Our friend Heidi (our neighbor’s nanny) watched the kids while we were at the concert and I came in to see this amazing hairdo! I asked how she could possibly manage with Katie’s super fine hair (I’ve tried and failed) and she reminded me she had two girls. 🙂
And a little closer view.
I saved this photo many many months ago as something I thought I’d someday like to do. Well…today is that day!
So this is happening!
I opted to go for teal instead of the pink in the original photo…so I’m going to be a mermaid!!
I’m leveling up! (Yeah, that was a new term for me, too. It’s going up the color chart to a lighter color.)
The parts of my hair that aren’t being touched—a bun on the top of my head and the under layers pulled to the side.
Leveling up (yes, bleaching) completed. YIKES!!! I have never seen my hair this color. The cool colors come next.
Stage two: More colors my hair has never seen!! The next time you see me I’ll be done!
The final product: I totally ❤️ it. I’m sooo thrilled!!
And here are some of the pics my stylist took to add to her album—she was SO excited to get to do it because people don’t often choose these types of colors!!
Tom took Owen to get his hair cut…and he looks SO much older now (as always). I still need to get a good pic…
The first picture is the back of her hair BEFORE curling. Right. Mission accomplished!
I think it’s hers now as it’s too ratty and if I need it again I’ll buy it again (it was cheap).
Especially after my hair nightmare earlier this week. She definitely saw lots of breakage but thankfully my hairstyle hides it well.
And this is what it looks like when my hair is being dried and styled—since I have so much hair, my stylist grabs anyone else available to help. 🙂 (I had the kids with me—and they had their iPhones since we were in Occoquan—so I texted Owen to take the picture.)
And look at what we found on the walk to the salon…
And testing a new lipstick when I got home.
Katie loves when Gramma needs to curl her hair because that means Gramma will also put some curls in Katie’s hair, too. She’s been waiting patiently for three days. 🙂 The curling iron actually removes curls from her hair but she doesn’t care—she likes to feel the warm curls.
Ladies, listen up. I’ve discovered a game changer if you straighten your hair—you have GOT to check out the Dafni. I got mine on QVC because at the time it was cheaper than Amazon, but less than a week later Amazon now has it cheaper. This cut my straightening time from 45 minutes (including blow drying with a round brush and then ironing) to 10 minutes (15 tops). I can’t gush about this thing enough: DAFNI The Original Hair Straightening Ceramic Brush.
This result took me TEN minutes:
My review can be found here but here it is. (Sidenote: I learned you can’t say HOLY $H!TBALL$ in a review. LOL)
I have long naturally wavy hair that takes me, on average, 35-40 minutes to blow dry straight and then another 15 minutes or so to touch up with a steam iron (actually a Maxius Maxiglide MX-597 One Step Hair Straightening Iron with Steam Burst Technology). But I am always on the lookout for a revolutionary hair straightener and I’ve tried a bunch of them. I’ve actually been using the Maxiglide for 10+ years because it was so awesome–until now, I would have said it was revolutionary. But this? The Dafni? HOLY SMOKES. This might just be the best money I’ve EVER spent!
I went into the first use with some trepidation as products like these generally have big claims and then generally don’t come through. But what you see in my photos literally took 10 minutes. TEN MINUTES! I then spent another five going over some sections a few more times and trying to get the ends better, but still…15 minutes?! FIFTEEN MINUTES?! ABSOLUTELY AMAZING.
Is it perfect? No. Obviously your hairdresser doing a salon blow-out will get it smoother and it will look better, but for an average person doing this at home? Yes. You can recreate your own efforts in a fraction of the time. My after photo with the Dafni is what my hair looks like after I blow it dry with a round brush for 40 minutes!
Also, my arms aren’t tired from holding a blow-drier and/or iron for 40 minutes and I’m not sweating from blowing hot air at my head for 40 minutes. I used to seriously plan ahead when I was going to dry/straighten my hair because it does take so long, but now? I can pretty much do it whenever I have a spare 15 minutes! The longest part of the process for me today was waiting for my hair to dry because I wanted to do it naturally but that’s no big deal because I do that some days anyway.
I am just completely blown away. My first thought once I finished in ten minutes was HOLY COW. This might be the best money I’ve ever spent on a hair product–kicking the Maxiglide to second place.
