Diary of a Hair Day - Revisited

Three and a half years ago, I posted HERE about a typical hair day. I loved re-reading this blog and remembering what an adorable, fun and amazing little girl Baylie was and is. Man, time has flown by. A lot has happened since then and I have learned a lot about doing her hair. I continue to learn. I am so grateful for the Chocolate Hair, Vanilla Care blog. It has taught me so much and has helped make hair days bearable for me and Baylie. I thought I'd post about what a typical hair day is like for us now.

I am often asked how long Baylie's hair is. I think that sometimes when I do extensions in her hair, people think that I exaggerate her length. Usually I use her longest section to use as a guide for the rest since I want it to be all one length. Here is a picture that shows her hair when it's brushed out and how long it actually is. Surprising, huh?! 

Here are my current favorite tools. I usually start by washing her hair with conditioner. We don't use shampoo on the kids' hair. I am currently using Aussie 3-Minute Miracle. After her hair is washed, I brush it section by section. This involves spraying it with distilled water and coconut oil and coating it with a detangler/moisturizer. I use a Tangle Teaser to brush it, and once the knots are out, I comb through it. This time her hair was already parted so I just had to redefine the parts. This is much faster than when I have to create new parts. I should also show a picture of my laptop since computer games are the only thing that hold Baylie's attention long enough to do her hair.

We started at about 10:00 in the morning and finished at 10:00 at night. We had a short break for lunch and a couple breaks while I cut more yarn. We saved the beading for the next day. (Had I created parts, I would have probably taken a separate day to do that.) I string all the beads and make sure they're even before I cut off the ends.

After all the beads are on, I trim off the excess yarn. No matter how hard I try, I can never get the beads even. I don't know if it's my lack of skill or Baylie's wiggling.

After the yarn is trimmed, I burn the ends. Melting the ends keeps the yarn from fraying.

 The finished product.

Here's a view of the top of her hair. I'm not wild about this picture because I think her hair looks better than the picture shows.

Baylie still hates getting her hair done, but she loves how she looks when it's finished.

I sure love this little girl!

This is My Country

I've traveled across the globe and I love to visit foreign countries. That being said, there is no place like home. I love the United States of America. I am concerned about many things that are happening these days, but it doesn't change my belief in and love for this country. I hope to pass this down to my children.

We like to do holiday crafts to get us in the mood to celebrate.

We make holiday goodies.

The weather today was absolutely crazy. It went from nice and sunny to pouring rain, to sunny, to rainy again. It was like that all day.

Our awesome neighbors invited us to spend the holiday with them at their mom's house. It is a beautiful home  and the landscaping is amazing. The pool was a beautiful infinity pool that looked out over a lake. Jalen was scared of the water at first, but before long he was having a great time.

Baylie is a little fish this summer. She is excited that she can swim all by herself.

It rained on us in the water. Since there wasn't any lightening, we just kept on swimming.

Edge of infinity.

Yummy food! I wish I had taken a picture of the ribs we ate.

And this is the amazing ice box cake dessert. Our neighbor Claire is an amazing cook!

To end it all, we lit off sparklers. The kids are still afraid of all other kinds of fireworks. In fact, Baylie prayed tonight, "Please bless that the fireworks won't sound like cannons."

God bless the U.S.A.

Bleak House

We have definitely had better days at the Batchelor Pad. 

My tailbone hurts a little worse each day, so today I finally went to the doctor and had some x-rays. The results were inconclusive and I'll have to wait to hear back from the radiologist. Apparently, since the coccyx is made up of several small bones, they couldn't tell if the bone was broken or if the line they saw was just between some of the bones. Either way, it's a six to eight week recovery. And I'm already sick of it hurting.

After the doctor, we went to Publix to get my pain medication. While there, I ran over Jalen with the grocery cart (he was laying on the bottom shelf - after I had already told him to get out of there once). It cut open his finger. I skipped out on the meds and took Jalen to Doctor's Choice only to find out they didn't have a doctor there so we continued on to the emergency room.

I explained to several people that his nail was completely ripped off as well as some of the tissue below and beneath it. The top of the finger was folded all the way back.

This picture doesn't even come close to showing the damage.

After three hours and some x-rays, the doctor told me that his finger wasn't broken. He put a bandaid on it and said that we should just keep it bandaged and to put some hydrogen peroxide on it in a couple of days. Really? Holy waste of time! Then he said that in the x-ray he noticed an air bubble under the other side of the nail so it looked like the nail was torn on both sides. Are you kidding me!! Did no one listen to me when I said it was completely torn off and that the finger was sliced open? Did they think I would spend three hours just for a torn nail? Now I'm just hoping that it will actually heal. We didn't get out of there until almost 9 o'clock.

