Well, I made a little mistake yesterday. The last time we got the girls’ hair cut at the fancy kid salon, Wes made the comment that toddler hair cutting looked breezy enough that we should try it ourselves and save some money in the process. This seemed like excellent reasoning, since $15 is a lot to shell out for a quick trim of the bangs. (Yes, those kid salons are really that expensive!)

Yesterday morning, I noticed that Ana’s bangs were getting in her eyes, and I thought I would go ahead and give her a little trim, just to see how easy it was to do. Snip, snip, snip while she twisted around and fidgeted. It didn’t look quite right, so I figured I’d “even it out.” Snip, snip, snip. It was clearly more uneven after my attempt to even it out, so I thought I’d try again. Over and over — snip, snip, snip — until it looked like I had attempted to cut my child’s hair with my eyes closed. I was horrified. Emma was horrified. Ana was… not sure why everyone was so horrified, praise God.

After a quick call to Wes to explain the situation and get his input, I loaded up the girls and headed to ProCuts. Ana isn’t the best customer when it comes to hair salons, and I dreaded her reaction. The woman who cut her hair, however, was just wonderful and let Ana climb up into the chair, talked her through all that she was doing, and even styled her hair after it all was said and done. Ana couldn’t stop smiling, looking at how pretty she was in the mirror. Sure, her bangs are about two inches shorter than I would have liked for them to be (thanks to my handiwork), but at least they’re even now…

So, thank you, ProCuts. I will sing your praises for the rest of my life. You bought me peace of mind, eased my conscience, and made my toddler super happy, all for the low, low price of $5. Given our experience yesterday, that is certainly a price I’m willing to pay (and will certainly pay!) from now on. And here is Emma, who will likely scream now if I ever come at her with the haircutting scissors. And who can blame her?!

(They’re eating cookies that I made in an effort to ease my extreme guilt. Botched hair cut = Mommy guilt = homemade cookies. That makes sense, right?)

The girls and I spent yesterday afternoon outside with the sidewalk chalk, making all kinds of artwork. Emma quickly grew tired of dropping and breaking every piece of chalk she got her hands on and thus spent the majority of the time pointing at/watching our neighbor’s black lab, who sat so patiently at a distance as she squealed “doggy, doggy, doggy!” at him. Ana really got into the artwork and wanted me to draw every person she knew so that she could color them. Our driveway was full of faces by the end of afternoon, and I only had trouble understanding one name out of the long list she dictated to me — Mr. Mah-ven. After a series of questions I asked in my quest to figure out who “Mr. Mah-ven” was, I finally figured out that it was one of the deacons in our church. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but the fact that she remembers, knows, and identifies people by name without us even mentioning them is incredible to us. She hurt her finger today, and when I asked her if she wanted me to kiss her boo boo, she told me, “No, Mommy. I want Nana to kiss my boo boo.” We hadn’t even been talking about Nana! Just incredible.

We realized last night at church that for all intents and purposes, are girls are “Okies.” Sure, they weren’t born here, but they’ve never lived anywhere longer than they’ve lived here. It was funny that we realized this last night because at about 11:30pm, the tornado alarms went off. YES, the TORNADO alarms! Wes and I looked at one another in complete disbelief because it had been a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky! All of the weather updates on television quickly assured us that this wasn’t a tornado (well, praise the Lord!) but that there were 70mph winds heading our way (what?!) and that we could have windows blown out. This was all we needed to hear to justify getting the girls up out of their beds and into the living room where there are no exterior windows. Much like the “Great Okinawan Typhoon of 2007,” Ana slept through the whole thing, from the first alarm to the all clear alarm. And much like the “Great Okinawan Typhoon of 2007” (where she was 36 weeks in utero), Emmy spent the entire time jumping at every noise and poking me in the ribs with her feet. (Though I must say it was a lot rougher with her on the outside. But maybe that’s because she’s gained about thirty pounds since the typhoon, you know?) Anyway, I had to smile afterwards when I was reading on Facebook how this whole crazy evening wasn’t a big deal to any real Okies. I guess this is just normal. And it’ll be normal for Ana and Emma, too. Real Okies! (Not so much for us Texans. Wes, Buttercup, and I were ready to start digging a storm shelter in the backyard with our bare hands, if need be, as soon as that first alarm went off. Yikes!)

Oh, and needless to say, all the sidewalk art? Totally washed away. But this gives us something to do tomorrow!

Hope you’ve been having a great week…