yes, i'm still crying

so this evening jessica came over and was going to give talan his first hair cut and then give hayden and dave a trim. as always, dave asked hayden if he wanted to shave all of his hair off. this time, he said yes. and he kept saying yes. no matter what i said to talk him out of it he just kept saying "it's ok mom. it'll look cool. it'll grow back. let's do this dad!! make all my hair go away!" after me standing my ground for about a half an hour, dave eventually gave hayden what he wanted. with me crying the whole time. then i had to get down on my hands and knees and pick all of that hair up. i felt like i couldn't keep enough of it.
he still hated having hair fall in his face or on his back or hands or anywhere else for that matter, but he loves his new haircut.
me? it'll take some time.
some kid that i've never seen before just came down to kiss me goodnite and said "mom, just be happy about my hair." and the crying continues....

making sure he really wants to do this:
he kept saying "let's do this dad! make all my hair go away!":





jessica making sure the hair didn't get in his face:

spring break in royal oak

years ago we went to a church called the bridge. we met some great people there whom we remain close with to this day. unfortunately with busy schedules, kids in school, and some driving distance between some of us, we don't get to see each other often. many of us had kids around the same time and we have pictures of them all together back when they were babies.
hayden, and most of his friends, are on spring break this week so we decided to plan a little play date. we headed over to the bossenberger's house so that hayden could play with charles. joining them was estalla loudon and redding martin. samuel loudon, evelyn bossenberger and talan were also in attendance. the kids seemed to have a great time together and hayden cried the entire drive home (until he fell asleep, but then woke up saying it again) saying "but i'm going to miss charles. and he's going to miss me."
it was great to get the kids back together again and get some new pictures of them all grown up.
thanks for having us all over, jen! we had a great time and hope we can do it more often in the summer!

charles as a pirate. the boots were hilarious...and he walked better in them than i could:
first attempt at a group shot. shockingly, hayden wasn't having it. estella, redding, charles, hayden:
samuel and evelyn:
second group shot. this one went much better:

letting it go

in recent months i have come to realize that i am a bit of a control freak. i think i've always known this to an extent, but maybe not to the degree that i actually am.
i recently took a personality type test that told me my number one trait was control and my number two was perfectionist. i don't agree with that one at all. i really don't consider myself to be a perfectionist. maybe about certain things, but not most things.
hayden has taken on a lot of my traits. his strong will, stubbornness, anger, and the control. oh how he loves to control everyone and everything.
this morning i had to learn to let go of my control a bit. every nite we (an by we i mean usually me) lay out the clothes that hayden is going to wear the next day. that way as soon as he gets up he can get dressed so he's ready to go. it mostly started out because his dresser is dave's OLD dresser that doesn't even have tracks on the drawers. i was always afraid that he'd pull the drawer all the way out and hurt himself. but let's be honest...i also wanted to make sure he wore what i thought he should wear.
so last nite, apparently dave put out his clothes. his camo pants (of which i only have about 2 or 3 shirts that i put with them) and for whatever reason a short sleeved blue t-shirt with shark teeth on it. i wasn't aware of what he had laid out because i obviously would have changed that.
so i get up and hayden is playing downstairs. when he comes up the stairs i was like...did your father lay those clothes out for you?! and he tells me, "no...i got out the sweater because the shark shirt had little sleeves and i need long sleeves." apparently he put on the camo pants, he put on the shark shirt, and then he realized it was still winter and he needed something to go over it. so he goes into his closet and gets his blue and red striped sweater.
i asked him several times if he wanted to put some jeans on with it instead and he just kept saying "no." when i told him it didn't match he just said "awww, come on mom. i like it. it's beautiful!"
so i thought i'd ask him one...or maybe two more times and if he didn't give in, i'd have to let go of that control and know that him going to school while not matching was not going to kill him. or me....at least i don't think it will.
he declined and he went to school like this:

i did make sure to tell him, however, "make sure you let everyone know you dressed yourself today, ok?!"

happy march 5!

god bless michigan. we woke up this morning to yet another snow day from school with about 6 inches of snow on the ground. i told dave that if he could make it to the car, not to worry about it as i would take hayden out to and i would shovel once talan went down for his nap. i figured it'd be a nice second workout for me this morning.
so at about 8:30 i headed down to the basement for my morning workout, headed upstairs, got talan ready for nap and hayden ready to go outside and out we went. as soon as i started shoveling the pathway i realized i was in trouble.
i was out there shoveling for close to an hour i'd say. the good thing is that it's pretty warm out there with the sun shining. i even had to take my mittens and jacket off i was so warm. by the end i was pretty cranky and i was sick of having to readjust hayden's mittens as snow kept getting inside of his jacket. but i had promised him when i was done we'd make a snowman.
of course, it wasn't great packing snow again so we have to improvise. when he asked "is this going to be the biggest snowman EVER?" i couldn't lie when i said "nope. we're going to make whatever we can out of what we've got." he couldn't wait to put the face on him but didn't like my suggestion of grapes for eyes. so when i ran inside to get the carrot i realized we had crunch berries. he told me very specifically we needed 2 buttons on the medium snowball and 3 on the large one.
and then we were done. hopefully for the rest of this year.
we hope all of you in florida and texas and wherever else it is warm are enjoying it and pitying us.


hayden's snow angel...it was actually really good:
the snowman. the branches have buds on them...i guess they are on the same page we all are, ENOUGH ALREADY:
too sunny to not squint:

happy march 5th from our house to yours!: