

Who mows the lawn?
Ummmm...no lawn for us...unfortunitly. He does talk about how he is excited to one day be able to do the yard work...for now I do the flowering! I did ask him to water my plants for week while I was out-of-town and he did it the first day and then forgot for the rest of the week. The funny thing is that he had to walk right past them everyday to get to school.

Who cooks dinner?
I do because I have more time. He likes to though. He's very good in the kitchen and doesn't use recipes. He's creative with food.

Who is more stubborn?
Hmmm...it depends on what it's about. We are both pretty strong willed.

Who asked whom out?
John asked me out the first night that we met.

Who kissed whom first?
I think that John did but I made it pretty easy for him. We were actually at the temple, we had just watched the Testaments.

Who wears the pants in the family?
Some of our friends think that I do but it's SOOOOO John!

Thanks Andrea for the great idea!
Everyone on my friends and family list is tagged!!

9.28.2007

Scrapbooking Anyone??

I have recently started scrapbooking my house! I add ribbon to anything that I can and I LOVE it! The picture of the scrapbooked wall says Hailey and Isabella-it's in their bedroom. My friend Abbi has a machine that cut out all the letters for me. Add some metal and ribbon embellishments and it's perfect.





I made a family Home Evening board from vinyl lettering that I purchased in Utah. Instead of hanging little wooden tags for the names of our family, I bought little picture frames and hung them with a picture of each one of us.

9.27.2007

Girls Night Out

My friend Heidi planned this wonderful and beautiful evening just fo us...her friends. The girls in the picture left to right are (me, Abbi Penn, Chablis Adams, Terri Trinnaman, and Heidi Russell.) We try to get together once a month to spoil each other and to enjoy good friends. What a great night-thanks Heidi.

All because two people fell in love!

9.26.2007

Flowers

A flower's appeal is in its contradictions - so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect. ~Adabella Radici




















One of my new obsessions has become gardening! I started out with one or two pots and that just wasn't enough so I added one or two more. Well, that just wasn't enough and I had to add ten more pots. At one time I had over twenty pots on my tiny little concrete slab. I guess that you could call me "the pot lady." It got so bad that we had no more spots to put plants so my dad helped me buy some wood and I painted away to make a new and beautiful shelf for my many plants. I LOVE IT!! Not only do I love flowers on my porch but I love them in my hair and in my girls hair too. The brighter and bigger, the better. If I have an empty spot in my house that needs some extra touch...I put a flower there. I've recently gotten into herbs too and have enjoyed eight different varieties this summer. SO FUN!!

9.19.2007

Wyview Friends


We were so lucky to be able to get together with a few of our good friends from BYU Married Housing. It was so great to see everyone and their families that have multiplied. I hope to be able to get together with a lot you of next summer while we are visiting Utah.
Hailey Hecker and Skylar Paxman

A.J Lehikoinen and Isabella Hecker

9.18.2007

AppleBees


Have you heard about the Half Priced appetizers at AppleBees after 9pm?? It's so great. My dear friend Heidi and I long for some time just to be women...which usually occurs after the kids are in bed! We went a little overboard and we ordered 4 appetizers for the two of us to share. It was so much fun and we are still laughing about just how much food that was.

Corolla, North Carolina


The week of Labor Day we were fortunate enough to be able to spend a week in a beautiful beach house right off of the Beach. That is a trip that everyone just has to do! Renting the beach houses can cost a lot of money but if you do it right before or right after the summer, the cost goes down by thousands!! We had some relatives that flew to Virginia from Utah to spend the week at the beach and they invited us to vacation with them!! This house just happened to be perfect! It was huge (big enough to need an elevator) with a pool and hot tub, a real theater room, and a game room with arcades! The best part was of course the beach just right outside of the door. I did think that I was going to die only about 5 times as I was washed to shore by huge waves but that's what made it so much fun. There were only a few serious injuries...one in which my uncle ended up in an ambulance to the hospital. He was slammed into the ocean floor from the force of a big wave and had some neck injuries from it in the end...he also had a nice sand burn all down his face too.
Hailey and Isabella loved the beach...almost as much as their mommy and daddy did. We were lucky enough to be awake for the sunrise about 3 days out of the week because Hailey gets up so early. BEAUTIFUL!!!







Ouch! He could barely hold up his own head at this point!!

Summer Vacation


John has school all summer except for the month of August. It has been a great time for us to spend time with each other...as the rest of the year is very busy and always super hectic. With the help of John's parents, we were able to fly to Utah for three weeks and be there for the Hecker Family Reunion. It was a triatholon reunion with a lot of physical activities and we had a blast. Here is a picture from the conclusion of our reunion. It was great to have us all together. It is now John and my turn to start planning the next reunion. What should we do?? Where should we go??



