Hair

I have been growing my hair out for the past 8 months. The theory was that longer hair would be easier with a new baby because I could tie it back. Well enough was enough. Not easier. Today it was time for a change. Oh how I love change...

Before

After

And the 20's say "Welcome back, Niki.  We missed you while you were hanging out back in junior high with that awkward long hair thrown into a pony-tail every day..."

Still no pics, but an update nonetheless!

Our internet situation is, well...sporadic.  We canceled our internet as I mentioned a couple weeks ago.  Ok, one week ago. (it feels like forever ago)  Since then, we've discovered a decently strong signal in our laundry room/entrance.  The only catch is that Nathan's computer is the only one that picks it up.  (the only one...that makes it sound like we have a plethora of computers in this house...well, perhaps we do...)  Anyway, my computer is the one with all the pictures on it and with all my stuff on it, so I'm finding it less enjoyable to add pictures to my blog since I'll have to transfer them all to my computer one day and because Nathan is still doing a bit of homework so when I do feel like blogging, I don't necessarily have a computer at my disposal.  Not that I would dispose of it, but you know...  ANYHOO...

Levi is growing like crazy.  Well, not really since apparently he's only gained 5 ounces in the last two and a half months.  But he's learning new things and that is always exciting!  I'll write more about that tomorrow when he officially becomes an 8 MONTH OLD!  Yikes.  Where has the time gone?

Candidating on Sunday went well, we think.  It was a fun day.  Mingling wasn't nearly so bad as I feared it might be.  It's tiring but way less stressful when you're the people everyone wants to talk to!  All we had to do was stand in one spot and people came and introduced themselves to us and we would talk a bit and then they would mosy (mosie? mosey?) on and new people would come up to us and chat for a while.  All in all, a great day.  Now we are just waiting for the church to vote, which will happen on Sunday, so we hear, and then hopefully HOPEFULLY we'll be asked to take the position!  We will almost literally be bouncing off the walls in this house if we are asked to take the job cause seriously, it is a wonderful church and wonderful community and wonderful people.  Oh, and a wonderful job that looks like it will be a (you guessed it) WONDERFUL fit for Nathan.  So if you think of us, pray that this opportunity is in reality what God wants and not just us being excited about something while failing to see where God is actually leading.  It sure seems like a God-thing though...

I am not up to much these days.  I am about to go sit on a chair beside Nathan, who is playing some NBA basketball on the ol' xbox 360, and whip out some yarn action and MAKE something.  I'm not really sure what to make though.  See, I've taught myself how to knit recently (like, maybe two weeks ago?) and am loving it, but so far I haven't had the patience to actually finish a project!  I'm working on a toque for Levi but it's going so slowly and I can already see flaws in it which, like any first real project, are bound to happen but I'm tempted to just rip it all out and start again.  See, I've been crocheting for about 20 years or so, so I'm used to my projects looking, well (humility aside), I'm used to them looking good.  And when this project doesn't look perfect like I figure it should, despite only having known how to knit for under a month, I will probably end up ripping it out and starting fresh.  *sigh*  I'll never finish anything at this rate : )  But at least I'll have fun in the process!

Ok, now I'm rambling cause I'm tired.  : )  Time to go sit with my hubby and relax for the rest of the evening.  Catch ya all later!

p.s-I gave my brother-in-law a mullet today.  It's pretty sweet if I do say so myself.  I once vowed to never give anyone a mullet.  It choked me a little to break that vow, but hey.  Anything for family, right?  As long as it's not a rat-tail on my son...or a mullet on my husband...there have to be limits, people.  There HAVE to be limits...

Spring cut.

Isn't it nice to have something new in spring?

 I really think it is.

 I got a new haircut.

 I feel like I look very much more like my sister now than ever before.

 Funny how it works that way when you have the same person who does your sister's hair do yours.

 I finally got a nice, easy mommy-cut...

 with highlights.

