Life with Poot-n-Toots

12.

She did it! Today Paige cut off an entire FOOT of her beautiful hair to donate.  After a bunch of research, we decided to donate her hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. 

Here is a great video that highlights their program (you might want a tissue)

  

and one videothat really impacted Paige ....'Angela's Story'

 

Following the directions....we sectioned Paige's hair into 4 mini pony tails..

measuring them to make sure the rubber-bands were in the correct spot...
  

making the first cut....I'm not gonna lie....I was a little sad at this point...

 
 

Paige's donation is about 12.5 inches, but after the rest of her hair was trimmed, shaped and very lightly layered, it's about 14-15 inches shorter than it was this morning...

Taryn did a great job and Paige was SO excited!
 

Of course we needed before and after photos..

   

I love the new cut, and think she looks a bit older. I know I'll miss her long hair.... it certainly doesn't define her... but it's always been a part of who sheis, and doing her hair each day has always been a special time for us. But I'm so proud of her for doing it and am happy to know that her donation will bring some comfort to someone going through a difficult time.
 

I told paige that it would be funny to take a 'sad-face' photo and tease people that she hated her new 'do'. She had such a hard time and kept laughing :)

Part of her World.

(reading on an iphone, ipad, or in google reader? get to a 'real' computer, and click on the blog to view the video) 

CLICK HERE  to help support Riley's family in finding a cure for Juvenile Diabetes.

Transitions.

In January Jason made the big switch. He worked his last days at AGPD and started working for SLO County as a Deputy Probation Officer in the the Juvenile division. He is currently overseeing a Juvenile Gang caseload in the north county.

Last year was a year of transition for him.  A year of needing some change. He LOVED (read: DREAM JOB) working as an SRO at the local high school and when that stint ended (originally a 3 year gig that he got extended to 6 years), he was doubtful that he wanted to continue working as a 'regular' police officer.

He knew about the county opening and persued it. This job meant lots of great things- more typical hours, more flexibility, and most importantly the opportunity to work directly with juveniles again.

From June-December last year, there was much pushing (him) and much feet dragging (me). It's no secret that change and I are not friends. I like routine. I like plans. I like knowing. I like job security. I like the 'known'.

It felt like 6 months of uncertainty, changing the '5 year plan', looking at finances and (panicking (me), and taking deeeeeep breaths. Simply put- these months sucked. So much negotiating, fighting, stressing and uncertainty. I knew how badly he wanted the job, and really, needed this job. He just wasn't himself and I could *see* it.

I suddenly started worrying if the job was 'really' the problem. I have my own set of issues regarding this and certainly let my fears and past impact my 'current'. But that's a whole 'other issue, but one I realized that, despite my age, has impacted me more than I once thought, and one I'm not sure will I will ever get over.

Initially my hesitation came becuase I have such incredible faith in Jason, I knew he'd get the job. If he wanted it, he'd get it. It didn't matter that 200+ people applied. I had no doubt that he'd get it, and that's probably why I panicked the most. And get it he did. Scoring a nearly perfect score, killing the interviews, and being the first one picked up by the county.

It only took me 6 months, but I finally really let go of the fear and just accepted that I'm not in control. I prayed a lot. And ate a lot. Totally serious.

It's been nearly four months since he started and I think he's found his stride. It's so refreshing to see him back again. The schedule IS nice (despite the learning curve). He's working with some great people and picking things up quickly along the way. I enjoy hearing stories of his 'kids' and see that once again he's 'in it'.... helping kids make positive changes and helping them to see there might just be more options than they once expected.

My concern about money wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. We're making cuts where needed and being more thoughtful about what/when/where we spend. Honestly, we're better off financially than we've ever been. 

Here's what he looks like in his new get-up (crappy cell phone pic...better pictures to follow)...

And just for fun...and because it's what I do....he's a few pictures of how this all started...

first year of marriage and 1st day at the police academy, January 2001...

Acadamy graduation... June 2001

 

Instagram. Insta-fun.

