happy birthday to me

so i would like to start off by saying thank you to my mom for buying me a plane ticket to huntington beach for my birthday. i haven't seen my friends in almost 4 years. we used to hang out all of the time and i miss each one of them dearly. i was really sad that i didn't get to see julie due to illness but, i know i will see her this summer. i arrived into LAX at 10pm on my actual birthday and kim and tracy picked me up. i was still a little doped up from my anxiety flying medication but i was really excited to see them. the first stop was "in and out" for a little grilled cheese and some fries with extra salt(can't eat them any other way.) then we dropped off tracy and went to kim's and surprise...

kim's wonderful husband seth, made a little birthday creation for me. it was awesome! thanks again seth and kim for everything you did this weekend from buying me food to taking me to the movies and the swap meet it couldn't have been a better weekend.

kim and her beautiful kiddos ben and london.

the next morning we met my life long friend kelly and her four kids at the bagel shop for breakfast. it was soo good to see her, catch up on her life and meet her youngest children for the first time.

next we made it to kim harvey's and this is cute picture of her and her bunny. we were able to sit in the sun in her backyard and talk and laugh, it was soo nice outside(the perfect temperature.) it was so good to see you kim and we missed having you at dinner!

next we went to visit ruth. she cut and colored my hair and caught me up on everything going on around her house. ruth is awesome, i met her like 14 years ago and every time we see each other (no matter how long it has been) it seems like it has been no time at all. i think that is what i love about my friends, we have known each other for so long that we don't let living 2 states away change that.

ruth also made me an awesome feather headband just like the one she is wearing here. i love it, thanks ruth!

kayley, alison, tracy & tarah

ok so saturday night all of my friends, minus julie, met at buca de beppo's for dinner. it was a blast. we talked about almost everything you can think of from children, to hair to well i don't think i have to mention the rest.

kayley, alison, tracy, tarah, kim, me and kelly

i just thought this was a good picture of kim and tarah.

after dinner we headed for pinkberry's and then starbucks so we could sit around and talk. we probably stayed there for 2 hours talking laughing. i had the greatest time ladies. i miss each and every one of you all of the time and i feel so blessed to have been able to spend time with you this weekend. thank you for being there, i had such an amazing birthday.

lastly but definitely not least, this is benny boy. he is only 1 day older than asher and he (well him and london) saved me from missing my kids too much. in the mornings i would go sit on the couch and watch cartoons with him and london and he would scoot immediately over and cuddly up next to me. london was always there to give me a kiss and a hug and tell me she loves me which made me feel like i wasn't too far away from my own family. thank you braithwaite family for sharing your home and family with me. i will love you always!

until next summer my friends, i promise we will visit you then. i can't wait for you to meet my family.

death of an iphone

this kid might look cute and innocent but tonight he pulled a chair over to the kitchen counter and put my iphone in my cup of water. i didn't even see him do it i just walked over to get a drink and surprise! there was my phone. the only reason i know it was him was i saw him pulling the chair over, i just didn't even think this was a possibility. watch your phones people, children are dangerous.

i love my child but i don't like him very much right now! i don't have very many nice things that are all mine and it is really frustrating to think that my phone (which i love) might be ruined.

steven had me dry it off and then put it in a bowl of rubbing alcohol. it is now currently drying in an airtight baggie and is surrounded in rice to hopefully absorb the water. he says i need to leave it there for at least two days before i check to see if it is working. i will let you know.

