They Cut Off My Fierce!

Normal women have standing appointments to get their hair done.  Or a mani/pedi.  Maybe a massage.  Me?  I have a standing appointment with my vet. 

I have been to the vet every Wednesday since school started.  Poor Griffin's skin condition - that I have been trying to cure for a YEAR - had reached crusty-I'm-afraid-to-touch-it proportions.  His ears had lost all the fur from the inside and the ick had crept from his elbows across his chest.  No fur.  Black flaking badness.  Resistant to topical medicines.  Shudder.

The vet took one look at him and told me I had to shave him (!).  And bathe him weekly in shampoo that cost WAY more than anything I have ever used.  And give him thyroid medicine.  And a fish oil capsule the size of his head.  Every day.

Here are my sweet pom poms in Colorado.  Izzy is on the left and Griffin is on the right.  Aren't they cute?

Here is Griff after his trip to the beauty parlor.

Could you just die? How cute is he? (Not a super picture, but it was hard to get him alone in the frame!) He looks like a little teddy bear!  He is now so woolly and adorable that I just have to pick him up every time I walk by him - like a thousand times a day!  It is really funny to see his little fuzzy self keeping gigantor Holly in line.  She jumps and cringes just like he was twice her size.  Hilarious!

The good news is that he is like a whole new dog after his hair cut.  More energy.  Less eye watering.  The crusty is clearing.  Yay!  T thinks that maybe all that fur was holding allergens that he couldn't escape. 

Take It All Off!

So.  A looooong time ago I mentioned something about cutting my hair.  Blah, blah, significant birthday blah give hair to charity blahbity blah.  There may have even been a poll?

Without further ado, the winner, Short and Sassy:

So even after the decision was made, I put off and put off actually doing it.  Finally, I couldn't stand it any more and chopped off 15 inches.  Myself.  In my bathroom.  In pajamas. 

And I grainily documented the whole thing for your viewing pleasure!  (No, I'm not mad in these pictures.  Just trying to figure out how to take a picture of myself in the mirror.)

BEFORE

 

DURING (I cut between the two rubber bands.  I read an article in Glamor 20+ years ago that said doing this was an easy way to give yourself long, easy layers.

AFTER!

Now, I knew this step would be temporary, so I wasn't worried about messing anything up.  I actually took another six inches off the back after this picture was taken.  It turned out to be a pretty okay haircut.  My curls were definitely curlier, but in a good way.  The downside was that if I put it in a pony tail, I'd have a kink from the rubber band until the next time I washed it. 

Last week, after both kids were back in school, I finally made it into the salon to get my official new hair cut.  The stylist didn't believe me when I told her I wanted it short, so we ended up re-cutting the whole thing twice.  Much blow drying and flat ironing later, it looked really cute!  Ironically, it still wasn't short enough.  I want it OFF my neck.  My stylist said to come back after I had lived with it for a while and we would tweak it to get it just right.

Then I washed it.  I had to see what it would look like if I didn't take time to fix it.  Oh, the humanity!  It shrunk (shrank?  shrinked?) right up into a puffy round grandma hair do.  All I needed to fit in with the biddies in my water aerobics class was a blue rinse.  My look went from mid-30's to mid-50's.  Swell. 

Face blurred for your protection!

UPDATE:  The next day I broke out a whip and a chair and was able to tame it into something resembling a cute style.  I had to buy a better flat iron and MANY straightening products, but even so, I was unable to get it as straight as the stylist.   So now the question is do I go shorter?  Take out a little of the bulk?  Or do I just wait it our until it is a little longer and the weight holds it down?  I am open to suggestions!

Fin.*

* that would be the french for 'the end', not the pokey part on the back of a fish.

Z finished her first year of real school.  I am now the mom of a first grader.  How is that possible?  I was just in labor with her ten minutes ago!

I am amazed with how much she has learned this year.  She can read.  Like, for real.  Not just Dick & Jane, either.   Books.  Signs.  Cereal boxes.  Amazing!  She can do math.  Addition, subtraction, some basic multiplication.  She now speaks some basic Spanish.  She can even roll her r's.  Wow.

My baby is growing up.  It is hard to believe she went from this to this in nine short months.  I couldn't be more proud of her.

