those boys

are so dang cute sometimes.

 desmond with the giant bear he found at the library

tesla combing his hair...that lip!

they make me pretty happy.

age difference

"okay, see the shapes?  we're going to put stickers all the way around.  like this.  see, it goes on the black line."



the 3 year old

time occupied: ~30 minutes (some help was given, since he wanted to take turns putting stars on)

the 2 year old

time occupied: ~5 minutes

*note:  all the stickers that are actually on the square were done by me.




any questions?

i just wanted to say

that i love love love my new bangs.

they're my most favorite bangs i've ever had.

i had a couple rough days after my recent haircut...tried to scrunch and blow-dry and it was a disaster, so i got stuck straightening it every day.  but it's a pain to do and i don't like the way my hair lays when it's straight and then my bangs were too straight and sticking out weird and i was beginning to regret them.  so today we just went with the old "apply product, air dry, and hope for the best".  (plus a 3 second bang blast with the hair dryer)

myspace mirror pic:

1, angle your body

2. don serious "i'm a baller" expression

3. avert gaze

check check check...i feel like i'm 15 again.

so, just in case you were going about your saturday business and suddenly thought, "oh em gee!  i wonder what the status of heather's hair is right now??"

curiosity satisfied.  you're welcome.

also, in case you don't know me that well and were wondering...no.  that is not my shirt.  that is one from silas' collection.

if i had a shirt for every marathon i've run...i'd have exactly zero.

savages

when i was growing up, we had a black lab/chow mix named nala.

she was sweet and neurotic and in most ways very un-doglike.

but whenever we would subject her to a bath in the backyard, she always reacted the same way.

she stood, rigid as a statue, while we hosed her down and lathered her up.  her look of pathetic resignation was almost enough to convince us we truly were torturing her.  (almost.)  we tried our best to choke back our guilt as we rinsed her off in the cold spray.

and then, the second we let go of her collar, she took off like a bat out of hell.

she would tear around the perimeter of the yard three times, as fast as her four furiously working legs could carry her girth.  then she would promptly go find a dead skunk and roll in it while cackling gleefully.


my children react much the same way to the shedding of their fabric confinement.  (minus the skunks, of course.)

as soon as those clothes hit the floor--FREEEEEDOOOOOOOMMMM!

they're running around the apartment--up the couch! down the couch! jump on mommy's bed! run out of mommy's room before she grabs us! up the bunk beds!  down the bunk beds!  life is good!  WE'RE NAKED!

unrelated picture of desmond when he trashed the closet (a.k.a. his bedroom) one night

at least they usually keep their nude voodoo dances within the walls of our apartment.

although there was that one time when they both escaped and took off streaking around all the buildings...

my neighbors love me.

snapshots

monday was my birthday.  we put up balloons.

unfortunately, they're right at the height of silas' head.  so they're going to have to come down soon.

i treated myself to a haircut on my birthday.  

of course, you can't really see it here.  (but can you tell that the duck tail is gone?!)  the stylist did an awesome job and completely listened to me.  i showed her some pictures of my goal hairstyles, and she cleaned my mullet up a lot and trimmed the back to shape it so it would grow out nicely.  i was prepared to lose a lot of length but it doesn't really feel shorter.  win win win.

now if only it would grow a foot overnight.

we wandered away from the playground the other day and found ourselves here.

it was peaceful and sunny and away from everyone.  the boys threw rocks and moseyed around.  it was one of those moments where everything is perfect and quiet--a suspension of time between the arguments and diaper changes and tiredness and tasks to be done.

we don't have those moments enough.  

i'm making my way (slowly, because i'm taking notes as i read and that always quadruples my book-reading time) through Buddhism for Mothers.  as i read it i catch glimpses of how things can be--peaceful, happy.  of course, i don't control all the factors, and let's face it--most of the time life with toddlers is not anyone's definition of peaceful.  

