haircuts

so recently i had been growing my hair out. i'm not exactly sure why. deb doesn't like it when my hair gets bushy but i really wanted to grow it out and see what i would look like. (i had it longer in college, but hairstyles are different now so maybe i'd style it different) oh and by the way when i say longer i mean over-the-ears and in front i can pull it down to my mouth; not really into shoulder length or more.

anyways deb had been pressuring me more and more to get a haircut. on thursday i was playing with julia at the time when deb was asking me so i turned to julia and said, "do you want to get your hair cut??" she quickly responded that she would. deborah retorted, "if you cut julia's hair, then you have to cut your hair." (actually she first said "no, that's my hair" as she picked julia up in her arms)

in my mind i thought, "hmmm . . . that's a small price to pay." julia's hair was always in her hair and i had wanted to give her a hair cut before anyways.

so deborah goes to play practice around 6.30p. i had taught the girls a new "dice & poker chips" game* (that i made up) during monday's practice and they wanted to play that again. earlier in the evening anna had made a comment that whoever won the game should get their hair cut. she's usually very competitive, but DIDN'T want to win tonight's game. but when it came time to play the game she forgot all about her previous statement and her 'competitive' side took over (does she remind you of anyone else you know that's competitive??)

anyways anna and julia both 'won' with the most # of chips**. at first anna was like, "YES! ! i won!" and then i said, 'you know what that means . . ." and she was like, "aahhh man, nooooo."

julia was still very eager to have her hair cut, and then danielle blurted out that she wanted her haircut too. which surprised me because earlier she was the most vocal about NOT getting her hair cut. anyways, all of them chimed in and wanted to get their hair cut.

so i cut their hair!
(now for those of you in shock, thinking, "what kind of father would even think of doing such a thing!? abe are you nuts! you're gonna traumatize your kids for life!" i want you to know that i did try calling a fantastic sams to see if they were still open. they were just closing; it was 7pm)

i was so nervous and excited at the same time. after searching the house for a pair of scissors (i began to wonder if deb had purposely hidden all the scissors) i ended up going to the church (next door) and borrowing a pair. (my sister was there and had no idea at the time what i wanted them for) i started by cutting my own hair because i didn't want deb to get here in the middle of me cutting one of the girls hair and for me to still have my 'bushy' hair.

anyways, yada . . . yada . . . yada . . . by now you just want to see the pictures! so here they are.

before:
danielle -


julia -


anna -


the piles of hair:


and now the new cuts!:
danielle -




julia -




anna -





so there you have it - that's my insanity! deb went to my sister's house after play practice before coming home. i had called my sister to ask if she had been there yet when we got done at about 9.30p and told her what i had done. so when deb got there we had a little video iChat and so introduced each of the girls to deb one by one. so deb had a little time (about 15 min drive) on the way home to think about what i had done.

she was a little miffed at first (as i anticipated) but she chose 'us' and keeping peace. (what a great wife i have!!!) i guess she figured there was nothing she could do about it now, it was already cut and lying in a pile on the floor.***

one last thing . . . i do want to tell you that as we were putting pajamas on for the evening before we had the video iChat with deb, i caught the girls down on the floor huddled in a group with their hands all together about to cheer "THE CUTER SISTERS!!!"


// today i'm thankful for:
1. grace
2. girls that love their daddy
3. a wife that forgives :-)
4. new smaller clothes!
5. my readers (thanks)

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* we each take turns rolling a single die. a 1, 2, or 3 gets you that number of white chips. a 4 gets you a blue chip, and a 5 gets you a red chip. if you roll a 6 you also get a red chip but then everyone else also gets a 'bonus' roll. everyone rolls together and only those people who have a # that matches someone elses get to receive the bonus chips. so if danielle rolls a 6, she'd get a red chip, then everyone would roll together. if on the extra roll, anna got a 6, julia got a 3, danielle got a 3, i got a 4, and deb got a 6 . . . then julia and danielle would each get 3 white chips for having matching rolls, deb and anna would each get a red chip and i would get nothing since i didn't match anyone else's. (a '6' on a bonus roll only means a red chip).

oh and one more thing 5 white chips are worth 1 blue, 5 blue are worth 1 red. (like pennies, nickels, and quarters) and you can trade whites for blues or blues for reds, whenever you have enough and feel like it. we'll usually play for a certain time limit (we set a timer) or for a certain # of rounds.

** there's no actual winner, i never set the parameters for winning. sometimes we count the person with the most white chips the winner, sometimes the most blue or red. sometimes we actually do the math and tally the 'points'. or sometimes we just count the person with the most chips regardless of color. (since julia was eager to get a haircut - neither anna or danielle were before - i set it up so that julia would win with the most chips overall. except that anna also had the same number of chips, so i thought it'd be fun to tease her a bit)

*** there was actually something else she could do and she did it. when i went to school the next day i came home for lunch to find that danielle and anna's hair had been cut even more! naturally i thought i was ready to change careers and get my license as a hair stylist. but deb didn't think that the longer hair of anna or danielle looked good (i liked the layers) so she cut the back on both of them. now they all look similar to julia and deb's haircuts. (i'll post those pictures later when i take them)

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