flower potluck baby shower

my sweet friends olga, la ray, and jessie threw me a baby shower - it was like the baby shower i always envisioned i would have if/when i finally came around to having a babe.   they did a flower potluck theme and that was the main activity - simple! delicious finger foods, cock(mock)tails, and just all/most of my friends.  there, for me.  it was so overwhelming all the love seeping out of these women i could barely handle it.  granted, wes and i were thrown several showers - one by his work, my work, and one by my mama-in-law - and we couldn't be more appreciative of people coming around to pour out their love towards our "incoming".

anyway, here are some pics from the flower potluck.  all of the flowers made for some beautiful pictures.  my friend liska assumed the role of documenting everything with my camera which i couldn't be more thankful for.

these clowns put together my dream flower crown.

amazing bill murray onesie from truly sanctuary  included in my gift from aglassjar.

christine making her bouquet

that's about it - this was three weeks ago and i'm now full term - just awaiting our babe's arrival - not due till october 27th but we don't mind if she shows up any day now even though we're around 80% ready for her arrival.  we're still working on the name - sounds pretty sad that we don't have one picked out but whatever it'll be, it'll be so her.

peace out!

it's been some time but i'm back! and i'm 30 now. AND 8 and a half months pregnant 0_o

we finally finished the house and it's been feeling more like home with every project we knocked out of the way.  when we moved in about two months ago, it still felt pretty construction site-y.  luckily we've had reasons to get moving on these projects - like house guests who stayed over the weekend for a friend's wedding (we had to finish the guest bathroom) and also a big 30th birthday bash that wes put together for me.  let's just say we've had fire under our butts to get things done. it was hectic and stressful, and so many of our friends lent helping hands, but so worth it! and all throughout, the camera has been stowed away and sadly we have very little documented that i can put up here.  we've been so preoccupied with finishing this house i think the whole process demotivated my creative/journalistic wheel a little bit.

BUT, we did photograph some of my party.  although it was a bday party, because we had folks from every corner of my life, it also served as a bit of a house warming.  it's not often we throw such big bashes, but when life calls for them - they are definitely a must and super fun ;-)

these two drove up all the way from fresno too and liska helped me with some of the food prep :-*

we had a little taco bar with all the fixings - cuz who doesn't like a taco! a bunch of my friends contributed on the fixings and it made it extra special.

anyway - that's all folks.  thanks for checking in! now that it's mellowing out a little bit i'll be sure to update more ;-)

six months (and two weeks) along

and getting bigger!  a good friend reminded me that despite how often opposed i am to taking pictures while pregnant, it truly is a special time and documenting it is pretty important.  my body is growing a human being - and the (lately not so) gradual transformation is kind of insane!  i often go between extremes of feeling like a gross beer-bellied man and feeling actually pretty decent and lovely.  sometimes for a split second i'll forget i'm pregnant only to look down at my growing gut and freak myself out a little bit.  and to think, i have three more months of growth - yikes! she's going to be a big girl :)

also, it's been a busy few weeks with our new place - we're making some changes to it before moving in.  at this point it's pretty overwhelming but i know when it's all done it will have so much more value to us knowing we put our own sweat into it. wes is doing most of the sweating of course, but i can do a job or two ;)

that's a wrap! good night peeps :) 

little bangs

bangs are one of my favorite things to cut.  you can go so many different ways with them and they yield an instant look! a good fringe speaks for itself - whether it's subtle or bold.  personally i would wear bangs a lot more often if i knew wes was a fan of them on me.  i can wear my hair super short or long - he won't care but bangs are not his fav.  i'll keep revisiting them here and there to warm him up - plus - i just like them.  in the meantime...i project them on my clients ;-p

anywho - my sweet new client kerina came in for a bang trim and went for the semi-micro bangs. they instantly opened up her gorgeous eyes and brows - plus they work so well with the layers in her hair.

here are more little bangs i secretly covet ;)

 source

 source

source

source 

bang trim anyone? hehe

modern bowl cut

a recent haircut that i added to my repertoire thanks to my friend liska who requested it.  it's not every day i get a client asking for this look so you can bet i was excited that she entrusted it to me - and i absolutely love it on her!

different versions of the bowl (or halo) haircut make for such a fun and bold change.  here's some more inspo from one of my fav blogs, she lets her hair down - this and this.

all images by nate cole. 

thanks guys! 

