Splishin' and Splashin'

Man was it hot this past weekend or what?  We spent almost everyday at my Mom and Dad's pool.  Friday we came over because my Dad's cousin Carston and his wife Laura were in town along with their 2 little boys.

Talk about some gorgeous kids, those boys are adorable and will break quite a few hearts!  I wish I had gotten a couple of pictures of them, but honestly, they moved too fast!

The boys influenced my little Riley Rush a bit too.  Let's just say she is now jumping off the side of the pool.  This is big for her, if you know Riley, you know it's big.

This is Laura, I'm totally jealous of her tan, and her skinniness!

I've been playing around a lot lately with black and white pictures.  I never used to like my own pictures in black and white.  But now they are growing on me, I think I'm learning how to make them more interesting.

I went back on Saturday because Tim had to work.  Two days in a row of myself with the kids in the pool is hardwork.  I did have some help of course with Pop Pop and Grandma, but I was tired!

Kids, they just don't stop moving.

Hope you all had a great weekend.  I hope you don't get tired of pool pictures, because it looks like we will be spending many days over at my Mom and Dad's.

Give Your Kids a Haircut 101

Disclaimer:  The writer of this post is completely sarcastic and has not a clue what she is talking about.  She is far from being a professional and knows nothing about cutting hair.  At one point she let her daughter cut her own hair, you can read about that here.  This person can't be trusted.

Welcome to Give Your Kids a Haircut 101.  I am your instructor Kristi Rush and I will be walking you through the correct steps of cutting your kid's hair.  I know it can be a stressful situation especially if you have no experience whatsoever.  Hopefully after reading this tutorial you will be able to get your own kid's hair cut with ease and confidence, and most importantly stress free. Please read through all of the instructions first before actually taking a scissor to your kid's head.  Trust me.

1.  Make sure that you have all the right tools.  A pair of scissors is a must and it doesn't even really matter what kind you use.  Even a pair of craft scissors will work if you don't have shears.  Just make sure you don't use those scrapbooking scissors with the really cool edges, you know like the ones that will cut a wavy line, like these...

unless of course you are going for that look.  You will also need a comb and something to hold pieces of hair up.  These are the tools that I used...

2.  Set up a stool somewhere, like your bathroom, or kitchen, or outside if the weather is good.  It doesn't matter if you are on a level surface because your child will move around so much that putting them on a slant might make your outcome better.

3.  Make sure that your stool is broken.  Just because mine is.  Not to worry though, I fixed it well enough so that my child wouldn't fall to the floor.

4.  If you have more than one child that you will be giving a haircut, be sure to start with the youngest and most wiggliest child first.  It will be good practice and it's best to get the hard one out of the way first.  Why warm up on the easy child?  That would just be silly.

5.  Wet the child's hair completely and set her up on the stool.  To wet the hair, use a spray bottle, put them in the tub, or just pour a full bucket of water over the top of their head.  It doesn't matter if you get the hair all wet or not, it's all about personal preference.

  6.  Comb out most of the tangles and just use your scissors to cut out the knots that the comb can't get out.  I mean you already have the scissors handy, you should get a feel for how they snip.

6.  Pin up some of your child's hair.  It doesn't matter if you part it perfectly, all the hair is going to be one length anyway (hopefully).  And comb this hair straight.

7.  Make your first cut.  It doesn't matter where, it's just a starting point.  You will want all the hair to be cut to this length. 

8.  You'll start to trim the hair all to this length all the while your child is squirming, screaming, and doesn't listen when you tell her to keep her head straight.  The oldest child will be dancing around your first child being constant entertainment for the wiggly one in your chair.  This is kind of hard because the wiggly one doesn't just keep her head straight and follow the oldest one's dance moves with just her eyes.  If you let them continue to do this, it could be fatal.

9.  Take a deep breath and send the oldest to her room.  Sternly, because if you do it soft and nice, she comes back to peek around the corner of the bathroom where the littlest, wiggly one can see her in the mirror and she will throw her head back and burst into hysterical laughter.  This will cause so much anxiety within you that you will snap.  You will yell at the oldest to get her butt back into her room and ask the little one in a very loud voice, "Why can't you just keep your head still!!!!"  This will cause the little one to cry and cause you to feel bad.

10.  Take another deep breath.  Go over to the radio and turn it on a rock song and blare the volume.  This will drown out the cries coming out of the wiggly one.

11.  Keep bringing down hair and putting some up and just snip away and trust God to guide your hand.  You know He's not happy with you right now because of the way you just treated your children but you are going to have to have faith that He won't want you to ruin your child's hair and He will guide your hand through the rest of this process.

12.  Just pray at this point and close your eyes.  Snip away.  Remind yourself that your child's hair is not completely straight and is kind of wavy so it will be okay if it's not perfect.  Once you are done with the back, if your child has bangs, this is the time to do it.

13.  Grab some hair from the top of her head and comb it all straight.  Try your best to cut a straight line.

14.  You are now done with the first haircut.  Get your child down from the stool and let her run far, far away from you while you put your attention on the second one.  Repeat steps 5-14.  Then get yourself a drink.  Unless it's like 11:30 in the morning.  Then you put the kids to bed and have a nap yourself.  Feel free to clean up your mess the next day.

15.  Wake up from your nap and by this time your kid's hair should be dry.  Cover your eyes and walk slowly towards your child and tell her to turn around.  Peek through your fingers first to see if you did a good enough job to uncover your eyes completely to take it all in...

 16.  Pat yourself on the back because it turned out pretty good.

17.  The final and most important step of all.  Wake yourself up out of this horrible nightmare that you are having and pick up the phone.  Instantly call your hairdresser to set up an appointment to take both of your kids in to get their haircut.  Now you know that it is not worth trying to give your kids a haircut on your own.

