Bangs Tutorial

Okay let me preface this post quickly by saying this is the only time you'll see me posting a tutorial for hair cutting.  I'm not going to teach you how to cut hair... that's what I paid lots of money for :)

That being said, you DO get this one post, because my sweet cousin is cutting her own bangs today and I didn't want her to end up looking like this:

I happened to be planning on cutting my bangs straight across today anyway, so I thought I'd help her out a little!

Without further ado... my straight-across bangs tutorial:

First, section out the part of your hair that you want to be bangs.  If you have crazily long hair (like Karen), lop some of it off. about to your nose or so, to make it more manageable to work with.

Make sure your bangs are blow dried/straightened in the direction you want them to lay.

I usually have the shortest part of my bangs hit just above my eyebrows.  BUT (this is super important), don't just chop off all your bangs at that length. you'll look like a fool.  Take the middle section of your bangs where you want the shortest pieces:

Then pull that hair out from your head:

 NOW-- this is ultra important as well... you want to point-cut your bangs, not just whack them straight across.  This is how you point-cut:

So, you're cutting upward into your bangs, rather than straight across them.  once you have the shortest area done, slowly continue point-cutting toward the edges, making sure you taper the hair (leaving it longer on the sides).

Now, I can't lie... I've met plenty of talented cosmetologists, but I'm the best bangs cutter I know. (Hear that?  It's the sound of me tooting my own horn).  SO... if you need an excellent bang cut or trim, I'm happy to oblige.  If, however, you happen to live a long distance from me and need them cut sooner, I hope this tutorial helps!

Real Adults

It's official; we're adults now.

We're buying a house!  It's a townhouse in Spanish Fork in the Somerset Village community.  It's right at the mouth of the canyon, so it's windy and awesome!  We originally looked into buying a townhouse there when Nikki was buying one, back in June.  Things didn't work out then, but we're so excited they're working out now!  It's a new construction, so we get to choose all the finishes, which I think is the only way to go!  It was so fun to choose my flooring, cabinets and counter tops!   I also decided to forgo the basic bathroom hardware the builder was going to put in, and bought my own instead.  I'm totally customizing my house, and my GOODNESS!  It's such a blast!  The house is scheduled to be done the end of September/beginning of October.  It will be SO nice to have our own place!  I'm particularly excited to see DJ more often, since right now he's commuting to Spanish Fork each day, and between school and football, he doesn't get home til 6:30 every night.  Once we live closer, Lex and I can come visit him during his prep periods, and he can come home for lunch with us.  It's going to be great!  Pictures will be coming as the house progresses, but for now, here's a floor plan!

We're leaving the basement unfinished for now, and plan on hiring Jordan to finish it for us sometime down the road.

Some things I'm particularly excited for:

- A garage

- My cabinets-- they're SO cute

- The laundry room won't just be a closet in my kitchen any more :)

- The third bedroom is going to be my craft room until we have another baby.  YAY!

- I'm going to live across the street from Nikki!!!  Not many people have it as good as me-- not only did I marry my best friend's brother so now we're sisters forever, we get to live like 40 paces from each other!  

Life is good!

6 Months and such

Welp, my baby is half a year old.  I'm loving all the fun things she's learning to do, but dang it's hard to see her getting so big!  Here are her 6-month pictures with her lion: 

She sits!  Can you believe it?  It's funny, cause it seriously happened over night.  DJ and I were talking about how we thought she'd take forEVER to sit on her own, cause she's so grabby that as soon as you set her down she's lunging for something.  She must have heard us or something, cause the next day she was sitting alone.  I love it!

She's also learning to scoot.  It's so fun!  She spins circles and pushes herself backwards until she runs into a wall, furniture, etc.  She hasn't mastered the forward scooch yet, but I'm sure it won't be long.  I'm actually really excited for her to be mobile.  I know she'll get into stuff, but at least that way she can entertain herself! She's so busy that I'm constantly have to move her to different places around the house to keep her happy, and it will be nice when she can do that on her own.

She's becoming the master of the jumper.  It's awesome, and SO cute to watch.  She loves that thing!

Stranger Danger is setting in.  Bummer.  She's always been so happy to go to anyone, but that's certainly not the case any more.  Hopefully that passes soon!

We've discovered one more way that she is completely her daddy's girl; she won't drink plain water, but she LOVES Gatorade.  Go figure.

She's starting to eat more solids, and especially loves french fries (we just squeeze the potato-y part out of the middle and feed that to her).  Again, her daddy's girl... she can't seem to get enough potatoes.  We've also discovered that she loves Jello!

She finally broke her first tooth a little over a week ago, followed by her second a few days later.  Hallelujah!   They're so cute, too!

We went up to PCMC for an x-ray on her hips, and everything is looking great!  She doesn't have to go back for a whole year, which is exciting :)

Her 6-month stats are:

Weight: 14 lbs, 22%
Height: 26.5 in, 76%
Head: 16 in, 58%

Now, for fun, a few more pictures:

 I love her crazy hair, and she does too... she plays with it a lot!

 When she was sick last week, we fed her a strawberry peach smoothie.  She was in heaven.

