Wednesday, August 14, 2013

long hair do care

I did it. I finally gave in and took Cole to get a haircut. His hair was beyond the nape of his neck and honestly he just looked a little too homeless even for my liking; and I like a little boy with some hair. I took him to a kid's salon called Snip-It's and with a $5.00 off coupon, the cut was pretty reasonable. I felt bad for the poor lady that had to listen to my child scream with wreck-less abandon for 20 minutes that I probably tipped her way more than I should have. Oh well, first time Mama problems.

Before:
Note the nice shaggy, unkept, trying to be hip look


During:




I was shoving enough animal crackers and lollipops in his mouth to make him stop crying but not choke. Turns out, Cole can cry with animal crackers in his mouth. He did really well considering he was terrified of the whole situation.

After:
His haircut very closely resembles a college freshman after an all night fraternity rush.





Monday, August 12, 2013

one year in

We moved almost exactly a year ago from Charlotte to Raleigh. In a way, I can't believe it has already been a year and the time has flown by so fast. In another way, it feels like we should be on to the next part of our journey now and our time in Raleigh should be over. I would definitely say that it took close to six months to feel comfortable in Raleigh and not use Google Maps every time I left the house. It took probably nine months before we stopped calling Charlotte "home" and it took a complete year to feel like we were settling in, we were making it in a new place and we actually (although hard to admit) were starting to let ourselves love Raleigh. Just for giggles, here are some plus and minuses about Raleigh that we have developed over the past year.

Raleigh

(+)
the park system is AMA-zing
the endless amount of story times available to children for free
the flea market (my husband and child would not agree)
being closer to other friends and family
cole gets to spend more time with dale
dale's wonderful opportunity to get his MBA
maria's pretty sweet job at wakemed
breweries galore
cole learned to walk, talk, crawl, and sit in time out here

(-)
renting a crappy little house
farther away from other friends and family
living in the "burbs"
one income vs. two
two hour car rides to concord with a toddler
not as many hole in the wall, delicious, one of a kind dining options


Anyway, truthfully we would live in Raleigh permanently. We are not opposed to living in this gorgeous city with plenty of activities and we do believe that it would be a great place to raise Cole and his future siblings. As a couple, we are open to living in so many big cities but our heart is honestly in Charlotte, although we are flexible. We believe that we will end up where we are supposed to be whether that be Charlotte, Raleigh, or some other fun city. You definitely won't find us living in a city any smaller than Raleigh, we can guarantee that. Change is good.