valentines day

so today for valentines day we decided to go on a walk as a family. steven found this place called waterworks gardens and we went to check it out. it was this long path that winds between all of these ponds with water reeds and other plants sticking up from them. it was kind of a weird place but we had fun exploring. steven took a bunch of pictures and i thought i would post a bunch because i think they came out pretty good. unfortunately our stake decided to have a stake valentines dance on valentines day and steven (he is the ward activities chair) had to go work at it so i decided to stay home. i didn't want to spend money to have a babysitter so i could either sit by myself while he worked or to sit in the kitchen. we will have to pick some other night that we can do something fun. i know we don't sound like the most romantic people but we will make up for it another day.
i love you steven. thank you for knowing how to make me laugh even when things are rough. you are the best husband and i couldn't ask for anything more. thank you for always loving me and never pointing out my faults. you have a way of making me feel like i am a perfect wife even though i make plenty of mistakes. thank you for working so hard for our family. you are the best husband, i love you!

we gave blood

steven and i gave blood today. i have never done it before and really didn't intend to when we got to the church. the last time steven gave blood was in high school and he passed out twice so he hasn't done it since. he wouldn't have done it this time if it wasn't for sister ridley at church. she is this older lady in our ward who is a complete crack up. steven is constantly teasing her and they have a really good time together. well she was in charge and she called him up and joked him into giving blood. i figured when we got there that if steven could do it, so could i. well, here is the documentation!

steven getting the needle put in.

sister ridley promised she would sing for him if he did it. this is her singing to him.

i just think she is so cute. she was like a little school girl giggling and having a really good time singing to him. she reminds steven a lot of his grandma.

here is me getting the needle put in.

me with the needle. i like this picture because those are my favorite shoes and i love how they are the only thing in focus.

well i guess the moral of the story is that giving blood wasn't all that bad. we ate a good breakfast and drank water and didn't pass out at all. if you haven't done it and you aren't too crazy scared, you should give it a try. i guess it saves 3 lives. steven thinks they should have each person that gets your blood have to write you a thank you letter. he thinks more people would donate if they knew who they were saving.

happy new year

i know this is a little late but i guess that is better than not posting at all! i thought that i would post some of the new things going on with each of the kids so here it goes.

lily belle

1. she is loving preschool as well as her new primary class.
2. when at a recent doctor visit, the dr thought she might have a lazy left eye and suggested that she see an eye doctor. we went to a children's eye doctor last friday and she does not have one but she only has 20/30 vision in that eye as well as an astigmatism. the doctor said that for now she is fine but wants to see her back in 6 months and if there are no changes she will have to get glasses to try and correct it. i guess we will see!
3. loves puzzles, drawing and sending letters to people.
4. she is trying to learn to read and is doing pretty good figuring out what words start with. it will be so fun to see her reading to herself as well as her brothers which i am sure she will want to do. she loves being the oldest.

jackson jet

1. he is finally potty trained! yah for me. i have had 2 kids in diapers for the last 3 years and for the first 4 months after asher was born i had three in diapers. he still wears a pull-up to bed at night but i am ok with that.
2. jackson was invited to join a little preschool group with kids from church and loves it. he goes on tuesdays and thursdays for and hour. he is a little bit of a momma's boy and never fails to tell me he will miss me when i drop him off.
3. i have been noticing in the last year that boys have way more energy than girls. jackson never sits still and always has something to say.
4. his new thing is running around the house slaying dragons. they like watching sleeping beauty and that is his favorite part. it is amazing to see how lily love all the singing and when the prince rescues the princess but jackson can't wait until the dragon appears and the prince kills it. i guess boys will be boys.

asher sparks

1. loves eskimo kisses. steven recently taught him that and i think he prefers it to the normal kiss.
2. loves jumping and will try and jump on or off anything. i have to keep a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't get on things that he can fall off of.
3. the kid loves food. he eats almost anything and thus he only weighs about 4 pounds less than jackson.
4. he is talking all of the time, he just hasn't decided to use to many words that we understand. momma, grandma, go, no yes and thank you are pretty much what i have heard him say. he also tries to say "here you go" when he hands you things which is kind of cute.
5. this kid has the cutest personality and a lot of it. he definitely needs naps and since church is at 1 o'clock (his normal nap time) now i think the nursery will have a run for their money (unfortunately for them they don't get paid).