I got my iphone back in January and have only downloaded a few apps (9 to be exact). One of my favorites is instagram.

Watching the different filters alter each tiny square photo, makes me remember playing with my Grandma's (aka Scotch on Rocks) Polaroid camera.

Here are a few of my favorites, taken during the past few months...in no particular order..

My Mom's bridal bouquet.

The first and last lottery ticket I'll ever buy. It was *almost* worth a ba-jillion dollars.

first strawberries of the season....we've been to okui's every weekend since.

been doin' my own nails and lovin' the DARK colors...

CRAP-TAS-TIC day at work...put on Pandora (tuned into an Adele Station) and an hour and fifteen minutes later I found my desk...order restored.

Jealous? I am. My Mom's new bling.

Post Secret in Modesto. Alternated between closing my eyes and staring at my lap for a solid twenty minutes. Cried while I drove through Turlock on the way home.

I have arrived! The 'girls' finally learned my name.

and then they write funny messages demanding valentine's gifts...

any way you look at it..she's a poser. Urban Cowgirl.

city slicker.

P and her teacher. dont' remember what the award was for, paid more attention to the fact that she's nearly as tall as her teacher.

chocolate-dipped birthday berries for a friend...

my little reader with her BRIGHT blue nails...

GIGANTIC American Girl craigslist score. Worth the hour drive to get it.

Stressful day at work. Scissors are NOT for cutting hair. Postponing the beauty parlor dramatic play theme.

got quite an education at the zoo, and remembered why I'm a 7th grader at heart. You know you've scarred your children when they say 'mom, please promise me that you won't say armadillo penis again'

and then since my children banned me from mentioning it. I spent some time googling on my phone. How am I 34 and missed this amazing tidbit from the animal kingdom. Open classroom, you have failed me.

helping paige 'see' how much hair she'll have left after she donates it... (and trying not to cry)

lovin' my little cowgirl...

Grammie's tea party bridal shower...

I'm continuing to work my back in blog-land time. Here is a quick picture recap of Grammie's (aka my Mom) surprise tea party bridal shower... My Mom's best friend, Marty, threw the shower and it was SO fun. The girls LOVED dressing up, and Ally insisted on wearing her 'pearls'. The gold locket that Paige is wearing was actually given to me by my Grandma Mava (Cookies n' Milk) for my 8th birthday.

17 down, 154 to go....

Since January Paige (and by default, Ally too) has been in full Little House on the Prairie mode. Remember this?  Not much has changed since then. Paige has finished all 9 books in the Little House series,  and The Rocky Ridge series (the Rose years, 7 books). She's working her way down the list.

A few weeks ago I mentioned to Paige that there was a TV series when I was little about the books. She was EXTREMELY excited about this. Naturally, I headed to our friendly library (honestly, I love our small town library) and put in a request for each season.

HOLY CRAP!!!! Did you know that there were NINE seasons? PLUS the pilot and 2 specials. We've picked up seasons one and two and each one has 19 HOURS of prairie fun!

We have watched at least 2 hours a night for the past week (and I'm not ashamed to say that one day last week we got into our pajamas at 3:30, after having stopped for slurpees and snacks and watched FOUR 1-hour episodes, only to be interrupted by the pizza guy delivering our dinner)

Last night we watched the second to last episode of season one, meaning that we've viewed 17 wholesome hours of the Little House series...which leaves us only 154 HOURS to go!

Part of the 3rd grade curriculum is to do a biography on a famous person. Paige has decided to do Laura Ingalls Wilder and is really excited about it. Paige is a bit like me...she isn't ever just a 'little-bit' into something....she always goes BIG. Thankfully, for now, it's a fun family-friendly series that we can all enjoy (and did I mention that I have a bit of a crush on Mr. Charles Ingall???? Man, I tell ya, Michael Landon is pretty good looking :)

Smile.

My Mom (aka Grammie) got married the last weekend in March. This was a MUCH anticipated event for many reasons... It's been a long road for my Mom and I'm not quite sure anyone deserves happiness as much as she does. I can't remember ever seen my Mom quite this GIDDY....honestly...never.