You're Welcome.

In other news, I finally got my camera to UPS.  They should get it tomorrow at 3:00 pm.  Please cross your fingers that she can be fixed.

Freedom

My Mom asked me yesterday, "You really are enjoying not having comments on your blog aren't you?"

And the answer, yes, yes, and yes.

I feel free.  Free of everything.  I am so enjoying my blog.  And it's not like I don't get comments.  I've gotten emails, and Facebook messages, and that is really, really cool.

I like getting comments from the people that feel the need to go out of their way to comment.  That they love my posts, or I make them laugh, or they love my pictures.  They mean so much.

The comments I'm getting through email and Facebook just brighten my day.  It's cool.  I have fallen back in love with blogging by not having comments here.  And I've still been around and comment on your blogs when I'm moved, or I like a picture, or a story.  I'm still here.

I blog to remember.

I blog to remember.  I saw that somewhere and I can't remember where, I think if I had blogged it, I would have remembered.  I hope that nobody feels offended that I took my comments off.  I loved reading your comments, I really did.  That part of blogging just wasn't working for me any more.

I honestly feel so good about this that the comments will probably never come back onto my blog.  You know where to find me, and I have links to my email and Facebook to the left of my page.  And if you don't ever feel like contacting me, that's fine too.  I'm the one that took the comments off and I did it not even expecting anyone to leave me comments elsewhere. That happened to be a plus!

I just wanted to do a follow up post about this to let you know how it's going.  It works for me and I know that you all are still reading, I'm like the easiest blog to go to.  You can come and read and you don't have to comment.  Commenting takes time, and I'm letting you off the hook.  You should be thankful!  Haha!

So thank you to everyone for understanding, and a big thanks to those of you that have made my days brighter!  I'm blessed to have so many great people in my life!

Exploring and a Hike

Man.  I'm pooped.  This has been a lot of posting for me, but I'm anxious to be done with the whole Rock Creek thing.  I mean enough already right?

One more time, to read these from the beginning, click here and then follow the links at the end of each post and you'll end up right here!

At least I didn't spread it out over 2 weeks of posting.  Give me a little bit of credit for that.

On Saturday, we went for a drive to the other side of the lake to see if there was any good fishing over there.  I think we might try it out next time we go.  To spare you all the Rock Creek talk, I'll just be posting pictures.

So the last day we packed up on Sunday morning and before we left, we took a "hike" around the creek.  We thought that was all the kids could really handle, and we got a few family shots while we were at it.

We were sad to say good bye to Rock Creek but very excited to get home, and sleep in our own beds.

See you later site 29!  Until next year...

The West Nile Virus and Model Material

This is part 3 of a 4 part series of posts.  Please click here first, and then here, and then come back to this post when you are done.

Trust me, it will be a better experience. ;)

Are you convinced yet that it's beautiful up there?  I wish that I had brought my camera up to the lake to get a good picture of it.  I did get one with my Mom's water proof camera but I haven't seen those yet.

So about that West Nile Virus.  I contracted it.  Well, possibly.  I thought I might have.  The mosquitoes were crazy this year.  The kids didn't get one bite, but we kept bug repellent on them at all times.  I guess one Saturday morning I forgot to dose myself.

I think it's because I was in doing dishes from breakfast and saw a photo opportunity with Tim down by the creek with the kids.  I heard my Mom say, "Kristi, hurry, grab your camera!"

So I did, and ran out the door....UNprotected.

Right about here I notice I got bitten.  It started to itch like crazy. 

But that's normal, so I took a few more pictures. 

We headed back to camp so that I could finish those dishes and the guys could get our poles ready for fishing again. 

And that's when it happened.  My hand started to swell up uncontrollably.  I couldn't even see where I had been bit anymore because it pretty much just spread, and quickly.  I thought maybe I was stung by something?  Well, it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and bigger.

So we figured we would take a drive to go get me some benadryl.  Oh and more flies.  Well, basically more flies and we thought maybe while we were there we could get me some benadryl.  I think I was an after thought.

We headed up to Pie in the Sky. 

 Riley had her heart set on a grilled cheese sandwich but they didn't have one on the menu.  She was a bit bummed so I told her and Madi they could both pick a piece of candy to take with us.  Well Riley wanted a dining experience and wanted to sit outside while she ate her candy.

So we did what Riley wanted to do, because it's all about her.  Tim took my Mom's cash to buy us beers because it was going to be under $10.00 and that is not enough to run a debit card bought us adults a round of beers and we settled in with the kids.

I was ordered to take my Benadryl.

Do you see how swollen my hand is?  Well, at this point it started to hurt, not itch, and by the end of the night, it had spread all the way to the other side and when we went fishing that night, I got bit by another mosquito, on my other hand, and my wrist.  Well, that one swelled up just as big, but spread into my hand and into my arm.

It hurt.  And I have a high pain tolerance.  I'm not going to lie, I thought something might have been wrong.  But no worries, my hands are finally back to normal today, and the bites now itch.  I now think I'm clear of the West Nile Virus.  But I found out on the way home that I had Skeeter Syndrome.  Not an extreme form of it, but a form.

Look at that, I got so caught up in my West Nile Virus that I forgot all about Model Material.

While we were at Pie in the Sky, cheersing our candy...

And getting dirty.  Because if we can get dirty, we do... 

I noticed that red wall behind the girls and I thought one picture of them together would be nice.

And it basically turned into a photo shoot.  With my models posing.

Is Madi not cracking you up?  Okay, well if not yet, then she will now.

Oh man, it was so funny.  And then they went after Pop Pop.

But he was a really good sport!

Stay tuned for the last post...Exploring and a Hike.

I know you are excited that it will be my last post on Rock Creek.  I do.  You've made yourselves perfectly clear about that.

:)