these are two of my favorite pictures that we were going to use for christmas cards but...we never sent anything out. the first one was steven's choice and the second one was mine. i thought they were both pretty cute.

morgan

so my dog morgan has been acting a little weird for the last few days. she has been really clingy and acting a little bit scared. finally on Wednesday night she was coming down the stairs and she missed the last one and fell. this was really strange and afterward when we looked at her, her eyes were different colors than each other. the last couple of years her brown eyes have always looked green because her pupils were always dilated. well when we looked at her, one of them was brown again. after this, i noticed that she was running into things and that she couldn't see. the next morning i took her to the vet and $230 later i found out that both of her eyes had two separate issues. her left eye will most likely be saved with antibiotics and time but her right eye is another story. if we want her to see again from it, we have to take her to an ophthalmologist to have her lens removed for around $1500. sadly we don't have the money to do this and so i took her home hoping for the best for her left eye to get better. currently she is on pain medication and napping on the couch. we have to give her antibiotics every 4 hours which means we have to wake up in the middle of the night to give it to her (yes we do love our dogs).

when we first brought her home.

a couple years ago when her eyes still looked brown.

today.

www.raisingheller.com

for those of you that don't know, we have a family website www.raisingheller.com (formerly thehellerfamily.org, thank you josh moore for the new name, i don't know why we never thought of it!) steven posts things frequently that don't appear on my blog. fortunately, whatever i post on my blog is automatically posted on raisingheller. if i am not making any sense, you should go to our family website to get the whole scoop on our family. if you sign up on raisingheller, you will get e-mails anytime that steven does a post different than mine, so sign up. unfortunately it does not e-mail you when i post something but if you have us in a reader it won't really matter because the reader will show all of our posts for raisingheller.

this is a lot more confusing than it has to be! just go to www.raisingheller.com for all of our family doings.

merry christmas #2

well we had every intention of going to spokane for christmas but due to unforseen crazy snow weather, we were unable to go. that means that we spent all of christmas 2008 just our little family. it was actually kind of nice but we did miss having our family around. the kids were nice and woke up about 7:15 and were opening presents by 7:30. we didn't leave the house all day. we played games, did crafts (well lily did crafts) read books and watched movies. i made french dips and sweet potatoes (actually yams) for dinner and ate a costco pumpkin pie for dessert. besides the occasional whining from too much candy, it was a pretty nice christmas.

this was the only nice picture we got of asher today. the kid is impossible to photograph. almost every picture we take of him is blurry because he is constantly moving. i love the big ol' drool hanging off his chin. we keep debating cutting his hair a little. it is amazingly long. you can't really tell here but when it is wet it is sooo long. what do you think we should do?

lily and jackson were so cute when they got up this morning. they were so excited but not too over eager, though i did finally have to get steven up because asher was ripping the paper.

jackson playing with asher's little tykes guitar (for anyone looking for a toy guitar, this one is really good. both of the boys really like it) . i thought this picture was so cute of him. steven taught him how to hold a guitar and now he is so into it. i like that he holds it left handed.

christmas #1

ok, so last saturday we had a mini christmas with my mom because they were going to be out of town on christmas. the kids got to open their presents(from them), we ate pizza, had cake and a real good time (i realize this might sound sarcastic but it really isn't.) also, i gave steven his present because it was a new lens for our camera that i knew he would want to figure out before the actual day.

asher waiting patiently for me to untie a smurf. don't you hate how they package some of those things? i mean my hands were all but bleeding by the time i finished undoing the 100 twist ties holding it to the packaging.

here he is finally getting it out. this was actually lily's toy but this kid LOVES stuffed animals.

me helping to get things organized. it is amazing what a mess christmas can cause.

jackson got a spiderman costume and beanie and has worn them everyday since.

steven and his beard. i know some people hate beards but i don't actually mind it. i just don't want him to become a beard guy, you know, the guy that no one can recognize without it.