but i've had days, moments, that make me believe.  days where, by starting the day off with a little yoga and meditation (and i mean little...10 or 15 minutes total), i helped fill my reserves so i had a well of patience from which to draw all day.  i've had days before where i was able to mentally separate myself from everything, but rather than coming from a place of detachment, which is something i've struggled with a lot, i was able to act out of love and things just didn't affect me as much.

sometimes i spend all day reacting and correcting and feeling frustrated and selfish and tired.  i love the wee beasties but they can take a lot out of me if i'm not prepared.  it's amazing, though, what a huge, huge difference it makes when i'm in the proper mindset.

the feeling i'm trying to explain eludes description.  i'm not sure if i can accurately portray it in a blog post...but i know what it is.  i've felt it before.  

and i want it back.

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in case you're interested, my favorite parenting book:  Simplicity Parenting.

when your hair feels like it's not even growing

i've grown my hair out tons of times.

i've had short hair.  i've had layers.  i know how this works.

but growing out a pixie cut is a different game altogether.  even when it feels like it's getting longer, like i might be only a month or two away from a cute bob, i can pull out layers that haven't quite reached ear-length yet.

and then i realize.  how long.  this is going.  to take.

so if you are bemoaning the slow-growing and wondering why you ever thought it was a good idea to get all those tiny layers cut into your hair...remind yourself of all the awesome stuff your hair can do.  

i have two excellent looks i've been wanting to share.

behold, MOM HAIR WITH A DUCK TAIL:

i get compliments on this look all the time.  especially when i pair it with a cheap white hanes tee and some faded yoga capris.

 and now, look number two:  ROCK STAR HAIR

even though i can't see anything, i can just feel how cool i look.

now that you've been properly inspired, go forth and create.

the squash baby

tesla has a history of adopting butternut squash(es?).

yesterday was no exception.

the moment i mentioned we needed one yesterday, his little ears perked up.  he helped me select a squash and then insisted on holding it through the rest of our grocery shopping trip (he was very upset when the checkout clerk put his squash in a bag...it was supposed to go in his arms!), in the car, and at home; where he promptly tucked it in for a nice rest on the couch.

later they took a nap together (i'm sure butternut squash was thrilled to share the top bunk with him), and just hung out.  like buddies.

that little boy.

we do plan on eating his new best friend later this week, but he's dealt with this type of trauma before.  i think he'll understand.


and here's an unrelated but cute picture of the boys after playing in the puddles from the rain the other day.

(i just checked the weather in a vain hope that maybe it would rain again today...no.  high of 81º.  i'm going to go cry.)

my little pony

with the help of a headband i was able to pull my hair into a wee little ponytail today.

silas calls it "the pirate ponytail".

and, yes, it's not a proper ponytail because only about 1/3 of my hair is long enough to be pulled back (see all the short layers sticking out?).

but it's the illusion of a ponytail.  and that, my friends, is what matters.

you can write that down.

psych...

so, one of my friends (thank you ashley) answered my question about the sketchy referring URLs that were showing up for the blog.  apparently they are just spam sites, trying to get you to visit.  so for now, i will leave the blog public.  sorry for the back-and-forth.  but thank you to everyone who sent me your email because you wanted to keep reading.  you warmed my heart.

 i painted my nails when silas was in mexico.  also, note my crackly, dry hands.  

for the first time in a couple years i have a phone that is not just the cheapest prepaid phone i could find.  it takes very decent pictures (see detailed photo above of my wrinkly hands).  

behold, le desmond:

i started reading the Old Testament (King James Version) at the beginning of this year...i'm currently at the end of 1 Samuel.  i haven't read the OT since high school, when we studied it in seminary (Bible study class before school).  now i'm reading it straight through and, honestly...i'm not sure what i think of it.  i have a lot of questions about a lot of things.  

i took the boys to the mall to play today (and to ride the "alligator", of course...it's not a real mall experience without a good elevator trip).  while we were walking around after, i stepped into sephora on a whim.  when a sales associate asked me if i was looking for anything specific, my brain said, "no, just browsing," and my mouth said, "yes, i want a natural-looking pink lipstick". 

