I'll tell you where you can spring to...

I stopped into Target yesterday (along with the rest of the metro population) for some last minute supplies before the world officially froze in place for a while,  and I was greeted (after a bleary eyed walk from the farthest parking spot during which I feared loss of my eyelids) with a huge sign proclaiming "SPRING FORWARD." Around the corner I found bikinis, and learned that all long sleeve shirts, adult and child size, had been banished for the year. Thank you, California purchasing agents. It makes sense that not only would it be impossible to find boots, coats, or replacement mittens this time of year, but anything even remotely weather appropriate is out. Hope your kids kept track of their mittens and nobody ripped their scarf or outgrew their boots, let alone needed an upgrade for the outrageous conditions. It's spring now,  Target says so.

It's -20 degrees today in Minnesota,  up to -60 wind chill in some areas. Luckily TC  and I plan to be hermits and wait it out today, though we might have to brave the awfulness tomorrow for a meeting (which I am crossing my fingers gets cancelled).

My plan is to munch on party leftovers and maybe do some dishes.  Pray nothing freezes, give thanks again for the freedom to hibernate on days like this.

Warmly,
H

Up Up and Away (from yesterday at least)

Yesterday was a "death by paper cuts" day with a million tiny things going wrong which felt after a while like torture and absurdity. In the middle of it all I was able to accomplish the one fun task on my list-balloon shopping!  I love balloons. TC loves balloons. Balloons make a party instantly festive and make everyday days into parties. Also, we've been watching the movie "UP" a lot lately, so TC and I are pretty much experts on balloons. I rented a helium tank and am looking forward to filling the house up with happiness. If it doesn't work, we're blowing up even more and heading off to Paradise Falls.

Neverland Preview

The Cupcake turns 3 on Saturday and we're celebrating with a Neverland themed party. She loves both Peter Pan and the Disney Jr. Series "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" and I love the idea of combining pirates, pixies, mermaids, lost boys, and so much more into one party theme, so we are all excited. Since today and tomorrow are pretty busy, I've already put up most of the decor! It's kind of fun to enjoy it a while.  Here is a tiny happy sneak peek:

I'm already thinking happy thoughts :)  stay tuned to see how it all comes together!

2013 in review

2013 is over! I could never have guessed all of the great things that would happen to us this year (especially after a few pretty tough years of losing loved ones and struggling in other ways), but I sure am grateful. It's been a wild ride, too fast at times, but looking back I truly appreciate where we are now, and a lot of what we were able to do and say along the way. Here are some highlights:

Bucket list accomplishments:
-donated my hair to locks of love

-officiated a legal same sex wedding (actually, a lot of them!)

-bought my first new car

-hosted a holiday cookie bake, gingerbread house decorating party, and family brunch (all holiday traditions I hope to carry on)

Other milestones:
-TC's 2nd Birthday - and the accompanying party that I actually made crafts for!

-First major home renovations (just in time for someone else to enjoy, of course)
-sold our first house
-bought our 2nd house - and immediately made it a home, unpacking in less than a month!

-participated in MonkeeSeeMonkeeDo's Holiday Helping Hands
-Found a better balance with my part time job - stepped back to assistant coaching at 2 new schools
-started The Cupcake in preschool 2 days a week
-potty training!
-threw a shower to welcome one of my best friend's new son

-had professional family photos taken (first time since T.C. was a newborn)
- played a LOT of dress up

Resolutions:

-Revive my blog! I bought web-hosting, now I just have to figure out how to transfer it over to "fix" my domain name again - but I'm back at Blogger for at least a temporary fix :)

-Have family photos taken EVERY YEAR

-Be less upset/insecure about tantrums, messes, and all the other unsightly parts of life (possibly grow a thicker mommy skin for interacting with other parents)

-Let things around the house be imperfect, or less perfect, in favor of being with family and friends - fill this amazing house up with great memories

-Catch up on scrapbooks (a reoccurring theme with my resolutions...oops)

-Add more things to my bucket list than I check off (but keep checking them off too!)

