It's a Pigtail Kind of Day!

When your daughter and niece are as cute as my daughter and niece, you can't pass up the opportunity for pigtails and curls!

I went to curl my own hair this morning... more on that in a second... and sweet little Kia followed behind, "Whatta doin' Aunt Nuhn?"  She's kind of my sidekick any time she gets the chance.  So I explained that I was going to curl my hair, and of course, Kia decided she wanted her's curled as well.  Which I was totally good with... I've always loved doing hair... right, Meghan?!

Before I knew it, Gracie was at my feet begging for the same... even though she has to reassure herself that the curling iron is hot, but does not hurt, by repeating those words over and over again.  I dug out some old ponytail holders... the kind with the balls!  Man, I loved those as a kid!   They're actually a lot harder to use than the gel elastics I'm used to.  The girls have such fine hair right now.

So here are the results!  I find them to be absolutely beautiful!

Cindy Brady... I mean, Kia!

Happy Gracie!

In order to keep them looking straight ahead, we practiced identifying body parts and making funny faces in the mirror.  The result... well, girls who enjoy sticking out their tongues!  Too cute to pass up!

And for some reason, I love this pic of Little Gracie checking herself out in the mirror!

Now for my hair, real quick.  I think I've finally mastered the art of not washing my hair every day!  This is really good news, people!

I've wanted to jump on that bandwagon for years, but never could make it work.  When I wash it daily, it pretty much never dries because it's still wet when I wake up the next morning to shower.  No joke!  It takes like 45 minutes to blow dry because the hair dryer stops working part-way through and I have to let it rest before it'll turn on again.  So washing every day means a ponytail like 98.4% of the time.  True story.  

So, for those reasons, I've always wanted to wash less often.  Besides being better for your hair, saving tons of time, and maybe allowing me the chance to 'do' my hair more often (without investing more than 4 minutes, of course!), I also have super de duper dry hair (can you tell we watch a lot of Barney?!).  

But problems all over the place have prevented the process from actually working.  Frizzy bedhead when I awake, shower caps that don't hold all my hair, the smell of sleep in my hair all day long (I can't explain what I mean, just trust me), and crazy-whispies when I try to wear the old standby ponytail.  

Being a part-time stay-at-home-mom has allowed me a little wiggle room to play with not washing daily, even if it meant several bad hair days.  But here's the process that works for me.  Wash on Saturday night or Sunday morning and also on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.  That's it.  Once cleaned, leave wet hair to air dry for an hour, then blow dry.  I can curl it in different ways or straighten, too.  The first day is the worst for frizzies, after that, my hairs lays well (as good as it gets).  As for the shower cap issue, I just put it in a ponytail when I shower every day and don't cover it at all.  Getting a little wet actually makes it easier to style, so I just try to keep my head dry.  It stays fairly nice looking for 3-4 days, but I really think my hair could go longer.  I just can't handle the smell of sleep any longer.  By the fourth day, I can't smell shampoo at all, and that bothers me.  So I just have to wash it!  

I just wanted to share my newfound free time and ability to style my hair.  It took me like 30 years to figure it out, but better late than never, I suppose.  People have always commented about how much hair I have.  And they're right.  They think it'd be awesome to have a head full of hair, but they're mistaken.  But I will say that I can appreciate my thick locks a little more when I don't have to wash them as often!