i walked out ten mintues later with a $13 tube of "natural-lip-color-enhancing" lip balm.  assertiveness fail.  you know i can't say no to those people!  happy early birthday to me, i guess.  

it is a very nice lip balm.  and it does enhance my lip color quite beautifully.  (i tried to take a picture but taking a phone shot of my lips without getting my creepy giant nostrils in the picture is impossible.)

what else was i going to talk about?  oh yes, my hair.  ;)

i dyed it last night!  it's not a drastic change, i was just trying to get it back to something close to my natural color.

before:

here you can see the nice two-tone color i've got going on (from the last time i dyed my hair).

after:

i'm not entirely sure what i think yet.  i'm fairly certain i like it, and i think it's close to my natural shade.  time will tell though, i usually have a lot of issues with my home dye jobs fading/turning red.

today was another bad hair day (the back is giving me issues...a bunch of funky, uneven layers).  unfortunately i can't just pull it up into a ponytail.  instead, i am left to concoct hairstyles that can only be achieved through artifice and an arsenal of bobby pins.

and here's a picture of the stupid back.

i know it doesn't look that bad in the pictures but that's because i've been fighting it for two days, trying to straighten the [heck] out of it.  the uneven-ness and multiple lengths is not something i can attempt to fix with a cheap straightener, unfortunately.

that $%#@ mullet/duck tail.

i'm listening to fall out boy

and it reminds me of when silas and i were dating.  that's probably the last time i heard a fall out boy song.

confession: i love taking pictures of myself.  maybe i've confessed this before.  it's not necessarily because i think i am just so breathtaking (ha!) that i have to be captured on [invisible digital] film...it's probably more due to the fact that i am my only willing subject.  (when i was growing up my dog and cats were occasionally forced into serving as my photographic victims--props and outfits included.)

when i was bored in high school i used to do my hair and makeup and take pictures of myself, playing around with the lighting (this was before instagram filters) and practicing my "serious model face" and working on trying to smile while still keeping my squinty eyes visible.

obviously my modeling career never took off.  but i still retain an adolescent love of self-portraits.  it's just fun, okay?  now that you know the extent of my vanity...

i've been taking a lot of pictures of my hair lately, because i may not cut it this short again and i want to remember it.  also, it seems like it changes almost weekly so it's fun to look back.  and when i'm having a really bad hair day it helps to look at pictures from a few days or weeks ago when my hair looked cute.  (looking at pictures of my long hair just depresses me because it feels so far away.)

i did an "updo"(and i use that term veeeeeery loosely here) today, which basically consisted of tying a headband (a.k.a. the hem of my grey t-shirt that i cut off) around my head and jamming a million bobby pins into the rest of it until it stayed back.  it doesn't look as cute as i thought it would.  it reminds me of this hairstyle i used to do in 6th grade, when i would pin my hair back with about 20 different butterfly clips in a cacophony of colors.  i thought it was trendy and awesome.  in reality (i've seen pictures) it was mostly just ridiculous.

 that fuzz at the bottom is my hair...i was trying to take a picture with the ipad of the back of my head.  

this is what happens to my head when i blowdry my hair upside-down.

and in other, non-self-focused news, we (meaning silas with a tiny bit of assistance from me) finally bunked up the boys' beds.  they love it.

have a lovely weekend.


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also, just a reminder that i'm making my blog private, so if you want to keep reading and haven't sent me your email, you can leave it in the comments or email me (hcklaver@gmail.com).  and for those who have asked, it's just because i've gotten some sketchy websites showing up in the referring URLs and, since i have kids, i'd feel more comfortable narrowing down my audience.  however, if you are a normal person and have been secretly stalking me (and if you are, there is a very good chance i have read your blog too, since i am the blog stalking queen), now is the time to de-lurk!!  you don't have to know me to read the blog.  you just have to not be a creeper.

besos.