Friday Night Photos #125

Looking through my camera roll today, I realized that most of my pictures are from when I styled Luke's and Riley's hair for "crazy hair day" at Vacation Bible School. It was so much fun, though, and the kids were happy with how their hair turned out.

(Although, I have to say, having two boys makes me really glad I never had to deal with styling a girl's hair--Riley's is so long and trying to brush it without hurting her head was a challenge!)

It blows my mind, the ideas on Pinterest for crazy hair day. How do people come up with so many creative ideas and then find the time to do them?! After looking through a ton of photos, I picked ones I thought I *might* be able to replicate and said that Luke and Riley could pick from those.

Luke's was easy--he just wanted green hair with a lawn mower attached (as if it's cutting his hair). However, I couldn't find a little lawn mower ANYWHERE, so I had to come up with a plan B on the fly. I saw a foam airplane and thought maybe I could color his hair blue (for the sky), attach the airplane, and then add some clouds (I used a boa that I found at Hobby Lobby, and it didn't occur to me that it wasn't vegan until after I bought it. Otherwise, I would have used cotton balls.)

The hair color is really neat (and vegan!)--I got it from Sally Beauty Supply. It's basically a hair gel, and it comes out after just one wash. (Versus something like Manic Panic that stays in for weeks.)

Riley's hair, on the other hand, needed a little more creativity. She wanted to have a unicorn horn (made out of her hair, of course). I walked around Hobby Lobby, looking for things I could use to come up with a cylindrical form. The foam cylinders (my first idea) were too big. Then I saw a birthday hat on a headband, and realized it was perfect! I could just take off the decorations and wrap her hair around it. After coloring her hair purple, naturally. To top it off, I got a pink bow to put at the base of the horn.

I grabbed bobby pins and barrettes and pipe cleaners and anything else I thought may be helpful. I started by dyeing Luke's hair blue with the hair gel. I couldn't believe how bright it was! He wanted it to look spiky and I really liked it.

While he ran off to let it dry, it was Riley's turn. I was really nervous about doing the unicorn horn, because I didn't have a plan B for her! I started by running the purple dye through her hair (I'd hoped the purple would be VERY purple, but it was definitely a more subtle lavender color). By "running the dye through her hair", I actually mean "combing and apologizing, combing and apologizing", over and over. It's hard enough to brush it without the gel, but trying to coat her hair with it AND style it felt nearly impossible. She hates getting her hair brushed.

Then I took the decorations off of the cone birthday hat and put the headband on her. It took a while (and a LOT of the gel-dye) to finally start wrapping her hair around the cone. The hardest part was getting it to be smooth, because that required a comb--and combs are painful. So I did my best! (I braided the bottom/back part of her hair and only wrapped the hair that was on top of her head.)

I absolutely love this side-by-side of her face. It's like I took the first picture and then told her, "Look like you're having fun!" and then took the second pic, hahaha.

I put the garbage bag around her so that she didn't get gel all over her back

I added more gel in order to get the most purple I could, and then probably about 20 bobby pins to hold it in place. If the comb hurt, can you imagine the bobby pins? I don't know how Becky managed to get her hair so cute all the time.

I didn't want it to look too plain, so I added the bow and then the ribbon I had taken off of the hat. Meanwhile, Luke's hair was dry and he came back for me to finish it by putting the airplane and the clouds on. This was even worse than trying to do Riley's hair! Since Luke's gel had dried, it hurt to put bobby pins in it--I tried alligator clips, barrettes, bobby pins, and finally... a headband and pipe cleaners. I didn't love the way the pipe cleaners looked, but it was the ONLY way he would let me touch his hair. So we used pipe cleaners to attach the "clouds" and the airplane.

Here is the final result:

Aren't they so cute that they pose like that? I just asked if I could get a picture of the two of them, and that's how they posed.

Of course, I wanted a picture with them, too, so someday when they have children and they are trying to brush their hair, they will remember try to channel Aunt Katie's patience on this day. HAHAHA. 

Unfortunately, they did not win the prize the for the craziest hair. I'm just not Pinterest-y enough ;)  But Luke and Riley liked it, so that's all that matters!

I think I forgot to post this after our vacation. Shawn has had this Nova for probably as long as I've been alive (kidding, but seriously--a long time) and there is a long, entertaining story behind it. (Maybe I'll ask him to write about it one day, because it's pretty funny!) Anyway, you know how Noah is totally into cars? Well, he nearly died when Shawn let him drive it on his birthday. Noah already knew how to drive a manual transmission (from his own car) and he did great with it. I think that was the highlight of his trip! (I think Shawn was pretty thrilled, too.)

Speaking of cars, when Jerry and I got home from my parents' house, I couldn't find my purse anywhere. I'm notorious for losing my phone (I seriously NEVER know where my phone is) and my phone was in the purse--so naturally, I would lose the purse. Jerry went out to the car to look again, and finally... he found it. Check this out! I guess I got very lucky.

Another pic I forgot to post (and yes, it looks non-photo-worthy). When Duck plays fetch, a lot of times he'll take the paper ball (or toy) and go put it inside of a shoe. When we got home from vacation, there were about four paper balls and a toy in Jerry's slipper, haha. 

When Jerry and I were driving over to my parents', we saw this little buddy crossing the road--with a whole corn cob in his mouth. It was huge! He didn't want to drop it and run, so he just stopped and stared at us in the car, waiting for one of us to make the first move. We finally started creeping along to the left of him and he ran across the street with his corn.

Jerry and I finally finished our 2,000 piece puzzle! We could have gotten it done a while ago, but we forgot about it--I had covered up the whole table when Noah had friends over because I didn't want the pieces to get lost. Well, at the end, we were missing one piece! Can you spot where it goes? ;) (You'll have to zoom in, obviously)

If you didn't spot it or you just don't want to waste your time looking, it was just to the right of the bottom of the red and blue blanket.

Anyone remember making these friendship bracelets in elementary school? (Or, at least for a few years in my generation.) I've been using embroidery floss a lot lately and while Jerry and I were watching a movie, I decided to make him a friendship bracelet. (I pinned it to my sock to hold it in place.) I would really love for these to be a trend again! We used to wrap them around our hair as well.

And finally, I went to the dermatologist yesterday to get a skin check. I've been so worried about doing this--considering Sarah died from melanoma, I've always been scared of it. But recently, my friend Martha posted a photo on Facebook of a melanoma she found (it's her THIRD time with melanoma). It looked like a normal mole to me, and while I don't have a lot of moles, I decided I'd better just go get checked out. I should have done it ages ago. And yearly now.

Basically, I had to get totally undressed and then lie down under the very unflattering florescent lighting, while the doctor looked at every square inch of my body (occasionally using a MICROSCOPE). On a scale of mental discomfort/vulnerability, this rated higher than going to the gynecologist. I'd still choose it over the dentist, though (I'd choose anything over the dentist, except for rotten teeth). A mammogram was the easiest and most comfortable, and I'd choose that over all of them!

I've yet to do my colonoscopy, though... because of the pandemic, procedures like that got VERY backed up (no pun intended, but that worked out well) and it takes months to get in. My primary care doctor said she really didn't think there was a rush and it could wait until next year, when my insurance doesn't suck anymore. So I'm planning to do it in January or February. I'm absolutely dreading that one! ;)

And that's all I've got. Have a great weekend! xo