Happy Birthday!

Eric is 37 today! We're going to go out to dinner and also celebrating in Vegas this weekend possibly with a show or something as well!

The kids made him super cute gifts and I ordered a few things that were supposed to show up either yesterday or today... I'm getting a little nervous!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC!

I guess it's time...

I've been dying my hair platinum for 5 years now and I really love it because it's such an unnatural color, it really stands out which is one of the reasons I love it so much. For the past year or so I've been telling Eric that I'm only going to go platinum ONE more time, then I'll start doing a more natural color. But each time that point comes along... I just can't bring myself do actually follow through and I end up just continuing to go white.
The prospect of having a more natural hair color is a little scary for me because I feel like I'm surrendering to getting older... if that makes any sense at all. Having white hair is something I can do that makes me feel and look like I'm I'm still hip and young. I get compliments and questions about it almost daily from people because it's such a weird unnatural hair color. For me to have normal hair will make me feel like I'm blending in to society and will have nothing that stands out anymore. I'll look like any other mom out there. I'm just not ready!

But the decision has been made for me I suppose. I once again dyed my hair last night and my poor strands have had enough! Bleaching and toning hair is one of the worst things you can do as far as the integrity of your hair. It weakens it and LOTS of it falls out simply because it breaks off or is too damaged to stay connected. My hair looks awful when it's wet because it's so far gone. But with alot of tender love and care (and gobs of product) my hair looks super cute once it's dried, straitened and smoothed out. You'd never know after I fixed it up just damaged it really is.
But yesterday was the last straw. My hair gave me the ultimate sign of being finished with bleach... it melted together! At the nape of my neck was a chuck that fused itself together. I've bleached my hair into oblivion! Fortunately because my hair is in such bad shape, I was able to simply pull lightly on that chunk and the whole thing pulled right out without any problems (scary huh???) A smaller chunk also melted in the very front of my face and when it fell out, it gave me nice bangs...

Okay I get it! No more bleach! I'll succumb to normal hair, I really don't have a choice. One more time with bleach and I'm afraid I'll be bald! It's been a fun run but my youth is truly over! I'm going to go cry now over the loss of my funky youthful hair. Although I do look forward to having strong healthy hair again that I don't have to spend an hour on every morning.

Fun 4th

We had a fun evening with friends and family on the 4th. The fireworks were a hit with the adults and most of the kids... Pinky could have cared less about them and was more interested in finding out how the glowsticks glowed. We realized she was successful in her endeavour when she started crying in the pitch blackness, and all we could see when we looked at her was the inside of her entire mouth glowing green.

Everyone panicked for a bit and tried to make her swig and spit water to get all the glow out of her mouth. I was mostly panicked because she said it burned. Although, while we were busy scraping green stuff out of Naomi's mouth, Eric was busy testing it himself to see if it in fact burned. He only dabbed it on his tongue but he said it made his whole mouth go numb. So, I'm sure Pinky was very uncomfortable!

After the fiasco had settled down, we couldn't let the remaining perfectly good glowing goo go to waste! Eric and I dabbed it all over our arms like glowing tribal paint!

Someone in the group made the comment after watching us do this, that it's no wonder Pinky wanted to break it open and play with it... it must run in the family!

Testing...

I'm sitting at the pool right now watching the kids in their swim teams... I thought I'd test out writing a post from my phone.

It's been super hot lately and usually I enjoy tanning myself at the pool, but more and more I'm joined the ranks of moms hiding themselves in the shade!

I think I'll try to post a pic from my phone next!

Lots O Pics

Elle had her end of the year Girl Scout trip to D.C a few weekends ago, Naomi and I tagged along. The bad part about going to D.C with a group is that the group gets there by taking the Metro... I despise the Metro and usually, when I go with the kids, I drive in. But with large groups, Metro is the way they go. So I had to suffer through the train rides! The good part was that it was alot of fun! Perfect weather and lots to see.

Here's a picture of Elle with her troop. All these girls are 8, I don't know why Elle is so short! I don't look at her and think she's a shorty but she is teeny in this group of girls.

After hiking around outside, the kids made me stop at a vendor and get 10 dollar Popsicles!

Even though Pinky is too big for a stroller, she still gets worn out and I had to carry a sleeping (almost) 5 year old for several hours. She fell asleep twice during our outing and boy was she tough to carry. Here I am sitting down for a minute with her because she was killing my back. Ah, the joys of motherhood!

What fun outing post wouldn't be complete without our hiking pictures! It's hot enough now that we can stop and play in the lake. I don't know who loves it more, the kids or the dog!

lake swimming

Eric didn't mind getting his shorts wet, so he took them father then I did.

Satisfied after an eventful swim

This is what a wet Loki looks like!

Heading back to the car...

Cleaning

So, on my journey to find my cell phone (before I accepted the fact that it was in fact taken by a friend of mine... I didn't want to believe it at first) I tore my house apart! Room by room I emptied out closets, cleaned under beds, looked behind dressers, cleared out cabinets. No stone was left unturned! The kitchen was the worst! I can't believe I'm even posting these pictures, LOL!

The first pic is all trash that I cleaned out from my kitchen cabinets. Yes, those are contractor trashbags... full of crap! How embarrassing! But at the same time, how liberating! My kitchen is SO simple and clean now. I can open a drawer and see everything that's in there!

Okay, the next pics are even worse! We have a freezer-on-the-bottom type fridge (which i HATE by the way and will never get again!). I decided to clean it out because a few soda cans had exploded in there the day before and there were frozen drink chunks all over everything. Upon taking all the food out of the freezer, I was appalled to find that it looked like THIS: AAAHHHHHH!! That's what I get for having a type of freezer where you just dump stuff into it. Plus, I've never cleaned it out before.

But after much scrubbing, I made it sparkle again! (If my friend Brittney is reading this, I hope you averted your eyes!)

I guess the good side of this whole ordeal is that my house looks fantastic now! The other good side is today I'm going to go buy the new iphone4! I guess if I had to have my phone disappear, now is the best time. The new phone is literally the coolest thing I've ever seen and I can't wait to get my hands on one!

I have so many more pictures to post and more to write. I'll have to get back to that later today!

Updates

Pinky is out of school for the summer, her graduation was pretty darn cute. Elle still has two more weeks but is enjoying the 'fun' school days at the end.
Eric and I are... surviving. We're having one those 'when it rains it pours' couple of weeks. I don't even have enough fingers to count how many different things we're dealing with right now that are taking a toll. We find solice though, in the weekends! Eric built the kids two really cool tents to sleep in a few days ago. The kids loved that! We've done lots of hiking and outings. And last night we had an asian feast for dinner with some friends. Eric cooked up all sorts of things, it was awesome! I love when he gets all Japanese on me!
My iphone went missing on Thursday... I'm pretty sure it was taken and I know who took it but I can't accuse someone of taking it without knowing 100%... which I don't.
Well, it's 5pm, so I better start dinner. I'm in the mood for fajitas tonight!