Hair drama and other normal stuff

The most important thing that happened this week is that I got a haircut. Haha!

Not really, but I've been looking forward to it since I made the appointment a month ago. I hated my hair before and it's so much better now. I've come to realize that I place a lot of importance on my looks. I don't necessarily have to look amazing every day, but it's important to me to know that I can if I want to.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I went to a lady who specializes in cutting curly hair. Devacurl has trained stylists all over the oountry and this lady was one of them. She was amazing. Not only did she give me a great cut considering what she had to work with, but she managed to make my hair even curlier than I ever have and I've read the Devacurl book and follow its suggestions.

It's way shorter than I would like. But I think it will grow out well and for being as short as it is, it's a great cut.

Yesterday, I decided to color my hair. I wanted it a lot lighter than it was after she cut it. But the cut was super expensive and to have her color it was gonna cost an arm and a leg. So I decided to do it myself with professional haircolor. It was a bad idea. My mom helped me do the back, and as far as I can see, she did a great job. But I didn't leave the bleach in long enough and now, even after toning it twice, it still looks like a light red instead of blond. I may have my neighbor who does hair fix it in a couple of weeks.

AFTER THE 1ST TONING:

AFTER THE 2ND TONING:

The girls also had gymnastics twice this week, they did a lot of playing outside because it's been gorgeous and sunny, and they all got to hang out with Nana for a while (which means they ate way too many oreos). We also went to the library, and played with playdoh and magnets.

My pony creation:

One of Cecily's.

Mira was quite the fashionista on our trip to the libarary. Had a pet under her arm and everything.

I thought Mira's magnet castle ended up looking a lot like an elephant carrying one of those tent things on its back.

I've been working on family history on Sundays recently and found a family member whose birth and death dates I didn't have and couldn't find anywhere online. So I asked my mom about it. Which prompted her to get out her tub of papers and books about family history when I stopped by to chat on Wednesday. That led to looking through papers for over an hour, and another three-hour session on Thursday.

Steve moved his game night to Thursday this week, even though I'd reminded him on Sunday that there was a writing group that I wanted to check out that night. So my mom ended up watching Emilia and Mira on Thursday evening while I went to the Provo library to meet up with them. Cecily didn't go because she'd already seen my mom that day and because she had a fever again. So Steve put her to bed early.

I got  to go on a date with Steve Friday night. We are not good about planning ahead. Fortunately, the neighbors have a son who's a senior this year who is kinda socially awkward. He's a great babysitter because he doesn't mind playing with the kids (they often have pillow fights where they throw pillows at him over and over) and he's almost always available. So we ended up going to the mall and searching through a used book store until Tomb Raider started. I loved the Angelina Jolie version, but this one was pretty awesome too. I was impressed that the main actress did all of her own stunts.

My little seeds are still growing strong. I'm excited to get a jump-start on some of my plants this year. And to have extras to give away for about the same price I would have paid for one plant on some.

Cecily was so mad at me for doing her hair like this one day. But after I put bows in and helped her match her clothes, she felt SUPER cute and bragged about it all day. :)

The night she had a fever, she woke up from a nightmare and I got to cuddle her on the couch until I went to bed. It was sweet to have her fall asleep in my arms like she did when she was a baby.  It doesn't happen very much anymore and probably won't again until I have grandbabies. Which hopefully (and sadly) will be along time from now.

toothfairies and family time

Last Sunday night, Mira got out of bed like an hour after we put her in because she couldn't sleep (curse you, Daylight Savings!). She had a little snack and as she took a bite, her loose front tooth fell out. She is adorable with one tooth missing. Her toothfairy forgot to come until Wednesday night, but it seems our family gets a lot of those slacker toothfairies. :)

This week was full of family.

Monday I had lunch with some ladies from my old writing group. They both have agents now and publishing contracts. As I left, one of them made a comment indicating that they had grouped me with the people who wouldn't get either of those things. It hurt that she'd lost faith in me because my journey is taking longer than hers. But it made me more determined than ever to prove her wrong.

I also needed to do some grocery shopping because I knew the rest of the week would be a constant go-go-go. The girls were excited to go with for once because they'd counted their quarters and decided to spend them on a bunch of toys from the vending machines. I'll admit they're cute. But I'm not sure we needed 30 of them.

Megan arrived from Colorado with her kids Monday evening, so we went over and had pizza with them at my mom's house and let the kids play for a while.

A bunch of plants came up this week that I had given up on, too. Peppers and tomatoes both came up. And these petunias. It's hard to see in there it's so small, but it's there. And they're all getting bigger.

Tuesday, my sister-in-law, Cindy, came into town and we got to spend all day with the cousins. I watched Flo and Sebastian while Cindy and McKay and Haley took a tour of BYU and did some piano window shopping. Then as soon as the older girls got done with school, Cindy and I took everybody but McKay swimming at the Provo Rec Center. They had a blast, as usual. Then I went to yoga at the library with another friend after dinner.

