A Fancy-Schmancy Date

Our dear friends Jessica and Andrew Haslam were gone for Three. Long. Months. this summer.  It was torture!  I am literally dreading the day when we will have to part from them and our other close St. Louis friends next spring.  Dreading it.  There are just some girls here that I can not live without seeing several times a week!  Sigh.  Then again, I felt that way with my high school and college girlfriends, too.  I guess that's just the hard part of growing up and being a real adult.  You have to follow where life takes you and hope you'll find new kindred spirits.  But I hate it.

 

Back to the fancy date.  The week they returned just happened to be St. Louis Downtown Restaurant Week.  I guess a lot of big cities do this.  Basically, some of the outrageously expensive restaurants downtown ran a deal where you got three courses for a flat price.  It was still a splurge for us, but we never could have eaten anywhere like that without a deal like this, so we decided to go for it.  I'm so glad we did!  It was a perfect night of food and friends.  We got all dressed up, left both of our babies with the wonderful Jane Thomas, and spent the night eating, catching up, and, most of all, laughing.  I love these people!

 Cute couple!!!

I put a picture from this night up on the "Skinny Logan" post and everyone kept commenting on the dress, so I must confess right here and now: It's Jessica's.  That girl has killer style and an astonishing wardrobe.  And I am lucky enough to be able to borrow from it every once in a while!  I just love this dress!  (It's BCBG for those who are wondering, but it's from several years ago, so none of us can rush out and buy it.  Sorry.)  It's hard to find modest dresses that are still stylish, but this one fits the bill perfectly.  Thanks for lending it to me, Jess!

My One True Beauty

Much like Jo in Little Women, I have lost my one true beauty.

However, unlike her, I did not cut it off for a noble cause, my baby just ruined it.  That is, my hormones ruined it after I had my baby.  I have heard of women whose hair changed textures after they had a baby, and it even makes perfect sense that I would be one of them since my hair wasn't really curly until I went through puberty and its associated hormone changes, but I didn't think it could happen to me.  Alas.  It has.

Don't believe me?  Think I am being a bit over dramatic?  I wish I were, my friends.  I wish I were.

Logan didn't believe me either.  He thought I was paranoid and irrational, not to mention vain.  But then I proved it to him.  I showed him the pictures.  And do you know what he said, "OH.  Yeah.  You're right."  It made me feel a lot better.  Well, ok, not at all.  But it did confirm to me that I'm not always a drama queen.  Sometimes my paranoia is, in fact, based on fact.

Still don't believe me?  Alright, I'll prove it.

Before:

Young, engaged, and totally clueless as to the possibility that those glorious curls may someday turn into blah waves.  No wonder I look so happy.

Look carefully at the bottom of my curls.  Perfectly round spirals.

After, Part I: During Breastfeeding

Pregnancy and labor messed with my hormones a lot, but they were still changing because I was breastfeeding.  You may think they still look good, and it's true, they look fine.  But notice the ends of my curls?  Straightening out.  The shine and spiral is fading before our eyes.  Goodbye, curls.  Hello, waves.  So I cut it off.  I was desperate.  And it helped.  But it's still just wavy.  Look closest to my face, at the bottom layers.  Waves.  Just waves.

After, Part II:  Post-Breastfeeding

Blah.  Blah, blah, blah.  Isn't it sad, how the waves droop pathetically over my astonishingly large skull?  Finishing breastfeeding finished changing my hormones and put the final nail into the coffin of my formerly majestic hair.  Sigh.  Such a sad day.

Still not buying it?  Look at them side by side.

See?  I told you so!

I was never one of those annoying girls who whine about having spiral curls and spend hours straightening out the curls that others would pay plenty to have.  (Although I am now apparently one of those annoying girls who whine about their thick, not-quite-ideal hair.)  I embraced my curls and appreciated them.  In fact, I was quite vain about them, I am ashamed to admit. 

If you can't tell, this has been quite traumatic for me.  A friend said to me, "Well, maybe they'll change back with your next pregnancy."  If that isn't motivation to have more kids then I don't know what is!  And, if they do in fact change back, I guess I'll have to have an even number of kids!

Anyway, rather than mope around non-stop I decided to do something drastic.  Dye it.  In high school when streaks where so "in" I was afraid to even use Sun-In to try to bleach my hair at the pool.  Dye has previously never touched this hair.  But I've always wanted to try auburn.  So I did.  Unfortunately, at this point in my life I can't afford to go get it done by the fabulous and flamboyant man down the street who cuts my hair occasionally, so I bought a box and did it myself.  I think I was having some sort of temporary insanity that week.  I also decided to try straightening it more often.  Of course, that resolve hasn't held up very well since I have the most pathetic flatiron known to man and the humidity here during the summer is off the charts, but once winter rolls around maybe it will happen more.  (Especially if I get a CHI for Christmas.  Fingers crossed!)  But I have straightened it several times since the big dye, which is more than I did in a YEAR previously.  Sadly, the color difference hardly shows up most of the time, but the day of the big dye my hair shone auburn in the sunlight for these pictures and made me happy.  Maybe I'll fork out the dough for my flamboyant stylist to do a more drastic and longer-lasting change sometime soon.

