Josie's Hair Cut

I have only cut Josie's hair once since she was born and it was a simple bang trim when she was about 5 months old. Since then I have just let it grow pulling it back and putting it up. It has been a little long for a while now and I finally worked up the courage to cut it. Ok...really, my Mom helped me and she actually made the first cut so technically, I had my Mommy do it for me. But after she made that first cut, I did the rest. It is not perfect, but she is loving it.

A quick side story on the hair cut though...I had been talking to Josie about getting her hair cut while we were at Grandma and Popos. And if you know Josie, you know my cautious child was not too keen on the idea of something new or different. I could tell by her look that this 'hair cut' thing that her Mom kept talking about just sounded a little weird and possibly painful. Well, on Sunday afternoon, my niece, Allie, came to the house to see what we were doing. They were actually getting pigs ready to take to the livestock show in Austin. Getting pigs ready includes trimming their hair or as Allie put it, "giving the pig a hair cut." In Allie's defense, she did not know we had been talking up this hair cut thing to Josie so she had no idea what potential damage or help this whole pig hair cut experience could be.

Let me just say, it had the potential to be really bad because when you trim a pig, you tie it up by its nose and it tends to squeal (loudly) the entire time. Josie's reaction was interesting and she really did not like it, but thanks to a lot of talk by Allie and me about people getting hair cuts all the time, Josie began to understand the difference between the two. And by Monday evening, when it was time to for her trim, she was willing, yet still somewhat anxious.

Later that evening after we said our night prayers and were laying in bed, Josie said to me, "I got a hair cut like the pigs," and then she said, "Thank you Mommy and Grandma for my new hair."

A look at her hair just before we began.

Grandma making the first cut.

The finished cut. Yes, I realize it looks crooked and I'm pretty sure it is. But in my defense, she is sitting with her head at an angle which exaggerates the crookedness. Its not perfect, but the cost was. :)

All smiles after the cut. See it was not painful at all.

One with the Chickens

Grandma has chickens and Evelyn LOVES them while Josie prefers a long-distance relationship with them. We love spending time here, but the only thing is Evelyn wants to be outside 100 percent of the time. As soon as the door opens, she is outside and walks straight toward the chickens and the pigs. She has no fear and could spend the entire day with them. She even developed her own pig grunt after spending the week there. Her cousin Lane is a lot like this too in the fact that he LOVES the animals. I told my brother Marcus that as soon as Lane and Evelyn were old enough, Jessica and I were gonna buy them a greyhound bus ticket and ship to the farm for a few weeks. They would love it and not miss us at all.

As we were loading the car to leave, Evelyn was missing. She had walked off and went to feed the chickens.

She also loved walking among the baby chicks (well they are not so baby anymore) that my Mom recently got.

Here is Evelyn under the baby chick barn trying to chase all of the chicks outside. While we were there, the hands helped build an outside pen for the chicks and Evelyn was with Mom and them as they worked to get the chicks to go outside. So, Evelyn took it upon herself to do that same work the next day. She kept walking through the pen clapping her hands and saying something. Mom got a big kick out of it because she said they were doing the same thing the day before.

Josie did not mind having the feathers in her hair. As you can see, she put them in there herself.

Cousin Fun at the Farm

As promised, here are a few pictures from our trip to the farm over Spring Break.

Maci, Lane, Josie and Evelyn enjoying a frozen juice pop.

Josie always takes such good care of Evelyn and even shares her snack. Lane, however, did not feel the need to share his with Maci.

Evelyn's ER Trip

I know I told you I would write this week about our trip to the farm during spring break with pictures and all, but we interrupt that important message to bring you this one.

On Wednesday morning, I had an early OB appointment so Kevin stayed with the girls until I got back. I have to admit, I thought this was gonna be a GREAT day. I woke up early, took a shower, painted my toenails (yes all 10 of them...not just the ones sticking out of my shoes), and even ran a quick errand before my 8:30 appointment. Then about 9 AM as I was coming home from the appointment, Kevin calls me and says, "Hey, how close are you? Evelyn fell and I think we'll need to go to the emergency room." Fortunately, I was close and oddly enough, I did not panic. I think the fact that I could hear Evelyn in the background and she was not screaming but just kind of wimpering made me ok with everything.

