Free Range Family

Well I finally did it! I cut and donated my hair! As of this Sunday, I had been growing my hair out for donation for two years and nine months. I donated a total of sixteen inches to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths Program. I chose to donate through Pantene this year (I donated through Locks for Love after I had Alan) for a few different reasons. Around the time I had originally planned on donating, I had heard some negative comments about Locks for Love. I spoke with my boss, who also runs the Livestrong Program at the Y, about other options and she introduced me to Beautiful Lengths. Pantene joined with The American Cancer Society to develop this program in 2006. They have since donated more then 500,000 ponytails! That is 24,000 wigs! :D They also are a bit more lenient on their donation requirements, which is more realistic to these days with how many women dye their hair. This was the program for me. If you have never heard of Beautiful Lengths: (Taken directly from th...

Alan's hair has just been growing, and growing, and GROWING lately. Or so it seems… It recently has grown so long that his bangs are now in his eyes. And with his glasses been broken (he broke them wrestling with Aunt Ariel several weeks ago, we are waiting for his replacements now), there is nothing blocking his little eyes from all of that hair! He has refused me cutting it since the last time I cut his hair, I butchered it pretty good lol. See exhibit A. Exhibit A. But it was starting to get ridiculous and I felt like it was interfering with his seeing, so I convinced him to let me trim it slightly. After some bribing, he agreed. So last night before bath time, I trimmed his whole head for him. I wasn't able to get a photo of his hair before I cut it, but here is a good example. Its his Pre-K school photo! So handsome! :D But look at those long curls! He definitely was in need of a trim! Before... And after! I am quite proud of my trim job, I took my t...

I know, I like never write on the weekends! What has gotten into me??????? Well, for those of you who know me personally know that I only don't write most weekends, because that is my family time. It is the time where all four members of our family are available, so we spend as much time as possible together, doing fun things. I am usually too busy to post during the weekend, I just recap everything from the weekend that following Monday. In fact, the year I started this blog, that was one of my personal rules: No posting on weekends.  But today, I woke up early before the children and I thought I would go online for a bit. Started checking my FB and then my blog and I decided, hey why not post today? If I have something to write, why shouldn't I write? So here I am, typing up a post for today. It will mostly be filled with random thoughts and musings from the weekend. I still want to save my Dirty Dash post for Monday. :) But I have like a billion and two little things I ...

Today is the big day for me! Well kinda lol, today is my dress rehearsal for the dance showcase this Saturday. My kids will be in full costume for their dances and I am excited to see how it all looks. I am very anxious but excited too! We will see how it goes! :) The kids and I are going shopping today with Aunt Sam. The kids are excited, we should have a lot of fun with her! I don't have any extra cash lol, but I might try to get Aunt Natalie her birthday present at some point. With her birthday coming up this weekend, I am running out of time to get her something lol. I also have to get Alan's glasses fixed. Crazy man has officially broken his glasses for the first time lol! :) Oh well, at least it was just one of the ear pieces. This morning, Anna surprised us all by pulling herself up on the ottomon! We had just had her standing up with us holding her for a bit, and Lon set her down on the floor to play while he got ready for work. Miss Anna army crawled over to the ott...

We are still currently living in our old apartment. Spoke with our new landlord on Friday and he is just waiting on a furnace part before we can start moving in. He said Monday, but I have yet to talk with him today. Keep your fingers crossed for us, we may get our keys and such tonight! How awesome would that be???? This weekend was a nice and easy weekend for us. No crazy moving, although I would have been okay with that. Maddie's baby shower was Saturday afternoon. Sunday, we stayed home and did some more packing. We are now down to having only the necessities unpacked and alot of our belongings have been gone through. I have four big boxes full to the brim with stuff we are donating to Good Will, we have developed so much clutter in these past two years of living here. I thought we had gotten rid of most of it over Memorial weekend before Anna was born, but this weekend I have found the most random things (I think I may do a post on it later this week). I have become the new ...

Its Friday! This morning I have my ultrasound to check up on Miss Anna's growth, it will be great to get to see her again! I can't wait to meet her! :D I hope I get some pictures to take home, I will definitely post them on here sometime this weekend. Then Alan and I are going shopping with my family for Father's Day. Not sure what we are getting Lon or my dad yet, but I know Alan will help me pick! Otherwise, I look forward to a weekend of fun in the sun. But not too much sun, I don't want to end up in L and D again. Here's this week's Five Question Friday! Would you grow your hair out to donate it? Lol, my family and I always do that. Lon donated his gorgeous hair to Locks for Love when he got it cut last (he donated ten inches) and I donated my hair last month when I cut it too (I only donated eight inches lol). Here is my hair cut!   What song makes you think of summer?  Hmmm, that's a tough one. Probably anything by Jack Johnson make...