Now, if I can just keep from killing her over the summer, we will be in good shape!

New 'Do

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

RAW(e) Photo Competition: Girly

When I saw the theme of this week's competition, I just had to enter!  I have lots of girly photos of Z, but this one remains one of my favorites.

PS - You can play along here.

Free 8 x 10 Canvas!

My gal pal, Jamie, from Kids, Me & RAW III has teamed up with the nice folks over at Canvas People to promote their amazing free 8x10 deal.  You upload the pic of your choice and they will print it on canvas and gallery wrap it for free!  All you have to pay for is the shipping.  At first I couldn't decide which picture I wanted to use, then I remembered this gorgeous photo from our wedding.  Our photographer was the BEST!

Of course, once I got there, I couldn't resist upsizing to the 11x14.  I can't wait for it to get here!

Photo Finish

At long last I have pictures! Ta dah!  Z's room:  now with more animal print!

Here is a comparison of how I had pictured them in my head next to a picture of the finished product.  Impressive, no?  I SO love it when things turn out just like I see them in my mind's eye!

Next I will be digging into the panel that I am going to add to the top of the bed-in-a-bag I got from Tar-zhay.  That sounds simple enough, but I have decided that I am going to make a border with ruching and piping.  Wouldn't want to make it easy on myself!

Luckily, my fab mom-in-law had a gathering foot for the sewing machine, so I am hoping that once I learn how to use it, it will do most of the work for me.  Of course, I am expecting a Lucy-and-Ethel-like adventure (misadventure?) before I have it mastered.  I watched a how-to video on YouTube.  She made it look easy enough.

Luckily, if it isn't easy?  I have lots of extra fabric!

RAW(e) Photo Competition: Red

Last week was so much fun, I had to enter again.  This week, the theme is RED.  I love this picture of our first big snow in Wester.  Notice that Q is wearing two cowboy hats.  If one is good, two is better, right?

P.S. Join in if you like. Just click here.

Cute Do

We all had a trip to the beauty parlor this week.  I got a trim and highlight touch-up/repair.  Z got her summer cut, a short stacked bob.  What does it say about me as a parent that Z's haircut is SO much more fashion forward than mine?  Q got a trim so he doesn't look like a shaggy hippy (his father's words). 

I am so tickled with my color.  When I got the highlights last fall, they were not at all the subtle lightened-by-the-sun-looking streaks I was hoping for.  Instead, Red gave me super fashionable chunky streaks.  I am not a super fashionable kind of gal.  I like to pretend that I am still a natural blond, so I really didn't want obvious evidence to the contrary that I am not!  Luckily, my hair bleaches prettily, so even though they were not natural looking, at least the streaks were a nice color.  Eventually, I got used to my 'tiger stripes,' as T called them.  What I never got used to was the fact that the brightest of the stripes started about an inch from the root line in the front.  Nothing says natural like a full inch of dark roots around your face!  Pretty!  But those are a thing of the past.  My hair is now looking sun-kissed and natural.  And Red is SO cheap!  Yet another perk to life in a small(ish) town!

Z probably got six inches lopped of the back of her hair.  Adorable!  I didn't realize how hip her 'do was until I started looking around and noticed that about every third adult I noticed had some variation of Z's cut.  Bun said she wants Red to cut her hair to look just like Z's.  I'd say that was a successful cut!

Q had a mighty case of the fidgets, so we are lucky he came out with both of his ears intact, let alone a symmetrical cut.  He did a good job for a little guy in a new environment, surrounded by a bunch of chatty women.  A far cry from the barber shop! 

I made yet another trip to the salon the next day for a Rock Star pedicure.  Basically, nail gel + glitter + more nail gel + baked under a light = BIG sparkly toes.  LOVE!  I'll spare you photographic evidence.  It was a fun girly beauty week.  I am now obsessively searching for the stuff to do gel nails myself.  Just what I need.  Another project!

RAW(e) Photo Competition: Water

Simoney at Great Fun 4 Kids posted about this and I'm nothing if not suggestible.  So I'm joining in the fun over at Sailor & Co: the RAW(e) photo competition. The theme this week is "Water". Photos must be Raw and un-retouched, straight from the camera.

