A Night Under the Big Top

Ringling Bros & company came to Anaheim this week and we drove down to check them out. Nana & Grandpa joined and we all had a very fun time. Here's some quick highlights:

Hair's to you!

My niece is visiting for the summer and we have had quite a heat wave. Add to that, she gets loads of knots in her hair and whines like a wounded cat when I try to brush them out and all signs point to needing a haircut! She's got quite a challenge when it comes to hair because her Mom's hair is straight and Dad's side gave her curls, so she's got straight hair growing on top of the curls. What to do? We didn't want to lose length but needed the volume reduced. Layering seemed the obvious choice and the added benefit is that her natural curls (jealous) show up much better now. Here's the before & after shots:

It's Easy Bein' Green

I've been trying to get around to refinishing the toy room for quite some time now. I made some curtains, painted the trim and cabinets a couple weeks ago, refinished a kids' chair, and bought a full-sized chair and shelves to refinish. Today I finally got around to working on the shelves (after seeing the complete destruction that is the toy room right now). After sanding it for a bit with belt sander (insert Tim Taylor grunt here), I invited the kids to help me paint it. Of course, it didn't turn out nearly as neat as it could have if I did it myself, but every time I see an imperfection in the paint job, I will remember the fun time we had painting together.

Gettin' dirty

We had fun last weekend when we went camping with some friends at a local campground. Daddy made some carne asada, the kids played some impromptu t-ball, we went for hikes, spent most of Saturday on the lake, had a couple campfires, roasted s'mores (apparently two syllables for all of us non-grammar types) and in the meantime, got really REALLY dirty. It was a incentive to wash the bathtub Sunday after we got home, unpacked, and saw for ourselves how very dirty we really were. As everybody knows though, lots of dirt means lots of fun!
PS~Thanks -J- for the pics