Bear Lake

Last week [I can't believe it's only been a week-- the past one has been a DOOZIE!]  the Savage Fam met up at Bear Lake for a few days of fun!  We rented a small house close to the lake, and it was great!  First of all, it was cheaper than a hotel (you know I love a good deal!), and the space was much better!  It wasn't a particularly nice house, as in, none of us would choose to live in it permanently, but it was as nice as any hotel we'd stay in, and had much more space!  It was nice to be able to cook our own food, even if it was in unconventional ways, as the kitchen was seriously lacking in the cooking utensils/pots/pans department.  The first night we learned that we could NOT leave the back door open while we talked on the patio, as I spent about 30 minutes smashing HUNDREDS of bugs in the living room, then recruited the fam to help me clean the walls.  So.  Gross.  

The lake was fantastic!  It was the perfect temperature, and was shallow for several hundred yards, so we could walk out really far and just play.  It was great for the younger kids, cause they were free to play in the water without anyone being really concerned, so that was nice!  In that respect, it was MUCH better than our California vacation last year.  Lex loved splashing in the water, and it was hilarious to watch her surprise every time she splashed herself in the face!

I commented to DJ how very different vacations are when you have a baby.   Rather than spending time playing football and baseball in the water with the fam, I spent a good amount of time sitting in the shallow water with Lex, or up on the beach under an umbrella so she could sleep.  Lucky for me, Ranee' spent a lot of time on the beach too, so I had some excellent company!  Everyone was so helpful and willing to watch Lex, so I got to spend some time with the "big kids" too.

We spent the evenings hanging out, watching the Olympics, and getting shakes from the local shake shack about a block from the house.  All in all, it was an excellent week, and I'm so glad for the time we all got to spend together!

 Lex and Auntie "Nay-Nay"

 Lexsi's sunscreen mohawk

 Zonked at the beach

 Keesha burying herself-- love that girl!

 Lex in the lake

 Lex playing with Dad in the lake

 Mut and AJ make sand castles

 Nikki and Vanna work on their tans

 Keesh and Jax making sweet castles

 My girl-- we adore her!

 Keesha's awesome tan!

 The fam at the beach (minus Mom-- she was the photographer)

DJ playing with Lex at the beach

Just For Kicks

My sweet little baby niece got blessed yesterday.  I love that girl!  She was blessed in the same dress that my sister, Lex and I were all blessed in as well.  Since our baby girls are SO close in age (4 months and 1 day apart), I thought it would be fun to post pictures of both of them in the same dress that they can look back at some day!  Lexsi was blessed on the day she turned two months old, and Annie was blessed 11 days before she turned 2 months, so there's a tiny difference in their age at the time of their blessing.

Don't you love the difference in their hair?!  Lex is such a wild haired little child and Annie's is so soft and sweet!  (She does have hair, it's just very light and hard to see in the pictures.)

They don't look much alike, but I really think these girlies are in for a lifetime of fun together!!!

Serious Makeover

I had the best time today.

My mom has been re-vamping her room, and a few days ago while we were out getting fabric for her canopy, we stumbled upon some seriously awesome upholstery fabric.  She bought a yard to recover her cedar chest bench.  While sitting in her room talking to her, I suggested she totally re-do the cedar chest; a little paint would be perfect with the new seat cover.  She agreed, and told me I could do it.  Here's what the chest looked like before:

 Obviously, the fabric was on a cushion, but at this point it had already been recovered.  So I just laid it on top so you can see how awesomely out-of-date it is.

This really is a great piece of furniture.  I've always loved it.  Even from the time I was really small, I remember loving to see the treasures it held.  To this day, the sound of the hinge as it opens and the smell that comes with it takes me right back to being a kid.  I love that.


Originally, we had talked about painting it blue or off-white.  While in her bedroom yesterday, I realized what the room really needed was a touch of yellow.  I happened to have a gallon of yellow paint in my storage room, so I went with my gut and painted that bad boy!

Beautiful, right?  I'm obsessed.  I'm crossing my fingers that my mom likes it too!  (She hasn't seen it in person yet).  After painting the chest yellow, I realized the hardware clashed horribly with the color, so I went out and got new knobs and drawer pulls that played off the pattern on the seat:

A couple close ups of the awesome fabric:

And here it is in her room!  I love how light it is, with all the dark furniture in the room.  And are you in love with that canopy?  She totally rigged it up herself last night!

I'm positive my dad will not be as happy about the change as I am-- he has the idea that good wood shouldn't be painted.  BUT-- as long as my mama's happy, I'll be happy :)

My Front Door Is Yellow

I can't even describe how happy this makes me!

Thank you, thank you to my fabulous husband, who made this dream a reality today!!!

The thing is...

... I've made no time to blog lately.  So... here we go, with lots of pictures.

Lex is learning to stand with support.

Meggin and her family came to town, and we loved playing with them!

 This sweet girl was so fun to snuggle!!!

I love these girls!  They're 4 months and 1 day apart, and I have the

 feeling their going to be great friends one day!

 McKay was SO good to Lex, he even brushed her hair :)

 DJ loved snuggling Annie too.

Stinkin cutest little thing!

5 months old with her lion

Crazy hair... this is a daily occurence.

Ready for church

Melin with Lex and Kate

Just chillin (she really does have a diaper on-- she's not completely naked!)

 Relaxing with Daddy

She's LOVING her jumper lately... 

And that's it.  We're loving life around here!!!