Gwen's first haircut

Last night, Jason took all of us out for dessert to celebrate some great news from his job. We went to "the ice cream store" and had a great time. After we were done, we decided on a whim to get Ethan's shaggy head in for a trim and Jason needed one too. A few weeks ago I went in for a haircut and Gwen came and was intrigued by the process. Up until then she was adamant that she did NOT ever want to cut her hair. That was fine with us, but after she saw my hair cut, she started saying she wanted "just a little" taken off.

So when we drove to the hair place and just Daddy and Ethan tried to go in, she got upset that she wasn't going in too. I decided that now was as good as any so she finally, after nearly 4 years, got her hair cut!

For reference, her hair was VERY long. It was all the way down to her rear. This is the best picture I could find, and as is typical of me, I didn't think of taking one before the haircut started!


The shampoo. She said this made her feel so sleepy, like she needed a nap. Ethan, bless his little heart, came over and patted her leg and arm to make sure she wasn't scared.


Sitting high up in the chair


She never sits this still for me when I comb out her hair.


Her hair was so long that she had to stand for them to cut it. This is right before the first cut. All the lady did was basically even it up across the back, she didn't even touch the front. She probably took only 2-3 inches off total from the back.


I did not tell her to pose like this folks. This is Gwen, unprompted. The thought of her as a teenager scares me a little bit.


She told me that her picture wouldn't look good because she had the sucker, so I had to take another one of her looking serious. Her shirt was really dirty from the ice cream we'd had right before the haircut place!


And one of little Elsa who, bless her heart, patiently endured the ice cream and haircut adventure with only a few peeps, even though it was past her bedtime and she only had a diaper on under that blanket (we were only supposed to be out for a quick ice cream run, not a whole ordeal!).



The stylist gave me some of the hair to put in Gwen's baby book. Gwen saw this and when J was getting his hair cut, ran over there to ask Daddy if she should gather up hair for his baby book. So funny.

My teeth still hurt a lot! I'm taking Percoset at night still and wish I did not have to. Ibuprofen is around the clock. I try and stretch it out, but within an hour of it wearing off I can feel the pain quite severely. I'm hoping that going into my third week after surgery I will see some significant improvements in pain, at least where I don't need to be taking so much medication all the time.

Yesterday I started Ethan on his first reading lessons! My Mom taught all of us with Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons and that's what I'm going to try with my kids. Our first lesson went well and Ethan was very excited. I have a chart with 1-100 on it and every day he'll put a sticker or cross off his number. I'm going to feel out a few lessons with Gwen too and see if she's ready.

In our ongoing ponderings about whether to homeschool or not, I had thought about how I did not think even one person from my MOPS group was homeschooling and how too bad that was because it would be nice to have a contact like that. Today at MOPS, we played a mixer game called "Fast Friends" which is kinda like speed dating. We sat down with a random person and talked for 5 minutes and shared some basic information so we could get to know each other. The FIRST lady I sat down with not only has kids close in age to mine, but is homeschooling them and gave me some great information on a co-op. WOW! I couldn't believe it. Even 30 min earlier, I had absently been looking around at people and wondering if any of them were homeschooling and I just didn't know it. Even though I hadn't prayed for someone in my MOPS group to be homeschooling, it was like an answer to an unsaid prayer!