I get home and my poor sweet Evelyn has a gash above her left eye and blood is running down her face onto her Minnie Mouse sippy cup. She is holding onto that sippy cup as if it is is her lifeline and she just looks so sad. We gather our thoughts as well as shoes, breakfast bars, books, toys, coffee, etc. and head out the door. Fortunately, there is both a walk-in clinic and an emergency room right next to our house. We were not sure how bad the cut was so we went to the clinic first. They got us all admitted and then once the doctor looked at it, he sent us to the emergency room because of Evelyn's age and the location of the cut.

At the emergency room, things went really smooth. They told us they would 'partially sedate' her because she is so small and it would likely just make her very groggy, but she would be fine in about 15 to 30 minutes afterwards. The good thing about the sedation was it would make the stitching easier (so they said). We agreed and they sent Josie and Mom to the waiting room for the actual stitching while Dad stayed with Evelyn.

As Josie and I are in the waiting room, I begin to hear Evelyn scream and I think oh, they are giving her a local anesthetic and the sedation medicine. She'll stop soon. NOPE...she continued to scream for about 15 minutes. Poor Kevin had to hear all of that in person. I was having a hard time with it and was down the hall behind closed doors. They finally let Josie and I back in and as we are walking, the nurse says (who by the way is a very large man), "Boy, she does not like to be held down. The sedation really did not work on her."

I find out later that it took 5 people to hold down my sweet 1 year old angel (which I can totally understand), but she got 4 little stitches. It took her a while to come out of the groggy stage too. She acted very out of it for a good half hour and could not even hold up her little head. However, she was soon reading a book with Dad and she said 'baaa' on the sheep page and grunted on the pig page so we knew she was better and ready to go home. They had told us they would let us go when she looked at us and said Mommy or Daddy, but we accepted animal noises all the same. :)

We got home and ate some Whataburger since it was noon when we left the ER and Evelyn did great. The only thing was she wanted to walk around after lunch, but the poor girl just could not take more than 2 steps without falling over. I think the medicine still had an effect on her.

After her nap though, she was again running around and acting as if nothing happened. Kevin and I are healing as well.

Of course, to further prove the point that 2 year-olds are completely self-driven, or maybe it is that Josie does not know what blood is or has the ability to grasp the concept of someone being hurt beside herself, but after spending the day with Evelyn, hearing the screams, seeing the blood, watching Mommy and Daddy fret over it...Josie says to Kevin as they are reading stories, "Why does Evelyn have that band-aid on her head?" Now there is true concern. :)

Here are some pics of my little bruiser. I think Lucas said it best yesterday at the office - Evelyn is like a linebacker...she leads with her head.

All smiles after bath

A closeup because I think that is what you are supposed to do, right?

A trip to the Farm through time

We went to Wall for spring break. I'll post more about that later (including pics), but had to share this walk through time. I visited Wall almost a year ago at this same time (March) so here are the girls with Grandma and Popo in 2009 and 2010.

2009

2010

And a cute hugging picture from 2010.

Thank you Meghan!

Our dear friend Meghan made us these adorable dresses and it finally got warm enough so we could wear them. I just had to share how cute the girls looked. Thank you Meghan!!!

San Antonio Zoo

As I mentioned earlier, we spent a few days at the end of February visiting my sister in San Antonio. While we were there, Kevin was sweet to take us to the zoo one morning. It was funny - we had driven by the zoo several times for the previous two days during our stay (Kevin's meeting was by the zoo) and not a soul was there. The zoo parking lot was completely empty. On the morning we went, it must have been National Zoo Day - there were buses, cars, vans, families, strollers - everybody was there. We went ahead, braved the crowds and had a great time. We spent just a few hours there, which was perfect for our girls. We then had lunch at Joseph's Bakery or Deli or something like that, which was super yummy! I highly recommend it if you take a trip to the San Antonio Zoo.

Josie, Kevin and Evelyn checking out the monkys or is it monkies?

Evelyn, Mommy and Josie stopping for a group picture.

Evelyn, Kevin and Josie taking it all in.

Josie is being shy, but Daddy and Evelyn posed for Mommy.

Josie is not shy in this picture

Evelyn is mimicking the monkey.