Happy Birthday, June!

We interrupt these Frost reunion posts to bring you big news:

June is now two years old!

She was pretty reticent during our photo shoot, and all the close ups I took were slightly blurry, but oh well. The photos capture her little personality.

Because her birthday was on Sunday, we broke up the festivities over two days: swimming and ice cream on Saturday, dinner and presents on Sunday!

Jiichan & Baachan and Rika & Brady joined us at the pool. June didn't really want to swim, but she enjoyed the water. She even got a fun new water table from Jiichan and Baachan that she immediately took to playing with.

I'd like people to note the evidence that Mom was in the water, which almost never happens. She sinks unless she's got a flotation device, as evidenced above.

I tried to think of things June loves to make her day special. I decided bubbles would be a fun activity for the party, so I bought a GALLON of bubble solution and made fancy bubble wands in anticipation of THE BIGGEST BUBBLES IN THE WORLD!

As you can see, the bubbles were lackluster, to say the least. They barely worked with the traditional wand, let alone the big ones Joel and I had made.
But Joel added some dish soap and corn syrup to the mix, swished it around, and giant bubbles were born!

Dane had an absolute blast chasing the giant bubbles around:

June was...pretty much oblivious. She was so engrossed in her new water table and she didn't even notice the amazing bubbles floating around her. Observe:

But we had a lovely time, and she did notice a few of the bubbles after a while.
Everyone was kind enough to hang out with us TWO days in a row for June festivities:

Then, it was time for presents!
She got a very cute plush Noah's Ark toy from Grandma Frost

Jessie and Bullseye from Rika & Brady

Some fun water toys to go along with the water table, and some books that she really loves.

Also, some big girl undies, which she immediate wanted to put on:

Then, the cakes. I must say, I'm usually disappointed at how my layer cakes turn out, but both the regular cake and the smash cake turned out quite well this time:

Have you ever had the Berry Chantilly Cake from Whole Foods? It is delicious. I decided to make a copycat recipe, and it did not disappoint. I used a sponge cake recipe, and the texture was...spongy. I liked it, but it might not be for everyone. (Note, I doubled the recipe to make a three layer cake, plus a baby three layer cake.) For the smash cake, I used the same sponge cake with a chocolate buttercream recipe that we got from the restaurant at Joel's old work. Very buttery. And I tried my hand at chocolate decorations. They weren't super beautiful, but they were passable. I don't know, I've never had good luck (or good skill) drizzling chocolate beautifully. I mostly drizzle chunks and uneven lines. But June didn't care!

Then, candle time! June was wary, but she had a kind big brother willing to help her out:

It was a lovely night, and I'm so happy to have June in our family. What can I say about her presence? She has an amazing ability to drive you crazy and melt your heart, all at the same time. She is picky and demanding, snuggly and sweet, smart and spunky, strong and willful. She love her shoes and purse, which she keeps loaded down with about 20 cars. She loves to wear Dane's Spongebob fedora, and she is adept at drawing tiny swirls (sometimes on paper, usually on her arms and legs). She learns new words every day, loves getting pedicures (and, by extension, smudging pedicures), and is completely unpredictable in what she'll eat. I love that she now loves Toy Story, and I love her sweet smile and cute laugh. I am so happy to be her mom, and I can't believe she's already two. I love Junie. Happy Birthday, sweet baby.

Beachery

Having lived my entire life in completely landlocked states, there are couple of things about visiting the ocean that always surprise me:

1) The water really is salty
2) The waves don't care if you are small
3) Creatures you can't see like to hang around you
4) Sand gets everywhere and stays there almost forever

I don't mean to paint a negative picture; the beach was amazing. It was beautiful, relaxing, fun-filled, romantic, and full of jellyfish.

We probably had 30 jellyfish incidents. I got just a teeny sting on my ankle (right after stepping on something in the water that gashed my foot). But there were lots of other people who got some major stings from sea nettles.

You don't want to mess with one of those.

OK, now seriously onto the positive stuff.

We all arrived on Saturday to get settled, then went to church Sunday morning. A few of the adults took the kids on a walk down to the beach with strict instructions to do no more than wade in the water to keep the Sabbath day holy.

I'm going to give you three guesses as to how that went.

I love seeing the progression of how much wetter and wetter Dane's clothes get. And this wasn't the only time he went down to the beach fully clothed, only to come back completely soaked. Laurie Jayne told me that seeing Dane roll around in the surf was one of the purest expressions of joy she's seen. I wish I'd been there to see it.

This trip was June's first time to ever experience the ocean, and I think she lived it up. Every day, she excitedly asked to go to the "bubbo."

She loved playing with her cousin baby Ben. They are exactly one year and 4 days apart, but you can only tell their age difference by the length of their legs and the number of their teeth. I'm pretty sure Ben outweighs June by more than a couple of pounds. 