Wednesday, I helped Julia until 11, then Megan came and exercised with me. Emilia called to come home early because she was feeling overwhelmed and stressed at school, so I took both her and Mira out and went over to my mom's again. The kids loved playing together, especially because Ben's kids came that evening, too. Mira and Cecily were less excited to go to gymnastics that day, but since they'd missed the week before with strep, I didn't want to have to do 2 makeup days.

Megan and I exercised together again on Thursday. It was nice to have someone to motivate me to workout. That afternoon, Megan and I did some more grocery shopping and then I needed to run back to Springville to pick up my kids and go to Parent/Teacher Conferences. We met up at BYU's bowling alley after that and bowled one game. Unfortunately, they can't put the bumpers up and down for each person. They just have to stay up all the time. I think I only got pins from accidentally hitting the bumper once, though, so I still think I did pretty good. :) Mira didn't use the ramp even once, she threw the ball every time. She's a little bit inefficient, since she likes to swing her arm around the to back of her body before throwing it. It ends up being more like pinball at that point, but I'm still proud of her for continuing to throw the ball. Usually she's very self-conscious and critical of herself if she doesn't do as well as everyone else (even if they're all older), but she was a great sport this time and thoroughly enjoyed herself.

After we finished bowling, Cari and Febe came back to our house for dinner and a sleepover. They all played so well together, and didn't even mess up the entire house. It's so nice that my kids enjoy their cousins so much.

Friday, we (me and Megan and Haylee) took all the kids to The Bounce House in Orem. The kids wore themselves out and then we had lunch at my parents' again. That evening, we had a family dinner and celebrated the March birthdays. Mira was ecstatic to get a bunch of "hair-doing stuff" from Nana and Grandpa.

Yesterday, Emilia and Steve tried out for Hale Center Theater's production of Annie. Steve was last in a play there in 2007 before we had any kids. He was the lead in No Time for Sargeants. If they get in, we likely won't be going anywhere this summer, since between practices and two months of shows, they'll be gone for evenings for 4 months. It should be interesting. Even if they don't get in though, I think it was a good experience for Emilia to practice a song and sing it for a critical audience. I'll keep you informed on whether they in.

Cars = stress

I have a bunch of random pictures this week. And most of them are not of the exciting events. In fact, most of them were taken by Mira. So I'm just going to sprinkle them throughout. Enjoy. ;)

Last Sunday, Cecily had a fever. She didn't even eat dinner because she felt so yucky. Mira had a little (potty) accident for the second time that week during dinner, which she hasn't done in a couple years. It made me think maybe she had a UTI like Emilia did on Friday--because when we took Emilia in, the doctor said one of the symptoms of a UTI in younger kids is having accidents when they didn't realize they had to go to the bathroom. Monday morning, Cecily seemed to be doing better, so I just made an appointment for Mira to see if she had a UTI. I also set an appointment for me because I thought I'd gotten an infection after my UTI treatment was over. It ends up, Mira didn't have a UTI and I didn't have an infection, but Mira did have strep throat. Which made me think Cecily also had strep. Which meant I had to make another appointment for Cecily so we could get medicine for her. Three doctor appointments and two trips to the pharmacy in one day. Ugh.

On top of that, we had to take our family car to the mechanics to see how much it would cost to fix. They called in the afternoon to say that they had to take a major part out (the carburetor, I think) in order to know for sure what the problem was. So best case, $700. Worst case $1300. After doing some thinking and calculating, we decided, that although buying a new (used car) wouldn't be any cheaper in the long run that just continuing to fix the lemon, it would be a lot less stressful.

The highlight of the day, though, was that my mom made raised gluten-free donuts and invited me to come have some. That was in-between doctor appointment #2 and doctor appointment #3. They were scrumptious. And definitely the best part of that day.

Since both of my girls were still contagious, I didn't go help Julia on Tuesday. Instead, I ended up searching for cars in the online classifieds and doing research on them. That evening, I had a dinner date with my friend, Gina. We went to Tucanos Brazilian Grill for the seafood festival. The festival itself was a disappointment (there were only 2 new items in the rotation), but the meat was as delicious as ever. We stuffed ourselves and then shopped and chatted for a while. She is hilarious and I love her, so it was a fun evening.

Wednesday, Steve was sick. I love it when he actually takes a sick day. It happens very rarely. And he wasn't flat out in bed with the flu, just feverish here and there with a tiny bit of scratchy throat. So I got to see him around and he got some stuff done on the computer, like putting my photography website back together and applying for some jobs. There was one he was excited about that a few old colleagues currently work at. We'd appreciate any prayers or good vibes about him finding something he will enjoy.

That day I mostly wrote. I wanted to get a new first chapter written on one of my old novels and it had been eluding me for days. I finally got it to where I wanted it about the time the kids went to bed that night. So it took forever. But it was worth it. I love how it turned out.

