A Little Hair Experiment

Jayla let me wash her hair today. Now, I know that would not be big news for anyone outside of my little family but, that is HUGE news around here. She HATES getting her hair washed and therefore, rarely consents to letting me do it. And since I'm all about picking my battles, as long as there is nothing growing on her scalp or anything, I generally go fairly long periods of time without washing it.

But, today was a glorious day. We were picking out a dress for her to wear to this weekend's birthday party when she discovered her luggage set in her closet. She pulled it out and started rummaging through everything. She found a travel bottle of shampoo in her toiletry bag and asked if she could have some. I explained that it would require me to wash her hair. And she asked if she could have clean hair. It was AWESOME.

So, I did the old school Saturday afternoon ritual that my mom used to do with me. That meant that Jayla was on the kitchen counter with her head dipped in the sink for the first time in her life. I used to go through that every weekend so it was almost surreal to be on the mama side of that ritual. But, she did great.

And since she was into getting her hair tampered with, I decided to try out a new style. As most of you know Jayla has had the same exact hairstyle everyday since she was like 18 months old - some version of three braided ponytails. Finally, about a month ago I got sick of her looking like that and decided to switch it up a bit. I even played with the idea of doing something that might stay up for a few days as several people in the past few weeks have asked me if we do her hair everyday. Absolutely. My husband or I spend 20 minutes on her hair each morning.

So, I thought I would seize Jayla's willing attitude today and work on a style that has the potential to stay put for more than 4 hours at a time. I just gave her a few large two-strand twists while she was watching High School Musical 2 this afternoon. It started out looking adorable...



She even managed to take a nap and then get ready for today's birthday party with her hair still intact:



During the party, she spent about 30 minutes falling in the grass and waddling around right lady-like in her dress. And here is her hair and sweaty forehead by the end of the party:


Ahhhh...when I first finished her hair, I had so much hope for a lasting style but, I don't think I'm going to get it. We're committed to sending her to church tomorrow with whatever hair she wakes up with but, I have a feeling that it's not going to last through tomorrow. I'll keep ya'll posted though...

Help me out a little, folks...

I really haven't had much to blog about this week. It's been a regular week where the daily routines have gone off without a hitch and now we're at another weekend where we'll be attending yet another birthday party. I like our routines but, they don't make for good blog material. So, at the risk of exposing the fact that only 4 people are actually reading this blog, I'm taking suggestions. Leave a comment with some ideas or questions or something that I can write about next week, please...

Have a great weekend!

Emotional High

When I posted that picture of Jayla in the bunny visor the other day, I had a weird deja vu-like epiphany. That child looks just like her mother at the age! And rather than bore you today with pictures of me in 1982, I will bore you with a direct quote out of Jayla's mouth this morning:

"Mama makes Jayla happy too!"

I was singing a made up version of You Are My Sunshine and this was her response to the one part that I sang verbatim - "You make me happy..."

Resurrection Weekend Recap

I thought a more timely "what we did this weekend" post would be appropriate this week because who will care what Jayla wore on Easter by tomorrow?

Anyway, much like any other weekend, we made an appearance at a birthday party. Never mind that we literally met this little girl exactly seven days before her party, we were going to be there! And it was a blast because the adults got involved in the bouncy action and may have possibly even kicked some of the little kids off of the equipment so that two adults could race each other through the blow-up obstacle courses. In fact, here I am falling down (for the third time?) off the big wall at the end of the obstacle course:


And here Jayla is on that same wall, possibly doing better than I did:


And just to prove that the whole family really was in on it, here's my husband coming down the slide (while Jayla scrambles to get out of the way):


Moving on to Sunday...we went to church and had lunch and another easter egg hunt at a friend's house afterward. Jayla may just be a pro at looking for plastic eggs now. It was her third hunt in a week's time!

Here she and her friends eagerly anticipate their release into the backyard as they watch the daddies hide the eggs:


During the hunt (notice the look of determination for a egg hunt is now serious business for Jayla!):



Then there was some egg-dying by the mammas:


A little swinging and the kiddos were ready for their afternoon naps (we like wardrobe changes!):


After Jayla's nap, we let her open her Easter gifts from my mother. Her favorite was the bunny visor that she wore for the rest of the night with her high heels and bracelets:



All in all, it was a great weekend...a great Easter holiday. Hope you all were blessed this weekend as well!!

Jayla stayed pretty busy last weekend - between a birthday party, being invited to play at her best friend's house, and participating in the Easter party and Egg Hunt at church. Here's some photos to commemorate the activities.

First, the Cookie Monster cupcake. The birthday boy's mom made cupcakes to resemble Sesame Street characters. There were three different kinds: Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and Elmo. So, I asked Jayla what kind she wanted. Her answer was "Bert". Well, not only was Bert not an option in the list that I gave her, Bert does not have a round head so, he could NEVER be a cupcake, silly girl!!



Later, that same day, Jayla was pouring tea for the girls at her best friend's house.



Then on Sunday, Jayla got to experience her first Easter Egg hunt. The church separated the kids by ages and Jayla was grouped with the 0-2 year olds. Not that she was stepping on the crawling babies in there with her but, she did manage to bag 50% of the eggs for herself before many of the other kids even caught on to the concept. I had to give 5 eggs back so that each kid would actually end up with some eggs. Here she is after we convinced her that she needed to stop so that other kids could have some:



I actually meant to post these pictures earlier in the week - you know, like when last weekend was still current news. But, I was apparently busy doing other things this week. I have no idea what those things were...otherwise, I guess I would have blogged about them.