My new favorite drink

I love hot cocoa--YUM! However, sometimes I want that hot-cocoa-snuggly-socks-cozy-blanket feeling without spending my calories on hot cocoa. You know. So, this is my new favorite thing. Warm 8 to 12 oz. of skim (1%, whatever) milk in the microwave for a minute and a half. Add one teaspoon flavored creamer (my new favorite is vanilla caramel) and one teaspoon sugar. Stir it well and hold that warm cup in your hands as you smell the deliciousness. Drink up with no guilt. And save your calories for when you can really splurge on AMAZING cocoa, instead of that crappy Wal-Mart brand instant stuff you buy for your kids. :)

Haircuts all around.

Maddie got her first haircut today.  Normally, I wait a little longer, reveling in the glory that is old-man-hair-on-a-tiny-baby, but when I had to comb the tangles out of her back hair in the morning, I decided that I fight that battle enough already in my life (with four other heads of hair to brush), and we were going to remedy the situation STAT.

Here she is, with both bouffant top and mullet bottom.  Is that a winning combination or what?

Mullet bottom mostly gone.  I piled the hair on her back so I could have a record of how much I cut off.

Haircut complete.  She looks older now, unfortunately.  And I loved playing with all that mullet hair when I was holding her in church.  *sniff*  My baby's growing up.  :)

And you know, I really ought to retitle this blog to be either "137 Reasons to Closely Supervise Your Toddler" or "My Incompetence as a Mother."  Because this is Bella's most recent haircut.

Let's start with her new fashionable turkey tail.  That little tuft is right at the crown of her head.  This beautiful feature is highlighted when I pull her hair into her usual style of two pigtails.  We're experimenting with different options when we would rather she didn't look like barnyard fowl.

She also added stylish asymetrical bangs.  They might look fairly mainstream in this photo here, but I assure you, in real life, this look is very avant garde.  

And to show what she was working with before, I add this picture of the great Moses costume she assembled using the towel rack from our recently remodeled bathroom and my Moby wrap.  This is the only picture I could find with her bangs shown full-length, since we normally had them pulled or clipped up.  I had been carefully trimming the rest of her hair so we could grow her bangs all the way out.  Serves me right for doing anything carefully that involves the human disaster.  

Bella's setting up shop in the basement and she's looking for clients who may want to mimic her new style.  Her rates for haircuts are very reasonable (two juice boxes or a ziploc of goldfish crackers), and you'll certainly be original.

Twins?

Our friend Matt Brady pointed out that Maddie is a dead ringer for the lead singer of GreenDay, Billy Joe Armstrong.

What do you think?

A little product in the hair, a little eyeliner, and WHABAM!  Perfect, right?

We Love Halloween!

I thought John would capture a full-body shot of my fabulous self in an orange pindot polyester leisure suit.  Can you believe he only got this?

"How blessed the day when the lamb and the lion shall lie down together without any ire."  I don't think we're quite there yet, do you?

From left:  Mary (of Mary Had a Little Lamb) not to be confused with Little Bo-Peep  (you can see she still has her sheep, right?)
Jaguar (she refused the elephant costume I had planned, but the jaguar fit.  Who am I to argue?)
She-Ra (store-bought costume not available since 1985, so this is what we put together on our own)

Close up on the Princess of Power.  Check out those sassy hips.

This costume was sewn in 2004 for Olivia.  As I was re-examining it this year, I was quite pleased with all the progress I've made in my sewing since then.  

We broke the plastic outdoor candy cane we had planned to use for a shepherd's crook, and drama ensued.  John came to the rescue with this pipe-insulation substitute.  And then Olivia refused to use it at the Trunk-or-Treat because she was sure people would think she was Bo Peep if she had a crook.  At the end of the evening, she indignantly proclaimed, "I didn't even carry my stick, and they still thought I was Little Bo Peep."