four point oh!!

This morning Steve and I had the pleasure of watching Geoffrey receive the distinction of "Principal's List" at an honors ceremony at his school.  The Principal's List is for the students who have achieved a grade point average of 4.0!

Proud is a good word to describe how we feel about Geoffrey's accomplishment, but I'm not sure it says enough.  I've already written about Geoffrey's struggle with bullying (here and here).  He has really been through so much, so I am very impressed that he maintained the level of focus needed to reach this goal.  This is a really good kid!  He works hard and does his best... that's all we ever ask.

The world is waiting, kid!

beaded box braids

With Hope's birthday last weekend, we wanted to do something really special for her hair.  I would consider small box braids to be a 'signature' look for Hope... I love these braids for many reasons.  I myself have not yet learned to cornrow (I know, I know...), but lots and lots of small box braids is something I can do well.  If I don't mind saying so myself, when I complete this style on Hope I am always impressed at the nice parts and the look of the braids themselves.  Braids do take longer to put in (and take out, but let's not think about that right now...), but they last for us a nice, long time.  Last time Hope wore braids they lasted about 6 weeks, and we made very good use of them.  I do like twists in Hope's hair as well, but I've noticed that I need to be careful with them as her hair seems to want to almost lock when it is twisted.

These braids were styled over three days, and Hope did want to add beads to them.  She selected pink beads and some special crown beads, which were just right for her Princess Party.

We followed the "skip a step" method of going directly from one style to the next skipping the detangling step (that's always nice).  I washed and conditioned (with Organix Coconut Milk) Hope's hair in the bath with her previous rope twists still in.  I followed that with some coconut oil and a quick spray of jojoba oil.  I have no photos of it, but I then banded the twists (much in the same way as I would band her loose, detangled hair for stretching) to preserve some length as they dried.  The next day I began the process of untwisting and braiding... from the bottom up, literally one twist at a time.  Each twist usually became 3 braids, though in some cases 2 or 4.  I kept the same 'headband' or 'ear to ear' part, and made use of the previous part lines in the back as well.

As I mentioned, I braided Hope's hair over the course of three days.  Product-wise, I used Sugar Berries pomade from Oyin Handmade.  The first day, the hair was still slightly damp and the twists removed pretty easily.  By the second day, the hair felt a bit more dry and the strands from the rope twists seemed almost like 'pre-locks.'  It wasn't that easy to untwist them to divide and braid each one.  Eventually I got smart enough to spray each twist with Juices & Berries from Oyin Handmade before untwisting.

I wanted to give the front of Hope's style a fancier look.  Essentially, what I put in were mini piggyback braids, starting just above each ear and moving upward, just like a braided headband.  I joined these in an off-center ponytail, and then put in a bunch of little braids.  I covered the rubber bands with large pink beads (except for the one holding the ponytail).  It does look really pretty, and I liked that it took Hope's hair off of her face, too.  I will be removing this part of the style later this week, in favor of more box braids, as I do not like the use of rubber bands at the base of her hair.  (Yes, I know I used rubber bands with the beads, but that is just the price we choose to pay for giving a little girl what she wanted in her hair.)

After the last braid was completed, Hope rushed off to her room to look in the mirror.  As she left her room, she was saying "It's just what I always wanted!"  That alone made it all worth it to me.

funny cat

A simple, necessary household task became pretty entertaining this evening.  Hope and I were working on cleaning out and reorganizing her dresser.  Our family cat, Willow, decided to join us.  I don't just mean join us in the room... I mean join us by climbing right into the open bottom dresser drawer.

Of course, since we were in the process of removing clothes from this drawer, Willow unfortunately could not stay in this cozy spot.  But she sure did give the kids a good laugh.  (Me, too!  So happy my iPhone was in my pocket to snap these pictures.)

4!

In our family, it was a very special day today... Hope's birthday!  As Hope said, "Today's my birgay!?!  Now I'm 4!?!  I'm not 3 anymore?"  

The day began with Hope opening up her presents.  

Geoffrey gave Hope some of his toys from when he was little.  Of course, I didn't think about the fact that the toys were stored in an old Pampers box.  Hope pulled off the wrapping paper, and said "Baby diapers?" which resulted in minutes of her and Geoffrey just laughing and laughing.

After gifts, it was time to get ready for a Princess Day.  Hope's friends would be arriving later in the afternoon, and were invited to dress as princesses.  So, of course, Hope wanted to start to dress the part immediately after breakfast.  (By the way, she started the day in one dress--Princess Tiana's gown--then had her first change into a pink princess gown before her party, and during the party changed again into a different gown.)

After getting dressed in her (first) gown, it was time to pick up Hope's very special birthday cake.  Hope had gone with me to order the cake, which was to feature her very own Princess Tiana doll.  She was fairly disapointed that Princess Tiana did  not come home with us from the bakery, but we decided that Tiana was on an adventure at the bakery.  Needless to say, Hope was thrilled when she saw the way her cake had turned out.