You know when you see a tween speed-talking about their love of Justin Bieber???? Well....that's pretty much how my Mom talks about Draza. To say she's smitten, would be an understatement. And you know what the best part is? Draza feels exactly the same way and treats her like a QUEEN. He's so demonstrative of his feelings/emotions, which I think has been really new for my Mom.

To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive when they started dating a few years back. I wasn't quite sure that my Mom could handle trusting anyone with her heart....poor Draza, I think my brothers and I gave him a run for his money (sorry Draza). We can be a protective bunch, and I dont' know that any of us wanted to see my Mom get hurt. But over the past three years, seeing my Mom grow and change has been nothing short of eye-opening.

For the past 20 years she's been single. My brothers and I lived with her after my parents divorce and she certainly had her hands full with a 3 year old, an angry 12 year old daughter, and a bit of a rebellious 15 year old son. Over the next 20 years she essentially put herself last. She made sure that each of us got exactly what we needed and what we wanted. She constantly encouraged and supported each of us in the way that we needed it. I don't exactly know how she did it, and I can't quite begin to imagine the stress of it all.

This wedding was essentially one GIGANTIC celebration..celebrating second chances, second loves, celebrating with friends and with an ever growing family.

Of course my girls were excited for different reasons....they couldn't wait to wear 'fancy shoes' (with a bit of a wedged-heel), eat at their very own table, have a donut cake, and dance-dance-dance. And that....that they did.

This wedding was a party from beginning to end. No stress of a big wedding where everything needed to go perfectly, no formality of all the fun interrupters (as I call them...they bouquet toss, garter, etc). There was a Serbian Band, Serbian Kolo Dancers, some CRAZY Slivovitz plum brandy, oh and an open FULL bar which meant that there were some very thirsty people out there. Ahem. I think the middle 'kids' (as in anyone 21-40) had that best time. We were all moving a tad slow the next morning :)

I have to take a moment to say...MOM YOU LOOKED AMAZING!!! Honestly...what 63 years old do you know that can pull off a STRAPLESS (without an ounce of back/arm-pit fat), fitted, wedding gown, purchased off the rack in some tiny-ass size (clearly I'm not the black sheep of my family, I'm the fat sheep). Maybe that's what my body looks like under all these layers????

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day...

The grandkids in all their dressed up duds...

My Mom's 5 page itinerary (no shit) included 'Terry will SMILE as she walks down the aisle'. She clearly didn't need a reminder, she was BEAMING.

So....I made my Mom's boquet. I threw at least 2 3 tantrums while doing it, and said about 20 30 curse words (and not the harmless 'shit' or 'crap'...I had a string of doozies). Sorry Mom. It ended up turning out nicely, but what you can't see is the duck-tape, 2 chopsticks, and a bit of wire holding it all together. Next time, we'll leave the bouquet to the professionals.

Marty/Tom made the centerpieces/wedding cake. To be exact they made 17 9-inch cakes, using the same recipe that we've had for all our weddings. EAch cake was a bit different, but they all turned out beautifully, and were delicious as well (I'd know....I ate two slices....hmmmm....maybe that's where all my 'layers' come from)

The collective 'grand-kids' and two new friends...

I didn't take too many photos...the following are from the photographers website

(note to self.. when given the choice between big earrings and BIG earrings, go with your gut and choose the smaller of the two. Yes, Clinton and Stacy suggest that accessories be proportional to your size, but you don't weigh quite as much as you think....)

the new and improved extended family (thankfully, you can't quite see my earrings in this photo)

This would be Draza's tradition of passing around a bottle of Slivovitz (crazy-ass-STRONG plum brandy). My favorite part of this??? My Mom is typically NOT a drinker..but seeing my younger brother, Jon, tell her 'just a little'  while holding his own drink and giving her a hand-signal totally makes me laugh.

somehow this doesn't look like 'just a little'

this..,.this picture makes me smile. Jared HATES the camera..but seeing both he and my Mom with genuine smiles makes me happy.