I have to take Jalen to the doctor soon for a wart on his foot, so I guess I'll do that later this week so we can get in to his pediatrician and have her check on the finger as well.

All in all, it could have been worse. But dang my butt hurts!!

Playing Catch Up

The current state of my blog reminds me of when I used to keep a written journal. I would let so much time go by, that then I would be overwhelmed with trying to catch up. We have had a busy couple of weeks.

We had planned a trip to Utah and decided to go by way of my sister Tiffani's home in Las Vegas. We got there the last day of school. My sister has an annual tradition to host a pool party at her house on the last day of the year. Her twins and Baylie made a big sign that said "Summer Starts Here." My kids - well, mostly Baylie, were so excited to swim. 

Clara, Baylie and Lauryn

The next day we headed for Utah. It felt good to be in my parent's house again. Even though they weren't there, it was still good just to be there.

Team huddle (that's what they called it)

My brother Erik had two boys with big events. His oldest was being ordained a deacon and his second to youngest was being baptized. The ordination was first. My nephew, Parker, has changed so much in the past year. He has grown tall and slender. He's more confident and mature. He's taller than me now! I am impressed with the young man he is becoming.

Next was Camden's baptism. Camden has always held a special place in my heart. Before I had kids, he would call me "the other mommy" and I treasured that. He is still a sensitive soul and a joy to be around.

Shanelle, Camden, Erik

During the baptism, all the cousins sang (except for the one playing the piano). It was a great moment to see all these little children together. I love these kids!

Cameron, Lauryn, Jalen, Clara, Molly, Lily, Hailey, Baylie, Jonny, Camden, Ava, Kolton, Parker, Riley (seated Asher and  Nixon, Ashley on the piano)

Afterwards, we took the traditional family photo. Everyone in our family was here except for my parents, my husband and my brother in law.

Back: Tiffani, Riley, Ashley, Clark, Dianne, Asher, Shanelle, Erik, Parker, Kristin, Scott, Nixon
Front: Cameron, Hailey, Jonny, Molly, Lily, Camden, Baylie, Jalen, Kolton, Clara, Ava, Bethany
(Hey! Where's Lauryn? Whoops, she's behind Baylie.)

Erik grilled up some hot dogs and braughts. He used the famous JDawgs sauce, which was awesome.

One thing my family does well, is eat!

We took advantage of being together to work in my parent's yard and get it ready for their return. We had planned for some time to plan a small garden for them. They always do a big, beautiful garden. This garden is not as big as their norm, but hopefully it will keep them busy and give them some good veggies.

Everyone worked together.

And played together.

Results of our labor.

Additional results.

After the yard work, we went to my sister in law's childhood home for some swimming. It was a great way to clean up!

On Monday, we headed to the Hogle Zoo.

One of our favorite things was the polar bear since we don't have one of those at our zoo. He put on quite a show.

 We also liked the baby elephant, who had grown a lot since we saw him last, but was still nursing.

We don't have rhinos at our zoo either.

Or sea lions.

It was a great visit, especially since next time we go to Utah, my parents will be there!

The trip home was semi-disastrous. We went through Vegas again were lucky to catch a flight that had been added to the schedule and was wide open. Unfortunately, in Chicago, the gate agent got flustered and sent the airplane out with empty seats, forgetting to board the stand by passengers. This is a cardinal sin in non-revenue travel and resulted in our having to spend a night in Chicago. Adding insult to injury was the fact that when boarding the shuttle to the hotel, I fell backwards out of the shuttle straight onto my tailbone.

I'm still hurting pretty badly from that one, and I broke all my fingernails! I think it'll be a long recovery. What a bummer (literally).

We got home Friday night and Saturday was mine and David's 11th anniversary. I'm quite amazed to think that we've been married that long. The time has flown by, and I still feel like we're figuring things out. It's especially odd to think that David has spent 1/3 of his life with me! (Poor guy.) 

Announcement picture

Five year anniversary cruise

We celebrated by seeing Star Trek - loved it.

Sunday was Father's Day. David got some help opening his presents.

New Primary music bag

Favorite present - new shoes!

So there you have it, our last few weeks in a nutshell. It's been a great summer so far - and it's only just begun!