I get nothing for referrals—I just love this product!
I actually look at my calendar to help determine when I’m going to wash and dry my hair.
Katie’s hair is always a hot mess in the morning—a complete rat’s nest of snarls and knots. We’ve tried silk pillowcases and leave-in conditioner and neither worked. A few months ago I tried to get her to use a buff like I use (when I straighten my hair) and she hated it. But we tried it again since she really hates me brushing out her knots (I’m as gentle as I can be and I use detangler but it’s still awful). And now she loves it. And damn she’s cute.
Lunch with friends beforehand at Succotash in National Harbor. It was DELICIOUS and we highly recommend it. (We had fried green tomatoes; pimento cheese fundido; bacon mac and cheese; collards, kimchi, and country ham; Belle’s punch and a gochujang infused bloody mary.)
My super fancy home manicure (yeah, it’s just glitter polish):
Us, before:
Before & After
And this is what it takes to get ready for the ball. :p
A few fun pics trying to get THE PERFECT shot:
And the best shot:
And my favorite fun shot:
So as we were starting to get dressed, Tom had a uniform snafu—he realized he forgot a major piece. The exchange was closest (about 45 minutes round trip)…but they were out. Home was next closest (about an hour round trip) but that wasn’t appealing, either. A few furious texts found a buddy who lived somewhat close that had extras and could bring them to him…but that took almost an hour as well! So, while he was downstairs waiting for the delivery, I was finishing getting ready and hanging out with our friends in their room and then we came back to our room to wait for Tom. Our friend Tom was having a FIT because Tom’s uniform wasn’t even prepped to start dressing…so he got everything ready for him.
Waiting longingly for his buddy:
The group shot without Tom:
It was getting to be time to be seated for dinner (we’d already missed the entire cocktail hour) so Karen and I headed down while Tom waited for Tom. They made it with a few minutes to spare.
After the ceremony was over, we booked it out to the photo line while it was still short:
Random shots of us:
And the official photo which was emailed to us before we even left the event:
We actually had other friends at the table (plus her parents!), but we somehow managed to go the entire night without taking a big group photo OR a photo of us with them! So, here’s one I snagged off Facebook (that I actually took on her phone):
And lastly, to give you an idea of the scope of the event, here’s the seating chart: 288 tables of 10.
Overall, it was a fun evening, but unfortunately, it was once again a big ol’ waste of money—we should NOT have spent the night again. Last year we had decided it had been a mistake because we didn’t NEED to spend the night—we didn’t drink enough to need to stay and we were tired and wanting to head out by 10 so we could have easily just came home. But this year we thought we’d all stay (all three couples) and have this epic night…but we were all petering out come 10:00 so we all just went our separate ways LOL. We could have actually been home by 11 and saved the $350 we spent on the room and sitter! Lesson REALLY learned. 🙂
It ended up quite a bit shorter than I’d planned (Tom took him so I had no control!)…but he seems to like it. As Uncle Rob said (and I totally agree): I like this, and yet I don’t.
He needs to stop growing up. Right now.
I only let her do this when my hair is straight…so she’s been at it forever (last night for about a half hour straight and this morning).
Katie just told me. 🙂
And I wanted to try and contain her hair at night so it wouldn’t be a tangled mess in the morning…so gave her a buff like I sometimes wear. It didn’t last.
Owen was getting a little shaggy so Tom cleaned it up last night.
Complete with braids (and a few curls!) by Gramma!
Katie wanted three pony tails from Gramma this morning! Then Gramma even curled one of them!
Katie’s first experience with a curling iron! She LOVED it!
Owen let me do his Mohawk for school today.
And then Katie wanted in the picture.
Owen really needed a haircut so Tom was just going to do it…but Owen wasn’t thrilled with the idea. So I asked if he maybe wanted a mohawk. Oh yes, he liked that. So here it is!
#haircutwithdaddy
And Katie had to get her picture taken, too.
He was super excited for this day. He remembered we had the colored gel—and exactly what colors we have!
I’m not sure where he got this pose, but it was the very first thing he did. 🙂
Green on one side…
Orange on the other…
And pics from the school’s Facebook page:
She never wants tails anymore. But she had gymnastics this morning so maybe that’s why she let me.
And cropped to better see the hair:
And then, of course, crazy faces. 🙂
