Sports Clips

 When Laney says she wants a short cut....she really means it. 

But we can't seem to find someone brave enough to go for it. 

Then we realized....we should go to the place where short cuts and hair clippers are the norm.

She's hopeful!

I love it! She's so beautiful!

Stay tuned.....

Anna's turn to fly

I love having this one on one time with each kid. I love watching them see the world.

We went straight to Grandma's. And Ethan came straight over after work to visit us! Grandma stopped him at the door with a broom. Gotta brush the snow off those boots!

Anna fell in love with the snow. 

We went to visit Heidi and her pups. She has a new little girl, Gretel. She was so nervous and piddly! But she got brave with a few chunks of cheese in the right hands. 

Heidi and Anna had plans to repair her hair. Anna has had a busy year of hair bleaching an coloring. I has left her hair a bit damaged all she wants is her original color back. Heidi knows what she's doing!

I volunteered to hold Gretel...it was a sacrifice!

And check it out! She loved her new (old) hair. Sometimes it takes a journey to appreciate what we already have. 

We popped over to the aquarium to see the fish and I somehow only got three pictures: 

We spent the rest of the day visiting and making dinner plans. Mom hasn't been feeling well lately, so mostly that means picking somewhere to eat out. The smell of cooking doesn't help her stomach. These two are always down for fast food! And mom loves a Frosty. 

Our last day, AJ got to hang out with Jim and Ameli. She's been texting back and forth with them and they invited her to spend the day skating and feasting on treats. They are the funnest! I dropped her off with Jim and Mom and I went to have breakfast with John and one of his favorite spots. I had the most delicious french toast with raspberries and sour cream. Sounds weird, but it was heaven. 

Back at the airport, Anna did her best to assert her independence. She went on long "walks" up and down the moving sidewalks. I would start to panic when I hadn't seen her in while and just as I felt like I better call the police, there she would be....

The flight back was the worst of my life. The turbulence was relentless. And it wasn't the bumpy, shaky kind. It was like free falling over and over. My stomach was on the verge for over an hour. I truly considered using the barf bag. Sweet Anna was experiencing the same flight, but she was a trooper. She was rubbing my back and asking me how I was doing. I've never been so grateful to land in my life.

 

All in a day

 A tour of the KU campus!

A haircut for Everly

And a band concert for Laney and Meg!

Not pictured: the kids I had to lecture through the doorbell camera while Megan was in a freshman Q&A session. You know you've got it going on when your mom voice convinces a couple teenagers to stand down from 35 miles away. 

Got my hair did

 Don't let that expression fool you. I LOVE it when the girls play with my hair. It puts me to sleep. 

Homecoming with Dad

 I have a special gift for going out of town when important things are happening at home. It's ok. I torture myself to make up for it. 

Megan is went to Homecoming while Laney and I were in Utah. I took her shopping to find a cute dress before I left. She found the perfect one at Plato's Closet! And it was 12 bucks!

Which meant we had lots of budget for KILLER SHOES. 

Gorgeous.

Now remember. I'm not there on the day of the dance. Or the days leading up to it when Megan decided she should go get a haircut. From Nicole...the lady that wants everyone to have long, blonde highlights. 

It was....a little short. 

You can see exactly home much she liked it right there in her face. We thought she was a dead ringer for Aunt Jenny when she was that age. Tell me I'm wrong. 

So the day of the dance comes. Mark is chatting with Megan and he finds out that her finds are all going to dinner without her. There was a miscommunication at some point and she wasn't included in the reservations. She said it was no big deal (classic Megan) and that she would just go get a burger on her own (oh, heck no).  Mark got dressed up and took his daughter out to dinner. 

I love how she styled her hair!

Off to the park to snap some pictures. So pretty!

Making her laugh with a fart joke....

And she was off to the dance. 

He's the best dad. 

Trimmed up

Anna and  Laney have been begging to get haircuts for a long time now. 

I have learned not to be too hasty when making the appointments, because 8 out of 10 times, they change their minds withing the week. 

This time, they persevered and I called Nicole. 

Poor Nicole. She specialized is blonde and long. 

That is not what they asked for at all. And let me tell you, she tried to steer them in other dirrections...but she just found out how determined these two are. 

SBL - Modern

School starts tomorrow....so we need to squeeze in a few last bucket list items. 

We have been waiting for the Pulsology exhibit to come to the Kemper Museum of Modern Art. 

The entire room is under a canopy of lights hung in waves. There are sensors throughout the room and when you but your hand under one, it sinks up with your pulse. The lights will then start pulsing with your pulse. It s a very cool mix of art and technology.

We popped over to the Musuem of Toys and Miniatures. Man, there was some very cool stuff back then.

Not cool enough to make me wish I was born back then...but still.

Off to Betty Rae's for some ice cream...

And back home to make good on my promise to let the girls color their hair before school starts. 

I was nervous, but I think it looks pretty cool!

Trim

Look who emerged today!

Bye bye, hairy Eef. We had some pretty fun times together too.

Rockin the do

Megan is learning to play guitar....and because she is who she is....she's picking it up CRAZY FAST.

Also...Anna is ROCKIN the new do.

Anna's summer hair

Megan and Anna both jumped in the car on a spontaneous whim to get their hair cut last week. Megan's hair is suffocating her daily (it's SO thick). She showed the lady where she wanted it and soon, her locks were littering the floor.

She likes it and the dog's still recognize her, so all is well.

Anna's stylist made a couple mistakes and tried to fix them by going too short. She asked Anna if she liked it and she smiled that frozen smile and lied like we all know how to lie when we don't want to hurt someone's feelings.

The moment she got in the car, the tears began to roll. We pulled up to the house and before I knew what was happening, she had gone to her friends house to ask what she thought. Instead of love and reassurance, her friend gasped and said "ew". Good Gravy, can this kid slow down and give me a chance to get out in front of this??

I comforted and I reassured her that we can do her hair in lots of ways. And don't forget...hair grows and it will be right about where she had wanted it by the time school starts (IF school starts). We tried this fun and spunky do:

Swing and a miss. Not helping!

Then we blow dried it out:

Her spirits started to lift.

But, she really wasn't loving it. As we talked about it, I laid out the truth...the only thing to do is to let it grow or cut it shorter and into a different style. I used Mari as an example...Mari has a fun short, punky hair do! And she loves it.

Then Anna decided that that was the answer. She wanted hair like Mari's! That's her on the far left...

She made up her mind!

So on Saturday we went over to Sheilah's and she made it happen.

And Anna loves it.

And now Everly wants that hair too...except she has big plans to be Elsa for Halloween, so she's decided to wait until November. Anna is not interested in Everly copying her hair, but I am not addressing it because I know that the likelihood of something that matters today keeping our attention for 4 months is almost ZERO.