New do, cool do, dooey do

I got a hair cut yesterday. I went to a man who came highly recommended from a friend. He almost sounded too good to be true.

For the longest time I have been searching for that hair cut that is simple and stylish. This is not an easy task when you have curly hair and you're lazy. If I have to take more than about 2 minutes doing my hair then it's over. I do enjoy straightening my hair and it always looks good that way but I don't want to have to rely on that because, frankly, it takes more that two minutes.

Enter Tommy, the hair stylist. I have never before had my hair cut while it was dry. He said he cuts it dry because this is how it will look after a long day of messing with your hair so he wants to make sure the cut will fit with my curl patterns.

Well duh, that makes sense, why don't more people do that right? They don't and it should be a crime.

So after messing with my hair for about 15 or so minutes he had it looking better than I ever did when it was first done. Then he washed it and taught me how to do it. So basically My hair can go through the day and be a mess and with a scrunch here and a spritz of water there it looks totally cute. It's a controlled mess.

Like my house.

Since you made it this far, I suppose now would be a good time to show you my hair. This hair is after about 4 hours of running errands, driving with the window open, messing with my hair because that is just what I do, and chasing kids. Not bad, eh?

If I want a whole other look I just stick some hair strategically behind my ears and voila (that's french, they year in french class is really starting to pay off), I look cute. I need to buy a headband now I think...
And from the side. I have always thought I looked best from the side and my nose is my best feature.

For my entire curly hair existence, I have always been taught that you never ever touch curly hair because it will become unruly and a nightmare to look at. Young children will run screaming to their mothers when you walk down the street. Well thankfully, Tommy is a rule breaker. I sat there in stunned and uncomfortable silence as he *gasp* touched my hair. And yet it turned out just as good if not better then when I didn't touch it. Who knew? Tommy was right. I was messing with, touching, puffing and twirling my hair all morning and my curls look great!

I hate rules. Who even invented those things anyway.

I love Tommy.

I love idiot proof hair.

Martha, I am not.

But thankfully she wrote a book. A really big book.

The guy who cut my hair today mentioned this book and how much he loves it. He loves Martha too.

He also gives great haircuts. In fact, there is a good possibility that he has just given me the greatest hair cut I have ever had but I won't know until tomorrow when I have to do it myself. That is always the indicator of a great hair cut.

Back to Martha, So she wrote this book on everything you could possibly need to know to have a clean house. She even gives you a cleaning schedule as a guide, which I need because I have zero discipline to create my own list.

She goes room by room telling you how to care for things. My favorite part was about the laundry because I really wants white towels and she gives you ideas how to achieve that. Another favorite part is where she has a picture and describes what each individual kitchen utensil does.

Now I am not stupid, I know how to clean a house. But I am not efficient or really good at at. As we all know Martha is as clean and perfect as it gets. If I can get to maybe 2% Martha rating I will be doing well.

Here's to house cleaning! (what?)

School uniforms

This morning I realized why school uniforms were invented.

It's not to make everyone equal or take away a child's form of self expression. They weren't even invented to annoy school aged children.

I am convinced, totally, they were invented for mothers of daughters. Nothing more. My daughter is quite concerned about her fashion sense. She only likes long-ish skirts without shorts that aren't too hot or dresses but not with big sleeves. She doesn't like t-shirts because they are too hot and They aren't cute. Her have to fit just so and she wants to wear flip flops because tenis shoes are too hot. In the winter everything will be too cold or too ugly.

This becomes a HUGE pain on laundry day when all of her favorite things are dirty. Nevermind the fact that there are loads of other things in her drawers.

With that being said, I dearly wish, nay pray, everyday that every school on the planet would make students wear uniforms. No fights would ensue, and if they do I can blame it on someone else. It would not be a mystery what to buy every year. Oh the dream is so..umm..dreamy.

I think I am going to pull for it at the next PTA meeting. Watch out Wake county because I am coming and bringing my uniforms with me.

I know this will solve all the worlds problems and create world peace. Trust me.

Goodbye old friend

I was recently diving into a pool and my swimsuit bottoms fell right off. The top came halfway with it. This was no good. Then I stepped out of the pool and I found myself putting my hand at the top of my swimsuit bottoms so they did not reveal anything inappropriate.

That same day, after I took my swimsuit off, I inspected the elastic. Sure enough it was beginning to get loose. I also noticed some hemlines coming out of the top strings.

Uh oh.

