time to be chopped

The older I get, the more my hair loses life. So the older I get, the shorter my hairstyles have become, in order to get some life out of the thin, fine locks that I have now.

 

For the past two years, I've had an A-line style. It was longer in front (to at least my chin), and slightly shorter in the back.

 

That style worked out great for a long time, but the last few months, I wasn't getting any sort of body (or as my husband calls it: "poof") out of it. It looked flat, and it felt lifeless, and it had started to bug me. I thought about getting it permed, because that always helps straight hair look fuller. But, I kept thinking back to the last time I got a perm, and it didn't last very long, and my hair just ended up looking frizzy a lot, so I kept questioning if that was right for me. Finally, I just decided to get a drastic cut; shorter than I've ever cut it before. My good friend Amanda (who's a hair stylist) agreed, and did the job for me at the end of January:

She did a great job! I really liked the back. It was so easy to style: all I had to do each morning was put some styling gel in it, hairspray it, and blow dry it correctly and it stayed volumous all day. But the top was giving me a hard time, and kept falling flat. So I went back to Amanda after 2 weeks, and she trimmed the top and sides to match the back:

Since I work with kids each day, and they've seen the same hair style on me for the past two years, they were shocked to see me with my new poofy hair. I had several kids tell me "You're having a bad hair day". A few kids said "What's wrong with your hair?" And a couple of kids told me "Your hair is sticking up". It was giving me a complex at first...I like how kids are so honest, and they don't hold back, but after so many kids were saying the same things, I was thinking that perhaps my hair wasn't as cute as I thought it was. Thankfully, I work with a lot of women who understand the value of a good and stylish cut, and I received a lot of compliments from them to balance out the kids' comments!

I really enjoy the new cut! It's so much easier to do every day, it has more volume than it did before, and it's a style that's current with the times.

I'm dreading what will happen in a couple years from now, though, when it no longer will retain body at this length, and I will have to cut it even shorter! Eventually, at this rate, I'm gonna have to buzz it! ;)

Once there was a snow cave tall, tall, tall

At the end of January, we had some absolutely gorgeous snowfalls. The first of which created beautiful, sparkly snow. It was amazing to behold--but I couldn't get any good photos to represent it well enough. Except, I kept this one, becaues I couldn't believe I actually captured a real, 6-pointed snowflake--let alone 3! Two are in the bottom left, and one is in the bottom right of this picture:

The second snowfall had ginormous, slow-falling flakes that were really an enjoyment to watch. The snowfall began in the evening, and it continued to snow all through the night. Since the snow was falling so slowly, I tried to really capture its essence again with my camera, but this was the best image I got--you can see the big snowflakes falling, and how big they looked when they individually landed on the ground clustered all together: 

The next morning when I woke up, our yard looked like a winter wonderland. It was so beautiful outside!

It was awesome snow; very powdery and also good for packing. The boys got all suited up that afternoon, and we spent hours outside playing in the perfect snow.

With all that new snow, our snowhill (complete with a big jump) was much more cushioned, and the boys had a blast sledding and tubing pain-free without getting bumps and bruises!

I love Josh's face in this one! It cracks me up!!!

But that face didn't last long!

Shorty kept trying to nip at everyone as they were coming down the hill, so we had to put him on a leash, but he still managed to stay involved because he didn't want to be left out!

Kanyon doesn't like sledding, so he spent a lot of time wrestling with Shorty in the snow...

The boys finally convinced Kanyon to go tubing by promising to tie a rope onto a tube and then tying the opposite end of the rope to the fence, so that he wouldn't go all the way down the hill. Surprisingly, he obliged. The older 3 boys worked together to pull him up the hill (like a king in a chariot):

Ammon tied the rope to the fence behind the sled hill, and down Kanyon came...

 ...and when the tube stopped, he flew through the air and kept going!

And can you believe, that even though he's been afraid of sledding all winter, and hasn't gotten on one before now, and even though he got thrown off after the first time, that he actually GOT BACK ON?!!! I couldn't believe it! But he did! And the next time, the tube stopped, and he stayed on. And then the next time, the rope broke, and he made it all the way to the bottom!!! The whole sequence of events was a big shocker for all of us! (I tried uploading the video, but Blogger won't do it).

Since the snow was so perfect, Josh had the idea to build a snow cave. The boys worked together to shovel and pile up snow near the base of the snowhill.

 

After a while, they got tired of working on it and went back to sledding, but Josh continued building it. He got it to be about 5' tall, and then he worked on digging out an entrance to it.

Then he worked his way in, shoveling snow out as he went.

And finally, he made a room inside the snow cave, and I shoveled out the excess snow that he was shaving from the walls.

After about 2 hours of working on it, we finally felt like it was safe and sturdy enough to let the boys inside it. When they were in it, Josh was testing the thickness of the walls with sticks, and having the boys report to him when they could see the stick poke through. Josh thought he could make the ceiling a little bit higher, so after the boys got out, he got back in and cut a little bit more from the top. And by doing so, he created a hole. When he tried to fix the hole, it got bigger and bigger. So...that was the end of that! All that work for about 2 minutes that the boys got to be inside of it!! It was an adventure right in our own back yard, and a new way to spend the day outside in the snow, so it wasn't a complete waste! ;)

We are the champions, my scout friends

At the end of January, Jonah and Micah's cub scout pack had their annual pinewood derby car race.