They played happily together. 

She did occasionally take advantage the wisdom of her age. 

Sweet Mariah really doted on June.

Dane loved playing with his cousins:

And enjoying the waves:

We were also able to get some lovely portraits:

 Hilton Head is a lovely place, and not just because of the water. Stay tuned for more reasons we loved our vacation!

Profusion of Posts

At least, that's what I hope.

I want to be a better blogger, and I want to find the time to do it. And luckily, I have all sorts of posts to catch up with, so I have plenty of material! I'm months behind in posts, so things won't be in chronological order, but there are things I want to make sure get posted. Firstly,

Frost Family Reunion 2013!

Today I'll share the tale of my sad career as a family photographer in Hilton Head, SC, a story otherwise known as The Universe Doesn't Want Me to be a Photographer.

The first photo shoot was for the whole family, and it was the most important, since we all get together so infrequently. It had been raining, but it stopped for a short time, and we were able to snap some pretty good photos--no small feat with a group of 43. 

Silly shot!

 

Then, after probably only ten minutes, right when we started doing some individual family shots, the rain started up again:

Emmaline, Jennifer, Leslie, Gibber, Alena, Jared, Noelle, Mariah
(A prize to any non-family who can guess the ages of all their kids!)

I thought the Cobia rain photo was lovely, but it's not exactly wall art. 

Makenna, Addie, Monique, Allen, Carter, Emery
Amazingly, the foliage was thick enough that Allen & Monique's family got a decent photo.
A couple of mornings later, Tess asked me to take some picture of my lovely niece Arin in her baptism dress. The combination of our wonderfully air-conditioned condo and the hot, humid morning made my lenses completely fog up. I mean completely. And it's not like I could just wipe them off, because the interior lenses were cloudy, too.
By some sort of miracle, my telephoto lens was clear for about 3.5 minutes, which allowed me to get a couple of good shots.

Later, Meghan asked me to take some family photos of her family. I should have learned from the beach shots to leave my camera in the car to stay warm or something, but leaving your nice camera in a hot car just seems like a bad idea for several reason. Anyway, my lenses were hopelessly cloudy again, but luckily Meghan's camera had been in the car and has a lovely 50mm lens that allowed for some nice photos.



Molly, Ben, Meghan, Claire, Stephen, Lauren.

In the end, I was able to get one or two good photos at each shoot, despite my problems with the weather. I think I like being a pretend photographer (as opposed to a real photographer) because I can take some nice photos without the pressure of people really expecting them to be good.

Which reminds me of the first interaction I ever had with my sister-in-law, Laurie Jayne. She said something about how she was looking forward to eating some Japanese food I was planning on making; I responded how I was nervous that it might not be that good. She said, "Then I will spread word of your mediocrity, so then we'll all be pleasantly surprised."

Clever, no? And exactly the way I'd like my photography to be known.

Lousy

And I mean that in the literal sense.

But first:

Have you seen the new Dove Real Beauty video? The one with the forensic artist? It's a good one. I recommend watching it. Now.

It's not a perfectly executed message, but I appreciate what they're trying to say: that we are too critical of ourselves and our perceived flaws; others don't see the imperfections that seem to stand out so much to ourselves. I read this book once called "The Art of Imperfection." It said something like "we have no idea what it is about ourselves that other people admire, find charming, find attractive, love." Or something.

I could go on.


Try to remember this message as you continue reading this post.

You may have noticed that I have changed my blog header. It was long overdue, since June looks so different now. Just as a refresher, here is the old one:

Cute Baby June, Cute Dane, Cute Joel, Less Cute Ami. I knew it wasn't a great picture of me. I actually didn't like the picture at all. But I was a couple of months post-baby, and it was the best picture of me from that photo shoot to crop for the header. I didn't like it, but I didn't want to be too vain, and I figured no one would be as critical or care about my appearance as much as I would. So if I didn't care that much, everyone else would care even less. 

Apparently, I was wrong.

A certain younger brother of mine told me the other day that I really needed to update that header. Here, I will quote him verbatim:

"it still has fat face ami, puppy dog marcshmallow june, goofy dane, and a normal joel"

"tha picture of you is horrible

  I don't know why you ever put it up"

I later spoke with him on the phone, and he went on:

"Man, it is horrible."

"I would never have put that up."

"I would have destroyed that picture."

"You really need to change it."

I think you get the idea. 

So thanks for nothing, Dove. You were wrong. 

I'm laughing about the interaction with my brother. It sort of typifies much of the interaction in the Hood family--not for the faint of heart. 

I think it's pretty fair to say that his reaction must have been so negative because he normally sees me as so gorgeous, photogenic, stunning, and lovely. Captivating, you might say. Right?

Right?

*crickets*

Anyway, on to the lice.

That's right: lice. We had lice. 

