Park City

We had a Getaway Today credit that was about to expire so we decided to use it to spend a couple of nights in Park City over Memorial Day weekend. Ben works late several nights a week and a lot of times the kids don't get to see him for a day or two at a time so it was great to just be together as the 4 of us and not have any place we had to go or anything we had to do. We had planned to do a couple of hikes and go to the playground at the outlets but it rained or snowed the entire time we were there (yes, it is the end of May and yes, Utah is supposedly a desert. Apparently Mother Nature didn't get the memo.). The bad weather ended up being a blessing in disguise though because we just got to hang out at the hotel almost the whole weekend. That led to a lot of playing together in our room

and lots and lots and lots of swimming.

I'm sure smitten with my handsome little man. I love those blue eyes and looking at him up close with the water on his little eyelashes was killing me. He is seriously the best little boy around.

His Dad is pretty awesome too and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Kiara is quite the Daddy's girl!

I am so proud of how far Kiara has come in regards to swimming. Last year she wasn't willing to wear floaties or even let anyone hold her in the water, she just wanted to sit on the step and play the whole time. This year she is completely independent and not only swims all over the pool by herself but will jump off the side and dunk her whole head under water. We were so impressed with her newfound confidence and kept raving about how well she was doing. It was so great to see her so proud of herself and prove to herself that she could do things that she used to be afraid of. Our little girl is growing up!

Once we checked out of the hotel on Monday the weather had finally cleared up so we went and checked out the Olympic museum. It was a really cool place and had a lot more interactive activities than I expected. On our way in to the museum I said, "Kiara look at Mom" and this was the end result:

Boston loves phones right now so this little exhibit where you could listen to tips from a ski expert was right up his alley.

Kiara and Ben "skiing"

There are those blue eyes again. They get me every time!

It was a great weekend that ended with a super fun BBQ with all of my family. Let summer begin!

Goodbye Preschool!

Kiara had her end of the year preschool program last week. She was so focused on following her teacher and sang each song loudly and clearly. We were so proud of her! She is quite the little performer and we love watching her.

Getting her graduation certificate from her teacher:

We are so proud of our little graduate and I can't wait to have her home this summer!

Kiara and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Yesterday was a bad day. Like really, really bad. Kiara's hair has always been a struggle, practially since the day she was born, so yesterday I finally broke down and took her in to a salon to have braids put in. We were both really excited about this new change and the amount of time/energy/pain we would save on a daily basis by having the braids. I washed her hair right before her appointment and brushed/combed it as thoroughly as possible. This is how it looked when we left the house:

And here it is 45 minutes later by the time we got to the salon:

It's still so amazing to me how fast it kinks up and dries out. The stylist couldn't believe how much hair she had and how thick it was. She didn't believe me when I told her I had just relaxed it a week ago and told me that I'll have to start using adult relaxer on it since it's basically adult hair on a 4-year-old head!

My poor baby really tried to be brave but it hurts her so badly to have her thick, dense hair combed that within 2 minutes of sitting in that chair she started sobbing. Once the hair was all combed she cornrowed it and Kiara got a couple minute reprieve from the pain and we got a break from the screaming!

I've never seen fingers move as fast as this lady's did while she did the cornrows! She was amazing and I think the crying just motivated her to move even faster :)

Once the cornrows were all done she put the synthetic braids in with a crochet hook. To do that she had to go under each part of the cornrow which (understandably) hurt my sweet princess so much but it was pretty interesting to watch. To give you an idea of how much hair Kiara has, the stylist said she usually uses around 5-7 packs of braids and Kiara needed 11! Crazy!

Finally, after 20 2 1/2 hours of crying, screaming and bribery, we were finished and I instantly got my happy girl back. I've never been so happy to see her smile!

Before she cut the braids:

At home after the braids were cut:

She picked that doll out for her prize after enduring such a crappy day. I think she deserves like 10 of those things! In the long run I know these braids will be better for her and for the health of her hair, especially with summer and endless swimming upon us. She's already so excited that I don't have to use the brush or lotion every day and keeps reminding me that we won't have to do that stuff anymore. The best part of these braids is that they should last 10 weeks, and what a glorious 10 weeks they'll be!