Best thing about my Monday night.

Or any night really. Skyping with this guy! We talk about our day, he shows me the homework he is working on. If he gets home and the kids are still awake then they will talk to him too. Olivia gets the most talkative when I "remember" there is something urgent I need to take care of in another room and she gets the computer all to herself.
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Then she really becomes a chatty Cathy, telling Daddy all kinds of magical stories about her day. It also helps if I only have the window of him open, if I also have the window of us open she gets too fascinated looking at the video of herself to focus on anything else.
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Bianca loves to skype the most. She will sit with me forever and slobber all over the place, squealing and occasionally pointing at him. She loves it and if I don't pick her up so she can see him, she will sit at my feet and bawl her brains out. Skyping with him is the only time she cares about the computer. Most times, when the kids are awake, it is Bianca and I hunkered down in front of the computer with Olivia running in sporadically to tell me some monster is attacking her fisher price school bus. Quite often she is doing all of this in her undies.
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I am so excited to see him again, I can hardly stand it!! 2 weeks and 3 days and then we will get him all to ourselves!

Laying Low...

Olivia wandered off with my camera a few days ago and I have not been able to find it yet! If you see it, please tell it to come home so we can take some pictures!
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Olivia has been real sick this week, so consequently we have not been doing much of anything. I am starting to get it and Bianca seems untouched by it yet. So she has tons of energy and keeps wanting her sister to play with her while Olivia is in a coma like state on the couch.
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I am hoping that tomorrow we make some ground on this sickness stuff. Being sleep deprived I need to constantly remind myself not to lose my patience. My new mantra is "she is really sick, she is only 2.....she is really sick, she is only 2". That helps me keep everything in perspective.
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We have been skyping a lot with Daddy and we were happy to hear about the two Thanksgiving dinners that he got invited to. He has been able to catch up on some much needed sleep with the long weekend. He was watching a Korean movie on Netflix when we called to chat with him on Thanksgiving day. I really love that guy.

Dear Marcus...

Today I feel sassy! Just got my hair done and it feels a thousand times better. I even wore a sassy outfit to the hairdresser (my usual outfit being yoga pants). My new skinny jeans, boots and a shirt I found in Helen's give away pile.
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Then I went to Dutch Bakery and got some pea soup. It was divine! It was a little bit of a wait for the food so they gave me some free chocolate puff things which was a pretty magical ending to my hair crisis of 2010.
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Me and my sassy hair can't wait to see you 3 weeks and 1 day!!!

Hair Update

Good news: Marcus saw pictures of the pixie cut on Konks and LOVES it. Whew!
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Good news: Kaitlyn read my blog post about the pixie and called me right after reading the part where my hair appointment isn't until January. She said, basically, that I am a hot mess right now and that I won't make it until January. Something to the effect of me going crazy and one by one chopping every one's hair off (not an exaggeration). Squabbling ensued resulting in her calling the hair place, as me, and telling them that I was having a hair emergency and that I need to get in ASAP. Doesn't matter who does it or when or what they do to me, something has got to be done and fast.
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Luckily I have been going to the same place for QUITE some time and am familiar with most the gals there. She got me in TOMORROW at noon. Gotta love a girlfriend who goes for the gusto on getting you help, kinda embarrassing that I need the help this badly.
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Good news: I will have fabulous looking hair for when my Marcus comes home for break!
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The gal I am seeing tomorrow is not my usual gal, but I still have my appointment for January so if anything gets too crazy my main gal can fix it up then. But honestly I believe we are at the point that even if she butchered it, it would probably make it look better!

Say hello to the Pixie.

Something just had to be done. Olivia even knew it. That danged curse of baby girl hair that takes forever to grow out and looks ridiculous.

Cousin Vienna of course had to get in on the action.

Bianca had some major mullet action going on. I remember how long it took for Olivia's crazy hair to grow out and it just made me anxious. Olivia's hair is STILL growing out those baby layers.

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Plus I was feeling kinda depressed about my hair (problem solved...hair appointment for January with my name on the list to call in case of cancellations). I knew me and Olivia were going to be hooped for a while and just figured at least one of us girls needed to have some sassy hair.

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So, on a total whim while my Mom and Auntie Michelle was here, I went for it. That's right, sister.... I CHOPPED IT ALL OFF.

First cut... excitement plus "Oh crap, what did I just do."

But I knew at that point there was no turning back. A big ole chunk of Mr. Mullet was gone. With a sucker as a distractionary tool I just kept hacking away.

And I have to say that I am IN LOVE with how it turned out!

I had some hair wax left over from when my hair was short and just spiked it up all sassy like.

Half the time people can't tell if babies are boys or girls, even if you have them dressed in blue or pink. Her hair just looks so healthy and spunky, just like her fun little self.

No more mullets for this baby. It is so awesome because she knows how fabulous she looks. She will take both her hands and run them through her hair and just smile at me. I am already getting excited about all the different ways I can spike it and/or put in cute little clips for the front part.

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Watch out world. We got a pixie baby on the loose!

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PS- Hopefully Marcus doesn't kill me ;)

Hair-tastrophe

It's pretty hard to get a picture of my whole head when I am trying to do it myself. Let me tell you something, my hair has reached a whole new level of ridiculousness.
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I have a baby.
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6 months post baby all the finer hair that frames my face (as well as a good 1/3 of my thickness overall) falls out in humongous, embarrassing chunks.
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I have bald patches on either side of my temples for a good, long, while.
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Fast forward a couple of months. Finer hairs start growing back in.
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Fast forward a couple of months after that. Finer hairs are about three inches long. Not quite long enough to do a full curl, but plenty long enough to stick out at ridiculous angles and make an afro halo around my head.
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All this young, new hair is in it's adolescence of development if you will. It is dying to get noticed and show the world what it is all about. It does NOT take kindly to direction, rebellious in spirit.
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The older, more mature hair looks down on the hyperness of the new hair. To demonstrate how fully developed and refined it is, the longer hairs lay flat and dull. Trying to tell the new hairs how to behave in public. All calm and tame. Then the new hairs get all their feathers ruffled, ashamed of how the older hairs want to hide their light under a bushel. So they really pull out ALL the stops and become one with the afro.
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My head is a battle field for hair decorum and I am afraid the only person loosing the fight here is me. I believe it is time for me to book an appointment with my hairstylist before I go crazy. Trying to reason with the two sects of hair is no longer working...if it ever worked at all.

Blistery Sunday.

Today was a harder Sunday for our clan. Kids shenanigans ensued, felt like a wild banshee wrangler the whole time. I might have even exclaimed a little louder of an "Amen" at the end of Relief Society, not because I was glad to be done with it, just glad I survived my kid craziness with my sanity intact. (I swear the wind is turning my kids into crazy hooligans!).
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I was just starting to dread the inevitable "load the brood into the car in the freezing cold" end to church when something pretty cool happened. A Mom of older boys that was sitting across the way flagged down one of her sons to help me out to my car. I had a momentary thought of turning her down, my pride screaming that I could handle all this and Oh, so much more! But then I turned to her and said that would be wonderful.
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See I had been thinking about a post a friend made HERE and it had been on my mind all day. What good would it have done me to try and haul my cranky kids out there all by myself when I was already feeling frustrated... when someone was trying to ease my load? He buckled Bianca in like a pro and Olivia practiced her manners by thanking him for helping us.
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It also made my kinda admire the Mom for seeing a need and filling it as well as showing her boy how to fill those needs. I got my spiritual fill for the Sunday not when I was sitting in the chapel, but when I was in the Church parking lot.