All about the bronde. My new look!

If you follow my Instagram stories I apologize for all the new hair pictures, because your girl is obsessed! It's not exactly blonde, it's not exactly brunette. It's somewhere in between and I'm loving it! The combination of blonde and brown shades and balayage came out super flattering and this is the lightest I've ever gone.

It's my ashy shade of bronde dreams come true!

For the past 4 years I've been box dyeing my hair. For one, 6 days after moving to Boca (4 years ago), I found out I was expecting baby #4. Couple that with being in a new city and overwhelmed with 3 other children and a business, the color of my hair just wasn't top priority. Come to think of it. I probably didn't dye my hair more than once while I was pregnant. I'd say 2 years ago I just started using L'Oreal box dye in medium ash brown, and now with a lot more gray hairs popping out--thanks kids! I've been having to dye every 4-5 weeks. It was a picture I saw online recently of me at an  event with my husband that really pushed me to go back to a salon. My hair was looking so bad! 

I did have my eye on two salons that I felt could help me achieve my hair dreams, and in the end I chose Thay Oliveira. I'm so glad I went to go see her. She does amazing work with balayage and helping latin hair like my own transform! She specializes in blondes and has an adorable studio here in Boca Raton. You can see a ton of her work on her Instagram @thayoliveirahairartist.

I had my hair done this past Friday and this is what it looked like at home later. Not the best lighting, but I sure wish I could recreate salon blowouts at home. 

2 days later

Finally washed it today. 4 days later. I'm going to try my hardest to just wash it twice a week. It might be a little difficult once it gets hot outside and the fact that I exercise, but let's just hope dry shampoo helps--and a baseball cap. I bought all new hair care products, and I'll do another updated post with that and how the care is going another time. 

Have a great Tuesday! 

I'm still here....

I haven't blogged in almost a month. That's a pretty long stretch for me. Two things that would help would be Ava sleeping better again, and me converting to using my husband's laptop instead of this laptop who I call "the rocket ship." A year ago Ava took a big glass of water and poured it right over the keys and it just hasn't been the same since. I have to attach the power cord, a wireless keyboard and a mouse every time I want to use it. It's a pain in the butt! I try to do most things from my phone, but blogging is done easiest on a laptop. 

Anyways, now that I've listed my excuses.....going back to Ava, this week she's back on a downwards trend of sleeping. She's consistently been waking up every night for the past 5 nights. Ughhh.....can't wait until she's back to giving us at least 3 nights a week where she's sleeping through the night. I realize at 3 years old that's still pretty sad that she's still not sleeping normally, but all we can do is hope and pray that one day she will. At the very least she'll reach an age that if she is waking up at night, she'll know she can't come into our room and disturb us. 

I had high hopes to get back to writing Monday, but my dad is currently visiting us and my whole schedule has been thrown off. We are happy he's here though and have had a nice visit. Today we went to Morikami gardens & museum and it was nice--minus the 200 times Ava would ask me for a snack or wanted to come in and out of her stroller.

 Hopefully next week things are a bit back to schedule, and Ava starts sleeping better again.

A mountain getaway at Black Thorn Farm & Kitchen!

It's been over two weeks since my last blog post, but better later then never! I have 4 kids, what can I say? Things almost never happen at the times I plan them. Just getting everyone out of the house on time is an experience not for the faint of heart. Sometimes it goes smoothly and sometimes....not so much.

After our new year's day trip to Savannah, Georgia, we headed out to North Carolina. What a fun trip! A couple weeks beforehand, we pulled up several VBRO rentals on the laptop and sat on the sofa with Serena for awhile after the kids went to bed, and narrowed down our top choices of where to stay. We wanted it to be somewhere in the mountains with a great view, and not near other houses. We had it down to our 4 top places and ultimately settled on Black Thorn Farm & Kitchen. The description of it being a working sheep farm and culinary destination ultimately won us over. Definitely an advantage over the others. We figured the girls would enjoy watching the sheep, and we love food so why not?! Hank loves lamb and I loved the idea of fresh baked goods delivered because I'm a carb addict like that. 

I mean just look at this bread! It really is what dreams are made of. So delicious.

Before I get ahead of myself though, let's get back to the farm. The "high house" where we stayed had everything we could of possibly needed. From cookware, to toiletries, books, DVD's and basic necessities, all our needs were met. We went to the grocery store the second day we were there and just had so much fun cooking simple country meals like steak, meatloaf, and pan seared lamb. I loved cooking in the kitchen, and the house was clean, charming, and comfortable.

It was cold outside but we still enjoyed being out on the deck at times looking at the mountains, and also exploring the grounds and petting some of the sheep. It was really nice to just unwind and unplug from the world. Sure I still did two loads of laundry, and made the beds, and tidied up but it was different than if I was doing those chores at home. Much to Serena's dismay, she was still on kitchen duty for the most part and had to do after dinner dishes.

We also went to a local ski resort in search of some snow. The girls had a great time snow tubing!

It's been a few weeks now since we settled back into the hustle and bustle of daily life, but I will always have fond thoughts of our tranquil stay at Black Thorn Farm in the basin of Sandy Mush. It was definitely a unique farm to table vacation experience and we'd love to go back sometime.

Have a great weekend!

New Year's trip: Savannah, Georgia!

Happy new year all! 2018 just flew by. It's crazy! The girls are back in school as of yesterday and life's normal routine is definitely back in full swing--complete with Mariam's meltdowns. This morning she wouldn't get off the car because I had to drop her and Layla off in the back lot of the school, instead of her kindergarten lot. We had gotten there early--which we normally don't do, but Serena wanted to get to High school early. Mariam wouldn't get off the car and Serena had to get her off. I hate having to leave Mariam like that but we were holding up the rest of the cars behind us, and she has to go to school. Mornings like these are rough. Can I go back on vacation now? Ha-ha.

Two weeks before Christmas, H wanted to spontaneously take the girls to see snow since he was taking off the first week of January. We looked on VRBO and booked a cabin in Leicester, NC. We were going to drive straight there, but a few days before decided to stop in Savannah, GA for the night. We stayed in the historic district, and it was really nice. The hotel we stayed in was Andaz, which is a cute eclectic boutique hotel in a great spot. The weather was warmer than we thought, but it was perfect and we enjoyed strolling through the city, eating at Paula Deen's restaurant Lady's & Sons, letting the girls play in the park, checking out some shops, and sight-seeing. Another really good place to eat is Treylor Park. It's got some great southern food with a twist. I just love those little chic hipster places with reinvented dishes.

Savannah is a great place to visit and I would do it again! I'll be writing about the rest of our trip in North Carolina later this week. Have a great Wednesday!