I have several great ones of my water baby, Z, that I'd love to enter, but this one was my favorite.

P.S. Join in if you like. Just click here.

Ho Freaking Ho

The Christmas season is officially kicking my rear this year. I have managed a few victories: getting the tree inside (and lit); taking the kids to see Santa; going to see the gingerbread houses at the Children's Museum; finishing my holiday shopping. And yet have suffered ignoble defeat at the hands of getting the tree decorated, the making of the Christmas goodies and getting my Christmas cards in the mail. Forget about getting the presents wrapped!

The decorations on the tree only go up about two feet. With about three ornaments per branch. One sad specimen is weighed all the way down to the ground. The rest of the ornaments are waiting hopefully in their boxes - down from the attic, at least! - behind the couch. I keep waiting for T to be home so we can decorate the tree as a family. I am too stubborn to just cave and do it myself. We are going to have some family fun, dammit!

It almost goes without saying that the house won't be completely put together in time for the festivities. Just close enough to make me crazy. @#$%! It is so tempting to spend my dwindling hours until the big day cranking out curtains for the public areas of the house, but somehow I don't think that would be a wise use of my time. Better to corral the massive herd of dust bunnies and get the spots out of the carpet than worry about finishing details so far from the finish!

This year, for the first time, I can see why my mom was always such a crab at Christmas. I'd better get a lid on myself or it will be bay leaves and melted butter for me!

And now for gratuitous offspring pictures!

Halloween Recap

Happy Halloween!
We had a great Halloween. It was the first event that Z and Q got to do with their cousins. We started out at my aunt's house for chocolate and photo ops. Q fell asleep in the car on the way over, so he was a bit of a grump. But chocolate soothes the savage beast and soon he was having a ball. Our next stop was a Halloween block party. There must have been 100 kids and their parents there. We ate hot dogs and too much candy sitting on the lawn.

Half the time we couldn't see where our kids were, but the cool part was that my cousins knew everyone there so we didn't have to worry.

Q stole his baby cousin's sword and was the happiest flying monkey on the block. Here he is running away from Mama and her pesty camera. He absolutely refused to put his hood up and look monkey like. You'd think he was two or something. Oh, yeah - he is!

Z's cousin asked her if she was the Wicked Witch of the West (she was). Her response? No, I'm the Wicked Witch of ALL the Directions!

Here he is with his hood up! This trick-or-treating is serious business!

We had a great time and were exhausted by the end of the night. I was hoping the munchkins would have a sugar crash on the way home, but we had no such luck.

VERY Scary

My dad sent this image to me. It is not for the faint of heart, so if you scare easily, DON'T SCROLL DOWN!











No, really. Quite disturbing.














Okay, you asked for it!

Happy Halloween!

Picnics...

Every moment we aren't strapped into a Jeep and hanging precariously onto the sides of mountains is spent picnicking.

Here is Z, chowing down after her idyllic adventure of swimming with leeches.
Yes, leaches. Gah!

Here we are at our fave wild mushroom hunting spot.

Grandma is holding the chair so that Q doesn't fall off the slope. We are all about the safety. Not pictured? Open flames. And sharp sticks holding lots of ill-refrigerated processed meat. Parents of the year.

Jeeping

Before I met my husband, I thought Jeep was a noun. It was only after my first trip to Colorado that I learned that it was also a verb.

jeep - verb (lower case) - the act of driving on really rocky, unpaved roads, in a rugged motor vehicle having four-wheel drive and the ability to climb up vertical walls; extra points for bad shocks and uncomfortable seating; is not necessary for the vehicle to actually be made by Jeep.


My children spend 3/4 of their time in Colorado strapped into their car seats, driving over mountains.

Clearly, this thrills them.

Gratuitous Baby Portraits

In the rich and time honored tradition of over-photographing your first born, we had portraits of Z taken every month of her first year. These were taken in a privately owned garden that is open to the public.

Here's my girl eating some dirt!
I had this trio framed and gave it to all the grandparents,
and kept one for myself. LOVE!

Here she is thinking so hard that her brain exploded!

A precursor of things to come? Check the evil gleam in her eye. I love this shot!

In the rich and time honored tradition of the second child getting the shaft, I only managed to have Q's portrait made six times. I have yet to get any of them framed.