The kolo dancer. (I hadn't had enough adult beverages to participate in this)

Thanks Mom and Draza for the FUN night. I couldn't be happier for you two.

sew fun...

Waaayy back in November, I got an e-mail from Santa asking if I'd sew some doll bedding for a gift he planned to get the girls. The plans were that Santa would provide the bed and I'd make the bedding.

The bed for the dolls was a bunk bed with a trundle (the girls had three dolls at the time). Halfway through the process, Grammie let me know that she planned to get Ally a retired Samantha doll, I quickly realized that this meant I'd have to make a sleeping bag in addition to what I'd already planned.

Naturally, I made it more difficult than it really needed to be.I couldn't just make a plain blanket... No, no, I wanted them to be mini-quilts. I looked on etsy and found some that I liked, but the triple set was over a hundred bucks. YIKES! So, I set out to buy the material and make my own. I spent about $65 dollars on material, and I figured the quilts are small and would require 'small' amounts of time. Yeah...not-so-much.

Holy crap! I had NO IDEA that when you're working on TINY things, small mistakes look BIG. And trying to line up a bajillion little squares is harder than it looks. Not to mention that I couldn't just slap them together, no-of-course-not I had to top stitch every darn square. I think it took me about 30 hours to get it all done and was WAAAAY more 'expensive' in time, than I'd hoped to spend. I ended up making 3 mattresses, three coordinating quilts, a sleeping bag and 4 pillows..BUT, you know what??? I don't think I've ever been quite so excited to GIVE something before.

 

It's one of the few times that Santa did NOT wrap something, but he did leave a sweet note on his personal stationary explaining that he brought the bed and Mommy made the bedding. The girls were so excited on Christmas morning. It felt nice to make a gift and for it to be so appreciated. The next day the girls set up the bed upstairs and had their girls  have a slumber party.

The sleeping bag has been a big hit, and both girls have taken it to a friends and Grammie's/Papa's for 'sleepovers'.

Fast foward to two weeks ago. Paige was invited to Ella's for her birthday party sleepover (just three girls, Paige/Natalie/Ella, the same BFF trio that went to Natalie's AG party back in February). The night before as Paige was packing her bag, she got a 'brilliant' (insert tired-momma-sarcasm) to MAKE coordinating bags for Ella and Natalie's dolls. In a moment of weakness I agreed to help her with the condition that there would be NO quilting, and we would use one solid piece for the front and back. Paige agreed and we made two bags and two pillows in under two hours. Paige 'helped' for a whopping 15 minutes (long enough to pose for a cell phone picture) and then decided that 'this is a lot of work, mom'.

Ella's bag/pillow turned out darling (I didn't get a picture of Natalie's all laid out). Paige did a bit of the sewing and then helped pick out buttons and make the flower for the pillow. The pink fabric is that really soft 'mink-y' fabric...but to this immature-7th-grader-at-heart..I call it the nipple fabric (um hello, it's in pink no less!).

side-note:next time you see me, ask me about Ally's 'nibble on your nipple' story. This kids kills me. She comes up with some good one liners.

 

all wrapped up and ready to give...as luck would have it, I had some die-cut scrapbooking paper that had little punch out tags that said 'made with love'...perfect, no? It was meant to be.

(these pictures were taken with my iphone and edited in instagram. i'm such a sucker for that vintag-y look, somehow it makes crappy cell phone pictures, look a bit less crappy and a more retro-ish..more on that fun app later).

dyeing eggs...

On Saturday we headed over to Brianne and Pat's to dye easter eggs with Brianne and Jenna, and Amy and her kiddos (while the boys went shooting).

The kids happily dyed eggs while we got caught up and chatted...It's so fun to see the little ones beginning this tradition....

Ella just might be the cutest kid ever...I LOVE her hair-cut. My girls have always had long hair, but I love seeing little ones with a style like that. It's so classic to me. If I was more daring, I'd try it for one of my girls...