The Princess Party was a big hit for Hope and her 3 friends!  Highlights included:

~crown decorating

~dancing, complete with dancing ribbons (each girl selected the ribbons she wanted, which I tied on to a ring)

~reading of "Princess and the Pea," followed by each girl's Princess Test (I hid a pea--an apple, actually--under one of four pillows and the girls had to see if they could find the pillow that had the pea... if they could find it then they were a Real Princess.  Each girl was awarded with a princess wand.)

~a game of "Put the tiara on Rapunzel" (think pin the tail on the donkey, but Princess-style)

~a piñata (the best part was how well-mannered the girls were when the candy came out of the piñata... I've never seen anything like it!)

~of course, presents and that beautiful cake!

I am so happy with how Hope's "Happy Birthday" turned out for her.  She was just so excited these last few days leading up to her birthday, and it was so special to watch her enjoy this day.  I had stayed up late last night putting up all her decorations and getting the girls' prizes and treat bags ready.  It was so neat to see her reaction to my party preparations... during lunch she looked around once again, and said "Look at this celebration!"

Hope is such a joy!  I'm so proud of how she has grown this last year, and I can't wait to watch all that she accomplishes while she's 4!

I love you Hope!  Happy Birthday!

precious son

My Mother's Heart has carried many different feelings throughout the years...

There are the most obvious feelings...
Love
Pride
Gratitude

The fun feelings...
Excitement
Wonder

Even sad feelings... often felt with my children...
Disappointment
Loneliness
Frustration

When I contemplate the future...
Anticipation
oh, and then there's Pride again

But there are moments for a Mother's Heart when feelings, unexpected feelings, cannot even be named.  How do you possibly find a name for the feelings that fill your Mother's Heart when your child is going through a storm?

How could Sadness be a big enough word when you know your son is being bullied, being told he is worthless?

How could Helpless be a strong enough word to describe the feeling of sending your boy into the hallways of his school, where bullies tell him things he should never have to hear?

How could Angry really describe that primal, Mama Bear instinct that is evoked when he shares the details of what a certain boy has been saying to him?

And how could Fear ever come close to naming that feeling when he tells you things you never thought you'd hear him say?

This Mother's Heart needs prayers for her precious son.

twists & a trim

It's another 'installment' in my "Not a Hair Blog" Feature.  I enjoy reading natural hair care blogs, and I get so excited when I find beautiful pictures of girls of all ages with healthy, kinky, curly hair.  I love to share those pictures with my girl Hope, and really like seeing her reaction to seeing them.  Even though thoughts of having our own hair blog do swirl from time to time, I'm happy to just keep on including hair posts here.  (wink to Miss Jen!)

Hope's free hair has now been restyled in two-stranded rope twists.  Rope twists are different than regular two-stranded twists because each strand is individually twisted in one direction, while the two strands are then twisted together in the opposite direction.  This is a great way to preserve length in the hair, as the twists will not 'puff' up quite as much as regular twists.  These twists were a good choice for me as I knew that I was going to be giving Hope's hair a trim.

So here are the pics...

...and after the trim I gave her (just a little length off)

And... if you are interested, here's what we did:

I washed and conditioned Hope's hair (using Organix Coconut Milk) on Thursday, detangling in the bath (mostly finger detangling with some use of my detangling comb).  I did this in sections.  After rinsing out the conditioner, I sprayed each section with a jojoba oil (from Carol's Daughter).  I did a more thorough detangling comb-through while Hope's hair was still wet, with the help of a product I love by Talijah Waajid called The Great Detangler.  Even though she had been wearing loose hair, Hope's hair really wasn't tangled, and it was very well moisturized, so our comb-out went very smoothly.  I parted her hair down the middle, and also used what's called a 'headband' part in the front (or an 'ear to ear' part), dividing the hair into six sections.  I banded each section for stretching (using lots of cloth pony o's) and that was it for day one.

Friday, I began removing bands one section at a time and putting in the two-stranded rope twists.  I used two products from Oyin Handmade (love this company's products!):  Shine and Define styling creme, and Sugar Berries pomade.  It was very fast work for me, and a total of 44 twists went in.  I didn't use anything to keep the twists in, as Hope's stay in easily on their own.  Also, I knew I wanted to trim her ends (did that on Sunday) so I didn't want to bother with barrettes or beads.

Hope is all about the headbands right now so she is constantly adding one to her look (and then changing it later in the day... at least once).  I expect that she will continue to wear her twists (with the headband of course) for a couple of weeks, but I plan to reset before her birthday.  (She wants curly braids...)

So I knew that Hope's twists looked really good, healthy, and shiny.  I was pretty proud of how well they turned out.  Then, this morning, as we were leaving the gym, an African American woman stopped us to admire Hope's hair and ask me all about the style (what I did, what products I used, etc).  She even asked me how I learned to take care of this type of hair, and I felt good knowing that she was impressed.  Score one for Momma!