Valentine's Day 2012

We were all about hearts for Valentine's Day this year.

The morning started with heart-shaped bacon, heart-shaped eggs, and a great big heart-shaped toast (quinoa bread). I couldn't figure out how to make the grapefruit heart-shaped so it just added pretty color. :-) Dave takes Solana to the Centerville Esther Price every year to pick out chocolates for me (and try samples from the store). He presented each of us special chocolates on Valentine's Day morning. I have a love/hate relationship with my annual Esther Price box of chocolates. I love eating them. I hate the guilt and pimples that inevitably follow.

Solana's hair was heart-shaped, too!

In the afternoon Chloe and I went to Solana's school. I offered to do the game for her Valentine's day party and it went ok. I was running on 4 hours of sleep so I probably wasn't very well prepared for wrangling Chloe while running a game for sugared up first graders. I think they got the best of me. I thought the game was fun but it got mixed reviews from the kids. The ones who would actually listen to me give instructions did really well and enjoyed it.

Cupid's Arrow. This game is super simple and prepared cheaply.

Tools: straws, Q-tips, heart-shaped bowls or tin foil pans.

Object: Load Q-tips into your straw and try to shoot them into your bowl. The team with the most Q-tips in their bowl at the end of a minute (or when their Q-tips run out) wins. Note: The Q-tips tended to get stuck if loaded at the same end from which you blow. Blow from one end and load into the other end. I found this idea on Pinterest.

For dinner we had Swiss Cheese Fondue with veggies and bread. The baguette was made from the Quinoa Bread in my HBI5 book. In addition to a great meal we also had an exciting eating moment when both girls declared they like cheese fondue and then Chloe proceeded to eat several bites of broccoli and cauliflower dipped in the ooey gooey stuff. (We still puree most veggies for her.) I guess we'll just need to have cheese fondue on hand at all times. Yes?

Still going strong with our healthy bread. I've been waiting to do this one for months. It's Red Beet bread that I shaped into a heart. You should have seen me shredding 3 cups of beets at midnight the night before. If Solana had walked in on me she would have been terrified at all the "blood." Beets. What a mess!

For dessert I made yellow cake with strawberry filling and cream cheese icing. Yum! And you can sort of tell that the strawberries on top are cut to look like hearts. :-)

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Princess Braids 2 Ways

One of my old stand-by hairdos for Solana is something we call "Princess Braids." She's worn this hairdo for every school picture since she was 3, I think. It's pretty simple and I can do it quickly enough that we can do it before school. Part the hair down the center and start french braids on either side but only use the hair on the top of her head. Finish both sides with traditional braids to the back and secure together with a band.

For my variation I parted her hair first into a side-part. Then, on the side with more hair, I parted again from the original part down to the ear. This created a strip of hair about an inch wide along her hair line. I pulled all the rest of the hair back into a pony to keep it out of the way and proceeded to french braid from the part down to her ear. Once I got down to her ear I just braided the rest in a traditional braid and secured it with an elastic. Then I went to the other side and basically did the same thing. The main part is on this side of her head so I wouldn't have as much hair as the other side if I did it exactly the same. I "freestyled" without the additional part (to the ear) and pulled more hair into the braid so that it ended up being about the same thickness as the first braid. I tied both braids together in the back and voila! Side-part Princess Braid.

I looked at a lot of pictures from the "hairstyles for girls blog" but didn't see anything exactly like this. The link above is something like what I did but she ends it differently. I was definitely inspired by their blog and wouldn't have come up with this without having learned from them.

Elastic Bands In a Row

This hairstyle is such a simple concept. I can't believe it never occurred to me before. Chloe's hair is pretty fine. It always slips out of elastics when I pull it back and she ends up with tons of fly-aways/psuedo bangs in her eyes. This style stays put all day (in fact, she actually wore this one two days in a row) without falling out! I love it! It's also nice with hats. We wear a lot of hats around here during the winter. This will keep her hair back so we don't have to wrestle it back into her hat or hood. This is how she wore her hair under the hood of her bumblebee costume (notice the black outfit and yellow bands). :-)

Here's the link to my inspiration with instructions.

Split French Braid Headband & Pigtails

Solana has already lost a few bows at school this year. It's weird. They don't spontaneously fall out when she's with us and they never fall out at school when they're in the front of her hair. Only when they're in the back. For this reason I flipped her hair forward (contrary to the instructions) and left out the bows.

I've taken to fixing her hair before bed. These pictures were taken after a night's sleep and a full day at school. Her hair's a little fuzzy in the back but it held up amazingly well. Split French Braid Headband & Pigtails.

Criss Cross Pigtails

My friend, Megan, has posted a number of cute hairdos on her blog. Her daughter, Kinley, is an adorable model and inspired me to try some new hairstyles on Solana. One day I opened up Megans blog (Justin and Megan) and pulled up all her hair entries. Solana and I looked through them and she decided to try the heart. It was really cute but also kind of hilarious. Kinley has sweet straight find blond hair and ended up with a precious heart on top of her head. Solana, on the other hand, has just about the thickest mane of hair I've ever had the pleasure of handling. She ended up with a huge fat heart tiara sticking out of her head. She liked it so we were all happy. Afterwards, she asked if I'd post it on the blog so that other little girls could see it and do their hair like hers. "Maybe." (That's what I say when I don't want to tell her "no.")

Since then we've been trying bunches of hairstyles and Solana keeps asking if I'll put them on the blog. I don't want to get into the business of a hair blog but I do find myself trying to remember which hairstyles we've tried and liked. I'm going to start posting them here. Maybe they'll inspire someone else to try a cute 'do. Mainly they'll keep me organized.

And if you're interested in trying any of these I'll point you to my inspiration. As it turns out there are a bunch of cute little girl hair blogs out there!

Chloe's hairstyle for today is called Criss Cross Pigtails. I really like this one because it keeps the hair out of her eyes and is pretty quick and easy. Click on the link for instructions.