Cutting it all Off

I've been toying with cutting my hair for quite some time.  My hair had gotten really long, more than halfway down my back.  Sure it was pretty, but just not feasible.  It was a nightmare to comb through after a shower, it got caught in my armpits, Nova pulls it out by the handful, Marshall rolls on it at night and pulls it, it takes 40 minutes to dry and style.  Because of those things listed, it was in a pony tail or bun 90% of the time and I wore it wet more often than not.  I decided to act on an impulse and cut it all off.  Not just to my shoulders, bob or a-line but in a pixie cut.  I took some before pictures....


And took these pictures with me for inspiration.





I went to a posh salon in Salt Lake that was pretty expensive but I wanted someone who knew what they were doing with pixie cuts.  We decided on the shortest pixie cut as it would work best with my hair type.  I have incredibly thick, coarse and naturally curly hair in the back.  It's both a blessing and a curse.  Any time I get my hair cut by someone who doesn't know me, they comment multiple times on how thick it is.  Once we cut the braid off that I will donate, my head felt so much lighter!

Margo, the gal who cut my hair did such a fantastic job!  I'm still trying to figure out the back since it's got so much curl.  It's a little weird right now and I'm going to try a few things but I absolutely love the front.  I feel proud of myself for being brave and daring and trying something new.  Hair will grow back. :)

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about the cut.  One minute I love it and the next minute I'm not so sure.  Running is so nice though, no heavy hair beating on my back with every step that I take.  I also notice that I am better about getting ready in the morning, full makeup and my hair is done in 10 minutes instead of 40!

Nova at 1 Year

This last year has literally flown by.  I look back at how much the kids have grown and developed and I'm sad that I've let the blog go.  I take a lot of pictures day to day but there are details that I've forgotten as well.  I look at how much of the first year that I have of the boys, especially Rowan on this blog and I realize that I need to change.  It's so fun to look back and remember things that I had completely forgotten. I've set goals for myself to blog at least twice if not more.  I've also got some catching up to do!

Our sweet Nova dolly turned 1 year on the 21st.  I need to take her in for her well baby checkup but Marshall recently switched jobs, so we are on transitional insurance until October so she will have her checkup then.  I think she is close to 21 lbs but I'm not sure how tall she is.  Her weight has slowed down a lot like the boys did and she's starting to get more lean.  She's only gained about 1 lb in the last 3 months.  

Nova started walking when she was 11 months and 1 week old.  She had been taking steps for a few weeks but one day she decided that this was it and she was going to walk!  She's still a bit wobbly, but does really great and is getting the hang of it a month later.  Here's a little clip of the day she she decided she wanted to walk!

She doesn't sleep through the night and I enable her by nursing her a lot at night.  Nights when I'm on call or at work lately, Marshall is able to soothe her and get her back to bed but it takes some time. When I nurse her, she is out again in 5 minutes.  She has been sleeping in her crib since about 8 months.  At 8 months, she started pulling herself up and rocking her rock and play all around.  I tried co-sleeping for a few nights and I just didn't sleep well.  I was so paranoid that I was going to roll over on her so she went to her crib.  We've decided that we are going to try to break the habit of her getting up so much at night so Marshall is going to be getting up with her instead of me. We will see how it goes.

Nova loves food and is especially interested in anything you are eating.  I've definitely been more relaxed and she's had more sweets than the boys did.  She is still nursing on demand.  She usually nurses 3-4 times during the day and then on and off all night.  I've really enjoyed the relationship and plan on nursing her until 2 or maybe until I get pregnant again, we are just going to play it by ear.  Some of her favorite foods include:  peas, edamame, cheese, beans, mangos,  watermelon, pretzels and chicken.  She's not a fan of eggs.  I'm not sure if she doesn't like the texture but every time I try to feed them to her she just throws them on the floor.  She does well with sippy cups, especially the straw cups.  It took my boys quite some time to get the hang of a straw cup and she had it figured out at 8 months.  It was pretty fun to watch.  She likes to walk around with a sippy of water.  She has whole milk occasionally but not like the boys did at this age.  I transitioned the boys to whole milk at this point and since I am still nursing her, I don't see the need to push the milk.

Nova is saying a few words here.  She says wow, mama, dada, nom nom and babbles a lot of other nonsense.  She loves her paci and I don't see her giving it up anytime soon.

She cut her first tooth just before 6 months and she's got 10 teeth now.  4 on top, 4 on bottom and two bottom molars.  She's got two more out on the front bottom that are getting ready to poke through and her top molars are really close to coming through as well.  She does a really good job eating solid foods and working it around.  We weren't in the baby food stage for very long, she just wanted to eat what everyone else was eating.

She has definitely become a mama's girl and prefers me over anyone else.  She loves her daddy but will reach for me whenever she sees me.  I won't lie, it makes me feel good!    Nova loves to play with toys and loves her baby dolls and crawling minnie she got for her birthday.  She also loves ball poppers.  

She's got a nice thick head of hair and it's coming in really evenly which I am excited about.  She's been able to wear pony tails on the top of her head for quite some time and her bangs are in her eyes so we have to keep them clipped back.  She also has a ridiculous wardrobe.  I am constantly buying clothes for her if I find a good deal and it's so fun for me to dress her up in the morning because she looks adorable no matter what!  