lily posing in her leotard and tutu. i will have to take a picture of the whole thing, she loves it!

potty training

so let me start off by saying that potty training is not an easy task in the heller household. when lily was three her favorite thing to say was, "mom, i am going wear diapers forever!" now that jack is three i realize that i should be trying to potty training him but i really don't want to deal with it. is there someone who likes to do it that can come over and do it for me? i have tried a couple of times to have him wear underware and try it out andme was successful, thus the picture above, but the other time he cried for an hour asking for his diaper. i was so excited that he actually went pee pee on the potty that i had to document it. does anyone have any advice?

this is how i found him the other day. i thought it was so funny that he kept his boots (sorry the picture doesn't show the shoes) and tie on but took everything else off. i tried to get him to atleast put a shirt on but he refused. i am sure that he knew that he couldn't have looked cuter!

why is a box such a great toy

you probably can't see the box they are in but they had such a great time in it this morning. jackson slept in today so lily and ash were able to play together and the box was where they decided to play. i can't tell you how many boxes have been worn out in this house by my children. it was kind of dark so the pictures were a little washed out but i really liked them anyways. it made seemed to make their eyes stand out more than normal.

priscilla ahn

if i was able to write well, this is what i would intend on writing. isn't she awesome? i love her harmonies, they oddly make me cry. is that weird?

burger king

last night i decided to take dinner to steven at work because he has been coming home late this week and he has not seen the kids. well i went to burger king to pick up some chicken tenders for the kids and some food for steven and i. well we had a good time eating dinner at his office and then came home read some books and got ready for bed. the kids went to bed great and then steven came home. at about 11 we heard jackson screaming like crazy. i ran up there and found throw up all over (and i mean ALL OVER) his bed. we gave him a bath and threw his bedding in the wash and put him back to bed feeling fine. about twenty minute later we heard asher crying and sure enough, he had thown up all over his bed. after getting him all cleaned up he was feeling better and we quickly put him back to bed.

well this morning everyone feels fine. i have to think that the food they ate some bad food. all night i kept waiting for lily to wake up and throw up as well. needless to say it was a sleepless night. fortunately lily never got sick. do you think it was food poisoning? everything was so sudden and they feel fine now. i mean what are the odds that they both throw up 20 minutes from eachother without any warning? how bazaar!

asher sparks heller

have you ever seen such a face someone not even 2? he was jumping around on the couch and along with his laughing and having a grand old time, steven caught this face with the camera. steven thought he looked like a little vampire, of course we had just finished watching interview with a vampire. i love this crazy man!!!

lily

so for the last couple of days lily has been sick and last night her fever was 105.2 (crazy right?) well i called the doctors and they said we needed to take her to the childrens hospital of seattle emergency room. well i have to admit that i am not the best at situations like this. i can't help but think the worse which makes me a little emotional when i need to be strong. thankfully steven was home and he gladly to her to the hospital. they were at the hospital for like 4 or 5 hours (they didn't get home until 2am) and all i can say is that i am grateful for my husband. he sat there with her without a complaint, held her hand and was strong for her. thank you steven for being such an amazing dad to our children and sacrificing your sleep even though you are at work 12 hours a day.

lily is doing better today. no fever but still a bit under the weather. her doctors office called and said that the hospital requested that she have her urine tested again. she has an appointment tomorrow so i will keep you up to date.

twilight revisited

well i really wish this picture was bigger because it is awesome! i have to say that i saw twilight for the second time and i loved it this time. i think the first time i saw it i was so super worried that it would be bad that i couldn't enjoy it as much as i did the second time. steven went to see it with me and he actually thought it was ok and that he would definitely see the second one (this is more than i could ask from him, since he couldn't even get through the first 100 pages of the book. too many long gazes for him to take.)

so for those of you who had a hard time the first go around see it again!! if you live by me and don't have anyone to see it with, i will suffer through another time!