 Just blow-dry and go.

 So nice.

Thanks Carrie!

Oh, and I realized that I never mentioned that I got new glasses back in February(?).  

Voila!  I got new glasses!

So there's the spring cut of the year.  Two haircuts in under three months.  I am on a roll.  And speaking of roll...somehow including a whole roll of wonderfully dorky pictures of myself instead of just one or two seemed like the dorkiness would be canceled out by the cheesiness.  Am I right?

Before and After...

Yay haircut!  It has been years since the last time I had a salon cut.  It always feels so good...why don't I do this more often?!  Oh yeah.  No income.  One day we'll have an income again...one day...

Before: (excuse the un-doneness of my hair...I didn't do anything with it this morning knowing I was getting it cut this afternoon)

front...

side...

other side...

back...Yes, Nathan is posing behind me.  He made sure he was in the frame...

 And After: (I look so tired in these pictures!  I guess it's probably because I am...)

front...

side...

other side...

back...my favourite part!  People should probably just look at me from the back from now on...

And while I was taking pictures of my hair, I took a few more:

My family...

So much love...

We help each other out of "sticky" situations...

Levi was clearly intrigued by his picture on the computer screen...I was just trying to conceal my intrigue, can't you tell?

"Let me get closer, Mom, I can't see myself"  I had a feeling that a spit-up was coming (certain sounds erupting from within) and right after this picture was taken I put my hand out just in time, preventing my keyboard from becoming the landing ground for what had been Levi's afternoon snack.  Yesss...

Happens every time...

Haha.  It seems that every time I say that I have nothing to post and that I probably won't post for a while, I come up with something the very next day.  Oh well.  I'll post this, but don't be surprised if there is silence until after our move...which is only 7 days and 23 hours away!  Did I miss the sign for the time machine I just walked into???

I have been planning to get a haircut (a professional one) since I found out I was pregnant.  But, just like every other time, my hair got shaggier and shaggier, and I got more and more annoyed with it.  And there is something about not having had an income for the past year that just seems to keep me from booking an appointment with a hair stylist.  So this morning I got out the scissors and gave myself a trim...again.  It feels SO much better, and makes my mornings so much easier without the daily "hair straight, but not completely straight, fine but tons of body" fight.  I'm someone who really does love my hair and wouldn't trade it for someone else's, but that said, it really does need to be the right length.  It's like a dog...if it's given firm guidance, it'll behave exactly as I want it to - most days.  But if it's left to it's own devices, chaos ensues.  Must I say more?

Sorry, I have no "before" pics, and even the "after" pics are kinda messy and sloppy, but if this is better than what was, you can only imagine the freak show this morning!

Side view...

Front view...much joy on face...

Other side...not great, but an improvement nonetheless!

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While I'm here, a quick update:

We're moving soon.  It's come up so quickly.  While I'll miss parts of being here (WEATHER, people, being in the city), I look forward with much anticipation to parts of being back in Canada (people, fresh air, meeting the dr who will deliver our baby, country living).  Can't I have both at the same time?!

Nathan is basically done his homework for the semester.  He has one more page to write today, and a paper to proof-read and then he's done!  I'm celebrating with him, because I've been proof-reading all his papers this year, and if he's almost done, that means that I'm almost done too!

We get to have Lennox back soon!  Oh, how we've missed him this year!  It's gotten easier as time goes on, but now that we are only a couple weeks away from seeing him again, we are both getting VERY excited!  

My appetite has COMPLETELY recovered from first trimester, and I find myself hungry ALOT.  The things that sound best these days are those things that my mom often made while we were growing up.  Beef stew, noodles/meat/tomato/corn dish, meatloaf, etc.  Thanks to my appetite, both me and baby are growing quickly.  Me feeling movement is a daily thing now...and I smile every time.  We've been given the go-ahead for me to travel by car to Canada, but of course there are always a few nerves that go along with a long trip like that.  Please pray that my circulation will work extraordinarily well and that the trip will go smoother than smooth for us.  Pray for safety for me and baby...and Nathan too, of course!