 

Last year, the boys were disappointed in the performance of their cars--they both lost almost all their races because their cars had such low weight. The cars are supposed to weigh no more than 5 ounces, and last year their cars' weights were 3.5 ounces each. Josh thought they were fine, and didn't add any more weights. The boys lost race after race, and it wasn't until the boys kept begging me to do something, that I added quarters and pins to the cars towards the end of the evening that the boys started winning races.

 

So, Josh wasn't about to let that happen again this year. He worked really hard to make sure the boys were happy with their cars' looks as well as their performance. He had Jonah and Micah each pick the shape of their car, then he cut out the shape, and had the twins sand their cars. Then Josh cut holes on the bottom sides of the cars and inserted weights in the holes, then glued the holes over and had the boys sand around the rough edges after the glue dried. I took the twins with me to pick paint colors, and then had them show me how they wanted their cars painted and I spray painted them. Then the boys picked out stickers and applied them to the cars, and the final step was Josh added the wheels.

 

 

Jonah wanted a white car with a blue stripe, and car racing stickers. I thought he was pretty bold putting a trophy sticker on the front of his car...

Micah wanted a red car with a white stripe, and army stickers. I thought his red/white/blue stickers looked really good against his paint color choices.

The boys loved how their cars looked! They were so excited for the race!

 When we first arrived, the boys weighed their cars and they were each 4.5 ounces. They were both very nervous, because of what happened last year, but we assured them that 4.5 oz was a lot closer to 5 oz, and they didn't have to be EXACTLY that number to race or to win! Their cub master made these awesome trophies that the boys were ogling over as they waited for the races to begin:

 

The Derby was very well organized this year, with a double elimination system and it lasted only about an hour (unlike the 2 1/2 hour one last year). All the cub scouts were assigned a number, and were placed on a grid, and they got to work racing their opponents:

Both of their cars pretty evenly matched, and they had the opportunity to race each other:

I could feel the fun excitement energy level that all these boy scouts were exhibiting!

At the end of the night, Jonah was announced as the 1st place champion! It was so exciting! None of our kids have ever won the Pinewood Derby before! So it was very redeeming for Josh, after all his hard work, as well!

Micah's car also did very well. Because he lost the race against Jonah (and just barely), he was placed in the loser's bracket, and his next opponent was the boy who got 2nd place overall. I think if he'd been put somewhere else on the bracket and had different opponents, he would've probably received a placement trophy as well. He was just happy that his car did so well, and he loved the trophy that he still got.

 We have a lot of boys in our cub scout pack--this isn't even all of them! The boys have really enjoyed scouting this year and meeting once a week with so many of their friends!

ice, ice skaty

Jonah and Micah both asked for, and received, ice skates for Christmas. We had planned on going out of town for Ammon's birthday, and he requested that we go ice skating somewhere together as a family. So, Jonah and Micah were both very much looking forward to using their new skates when we went. I tried to find an ice rink with an open-skate time that would fit our schedule on the weekend of Ammon's birthday, but without success. I looked at rinks in Missoula, Rexburg, Idaho Falls, and Pocatello, and finally gave up and decided it wasn't meant to be. Ammon was fine with it. Jonah and Micah were not.

 

The following weekend included the MLK jr. holiday, and I promised them that we could go skating at the ice rink in Salmon then. And so we did, all except for Ammon who didn't want to go if he couldn't use skates (he doesn't own any and there are no facilities that rent out skates in Salmon). It was thankfully very good weather for skating outdoors, and since we didn't have to go to school on Monday, we ended up going skating twice over the weekend. On Saturday, we asked a few friends of theirs to join us. Jonah asked Mason, Micah asked Toby, and Kanyon asked Raegan. We played on the ice for two hours and had such a fun time!

Kanyon just used his boots on the ice, since he doesn't own skates either. He was very content and had just as much fun as his brothers.

Micah really enjoyed using his new skates, and was getting really used to wearing them.

Jonah also really liked having to wear skates on the ice instead of boots, and he was happy to learn how to skate in them.

Kanyon played a game of throwing a piece of snow-chunk on the ice, and then he would race across the ice to pick up the snow and slide it back to the snowbank.

 He found this heart-shaped snow chunk while he was playing his made-up game, and took a photo of it with his friend Raegan.

Micah liked skating with Toby--who plays hockey and had a tournament that day. They had races across the ice to see who was the fastest.

Jonah and Mason were wearing matching hats. Mason was sad that he didn't have skates like the twins did, but he still had fun playing with them.

I was so glad that the boys liked their new skates. I liked sitting on the sidelines watching them experiment with their skating techniques...

 

 

 

While we there on Saturday, there was a tournament on the hockey rink next to the public skate rink, so it was pretty busy. But when we went back on Monday, there was nobody on either ice pad. The weather was even better, and we were all by ourselves. It was very peaceful and was a great way to spend time with my kiddos on our day off school.