More Braids... and Beads!

I absolutely love this style. We've done it a couple times now and I think it's one of the few that we both love. Again, there really isn't anything fancy to this but I just think that the simplicity of the beaded braids with the rest of her hair down is great.

What we did: We parted out a square-ish shape on top of her head and horizontally parted out each row. We braided each towards her right side and hung 3 beads on the end of each one.

 

View from the top:

Another Side View:

And lastly - look at that attitude... since when do 4 year olds start acting like teens when you want to take their picture?

My baby girl is growing up so quickly!

Just Some Braids

This is honestly nothing special, more than anything just to share why I haven't been posting new styles lately... Since I've been back working full time again it has been hard enough for me to get everyone out the door on time in the mornings so this has been a frequent hairdo over the summer. It is good for swimming, for dad, for when we're just plain busy. Put simply it's just braids. I don't use product in her hair to hold them in so we usually keep them 3-4 days, and then leave her hair down (or a simple style) for a few days. Since I've relaxed alot on her hair the parts aren't as straight as they could be, they get a little fuzzy, and they are definitely NOT tight.

Here's the most common way I've been braiding her hair - 1 braid across the front, 6 braids down the back:

Side View:

Other Side View:

Top View:

Front View:

Triple Threat

This style is nothing fancy but I thought it looked really cute and it got a lot of compliments. Basically I just did three french braids from the front to the crown and then tied them all together in a messy bun with the rest of her hair. Then I topped it up with that adorable flower bow that I made :)

She wasn't in a smiling mood at all that day until I showed her some clothes I had picked up for back to school (yes I know I'm a little early). Here she is after about 15 outfit changes and a happy attitude change!

Sigh! She looks so grown up here!

Sweet Summer Hair

Since it's summer time we've been trying to keep Kenz's hair kept neat but we don't want to spend a lot of time on it. Braids are a simple way to do this that I think is just classic and neat looking. Lately though we've gotten just a little bit bored from basic braids and decided to spice it up a little by changing over to the 5 strand braid. I've been practicing this for a while (on Kenz's Barbies!) and am finally confident to post a basic 5 strand braid on our blog. So here it is, simple sweet 5 strand braids! If anyone is interested in it I can make a tutorial on how to do a 5 strand braid. I found the best way to learn was by saying the steps out loud as a braided and practicing on dolls. That way she didn't have to sit still for long periods of time.

There you have it, sweet summer hair for a sweet little princess, and for a cute variation, add a cute bandana :)

Summer Fun

So sorry we've been MIA lately. I have lots of new hairstyles waiting to be posted, but wanted to check in and let everyone know I'm still alive. Summer has suddenly gotten a lot busier around here than I thought it would and I've started back to work full time 5 days a week so we're busy busy. Now that we're getting into more of a routine again, I think I'll have a little more time to post! For now, here is Miss Kenz's  latest adventure... it is her very first year playing soccer. She loves it and scored her very first goal this past Wednesday! Way to go Kenz! Here is a picture I took before her very first game (that game got rained out!) I know her hair is a mess but once the coach called to tell us the game was cancelled I didn't bother doing it. But stay tuned, I've been searching for the best way to keep her hair contained during soccer season so we'll see where this hair journey takes us!

Sewing Project...

Hey! Check out my latest sewing adventure HERE! I'm new to sewing and having a blast with it! Tonight I made Kenz a skirt, matching doll's dress, and hair clip. Be honest but nice, what do you think of it?

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some pics of her actually wearing/holding all the new things I made tonight :)

So Proud!

It may seem a little bit strange to be proud of this, but I definitely am. Now it's not strange when your child takes after you and does an amazing hair style on another girl, or a doll, or even you. However when suddenly I found my house strangely quiet this afternoon what I found made me very proud.
My daughter decided that her youngest brother Cole should "match" her.
Kenz decided to do Cole's hair. She began by luring him into a room in which he is currently not allowed without me (the bathroom). She then proceeded to occupy him with something he isn't normally allowed to "play" with (his toothbrush). Following this she took out a comb, the spray bottle, a single elastic and a bow that matched the ones that she is wearing today.
Now if I knew she was doing someone's hair I admit I would expect it to be messy and not at all neat. However this is what I found:

For a 4 year old girl who refuses to do even her own doll's hair because she can't get the hair not messy she did an amazing job. Upon the initial sight I thought for sure that one of her older brothers had in fact done it and just blamed her. But upon investigation I discovered the older boys laying comfortably on the couch watching Star Wars, no knowledge of what was happening in the bathroom.