Dark to blonde

My lovely friend lidiya asked me the other day how many visits it would take for her to go from brown/black hair to julianne hough's blonde. Very smart to ask that because most people know that dark dark to blonde blonde is rarely a one visit situation - especially if you've been coloring your hair dark for years.

so far she's had two appointments and i'll say we're getting there. we went from stripping all the old hair dye (you really never know what you're going to get when you do that) to fully highlighting everything else and ended up with a lovely golden blonde.  she has to get it toned regularly to control what's still left of the old stubborn color, but she's definitely blonde! anyway, here's the two week transition thus far ;)

 we were talking about how truly different you become when you change color so drastically - having to use a different color on your brows and cheeks and how even some clothes work better than others.  reminds me when i went entirely platinum about four years ago.  it did a number to my hair but lets be real, when you transition so quickly the rugged texture kind of goes without saying.  after deep conditioning treatments to replenish some of that lost moisture (one of my fav's is melu by davines - pronounced dah-vin-ess), the hair is still left with a little bit of what i like to call "true grit" (sounds like a title for a movie ;-p).  in fact that's part of what i love so much about going really blonde - the awesome texture! 

thanks guys! 

anniversary and munchkin

hello everyone! 

on thursday we found out we're having a girl! (i had a feeling :) anyway we set off for our little anniversary trip right after the appointment so we were really able to mull over different girl names.  we had a good laugh over if we named her joni and she'd be joni matchell! can you imagine the grief this girl would get all her life - she'd have to be like "yes like joni mitchell but with an 'a' instead of the 'i'". rolls eyes.  

on another note we've been married 5 years now which is nuts to me.  it's only been 5! i realize out of the almost 30 years of my life, only about 8 of them were spent with wes.  sometimes i think, who IS he even?! we become such a daily part of each other that i forget we're two different people sometimes.  is that weird?  it's the coolest feeling in the world.  we're like home to each other. i'm sure someone who's been married way longer would be reading this going "you're telling me". haha

here's a little bit about the weekend.

we spent one night in oakland after hanging out in san francisco for a day and then set off for mendocino/fort bragg. this is how i spent the night in our hotel in oakland. in a chair by the window!

we were given a smoking room - being pregnant i was exceptionally angry about this, but it was really too late and we were too tired to try to fight with travelocity and wait for them to find rooms in other hotels. 

fort bragg was a treat though. we stayed at clara's cottages which we tracked using airbnb for the first time and we totally loved it! the pics will probably be boring - we didn't do too much else other than walk along the beach and hang out at the cottage, totally unplugged for the most part.  what a difference it makes.

this is sort of a prego belly shot. sometimes i look more pregnant than others. 

the beach was pretty close to our cottage but you had to get through like three different dune "mountain" ranges and though the beach seemed close-by...if felt farther and farther the closer you got.  it was easy to get disoriented so we made land markers....like these two camel humps. or something else ;P 

that is definitely a names book - just for a couple ideas.  although it seems like that's all we were consumed with (lol), i promise we talked about a slew of other things and not just baby.  we're NOT those people.  jk!!! probably were. we also revisited how we grew up and high school years and all that.  so fun to remember and laugh about! younger and wilder days  (i would argue i'm wilder now, but...)

that's about it. now we're getting all set up for our little munchkin.  got a new home so we're having to go through stuff and eventually pack up. a little overwhelming but exciting at the same time. 

thanks for checking in guys! i really hope posts like this aren't too boring. i know i like them. i do intend to blog more about all things hair intermittently. i just like life in general all the same ;) i'll figure it out.