-Find something I love to do and make it part of my life

-Do something with The Cupcake every day that is just for fun (and realize it in the moment)

Best wishes to all,

HeatherEve

Things that are making us happy these days:

Snow on Tuesday that is replaced by 70's and sun on Thursday - FINALLY!

Disney Soundtracks (Little Mermaid, Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast) to sing along to in the car - AKA "Pwincess songs!"

The way The Cupcake says "Beauty" as in Sleeping Beauty or Beauty and the Beast - "Pooty!"

Dog-free backyard (RIP Normy, but dang is spring less smelly this year!)

Cheap IKEA closet organizers

"New" (to us - thank you JBF sales) summer clothes for TC

Capri jeans

Scoring like-new Clarks sandals for $6 from the Goodwill

Donate a chunk of hair to locks of love - Bucketlist #51

I've been in a hair funk for quite some time. Post TC I pretty much wore a standard-issue mom ponytail for two years, all about function with zero style or styling requirements. I had bangs for a while, which gave me the illusion that I had some sort of actual hair style, but eventually I realized I wasn't really keeping up with those either (my hair grows fast and I wasn't making it out for solo haircuts very often, even if they were fast and cheap, and NO WAY was I doing it myself. I have no skills for haircutting). As TC has grown and I've been able to steal a few moments away I'd started to sort of style my hair for some special occasions - I'd flat iron out the weird ripples that developed during my pregnancy, curl the ends under, it would look okay:

Christmas 2012

But I soon realized that even when my hair started out looking presentable, it would mat and knot under it's own friction and by the end of the day I'd have a huge rat's nest at the base of my neck. It was embarassing, I'm sure it looked awful, and it sucked to try and comb (rip) out. I don't know how people with long hair do it, if they just have thinner hair than I do, or brush it every hour, or use some magic product, but I couldn't take it. I was sick of the ponytail, and couldn't hack keeping it down, so I did some measurements and determined it was time to tackle bucketlist #51 - donate to locks of love.

Donations need to be a minimum of 10", so I divided my hair into 4 ponytails and put binders around 11" up, meaning the first cut was about 12" off.

My  hair is so thick, I think I get credit for 2 or 3 donations for this :) It was like an actual pony's tail when I wrapped it all up.

I didn't take any photos at the salon, I purposefully left my camera at home because the pressures of this mega cut were enough without feeling like I had to be in photos right away. The strange ladies next to me appeared to take several photos though, and couldn't stop asking me about what was going on (shouldn't going to the salon be relaxing? Who does that to other people?!?!) and basically narrating the whole experience (you're  not helping!)

I don't have any great "after" photos yet, but I definitely feel a foot lighter. The new cut makes more sense with the new texture of my hair (I got wavy during pregnancy, so it was really weird to have 4" of waves then straight for 16". Awkward), it's low fuss and dries quickly, or I can curl/iron it up for a different look. It looks WAY lighter in color with all the bulk gone too, neither good nor bad, but interesting.

I doubt I'll ever have hair this long again, so I'm glad I could make it count - the hair will help sick little girls feel better about their appearance with custom fit hairpieces, definitely a worthy cause.

Toys for Other Tots

I've (hopefully) started a couple of holiday traditions for our family: the annual ornament, setting up the tree, and donating a toy each year to charity. The latter is still in it's formative stages - in theory we would all go together as a family and pick something out that was meaningful, but time was against us this year so in the final days before collections ended I grabbed something on my own during a rare solo shopping trip. I still tried to make it meaningful by picking a doll that reminded me of The Cupcake:

 

It was barely in our house for 24 hours before I remembered to grab it on my way to a meeting at a school that was collecting for toys for tots, but it was just enough time for TC to see her. And go completely nuclear when she was not allowed to "had it! had it!"

Guess we have some work to do on the "Christmas Spirit", eh?

The doll made it to the charity, the kid eventually recovered from her blubbery puddle on the floor, and has since started to play with her own dolls (which are more age appropriate and have less hair to destroy).