We also had the chance to bless Isabella. All of John's brothers were there and two of my brothers were there. We did it in the Hecker's backyard on a beautiful Sunday morning. It was perfect. She was 6 months old and she's kind of a chuncky baby so we were all joking that she might need to sit in a chair for her blessing...it's a good thing that John is pretty tough and could hold her up...of course with the help of our strong family. Isn't she so cute??
















We were also so lucky to be able to go to St. George to attend the wedding of my cousin Stephanie. It was a beautiful wedding and we had a lot of fun.
Hailey was lucky enough to have been able to use one of my cousins' Nintendo DS and she thought she was sooooo cool. We will not let her play ours so she got as much play time in as she could there.

At the St. George Temple


Have any of you had a chance to go to your high school reunions?? My ten year reunion is still not for another 2 years but we were lucky enough to be in Utah during John's reunion. It was fun to meet some of the people that John hung out with and even girls that he dated. We left the girls with John's mom and headed to the BYU Sky Room with one of his best friends Brady and his wife Brook. You should have heard these two guys in the car on the way to the reunion, "Man, what are we doing?"..."Maybe we should just go out the dinner instead." They were nervous-although I'm sure they would never admit it now! Love ya Brady!!



The last week of our trip was supposed to be relaxing and John and his dad planned a golfing trip to enjoy some of this time together. Well, they ended up missing their tee time and spending quality time together in the hospital instead. Not even a mile down the road from the Hecker home, they were hit "head on" by on another car. I pulled up the the accident scene to John being strapped onto a stretcher and being loaded into an ambulance. I always knew that John was hard headed but COME ON-he broke the windshield with his head and ended up with only a concussion!













Coming home from our trip was a nightmare! We were delayed in Salt Lake City by three hours and luckily we didn't miss our connecting flight in Houston...or so we thought! We ended up waiting on the airplane for an hour only to find out that they were cancelling our flight due to landing construction here in Norfolk! We couldn't get another flight for two days so we ended up spending lots of money on hotels, food, and clothes because they had sent our bags to Norfolk without us. We were soooooo happy to be home after that! Oh...did I mention that Hailey got sick a few times in the hotel due to a parasite that she caught while swimming in a Utah public pool? NASTY!! Let me remind you that we only had the clothes that were on us at the time. That's when we walked to a mall to buy everyone one change of clothes.
Here's a picture from our hotel room! No toys to entertain the little ones so we entertained ourselves!

Sleepless Nights


Isabella seriously is a gift from God!! She has been the best baby and we look forward to her smiling face from the moment she wakes up until the seconds that she is drifting into sleep. She isn't perfect though...almost...but not quite. She just loves her mommy so much that she thinks that it's fun to see me in the middle of the night. She absolutely can not be hungry yet she insists on eating not just once or even twice but THREE times a night!!! YIKES!! She is 7 months old and I am positive that this has to stop but I nor John are very excited about making our baby that never cries...CRY! I am just hoping that she will grow out of it soon as I might not make it long enough to see her grow out of it. Hailey likes to wake up at about 6 am so there's not much sleep going on in this house.

Changes

There are good changes and bad changes...both of which are sometimes IN our control and sometimes OUT of our control. Now I have always been the type to change my bedroom around at least once a month. My parents would often come home to a newly redecorated family room that my little brother (who was forced) and I had changed into something other than where it had started. John and I change our little apartment around very often...at least twice a month and that's the kind of change that I enjoy. John keeps saying to me..."now this is the last time that we are going to move this bench, right??

John and I have loved living in Virginia Beach, not only for the beauty that is all around us, or for the great school where John is getting his education, but also for my family living 5 minutes away and the support that they have been to us. Well, after 30 something years in my parents first home...they are moving!! They are moving across the country to good ole' Salt Lake City! My dad left on Monday and my mom is staying until after Christmas...not the good kind of change! Saying goodbye to my dad was sad but it will only get worse with the goodbye to my mom!


A good change has been for Hailey to start preschool!! She on the other hand would probably say that this was not a good change but it has been wonderful for mommy and I believe that it's great for Hailey. After a dozen tantrums and Hailey refusing to go that first morning...I put on her backpack and told her that I was going to preschool by myself. I guess that did it because she jumped out of her jammies and into her clothes screaming the entire time, "mommy don't go with out me!" It's a work in progress but I think that with the help of great friends she has really started to enjoy herself.

Hailey and her good friend Gracie Adams! Aren't they so cute??

Another great change is FALL!! It sure is beautiful here and I am reminded of how wonderful this earth is and how great change is to renew and regenerate life here.