She loves to swing and we got a swing for her for the playset outside.  She will swing for a long long time if you let her.  

I just love this girl.  I'm so lucky to be her mom and spend time with her.  I hope she knows how loved she is!!

Snedaker Reunion 2014

It's gotten to the point that Marshall's family is going to start having an annual reunion.  Everyone used to live so close but in the last year or so they've moved to Arizona, Texas and the other side of Idaho.  This year, we spent time at Snedakers and also at Bear Lake.  When we went down to Bear Lake, we were able to see a lot of Marshall's cousins that they grew up with.  It was fun to see them as it has been years since we've seen some of them.


It was the perfect day at Bear Lake.  The weather was so nice, the water was cool but not freezing and the sand was great between the toes.  We rode jet skis, played in the water, laughed and ate.  Nova loved the sand and couldn't get enough of it.  She wasn't quite walking yet at the time so she crawled everywhere.  Chandler loved going on the jet skis and got to go out multiple times.  Rowan was content to play and build sand castles in the sand.

We were able to get a picture of our whole family which doesn't happen very often.

Chandler & The PineWood Derby

(This is a post from April that I'm finally getting published but was written months ago!)


Although Chandler turned 8 back in November, he didn't really start scouting until January.  Since we were moving, we didn't want to get him started in one ward just to leave.  He's loved scouting so far and is with a great group of boys.  His leader, Sister Liddle lives just around the corner and he looks forward to scouts because she's such a great leader.  He's earned about 4 belt loops and his bobcat so far.  We need to get working on some of the other stuff as he will be moving up in November.


Last month, I got called to Cub Scout Chair in our ward.  My mom was in scouting for 20+ years so I remember a lot of things being revolved around scouting growing up but I still feel like a fish out of water not really knowing what I'm doing.  I'm starting to learn though!  Because there aren't a ton of boys in cub scouts in our ward, we meet with 2 other wards.   The Pinewood derby was this last Wednesday and Chandler was so excited! He and Marshall made the car together and he loved painting it.  He said it was a go cart from Mario cart and was going for Bowsers cart.  When getting his car ready, we didn't use graphite because in some wards it is against the rules.  When the races started, it was apparent this wasn't the case here.  There were about 30 boys and Chandler got 4th place his first few races.  As he started racing some of the other cars, he got second and eventually took 1st in one heat.  I will never forget his face as he won 1st in that one heat.  It was everything to him.  In hindsight, Marshall said he will keep winning in mind for next year.

End of School 2014

The boys did really great with their transition and the end of school this year.  I was so worried about how it was going to affect them, especially Rowan.

Chandler was in Mrs. Losee's class and fit right in.  He made a couple of good friends, especially his friend Scott.  School has come pretty naturally to him and he's testing about 2 years ahead in his reading and is doing well in other subjects too.  He normally has his homework done in about 5 minutes when he gets home.  I was really bad about doing spelling with him this year and he only missed 2 spelling words the entire year.  Memorization and spelling was always something that came naturally to me so it's fun to see it coming naturally to him as well.  Chandler's school incorporates the Leader in Me program which helps the kids learn leadership.  At the end of the school year, he earned a special leadership award.  One child in each classroom earns an academic award and one earns the leadership award so I was so excited to see that Chandler had earned this.  We went to a special assembly and he wasn't aware he was getting it until they called his name.  Chandler is a hard worker, very witty and fun to be around.

Rowan didn't finish up the school year until July.  He was on a year round track since he was in diagnostic kindergarten and is going to be mainstreamed for this next school year.  He will spend up to half the day in resource depending on how he does.  He tends to thrive a lot more in a small group setting so it should be interesting to see how he does being thrown into a class of 25-30 kids full time.  I'm hoping that he will get more time in resource.  He's actually testing at grade level right now, but struggles with cause and effect, putting things together how they should, focusing and being consistent.  He is amazing at making friends and is very friendly.  He is also so good at problem solving and is one of his big strengths.  His teacher for the second half of the year was Miss Emily.  She was amazing and he loved her.  She was patient, caring and everything Rowan needed.  Rowan would get on the bus at 7:15 every morning for this new school so he ate breakfast at school.  He thought that was fun and a highlight of his day.  I can't wait to see what 1st grade has in store for him!

Nova at 9 Months

Nova is growing so quickly and is doing so many fun things! She started crawling at 7 1/2 months and is eating whatever she can get her hands on.

Here are her 9 month stats:

• 19 lbs 12 oz 
• 28"

Nova at 6 Months

I realized that for the first time in almost 6 years, I went an entire month without blogging on the family blog.  It really makes me sad because this blog has been a point of reference for me and it has been fun to look back on.  I'm setting a goal to blog at least 3 times a month, just for us and to look back on.  I am pretty active on my other blog, instagram and facebook, but that doesn't record feelings or more than a snapshot and a photo or two.  I have so much more on the boys when they were little and I don't want to forget Nova at this age.

When Nova was 6 months in February, we went to Fotofly and had her 6 month pictures done.  She was such a ham and a great baby.  We got some great shots and blew them up.

At 6 months:
Weight - 17 lbs 11 oz
Height - 27"

Says: dada and nana

Eats: Mostly breastmilk and some solids.

Here are all of the pictures we got.  It's overload but the cuteness is worth it!