 
   
Watching Amy help Ella while balancing Jack on her hip, reminds me of how much work it was just a few short years ago (and how little sleep we got). I've certainly found joy in all stages of parenting that I've experienced thus far, but I'm especially thankful for the increased amount of sleep I get now (and the back-ache-less-ness of having to tote around a big baby). But somehow Amy has the skill of making EVERYTHING look easy and graceful. She's got a kind heart with a capital 'K' (or should I say crown :)

and these..I miss these...adorably- cheese-face-squinch-y'smiles'

 


After the eggs were done, the kids ran around in the GIGANTIC back yard.

Sidenote- For the rest of the day I had to hear about our 'tiny-no-sun-filled-yard'. Brianne- I might just leave Paige there next time. I swear she wouldn't let up. In her mind your back yard and April's are Disneyland-esque yards..while hers is a tiny 'dark dungeon'. Such drama in that kid..I tell ya...

 
  

Easter.

Ally and Nonnie (85 years young) Easter 2012

I've taken a bit of a hiatus from the blog and my goal this week is to play some major catch-up. I'm working in reverse...from April to December (a few extra fun things in December that never made it to the blog).

Life has been...well.....life lately.. and this week (my spring break, while the girls are in school) will hopefully be enough time to sort through the past few months and get it all posted. I have a ton of tiny random stuff on my to-do list this week. While Ally was in school this morning I spent the ENTIRE three hours doing the first thing on my list: cleaning up my (computer) desk-top and sorting through all the files/folders for our 2011 pictures, and getting them burned/transferred over to the external hardrive. It seems silly, but just checking-off that one tiny thing already has me feeling a little less weighed down.

I suppose I approach the blog much like scrapbooking. When I get behind, I always scrap the most recent events first and work my way backwards....

So here it is.....Easter 2012...in pictures.

once again Mr. EB left tiny clues hidden in eggs, that lead to the Easter baskets (hidden above Papa's fridge)

  

fighting over who gets to open the dishwasher to find the next clue...

  

Looking through baskets filled with new books, a package of underwear, a new doll outfit, 3 new bouncy balls (for Ally's growing bouncy ball collection), a small bit of candy, and an Easter dress (quite possibly the cutest little sundresses ever....its reported that Mr. EB did a bit of shopping at SEARS while his car was getting an oil change...who knew they had these adorable dresses for $15 each) ... Ally loved hers so much, she immediately put it on over her PJ's.

We got ready, packed up, and said good by to Janice, Papa, and the boys (Harley and Otis) and headed to Visalia.

 

I bribed traded the girls some candy for a few smiles and got a few keepers. Diane and Steve have the most incredible backyard and it's always got some great places to take a few pictures.

 

(yes, dear...I know you're not a fan of black and white, here's  a color one just for you)..I'm still learning to take photos in manual. my current challenge is that I'm always trying to HURRY and I have a bit of camera shake and blurriness. I need to remember to open up the aperture when working with different depths of field and make sure that I'm paying better attention that the subjects are even to my camera..

We snapped a few of the cousins and with Nonnie and Nonna....

 
   
  

the girls played all sorts of games, but watching them play field hockey in dresses was pretty funny..

 

the cousins chatting by the pool...I wonder what they were talking about...

it's weird to me to look at this picture and see a 3, 6, and nearly 9 year old....and then to look over at Jason, Brianne, and Pat... as 'adults' well into our marriages, and with Brianne with another one on the way... We've all been coming to Visalia (as semi-adults) since I was about 21 (22??) years old. I totally remember coming while Jason and I were dating and Pat and Brianne were technically in their 'teens.... The Visalia Easter tradition has always been so fun...it makes me wonder how my girls will celebrate when they have families of their own. Will they live far (our of town? out of state?) from me and Jason, but near one another? Will they have children? ...Sigh. I feel OLD.

The MEGA egg hunt. My guess is that there were nearly 400 eggs.

 
 
We had a fantastic day and headed home in the early evening. The best part??????

Proof that I was there, too :)

 and just for you, honey, Ally in I in color :)