Aren't you glad you just wasted an hour reading as I whined about my hair?

Another Beautiful Buffalo Summer

Callum's BFF: Uncle Ryan

In August Callum and I headed up to Buffalo to visit Aunt Rachel and Uncle Ryan.  We had a ball.  Buffalo has such mild, beautiful summers, so we love to escape the St. Louis heat and humidity and head to Buffalo for a visit each summer.  As always, Rachel and I enjoyed eating and gabbing all night as only sisters can, and Callum heaped all of his love on his Uncle Ryan.  He loves quiet, peaceful men who will get on the floor and play with him, so Uncle Ryan is a perfect fit.  Poor Aunt Rachel tried so hard to win Callum over, but as fondly as he grins at his "Aunt Guckel" she will never be able to compete with the bond he seems to have with "Uncle Lion."  Each day Rach and I went on some sort of adventure or daytrip with Cal, and each night Ry came home from school and lapped up all of the baby love.  Lucky him!  Rachel likes to keep her guests (and herself!) busy, so we were running here and there and meeting with her friends almost every day that we were there.  Thanks for a wonderful trip, R and R!  We love you!

Ryan is a great sport!  He let me sleep in the bedroom with Rach (Cal was in a Pack n Play in there.) and he slept on the couch.  I found him like this one morning.  Good man!  :)

Cal loves looking out windows, and R and R have some sketchy neighbors, so there was plenty to look at!  :)

Callum has a great love of cupboards.  He finds one to clear out and sit in everywhere we go.  He couldn't empty out their pantry, so he contented himself with sitting on soup cans just outside of it.  Look at that glee!  :)

Canandaigua Lake

Doesn't our hair look stellar?!

Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada

Goats!  Who do you think is more excited?

Niagara-on-the-Lake is one of Rachel's favorite spots, and we go there every year.  Here are Rachel and Callum, this August and last August.  I think Rachel may want to consider getting a new dress......  (The dress was NOT planned.  She just wears it that much.  Typical Westover!)  :)

Callum-Bo-Ballum!

Callum loves his diaper and wipes boxes.  He arranged them in the corner himself so that he could use them as a table and chair.  Cutie!

It has been so long since I last blogged that it almost feels like a hopeless cause to try and catch up now, but I supposed I'll try.  Let's start with a general-update-on-Callum-post and work backward.

Callum is a little chatterbox now!  He talks in phrases now and is a little parrot.  We have to watch what we say now!  He has learned tons of new words, but the most important ones are are body parts, clothing, "eat," "up," "more," "hot," and "help."  The cutest things he says are "hot" when he wants eggs or toast, since we always tell him that he should blow on them, and "help" when he wants me to get something for him or help him do something.  "Help" has been especially useful and has really improved our communication.  However, my favorite thing he says is, "Let's go, Mama!"

He still loves animals and his cutest animal sound is a wolf.  He makes a tiny little "o" with his mouth and howls away.  It is darling and sounds like a whistle.  I love it!

Callum's love of shoes continues.  In fact, it is now a full-blown obsession.  As you can see, he even tried to make his cardboard blocks into a fetching pair of shoes.  He loves his Daddy's shoes, but his favorite shoes are Mommy's click-click-clicky shoes.  The neighbors are not thrilled.  I am just grateful that I don't have an annoyingly macho husband who cares, because I think it's hilarious, not to mention harmless, that he likes to wear high heels.  Don't they show off his legs nicely?  Haha.

In the last month Callum has started doing an elevator dance.  When we get into our elevator we "Do the Elevator Dance!" and dance around.  For the most part that means he bobs up and down and pivots around in a circle on one leg.  I love it.  I need to get it on video before he grows out of it.

In the last month we decided that we should start teaching Callum how to say prayers.  When we put him to bed we kneel by his crib and fold our arms to say a short prayer with him.  He used to just grin at us, but now he excitedly folds his arms while grinning at us because he knows how excited we will get.  He also joyously cries "Amen!" at the end of each prayer.  It's pretty dang cute.  We had the missionaries over for dinner on Sunday and they were excessively charmed and amused by Callum's prayer skills at dinner.  Callum also seems to think that when we are driving in the car is a good time to pray.  I guess he's just trying to keep us safe!  Last night I went to dinner with a friend and Logan told me when I got home that when he told Callum it was time for bed Callum ran over to the side of his crib and kneeled on the floor to pray with his daddy!  I was so sad that I missed it!  What a precious boy!

There are many posts coming soon about our trips to Buffalo and Boise in September, a visit from Logan's sister Elise and her boyfriend James, and other stuff that's been happening in the last month or so.  At least there will be if I can pull my act together!