Some Memories Aren't So Precious

I hate when a lack of communication leaves room for my loved ones to get hurt. In this case it was Serenity. It was picture day at school. But the weekend before, we had put a temporary tattoo of a butterfly on her arm. So on the morning of pictures I told Serenity I wanted to take it off before she left for school. They come off fairly easily with oil. Alas, the craziness of the morning, we ran out of time. I didn't get it taken off. So I just stopped worrying about it. BUT...apparently I didn't voice that I wasn't worried about it TO Serenity. So she continued to worry about it. She thought I would be mad and she would be in trouble with me if the tattoo was still on for the pictures. Her teacher wouldn't allow her to go to the rest room to try to wash it off (that wouldn't have helped much anyway.) So.....she took things into her own hands....or more accurately fingernails. She scratched the stupid think off. She gouged her own skin off in the process. Being young, she had no idea that she was making things much worse. It got infected very quickly. We slathered it with antibiotic ointment and tried to keep it bandaged, but she is also allergic to the adhesive in the bandages. Anyhoo, it is healed up now, leaving her with a very faint scar shaped like a butterfly.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was wonderful this year. The girls and I joined 13 other members of the Hippen families in the Turkey Trot races in Orem. I was extremely sore after my 2 mile walk with a time of 30 minutes 13 seconds, but it was great. The girls were in the same race which was a 1/2 mile. I don't know what their times were but my sweet Serenity chose to stay right with her little sister to make sure she was okay even though Serenity could have run much faster. They are so good to each other.

Dinner was delicious as well and it was fabulous to have most of the family together. There turned out to be 35 of us that ate at our house. Bakers, we missed you. I am truly thankful for all that I have, including my wonderful family. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. What a great opener for the whole holiday season.

I Caught the Baking Bug

One of the things I love about autumn and winter is catching the baking bug. It is one of those many instances where I wish I were a stay at home mom so I could do it more. Anyway, the girls and I have decided that every Friday for the next few months will be baking day. Last week Serenity and I made up our own recipe of chocolate peanut butter spiral cookies. It was a lot of work but they turned out purdy good. This week Cadence got in on the act too. She made brownies with white chocolate chips. Serenity made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I helped both girls, but really they did the majority of the work. We did it all from scratch and by hand too. No mixers, no short-cuts. I figure if they learn these things first the old fashioned way, then when they use modern tools it will be that much easier and they can be confident in their knowledge and skill. They are both learning really well and we have fun dancing to the radio while we are together in the kitchen.

Constant Change

Change does not come easily to all, but really it is one of the few things in this life that you can count on. I feel like healthy, frequent changes can be fun and an opportunity for growth. It can be a chance for experimentation, exploration, and discovery. I am not one to think that that shouldn't apply to me OR my hair. People often tell me that I am so brave when it comes to my hair. Why not? It grows back. Mistakes can be fixed. You might as well have fun with it, is my thought on the matter. I do what I want to do with it, why stay bored just because others are closed minded or afraid of things that are different.

So, it is all gone... again. Well, not ALL. The before pictures are kinda awful, but mostly because my hair was a bit greasy. I wasn't gonna wash it before hand just to look better in the before pictures. We cut off about seven inches. How liberating.

BEFORE

AFTER







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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We had a very fun Halloween this year. It was crazy and rushed and tiring, but we had a blast. We spent a lot of this Halloween with Seth's Family, we are enjoying them living so much closer. We also had a lot of fun pulling together our costumes for this year.

CADENCE

I doubt that anyone who knows Cadence will be surprised that she wanted to be a princess. Nor with it be a surprise that she wanted to be her favorite princess, whom she actually looks a lot like. BELLE. Seth helped me get a wonderful dress for her and I picked this one because it is really two costumes in one and therefore a little warmer. Doesn't she just look demure?

SERENITY

My beautiful Serenity DID surprise me a bit when she informed me that this year she wanted to be .....a WEREWOLF?! Are you sure? Yup. Not only that, but she couldn't wear a mask to school. So we went and bought some old jeans and a flannel shirt at the D.I. and bought some face paints. We also got some fur and some spirit gum for her face and some scary furry gloves. We ratted her usually beautiful hair. Put that all together and you have one scary werewolf that several people thought was a boy. To which I would say, "no, that is my beautiful baby-girl." However, she looked so freakin' awesome!

Hillory

Myself, I thought I would be clever and use the accessories I already have one this year. Especially since this will hopefully be my only Halloween with braces on my teeth. So this year I was "UGLY BETTY". I got a wig of dark frizzy hair. Bought some hideous clothing again at the D.I. Then the only make-up I had to do was to make my eyebrows bushy caterpillars. I am still confident in my real beauty to be comfortable enough that I don't typically look this bad. But it was fun and the looks I got from people said they thought it was clever too.

The whole day was fun, but the best part is being together. One of the most fun moments was at the end of the night. We got in the car to come home from Seth's house and the radio had on some really fun halloween-ish music playing. Songs like Michael Jackson's "Thriller", Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me", INXS' "Devil Inside". I think we were a bit slap-happy and hyper by this point. So even though we were exhausted, we sang along and danced the whole ride home. I so love these fun girls I've got.