ashley’s my girl.

me: so really, do you like the bangs?
matt: yeah! they look great!!
me: you mean it? because i’ll be honest, i was pretty scared of the bangs.
*pause* ……that’s what she said.
matt: iiii wasn’t gonna say it.

soooo i went ashley.

it was so 50/50 in your notes! you all had extremely valid points. in fact, confession…..

i’d finally decided to go with "the anne". i wanted it to be a little longer (to be able to pull back easier) and because it was "safer". if i didn’t love it i could always go back and say, hack off some more….right? so we’re sitting in the chair, my hair freshly washed, and i give her my instructions. i kind of sloppily requested – "a bob, that frames my face a touch, and hangs just slightly above my shoulders". she asked if i wanted any layers and i admitted i didn’t know if this was standard procedure for a bob. i think my exact words were "i dunno, is that what comes with a bob?", like i was ordering a happy meal or something. she said it depends, so i asked for her two cents. she thought with hair as fine as mine, some (not many) layers should be involved so that i don’t just have completely poker straight boring (read: not doing much bob-ing), hair. so i gave her a thumbs up. she started working and asked me to show her where i wanted the length. i held up my hand and her eyes got a little wide, but i was still thinking this was along the lines of "the anne". she said, really? that short?? and i said yep. 

snip snip snip. i watched my hair falling to the ground in chunks a lot bigger than i expected. i started wondering if i told her the right length….was my perception off today or something?? and then i figured, well hell, too late now…..and if i’m going this wild, might as well do it all the way, right? so i told her my secret. i confessed that i always had a crush on swoopy bangs but they scared the crap out of me. i spilled the beans about my horrid cowlick, and my 7 year old straight-across bangs that would do anything BUT hang straight-across because my cowlick had other plans. i asked her if swoopy bangs were even possible with my disorder (ha) or if i’d just be asking for strangers to point and laugh at me. surprisingly enough, she encouraged me to do this, saying she could cut them to go in either direction so i could find the way that cooperated with my cowlick conundrum. i looked at her kind of nervously, and she egged me on. so, i said what the hell.

and when she was done with the blow dryer and took the super woman cape off my shoulders, bam….the ashley. i’d ordered it up without even realizing it. sorry, anne.

it really looks kind of exactly like this. 

i would show you a picture but, i don’t have one. i was kind of all about lukey today so my camera was aimed at him. however, i snuck into a few photos over the course of the day. none of them really show it well…..but you can get a hint:

(yes, that is my BABY, GETTING HIS HAIR CUT. sob.)

seriously though. luke’s hair was just, becoming a clown wig. he had these unruly tufts above his ears and a seriously serious mullet in the back. i was totally content to sit and wait for his curls to explode when his hair got fuller (you can tell even in these pictures that the wave = future curls). but when he had redneck fluff hanging over the collars of his way-too-cute polos, it made me twitch a little. and sometimes? when the tufts above his ears got a little frayed from sleep….he would look like a 70 year old homeless man, smiling at me with a few missing teeth, begging for food. the fact that he only has 8 teeth and begs for food every time he wakes up from a deep sleep doesn’t help avoid this visual. so i asked lisa (love lisa!), the woman who did my wedding hair as well as hooking me up with the ashley, to trim him up a bit. i don’t know if i could have asked anyone better to do this job, because she has two little ones at home (her son is also 1….though closer to two, i believe). she understood what i wanted, but also that taking off the future curls would be a no-no. she did such a perfect job, that you can’t even tell he had a cut. he just looks….neater. and a lot less hoboish. she even saved all the clippings in an envelope for me. only a mom would think to do that before being asked! total success.

the licky family had cuts all around today. family hair cuuuut.

it was so funny when i took over luke duty and it was matt’s turn for the cut. he looked at me like, "wait…this is my mom? oh yeah, that’s her. although she didn’t look like this 10 minutes ago…..nah, pretty sure it’s her. definitely her. only……. no. it’s mom."  he seriously waivered back and forth for a good 3 minutes before finally deciding it WAS me. so hilarious. it’s actually shorter than it looks in the pictures up there. i was leaning my head towards him to try and stabalize his head with mine. when i’m standing totally upright, it doesn’t touch my shoulders. it’s pretty darn short, actually. i think shorter than i’ve ever gone. matt says it’s his favorite cut EVER and that spans 6 years so i’m chalking this up as a total win.

after all of our cutting, luke had birthday party #2. matt and i ran to the dollar tree when luke snoozed beforehand and we got some helium balloons and banners to decorate, and then tim & matt went to wegmans and picked up a sub platter, a wrap platter, a giant veggie platter, a cheese platter, and luke’s cake. it was a lot of food! luke was in high spirits (he literally slept until the first person showed so he was rested for the whole thing) and easily hopping from one set of arms to the next. matt’s uncle stan even came from caledonia! matt was really excited about that. uncle stan seems to have a special love for lukey since he’s the youngest little guy. stan is 90 (you might remember us traveling for his birthday last month) but doesn’t act it at all! he is soooooo with it still. the man even drinks beer, in pretty decent quantities, and it doesn’t rattle him at all. that always makes me laugh.

it really was a completely success. luke got a ton of toys & clothes. one of his favorite things is a ride-on firetruck…he’s obsessed!!  i gave him another piece of cake to smash – i figured matt’s side should get to see the hilarity, too, and luke deserved it for being so utterly tolerant!!. the sugar content bugs me a little, but i try not to think of it. you only turn 1 once, i’m certainly not depriving him of that!! it was also the perfect opportunity to have luke wear the onesie he got from matt’s sister. it says baby’s 1st birthday and has a

cupcake on it…..completely adorable, actually. but she was kind of nudging us about having him wear it for his parties and that bugged me a little. i have my reasons. but matt says it’s her way of being here with him (he’s always saying how desperate she is to be a part of his life) so i humored her. it worked out so well, actually – i totally didn’t plan it, but the colors of the onesie matched both his booster chair and the plate the cake was on. it made for some CUTE pictures!

you can see all the pictures on facebook. if you’re not my friend, and want to be, let me know!

tomorrow i’m supposed to go to a bridal show, and then to dinner at my dad’s for gabby’s birthday. monday we’re going to see lynne and monalisa and nigel!!!! can’t waiiiit!! 🙂

i think we’re going to the lake the last week of february, which is kind of awesome. i LOVE it there in the winter, it’s freaking cool. seeing the lake frozen and snowed over, all the trees covered in snow….the sleepy small town slowly functioning in the cold and the home cooking at the tiny diner. the best part is, it’s "cousins" weekend. meaning, the only people going would be from the same generation as matt & i and they’re already the people we congregate with at family gatherings. i like everyone on the invite list. should be a lot of fun!!

matt and i were just daydreaming about our charleston trip in 2008. we were rehashing old memories for the sake of doing some old-date-re-dos and our convo just sort of drifted there. while that trip was only like, 2 days long, the entire thing was like a dream. i don’t know if it was the same for matt, because he was busy carrying out all the surprises and shelling out the dough for things like, an uber fancy seafood bajillion course meal, and fancy chocolate covered strawberries, and a fancy spa facial. but for me? it was a total fairy tale. i treasure the memory so much. it happened just 2 months before lukey was baking away, so we went at the perfect time. i know nothing can really compare to that, at least not for a loooooong time, but i hope we find something awesome to do with matt’s vaca time. 

we came up with some old dates we want to repeat and i’m sooo excited. we might not get the opportunity to until valentine’s day, but even so…i’m pumped.

oh, nice surprise….my joann stuff came early!! it was here when we got back from matt’s mom’s today. awesooooome. i can get back to the cricut asap. pimp. 

alright….time to go finish up this book. it’s nicholas sparks’ new one and while i’ve been so utterly disappointed by his last, like, 5 books….this one is pretty great. so far, anyway. it’s getting to a sad place and it’s kind of taking away that "this is a great book" high, but i think it might recover. so, i’m anxious to get it read and keep plowing through the rest of my TBR stack. is it totally wrong that in reading other books i’m really starting to miss edward?? when will i get over him??