I didn't want to darken my wonderful anniversary day yesterday, but a tragedy has struck my family and many others in my town. Monday morning, my aunt's training barn burnt down with 19 horses inside. None survived. Seven of the horses in there my aunt trained with on a regular basis and one of the horses was her beloved show horse. For more information, here is the link to the newspaper article. My aunt and her family are absolutely devastated, as well as many other students of this training facility. We just continue to remind ourselves that those beautiful creatures are no longer in pain and are in a better place. Now the process of rebuilding begins... To put some light on a sad time (and to change the subject), Lon got me the sweetest card for our anniversary! Its one of those musical cards and it plays "You're my Best Friend" by Queen. Love that song! :D The front of the card, the bicycle rocks back and forth when the music plays! The inside of t...

Our weekend wasn't too eventful, on Saturday I worked and then we went to the circus with my family and on Sunday we just hung out at home. I was supposed to get my haircut from my girlfriend Sarah, but she had to work instead. We rescheduled for this upcoming Sunday. :) We had a really great time at the circus Saturday night though! Alan and I went with my mother, Uncle Kalvin, Aunt April, second cousin Morgan and Kalvin's friend Casey. We saw my old manager from CEC Kelsey and a couple kids who I work with at the YMCA. The first half of the show started out with the tigers, which Alan was surprisingly not that into. Then there were some balancing acts and a hula hoop act,  where Alan was more interested in the lights lol. But once the puppies came out for their act, Alan was all eyes and ears lol, standing up and cheering along with the crowd. His favorite was the littlest one. :) There were a few more acts and then the brought out the motorcycle on the tight rope. Alan, ...

Another post that totally qualifies as rambling lol...  Oh the joys of being a daycare teacher. I have worked at the Child Watch daycare center in the YMCA for a year and a half now and the crazy things I have seen/said/done are worthy of going their own book lol. All I have to say is: kids are an adventure, whether they are yours or you are just in care of them. For example: Yesterday at work, we were all playing outside. The combination of the wind and the excited yells of the kids, it was kinda hard to hear out there. This little boy asked me a question from a distance where I misheard him. He also said the same thing several times, really fast. I thought he said, "Teacher, may I be here?" so I said yes. But in reality, he had asked me if he could pee there. He instantly went to the window and started pulling down his pants. Lol I shouted and ran because there was a considerable parent line at the desk and they were about to get a peep show. Thankfully, I caught him ...

Unfortunately, our Dr. Suess Day wasn't very successful. I woke up Friday morning and was sick almost all day. So we didn't do the green eggs and ham, and we didn't go traveling. But I did have him make the One Fish, Two Fish craft with me.  Last night however, we went over to my parent's house to get Alan's haircut. It had been a while since it had last been done, and his hair was getting ridiculously long. We were starting to get tired of strangers referring to him as a girl lol. So we decided it was time. Alan before his haircut (See how long it is!) The thing about Alan is, he hates having his hair "maintained" of any kind. It usually takes me 45 minutes to comb his hair with a lot of fighting and chasing. So getting his hair cut is a little crazy lol. It normally takes about three to four people to do it. To distract him, we set him on Aunt April's lap with her iPod Touch playing Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on it (thank goodness for toddlers and tec...

Today is another hot one lol. Ugggggh! Today we probably will go run through the sprinklers at Grandma's house and then I work from 2 to 7. Not too busy of a day lol. Tomorrow we will be going on a playdate with two of Alan's friends at Sacajwea Park, and then we will be going swimming at Rose Park with Grandma, Unlce Kalvin, Erica, and Korbin. Keanu will probably also be there, but he won't be swimming lol. :) And then Sunday we plan on taking Alan to see Cars 2. The Symphony in the Park is also Sunday night, which we will be attending with my YMCA crew (Erica and kids, Sarah and kids, and Kari). Lets hope this weather stays nice and not too hot because we will be outside almost ALL weekend. Yahoo! :D I can't wait to see this movie! They are going to Japan! Sooooo cool! Via Oooooooh can't wait for this weekend! Saturday get over here!!! :P Ahhhhh, he's Five Question Friday for you now. What is your current favorite tv show? I don't really have a...

So this post just kinda snuck up on me lol, but its my 100TH POST TODAY!!! Wow, it doesn't feel like I have been blogging for that long (though in reality if I had blogged November through February I would have already hit this point) but here I am! Happy 100! I hope for 1000+ more posts lol! Today is the wonderful Martha Graham's 117th birthday. Martha Graham is a brilliant dancer and choreographer who influenced a lot of modern dancers, such as myself. For those that don't know, I studied dance for 12 years at Tracy's School of Dance. Dance and movement in general is very important to me, and Martha Graham felt the same way. She developed a wonderful technique and many different moves that are now used all over the world today. She was so important that Google dedicated their name doodle to her today. I urge you to go online to view it, I can only get the photo of it on here, and the movement is what is the best. :) I love how she spells the word backwards too. Ch...