Love is in the air...
We had an exciting week between Valentine’s Day and our 3rd Daddy Daughter Dance. The kids began the 14th wearing their favorite Valentine shirts. For dinner, they made heart shaped pizzas and then we made our annual trip to Sweet Frog for ice cream and a special present from daddy.
On Friday evening, Charlotte and I got ourselves all dolled up. It was so much fun to pick out her corsage and then head to a very fancy dinner at Skyline Chili. I love getting to spend special time with Charlotte. We danced, had our picture taken and had a great time. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Christmas here and everywhere
Here are a few pictures from our Christmas season…
We were first in line at the Bass Pro Shop for pictures with Santa, so Charlotte stepped up to Santa’s door and got to give it a knock.
We always make Christmas cookies and this year the kids really outdid themselves. Oliver only decorated geese and Charlotte picked a bunch of animals and just put the word Christmas in front. So you can have a Christmas whale, a Christmas gecko, a Christmas turtle, a Christmas kangaroo and you get the idea.
We spent time at Grandpa and Gibby’s house on Sunday, then we spent time at Grandpa and Tiki’s house on Monday. The kids love hanging out with their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
On Christmas Eve the kids labeled the carrots for the reindeer and set out some treats for Santa.
When we woke up on Christmas morning, the treats had been nailed and we spent a quiet morning opening presents and playing.
We headed to the Ortiz house later that day and the best part was the food and Jenga. Oliver’s facial expression were priceless.
We ended the day back at home playing with Legos.
Hope you had a great Christmas with family and friends.
Trees, trees and more trees
We headed back to Corsi Tree Farm this year to pick out a tree for this Christmas season. It was a nice day in the mid 50’s so we were able to spend some extra time wandering around the farm and really scoping out all of the possibilities. We found the perfect tree, cut it down and drug it back to be bailed up. The kids picked out candy, we checked out the barnyard animals and strapped the tree to the car and brought it home.
On Saturday morning we checked out the new Grinch movie and the kids ended their day at Coney Island with Gibby and Paula to check out the lights.
Then Sunday evening, Gibby and Grandpa came over and helped us decorate the tree.
We have several holiday traditions at the Hess house and we are off to another great start this season already.
Merry Christmas!
Thanksgiving Day Run!!!
When you realize the kids race starts at 8:30am when you thought it began at 9am, you get to race a little bit before for the actual race begins. For Oliver it meant that in 60 minutes time, he woke up, had clothes thrown on him, jumped in the car, drove to the city in record time, ran the kids race and got a medal…not a bad way to start Thanksgiving Day.
For us and many other 21st century families, we sometimes run at a break neck speed. There are seasons of life that are fast and seasons of life that are slow. There are times when we rest and times when we don’t. But this morning I’m thankful for family. Certainly the grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins and the list goes on and on, but I’m talking about my family. My wife Melissa, who is beautiful, gracious, kind, wise, believing, friend, strong, gentle, faithful. compassionate, and so much more. And for my kids who remind me every day of how much God loves me as his child.
So remember that today, that whether in abundance or few or happy or sad or cancer or no cancer or rich or poor or one and on it goes. But remember that before you are anything else, that you are a child of God. You can be a great husband, but remember that you are a child of God first. Be the best architect, but remember that you are a child of God first. Be the best student, single parent, trash man or CEO. Be this or be that, but remember who you belong to first and above all else.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Dancing, Pumpkins and Halloween
Now that Ollie is in Kindergarten he gets to take part in things like Mother & Son dances at school. The event was just before Halloween, so costumes were encouraged. It was an opportunity for Oliver to test out his magician costume and to see if he could pull a big pink bunny out of his hat. Oliver picked Skyline for his special dinner with mommy and even got Sweet Frog afterwards. Charlotte got to spend the night at Grandpa and Gibby’s house, so everyone was happy.
A couple days before Halloween, we headed back to Grandpa and Gibby’s to carve pumpkins. Oliver made his own creation out of a small green pumpkin about the size of a softball. Charlotte’s was much larger and she picked out a cat patterns that turned out well. Oliver helped me drill holes in mine and Grandpa took care of Melissa’s because she was busy snapping photos. We had great food and ended the night watching the 2018 Battle Bots Finals. Spolier Alert…Bite Force won the giant nut.
On Halloween night, Laura came over for dinner, dressed as Flo from Progressive. Unlike the past few Halloweens, no one was under the weather so Melissa and Laura walked with the kids and I stayed back to greet all of our neighbors. It was a rainy night, but at least it wasn’t cold. Happy Halloween!
