Hannah's first Piano Recital

This past weekend was Hannah's first piano recital. While she stopped a couple of times during her performance, she did not give up and she played the whole song. The song was the "Well Trained Cat"... yeah we didn't know it either. Regardless, Mommy, Daddy & Grandma are extremely proud! We hope there are many more piano recitals to come!



Isn't she the cutest?
:-)

Hair Donation Article

Here's the article in the Salisbury Post about the girl's hair donation.
:-)

No good deed...

... goes unpunished. And sadly, my delightful daughter is not immune to that adage.

Last Thursday, we went to a salon to get Hannah's and her little friend, Jadyn's, hair cut for Pantene's Beautiful Lengths campaign. We have been planning this for months. Ever since Hannah saw a poster for St. Jude Children's Hospital and she asked why the kids on the poster had no hair. We explained that sometimes when kids get sick they lose their hair and Hannah asked without missing a beat, "Can they have mine?" That gives me goosebumps every time I tell that story. And actually Hannah, they CAN have your hair.

So back to the salon, or shall I say, "Where good haircuts go to DIE". Too omnious? Everything was going fine until the stylist actually CUT the hair. That is when things went horribly wrong. The stylist was not paying attention when he was cutting the braid and cut Hannah's hair in the back way too short. Then he spent the next hour trying to "blend it". Thankfully Hannah's hair looks good from the front, but a bit of a mess, like "what brand of chainsaw did they use to cut that?", in the back. To add insult to injury, as soon as I asked him to stop - Hannah was getting very antsy and frankly the damage was already done - he disappeared into the back room and did not come out until we were almost finished paying. He never said a word to me. I would have had more respect for him if he had admitted to his mistake. And yes, I paid for the cut. We haven't told Hannah about the back of her head, she did feel it though and said it was a lot shorter than she thought it would be. I sure hope her hair grows quickly in the back.




You'd all be proud of me. I did not flip out. There were several people at the salon including a reporter and a photographer from the Salisbury Post (who were there to cover the girls story and their hair donation), so I tried to keep my "Jersey" down otherwise the reporter would be writing a very different story. Something with the headline, "Local woman beats stylist about the head & face due to a horrible haircut". I kept thinking that this is for a greater cause and that at the end of the day, it is HAIR, it will grow back. I thought, Hannah gave just a little extra, that's all. And thankfully, Jadyn's hair turned out fine. Since I picked the train wreck of a salon, I would have felt even more crappy if Jadyn's hair got wrecked too.



So all in all, we learned a lot from this experience and someone out there will get a wig from these two beautiful little girls. And true to form Hannah is already planning on growing her hair out to do it all over again. That's my girl!
:-)



P.S. The story is supposed to come out on the girls in the Salisbury Post soon, I will link to it once it does.

First Day of Spring!

Hannah told me yesterday that she is no longer going to "show her teeth" in photos. Once her front teeth come in, I'm sure she'll change her mind. But until then, this is Hannah's smile.
:-)

It has begun

Hannah has definite ideas of what she wants to wear in the morning. This has been a fairly gradual transition from not caring, to making suggestions, to picking the shoes, to now picking the whole outfit (complete with hair accessories) the night before.

This is her latest creation, "The Butterfly":



And here she is doing her best Puss in Boots imitation from Shrek 2:



Not bad.


:-)

Looong over due Country Living Fair

We attended the Country Living Fair in Atlanta back in October of last year. I am embarrassed to even type how long it has been. Yikes. By the way, does the photo above make you want to run out and buy a bunch of used toe shoes and hang them? Anyone? Just me?... Ahem, moving on.

We saw lots of lovely things; some we bought others I wished we had.
Here's some of the things that "got away":


Don't ask me where I would put this little robot. That's not important. He was cute and awesome and I will miss him. I would have named him "George"... single tear.


Antique lace encased in hand forged rings? Yes, please.


I wanted to free this little lock from its cute little red frame... i.e. I was going to buy it - and totally keep this lock as my prisoner FOREVER. But alas I was too slow.


Love this felted pumpkin head, but he was a bit more expensive than I could afford to spend on Halloween decor.


Love these necklaces. They will be mine. Oh yes, they will be mine.


I love the illustrations on these cards.


I should have bought one of these rulers to add to my collection, but again I snoozed and I lost.

And here's what I was lucky enough to buy:


We purchased two antique school posters. One is demonstrating some type of pollination (they are in German and my Deutsche isn't what it used to be). And the other is the alphabet. They are AWESOME.


We bought the brown cylinder to hold my ever growing ruler collection. Again kicking myself for not buying the rulers above. Sigh.


These are old typewriter keys turned into magnets. I also bought some bingo balls that were turned into magnets.

I love this show because of the caliber of the work is amazing. It seems like I see something so clever that I want to cry at one booth and go to the next booth and there is something else that makes me say "Why didn't I think of that!" and we go to the next booth and it's "Man, I wish I could make something like that!" and it goes on and on like that until everyone around me wants to strangle me. I guess what I am trying to say is that this show is a very inspiring show to me and I can't wait to go back.




Here is the most inspiring thing that I came home with:


:-)

Daddy Daughter Dance 2012

Ah yes, the Daddy Daughter Dance. The time of year when Hannah & Daddy go off for a lovely evening of dinner, dancing and incessant little girl screaming over the bubble machine. Mommy gets to have peace and quiet for about an hour. :-)

Happy 7th Birthday Maison!

Maison's birthday party was at the Great Wolf Lodge. It was a really cool place.


Can you tell from this picture that it is no secret this girl likes zebra print? Yeah me neither!





All the kids had a wet & wonderful time!
:-)