I don't know, what do you think... To me, it looks like something I would have done, she even parted it out to perfection... but I didn't do it so it must have been my four year old stylist :)

Another quick shot:

I am so proud (and a little jealous) of my baby girl's natural ability to do hair! (And yes I took his hair out right after pictures!)

Nothing Fancy

Before I get into today's style I thought I would share what Kenz's hair is like. I know I've been talking about it alot, but here are a few pics to show the different lengths I've been working with when doing her hair. We've been growing out her bangs for close to a year now so while I can actually do things with them, alot of styles still require creativity in getting those bangs included or out of the way. The back of her hair is quite long now but is thin in places from where it has been previously broken. Anyways, here are the pics of her hair down:

Now today's style I called nothing fancy because really it isn't. But everytime we do this we get tons of compliments on it. All that it is, is the top half of her head put into 4 quickly done french braids. I pulled everything up into a sort of bun thing... I can't call it a bun or a messy bun, it's kinda a bit of both. Then I added a bow to the top. This took only a few minutes and like I said gets noticed all the time.

Just the braids done:

All pulled up, back views (the bow looks off-centre, but it's not):

Front View:

Overnight Braids

Miss Kenz didn't like getting her pics taken this day so these are the best shots I got. This is a basic do for sleepovers. The kids (all 4!) slept at our friend's house the other night so I wanted to put something in Kenz's hair that would need nothing the next morning. All I did was part out 6 sections of hair and braid. I didn't even braid to the bottom of all the sections. It was a really nice random hairdo that stayed put. These pics were taken the next day so I realise there are a couple of fly-aways!

Haircare - Questions!

So, I've been doing alot of "hair research" lately. Learning about different types of hair and how people care for their/their kids hair. Now it just so happens that in conversation last week I was talking about hair with an aquaintance and I was comparing different types of Hair. Now Kenz and I appear to have the same brownish/blond thin, dry hair, so this aquaintance was surprised when I said how different our hair was. An example I used was washing hair. My hair gets greasy, not healthy greasy - greasy, greasy if I don't wash it every day or every other day at the most. Now Kenz on the other hand I only wash with shampoo once every 1-2 weeks. We rinse through the week and have to add moisture to hers every day or it gets so dry it breaks in my hands. Now this person I was speaking with was looking at me shocked by this point. "You only wash her hair every 1-2 weeks? Doesn't it get dirty?" I kind of looked at her like she was nuts. I admit, for someone to not wash "white hair" every couple days definitely isn't what we are taught. In fact I wash my boys' hair more often then Kenz's. But seriously, do people really think I would let my daughter go with dirty hair? Just because I'm not shampooing doesn't mean it's not clean.

Another point I made about the difference in our hair is that my hair is thicker than it appears. I've gone to numerous salons that always mis-judge how much hair I actually have and how thick it is. Kenz has thin hair. This same aquaintance then went on to say that maybe Kenz has thin hair because I don't cut it enough! We trim Kenz's hair (just the very ends) every 2-3 months, just because I'm growing it long doesn't mean it's unhealthy and needs to be cut every couple weeks, her hair is growing quickly, when it starts to split we trim it. Why does everyone assume that modern little girls need bobs these days?

Anyways, enough of my rant. My question is this, how do you care for your kids hair (or your hair!)? Since Kenz has such different hair from what I'm used to I'm still working on a routine and trying to figure out what works to grow her hair long like we want without breakage. So I'm curious, how do you care for your (kids) hair and could you give a brief description of your (kids) hair? Do you ever get anyone look at you funny for something you've done in your haircare routine?