Also, my dad was kind enough to come fix our toilet, since we won't be redoing the bathroom anytime soon.

Thursday, I promised my mom I would come help get her house ready for my sister, Megan's, family to stay with them this coming week. I needed to buy a new backpack for Mira (she's broken two this year already) and she's grown out of her shoes, so I decided to stop at DI on the way and see if I could find some thrifted ones. I did find a backpack for her. An emoji one that she thinks is awesome. No go on the shoes, though.

That night, I had writing group. It was heartening to see what I'd accomplished this month on the writing front. And it's always fun to catch up on those ladies' lives.

Cecily made a "rocket ship" which she was very proud of.

I found this the night I went to dinner with Gina. I want to make one like it for Cecily for her birthday, which she has already planned as a Rainbow Birthday Party, to which she wants to invite both sets of grandparents, her primary teacher, and her cousins who live 3.5 to 12 hours away. :'D

Friday, my mom babysat Cecily and then Mira and Emilia while my dad and I spent most of the day test-driving cars. It was another long day, but I was very glad to have my dad with me. I didn't end up buying anything, so Steve went out Saturday and drove a bunch more. He didn't buy anything either. We have one we are hoping will be the right one that we're looking at on Tuesday.

One day this week--I think either Monday or Tuesday night, I planted seeds to start growing things for my garden this summer. It's my first time doing this and I think it's going okay. None of my regular tomatoes or peppers came up, but now it's too late to start again, so I'll probably just have to buy those from a greenhouse. But I've got pumpkins, beans, peas, cherry tomatoes, petunias, basil and spinach all growing already, so that's a great first effort. I think the beans are going to be too big to wait two months to plant them though. So that might be a problem...

Tonight, we changed things up and had Nick and Wilda to our house for dinner. There was a fireside that Steve wanted to go to and they offered to watch our kids. But they gave us the roast and the potatoes and carrots to cook because they'd already taken the roast out when we solidified plans. This was one of the potatoes that Steve grabbed. It looks so much like a heart! Kinda cool. :)

bipolar weather

I didn't mention in my post last week that we discovered a leak in our garage last Saturday. We figured it was coming from the master bath, which is above the garage, but we didn't know what to do about it. My parents were in Nevada until Tuesday, but my dad was nice enough to come over Wednesday to look at it. Turns out, the ring that holds the toilet down rusted out. Apparently there are kits you can use to fix this pretty easily, but since we had to pull up the toilet anyway, Steve and I considered doing some updates to the bathroom. We've wanted to since we moved into this house, but haven't had the money. But we just got our tax return, and the new car didn't cost as much as we expected, so we had about $1800 we could use to put in some new tile and get a new vanity. We were all set to go pick out tile and a vanity Friday, then pull out the old vanity and paint on Saturday. And then the check engine light came on in our family car. A problem with the intake manifold circuit, according to Napa Auto Parts. We couldn't get into a mechanic Friday afternoon, so we have to wait until Monday to see what the fix will cost. :( If it costs more than about $800, we're probably going to have to replace that car, too. *sigh* At least this happened before we spent the extra money, I suppose.

My hair has been struggling lately. It's too short to curl, but too long to have any shape. I'm not sure if I want to cut it shorter again or grow it out again. So I curled my whole head with a curling iron the other day in a desperate attempt to make it look presentable. I think it worked. :)

Mira and Cecily made playdoh robots again one day this week.

Cecily played with her magnetic building blocks a lot this week, too.

She is such a destructo child. This was taken about 11 am. It was completely clean when she woke up and she was the only kid at home.

Steve and I went to the temple yesterday. It was a beautiful day. And I didn't even sleep through the whole session. Miracles never cease. Since we couldn't rip out our bathroom, we did some cleaning, and napping, and writing. The kids played outside with friends pretty much all afternoon. It was almost 50 degrees, so Steve barbecued for dinner.

As we slept last night, mother nature decided to play a trick on us. It didn't just snow, it dumped over a foot of the stuff in 8 hours. It's good. We needed the moisture so we don't have a drought this summer. But poor Steve was out there shoveling this morning for almost an hour so we could get out of the driveway for church.

Cecily had a fever yesterday and today, so I'm at home with her, getting my blogging done early for once. :) I was able to get a lot of writing work done this week (plotting a new book, revising two old ones), so I felt successful that way. Exercising has been hard lately. Steve's been really struggling at work. He hates working for Oracle, so he's been cranky and withdrawn for a couple months now. It makes it so I have to pick up the slack, so I'm not getting as much sleep. Which means waking up early to exercise isn't happening. And I have so much going on during the day that I rarely have time in between meals to fit in a workout. I've been trying to eat healthy, but I'm a comfort eater, so that's been worse lately, too. Good thing my scale broke right before Christmas! I know it won't last forever. Steve's been applying to lots of jobs and we're considering other pathways to different work, too. I'm trying to cut myself some slack. We're always our own worst critics, right?