It was kind of a crazy story. We have a Frost family email group so we can keep each other updated on the goings-on in our lives, and one sister-in-law (in Dallas) mentioned that all four of her kids had ear infections. Not fun. Another sister-in-law (in North Carolina) responded, "At least you don't have four kids with lice." Ugh. Another sister-in-law (in Seattle) responded, "We do!" And the lice-talk began. Another sister-in-law (also in North Carolina [I have a lot of sisters-in-law]) said they had recently battled lice. I think it's natural for people to feel a little more heightened paranoia about lice after hearing several stories like that. Your head might even be feeling a little itchy right now. Mine was.

I kept thinking about lice. So the next morning, Dane was sitting on my lap, and I started casually looking through his hair. I found some weird looking things stuck to his hair, close to the scalp. I start madly Googling. What I found looked very much like the pictures of lice eggs, nits. 

He had lice. 

It was a crazy coincidence. With all those miles between us there was no connection between any of the Frost lice infestations (except the North Carolina ones). We just all happened to get lice at around the same time. 

I was mortified. I kind of freaked out. 

Joel found one louse on Dane's head, and about 30 nits. I found one louse on June's head, no nits. I found two nits on Joel's head. He found about 10 nits on my head. 

We just did over-the-counter treatment, and it worked out fine. I was only a little mortified as I frantically searched for the lice shampoo at Wal-Mart and Dane kept loudly saying, "We need to buy stuff for the bugs on my head, right? We're here because of the bugs on my head?"

I'm feeling kind of stressed just remembering. Anyway, we did the OTC treatment on the kids, and I doused my hair with olive oil and kept it in overnight. I'll spare you most of the details of the ordeal, but PLEASE don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions. I feel pretty much like an expert now. 

To ensure total lice annihilation, we shaved Dane's head. Here is one last look at my beautiful boy's beautiful hair:

Here is one of his "cool guy face."

Bzzzzzzz........

I cried.

Dane was a little worried that we would look weird with less hair, but we assured him (and me) that he was still handsome. Still cute. 

But I'm looking forward to it growing back.

Now, if anyone comments on his new short hair, he just matter-of-factly says, "Yeah, I had lice." I like that he's not embarrassed about it.

In the end, I can think of a million things worse than your kid having lice. But it was not fun. At all. And I hope it never happens to us, or any of you, again. 

Two worst things about having lice:

1) The laundry

I washed all of Dane's clothes/coats/hats. All of our bedding, every day. I dried everything that couldn't be washed in the dryer on high. Anything that I worried might melt went into a trash bag and suffocated for 2 weeks. So much laundry. I was doing so much cleaning and laundry and stressing out that my hands cracked and bled. Just a little. 

2) The searching

The CDC says you don't have to freak out about finding every last nit. But anecdotal evidence strongly encourages you to. And wouldn't you just feel better knowing you did everything you possibly could? And, let me tell you, we here at Paradise Frost have a LOT of hair. It is hard enough to get Dane's hair all the way wet, let alone make sure there are no tiny eggs in it. And I have even more hair, and it is LONG. We were basically lice paradise. Lice Paradise Frost. Boo...

My eyes were constantly searching. The one louse I found on June's head was a stray the day after treatment; she must have picked it up from the floor or something despite my maniacal laundry and vacuuming. But I zeroed in on it because of my paranoid eagle vision. Looking, searching. Even after the school nurse had cleared Dane to go back to school and I felt like we were in the clear, I washed all the bedding again just in case. And I couldn't turn my brain off from searching. I had a mini heart attack one day when I was making sandwiches for the kids; I saw the flax seeds in the bread and my body automatically reacted like I'd found more lice. Joel makes fun of me, but I am still paranoid. It'll lessen soon. I hope. 

At least two of my sisters-in-law ended up using professional lice services; yes, those exist. Professional nit-pickers. I very seriously considered using them, too. The services my SILs used apparently do free examinations of the whole family and then you pay about $100/hour for the treatment and follow-up. But the services here in OKC did not have free exams, and the $100/hour just to be checked (and knowing our lusciously thick hair would take longer than an hour to go through) kept me from taking the plunge. I'm not discouraging it though. If you can afford it, it is probably worth it. If you can't afford it, I have some tips for you. Give me a call if you need it. But I hope you won't have to.

Ugh. 

To end on a positive note, here is a St. Patrick's Day photo of our blissful, pre-lice days. We had gone down to Dallas to visit Stephen/Meghan/Lauren/Molly/Claire/Baby Ben. 

The babies were slightly less blissful:

Also, for those of you who don't know, I started another blog in which I chronicle my adventures baking through Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. I'm having fun doing it, and you can, too! I personally got permission from the authors to post the recipes, so I post those along with photos and commentary. Come on by!

http://bakedodyssey.blogspot.com/