Jade is 3!

Wow, how time flies!  I cannot believe that my baby girl is 3 already.  I am so blessed to have some of the most beautiful children ever and I love to celebrate their special days in a big way.  This year, Miss Jade wanted a fairy princess tutu tea party, yes, you heard right, she wanted.  May be hard to believe but this little diva came up with her own party theme.  Gone are the days where I get to control every aspect of the party (I took planning Nolon's parties for granted).  Now my 3 year old had an opinion that she will not let you ignore.  First it started out with the request to have a tea party for her bir-dae (Jade voice), then that was upgraded to a tutu tea party.  Next I was informed that she and all her friends needed a crown for the party.  Two weeks later she added wings.  I was thinking, you can't be serious, oh but she was.  Needless to say, Mommy came through in grand fashion.  Here's a few pics from the party.  If you want to see the full album of photos, visit our family photo share page (https://jazzmyneanddedrick.shutterfly.com/pictures/918).  I am sooooo grateful to great friends who sent me their snapshots after the disaster of deleting all the photos from the party...a total of 515 to be exact.  I was so distraught I did 2 hours of research on the internet to find a way to recover the photos.  I am happy to say that my searching was not futile as I found an awesome software package by SanDisk that was able to recover 98% of the photos in their original format!  So excited!  Praise God!!

 

In addition to her party, Miss Jade also requested a big girl princess bed for her "bir-dae".  I started out by looking for inspiration on Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/jazzmyne11/jades-big-girl-room/).  After realizing that most of what I wanted was too costly for a 3 year old, I found myself at old reliable Target where I picked a really nice solid pink bedding set and white bookshelf.  I also found a pillow cover and fabric (which I turned into a throw blanket for the foot of her bed) on Etsy to match her little chair that my sister got her last year. The pièce de résistance was the boa pink canopy above her bed courtesy of Bed Bath and Beyond.  And wa-lah, instantly happy 3 year old!  Check out the pics, don't think it came out too bad if I do say so myself.

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So much going on, So little time

Today has been one of those days where I literally feel like I accomplished nothing!  I guess I should be happy that this stomach flu thing is waning, but now I feel like I am a whole week behind! 

First thing on the agenda for tomorrow (besides catching up on my 2 days of missed work) is finding yet another new hair product for Jade's hair.  Good grief curly hair can be so hard to manage.

 

Funny thing is her hair is absolutely gorgeous when it cooperates but when it's not cooperating, look out...she looks like a walking cotton candy poof!  Die her hair pink and blue and I swear people would try to pull out a piece and eat it!  Joking aside, this will be the 4th combination of products I am trying on her hair.  It's like she wakes up one morning and her hair just decides that it no longer wants to respond to the products I have been using forever.  Right now I am using Silken Kids Shampoo, Conditioner and Leave-In conditioner.  Those seems to still work pretty well and they smell good, and you all know I am a sucker for products that smell good.  For styling I have been using Design Essentials stretching cream mixed with a natural oil.  I also use Frizz-Ease styling mousse.  Everything was going well and then all of a sudden the DE cream clumps on top of her hair and makes it look all gross like I haven't washed it at all.  Such a shame because that stuff is so not cheap!  Before the DE I was using the Shea Moisture cream which is similar and I switched because it wasn't controlling her curls well enough.  My next move (based on a blog I read with some really great tips...Treasures for Tots Biracial Hair Tips) is to try the Blended Beauty line of products.  I have tried:

• Shea Moisture's entire line (semi-worked)

• Kinky Curly (didn't work)
• Curly Q (like the Shampoo and Conditioner)

• Sofnfree's Curl Wake Up Spray (my favorite curl refresher and the cheapest best product I have used)

• Miss Jessie (didn't work and is way too expensive for a 2 year old)

If any of you guys have suggestions on other things to try, I am open to suggestion.  I do have to stay away from heavy grease and oils as it weighs her hair down considerably, but anything else and I will try it and report back!

BTW--If anyone is interested in where Miss Jade got her tutu and matching headband(in the picture of her and "Bruba"), a friend of mine and I started an Etsy shop called BuckelsNBows (http://www.etsy.com/shop/BuckelsNBows).  Yep, that's right we made it!  I also made Nolon's matching bow tie.  So if any of you are interested, check us out on Etsy! 

Until next time!
J

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It's a bird...It's a plane...No, it's Batman and Butterfly!

This year, Nolon and Jade dressed up as Batman and his sidekick the butterfly for Halloween. Believe it or not Jade picked out her own costume this year. She's got this new obsession with butterflies, so it seemed only fitting that she be a Monarch butterfly for Halloween. When I put the costume on her, she immediately started flailing her arms like she would take off in flight. When I asked what she was doing she gave be a duh Mommy, flying look. Too funny. In typical Nolon fashion he was a superhero, this year's selection of course being Batman. I don't know, I think we may run out of superhero's soon if this phase doesn't end.  Guess we'll see next year.  To download pictures from Halloween go our family photo site using the family photos link on the menu bar.

Until then...J

 

Click here to view these pictures larger

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Can't Believe the Preschool Years are Almost Over...

Well, Mr. Nolon is 5 and pre-K is coming to a close.  I still can't believe that he has grown so much!  It's seems like yesterday that he were bringing him home from the hospital and now, wow!  "He's a big kid now!"  In celebration of his upcoming graduation, we (yes me and Dedrick) did some really cool pics of him and I even created an announcement memento to send to the fam...yes, I created an announcement for a pre-K graduation...really, would you expect anything less of me!  Here's the announcement followed by the pics...We are really excited about how the pictures came out with our new lens.
 

 

And of course Miss Diva Jade couldn't let big bro upstage her so she got in a few pics too...

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The bug stuck!

It's funny how some things just fall in your lap.  Dedrick wanted a new camera, I love doing print design... add to that my disdain for my inability to afford most of the photographers in Frisco.  Whalaa, business in a can.  We are by no means trying to get rich taking pictures, but if it helps to bring in a bit of extra income on the weekends, I am all for it!  As we hone our craft we have been practicing on some our friends and of course our kids and what I am learning is the more pictures you take the better you get.  We can't compete with some of the high-end local photogs who have been honing their craft for years and honestly don't want to, but if we can give our friends and family high quality photos that they can cherish, I say why not!  Maybe we'll get good enough to turn this into a retirement fund!  Ha, you all know how I like to plan!  Here's a few of my favorites that I've taken over the past few weeks, including some of our friend's daughter, Kyla, and some cute candids of Jade and Nolon.  Check out their pages soon for baseball (Nolon) and 2nd Birthday (Jade) shots!  Stay tuned, we'll be launching a site/blog for the business as well.  We decided on the name Three Strands Studios.

 

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