I just can't believe how soon our move is!  It's next week!  (I know I've mentioned it a couple times already this post, but I just can't wrap my head around it!)  I was just reading back in my blog to our move down here and that really made it feel like yesterday.  Wow.  Our time in California has been alot shorter than we first expected it to be.  But I don't think it's a bad thing...God leads in mysterious ways.  I trust that I won't miss it TOO much next winter when I'm freezing my butt off in Saskatchewan...

Well...nobody stopped me... (see previous post)

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As I mentioned earlier, my sister was just down for a few days to visit us.  We had a few adventures and I thought I'd share some pictures.  Because life is fun like that.

Our first stop after the airport to pick Alicia up was San Francisco.  We stayed overnight and spent the next day sight-seeing.  Here we are in front of the "Painted Ladies."  Full House, anyone?

This is me and Nathan in the town hall.  It was beautiful and elaborate and...wow.  Impressive.

After walking a couple miles in the rain, we were cold and wet and hopped on a cable car.  This is a picture of Lombard street (image google it for a better picture).  We only saw it from the top, but didn't really feel like walking all the way down...we just looked at brochure pictures and figured it looked better on the sunny day when the picture was taken than it would have looked this day anyway.

The streets were STEEP.  We walked up and down some of them and my calves felt it the next day.  Tip: Don't drive a standard in San Francisco unless you are VERY confident.  Let me modify that statement: Don't drive in San Francisco with any car, no matter how confident you are.

(You can see a three cable cars in this picture...one at the bottom of the hill and two on the top of it)

We were cold.  Can you tell?  That is Alcatraz behind us.  Beautiful.  Check.  Let's keep walking!

Alicia and I being happy adventurers out on the docks.  Really, we were happy.  Just cold and wet too.  Brr...we were completely soaked all the way through.

We decided to ride on the outside part of the cable car on the way back.  You could see so much better, but the wind was chilly.  By the way, it is the wind that is helping Alicia's hair to stand up at that angle...she didn't style it like that in the morning.

Now for some warmer pictures...we went out the next day in search of a project to do together.  We saw some canvases and paint at Michaels and thought painting would be fun.  We got ourselves all set up (we're Buhlers, so we didn't need any newspaper or plastic between the carpet and our canvases...we're that good) and painted on and off the rest of the visit.  This painting is now hanging on our living room wall.

Beautiful, no?  Nathan felt a bit left out, so we bought some more canvases and did a set of three very colorful paintings for the bathroom.  We DID put newspaper between the canvases and carpet when Nathan was painting with us...

We had one warm, sunny day while Alicia was out, so here we are picking some oranges off the tree here on campus.  Alicia was pretty excited...

She picked too many to carry...I laughed at her...tourist...

At least she put the oranges to good use (see the full bowl in the background?).  She made orange juice and later we made an orange cake with orange glaze.  Yummy.

Another truly Californian experience is eating at In-n-Out burger.  It's quite the experience (at least if you know about the "ecretsay enumay").  It was pretty good...

Someone back home had recommended that Alicia get the Double Burger Animal Style.  It was HUGE.  Apparently not as big as they come, but this one was almost as big as Alicia's head.  haha.  But she says it was good, so that's all that matters, right?

And that was Alicia's visit!  So fun.  It was nice to have some family see where we live.  In some ways it made it feel so much more like home to have my sister see where we live and to experience our life with us for a few days.  Thanks for coming, Alicia!  I can't wait for my trip out to see you in a couple months!

For more pictures and my sister's side of the trip, click HERE.

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Oh yeah, be sure to check out the afghan on the couch behind me in the first few haircut pictures.  Pretty granny-like, eh?  I just finished it two days ago and it's going to my Etsy shop any day now!  I just love the colors!