I have had this suit for about three years now and I dearly love it. Its the only decent suit I own. The other is a teeny bikini I wore on the cruise we went on in February. Probably not appropriate to wear when I want to teach my kids a little modesty. After some elastic started coming out of the top of my suit I decided it was time to shop.

I went to a few stores and nothing was cutting it. The stores are beginning to thin out their selection and I plum ran out of places to go. So I decided to try online. How wrong can you go buying a tankini online right? I searched for a few days and I could find tops without bottoms and bottoms without tops and ugly suits 75% off. Hmmm...not as easy as I was expecting. But then I ran across this suit.
Super cute picture of a tan surfer girl showing this suit off. I am instantly in love, but (there's always a but) they had the bottoms the right size and the top in the wrong size. But then I remembered that my suit was two different sizes and it fit great! I went ahead and ordered it anyway and figured if I really hate it, I can return it.

It came today and I love it! Of course I don't look like the tan surfer chick in it, I look more like a wannabe tanned surfer chick. Oh well.

I am taking it on a test run tomorrow!

I found Moby Dick

As promised, this is your post about a dogs butt. You remember Ziggy. Cute, spunky gal.

Justin and I went on a date and when we came home Av came up to us and said, "Ziggy has a whale on her butt!" I was like HUH? She said Courtney (the babysitter) said Ziggy had one and that she would show us.

Wondering why a wonderful, perfect, fabulous babysitter would make up tall tales, I walked over to investigate. And sure enough, it was not a tall tale after all! Ziggy has Moby Dick on her bum. Plain as day!
That's one whale of a spot I tell you (snicker).

The crib is gone.

I finally decided that it was time to get rid of the crib. Brie was using it as a toddler bed while Ava was using the top part of the bunk beds, while I was trying to figure out what I was going to do about a third bed. We had an extra twin bed frame but no mattress to go with it. i really didn't want to get a new mattress. That would cost way more than the bed.

Then, as luck would have it, I was talking to my brother and he mentioned that he only sleeps on his futon. Who cares, right? Wrong. When Justin and I upgraded to a queen size bed we offered our full size bed to him. It is really tall so after a while he got tired of his feet hanging off and stopped using it. I asked him if I could have it back and he said yes! Perfect! Third bed problem solved.

Two days later I had the mattress in Ava's room with pretty new sheet. Hot pink of course. I am going to (eventually) paint the bed frame white because right now it is an awful dark brown wood.

So what this means is that I was able to put bunk beds back up in Amanda and Brie's room! The room is so small that two beds side by side did not leave a whole lot of leftover play space, or toy storage. Now I have tons of room to work with!

The girls did very well their first night in their beds. Amanda was excited to be on the top bunk and Brie was equally excited to have a big girl bed.

What you didn't see in the previous picture is the dollhouse, turned toy storage that was throwing up toys, on the other side of the room. It was trying to be frugal and use what we had around the house but it was awful. It made the room look even more messy than it should have. I needed a plan, and fast!

Toy storage has always been an issue for me. I have tried so many different options and I keep coming up short. Toy boxes were good at separating toys but then the toys got lost and then not played with. Bins just overflow. Shelves look ugly and start throwing up toys. My next solution which I have wanted to try for a while is this:

The nine cube organizer. We bought ours at Target. It is slightly more expensive but I think it's going to be great. It really makes the room look clean and there is a whole bunch more space for the bigger toys now. I am pleased so far. Hopefully Brie and Amanda will keep up with it.

Doggie Hotel

We have a full house this week. If you counted correctly, there are five dogs. And one human in this picture.

The cast of characters:

Gina- she's ours and she wants to know why there are so many other dogs in her house. She likes to find a quiet place away from all the chaos.

Lola- Our other dog, she also wants to know why there are three other dogs in the house and why it smells funny. I think I need to vacuum already.
Ziggy- She's been our favorite for a while. Quite a little personality and she had a whale on her bum, but more on that later in a later post. She is always close to where the food is. She inhales her meals in about 5.4 seconds flat. I am pretty sure she doesn't know what her food actually tastes like.
Jewel- She's new, we haven't watched her before and I am happy to report that she fits right in. She is calm, cute, sweet and lovable.
Libby- She came with Jewel. She is sweet and can be but scared of EVERYTHING. You think I am kidding and being dramatic, but I'm not. I turned the camera on and her tail went right between her legs and she ran away. She was sitting in the hallway and the thermostat clicked on and her tail went right between her legs and she ran away. I have it on good authority that she is also afraid to go outside. With that being said, she loves me. She comes looking for me when I go into a different room. I love her too.