What, me, overshare?

For the first time, like ever, Julie let me take pictures of her after church in her pretty dress. She even posed for me! I had to share.

Watch out, World!

She's starting early...





I'm tellin' you, Grammy...if you don't hand over the keys, I'm dropping your sunglasses.

Thank you!



Ooo, what's that one do?

Ah...it was the air conditioning.

Whaddaya mean I'm too little?

Fine, I'll just sit here and chill out then.

Three little words

Six and a half years of marriage.
Two children.
Five years as Assistant Scoutmaster.
Two and a half years as ward Young Women President.
Fifteen(ish) out-of-state road trips.
Forty(ish) camping trips.
One 2002 Mazda Protege with a dent in the rear driver's side door.

And it all comes down to three little words:

Hyundai
Santa
Fe

Julie's first haircut

I had been dreading this day for about 3 years. Cut my baby's hair? How could I ever do it? It was so long and beautiful, and one feature that always drew compliments. But eventually it became and inevitability.

Last summer, I started talking myself into it, telling myself that it would probably have to happen sometime this summer. (I myself was four years old (I think), when my mom took my for my first haircut.) I began to take more time enjoying brushing Julie's long beautiful hair, each time I had the opportunity, knowing that soon she'd be hitting a major growing-up milestone.

Paying more attention to her hair, I noticed that the bottom three to four inches were a lot drier and more brittle than the rest. She had really bad split ends. And she has a habit of pulling out her own rubber bands, which rips through her hair in a bad way, so she had a lot of breakage from that. If she ever didn't have her hair pulled back for Saturday morning pancakes, the syrup wreaked havoc on her hair.

It soon became apparent that we couldn't put it off any longer. At that point I started to think about how Julie herself would react to getting her hair cut. I practically have to put her in restraints to clip her nails (though in over four years, I've never once accidentally snipped her skin), so I was worried this would be a terrible ordeal.

I started talking with her about it a few weeks in advance, asking if she wanted to get her hair cut (like Rapunzel) to keep it pretty and healthy. She was resistant (though not panicky) at first, but eventually ceded to the idea. We also talked about how we can only cut hair with special hair-cutting scissors (hoping to prevent her from getting any clever ideas of her own at home...), and how we don't have any in the house. We talked about going to a special hair-cutting store, and sitting in a cool chair that goes up and down in front of a big mirror. She seemed amenable to the idea.

Eventually I made an appointment, and made it on a day that Ben could go with us. I still didn't know what her reaction would be when it came down to go-time, and since she's a Daddy's girl, I knew I wanted reinforcement, just in case. She was a little scared at first, but it was more of a new setting/new situation scared than anything else. We showed her the "cool" apron they had, with pretty flowers on one side, and an army design ("like Uncle Josh") on the other side. I showed her the special hair-cutting scissors we had talked about, and how the chair moved. She eventually let us sit her in the chair, in front of Scooby Doo, and with Daddy's iPod. She wouldn't keep her head down enough when they asked her to, but other than that, she did much better than expected. At the end (and for the next few days), she kept telling us, "the haircut scissors not hurt!"

Whew! Crisis averted.

In the end, we only took enough off to clean up the split ends and ratty dryness. She still has long and beautiful hair, just not quite as long as before.

We accidentally left the camera in the car, so we didn't get "real" before/after pictures, so I've got a before picture from a few months earlier, low-quality iPod pictures from during, and afters pictures later at home again.

This is actually from back in April -- I took it because I loved how you could see the different color tones in her hair, woven through the braid.

During the haircut. Calm as can be.









And after. Not much difference, but she proudly displayed it for me.





Before and after, side by side:

Unfortunate incident

Remember how I said that Robyn was quickly becoming mobile? That she scoots and pulls herself all over the place? Well, it's true...she does. Most of the time it's safe and I'm able to keep her out of trouble, though we're going to need to put gates up within a week, I think.

This morning we had an unfortunate incident that I wish never had to happen to sweet babies. We were all just getting up, and Robyn was on my bed, where we'd been snuggling/playing for a bit. Julie had come in to join us. I got up to use the bathroom, leaving Julie to keep a close watch on her sister and make sure she didn't scoot off the edge of the bed. Julie usually does this in the morning while I get dressed/use the bathroom/etc. She's usually highly attentive. Well, today she wasn't. She was busy playing in Daddy's closet when I heard the loud thud, followed by hysterical crying.

By the time I got back in the room, Robyn had righted herself, and was scooting toward her big sister (presumably looking for comfort), so I couldn't tell immediately where she'd landed or hit herself. After a few minutes, it became readily apparent.


It took about 10-15 minutes to calm her down, and during that time she didn't want to nurse or take her sippy cup, and would barely take the pacifier for a few seconds at a time. She wouldn't snuggle into me, but definitely wanted to be held. It was so sad.

Eventually she was calm enough to eat breakfast. While in the high chair, Julie kissed her goose egg all better.




Later, Robyn fell asleep on the floor while half-heartedly playing. She's such a light sleeper that I left her right where she was.


She's awake and happy now, and just looks a little worse for the wear.





(Apologies for the low-quality iPod pictures.)