Have you ever had or do you currently have a mohawk haircut? It’s something I’ve always wondered how it would look on me, so I decided to attempt cutting my own hair to see what it would look like.
When I went to get my haircut, the hairdresser refused to do it since she figured my wife would hate it (probably true), and now that Going Mom cuts my hair (except this time), she too refuses to grant my haircut wish. Guess the hairdresser has seen this from other married men in the past!
For the New Year, I decided one of my resolutions would be to have a mohawk and finally see how my large head would appear sporting the look of a Native American warrior!
First, take a look at my main motivation for wanting to cut my hair; bedhead.
No, no, wait, let me show you my “El Confidant” look…
…or lack thereof.
As Avery sat patiently ran all around her gated area throwing everything in site and screaming, I figured now would be the best time to make a first attempt at cutting my hair.
I setup in our living room for Avery to watch and had my cape, vacuum, cardboard box, and shears ready. *Buzzzzzzzzz* And off with my head hair!
Gaaahhhhh! WTF did I just do?!
Geeehhhhh, nothing good, that’s what!
And the most annoying part about my “longer” hair is how it goes over my ears. I still couldn’t manage to get that right!
After getting a big raspberry thumbs down from Avery, I ended my minute of mohawkdom and buzzed it all off.
Yeah, that’s better. Finally, I got the hair over my ears too!
Not bad for a novice, huh? Unless you count the mohawk, which I’m not!
And with that, I succeeded and failed at my New Year’s resolution before it even arrived!
Have you ever jumped the gun on a resolution and failed before the new year?
Do you have an Advent calendar or some sort of Christmas countdown craft in your home?
As a kid, we never had one in our home, but I want to start a family tradition of having something to count the days down until Christmas starting with December 1st. Last year, I wrote 24 different activities for Going Mom and I to do each day until Christmas. They were folded up, placed in a big glass vase and we’d randomly pick one.
Problem was, though, the activities required time and more effort than we could give on any particular day. If there was one we couldn’t do, we’d just push it off and plan on doing several during the weekend. Nope, that never happened either!
While it was a fun though, I didn’t think it through enough; some things were just too complicated. So, this year, I thought ahead and made my own Advent/Christmas Countdown craft with things we could easily do each day.
Instead of randomly picking an activity, I assigned the tasks for each day. I didn’t get creative with the list, and actually just made things that we would most likely do that day anyway. It’s a win-win, right? Hey, this way we’re not pushing anything off!
To give you an idea of my activities, at least 10 of the days is just us working with Avery on walking and finding a reason to cheers each other. We normally split a beer or have some wine and will cheers each other every day; it’s tradition now!
The weekends are a little more involved, and include things like watching a Christmas movie or taking Avery to see Santa. We were left with just enough paper plates from Avery’s 1st birthday party and I figured they’d be great to use for making my own “dadvent” activity calendar.
With the help of Google and Pinterest, I collected enough paper plate craft ideas to put what we had to use.
Here’s what you need:
25 paper plates
A printer or just pen and paper
Almost empty glue stick (bonus points if it’s purple)
Some sort of twine or string (had some Kelley bought for the birthday party)
Mini clothespins (also from the birthday party) or another way to hang the plates
That’s it! Of course you could definitely use more, but I specialize in not-so-pretty DIY crafts, so this is how I do things! 🙂
As you might imagine, creating a dadvent calendar is fairly simple; all you do is print or write out 25 activities of your own to do with your family every day in December up to Christmas. The last days don’t matter since Christmas is over and we have new things to play with now.
Take your plates and either with printed numbers or a marker, number the back of each one from 1 to, yep, you guessed it, 25!
Cut your activities into strips and glue them on the opposite side of each plate. If you have activities you want for specific days, I suggest numbering each one so you don’t mix them up.
In numerical order, attach the plates to your string and you’re done! This is what we did on the 8th…
I planned on hanging them across the fireplace or make them in the shape of a Christmas tree somewhere on one of our walls, but that seemed too complicated and my wife does not allow holes in the wall. So I figured it was best not to hang and just let them lay on the floor.
Every day since, Kelley has gone into the room to pick the plate of the day for us to follow, and unlike last year, we’re doing great at keeping up!
Here are a couple of my inspirations….
And here’s my finished product!
Don’t be jealous.
Are you ready to make your own? I’d love to see pictures of what you have if you do anything similar.
FYI – I know we’re already into December and this is a late post, but that only adds to the awesomeness that is “DAD”!
Well, it’s here, Avery’s half year mark. I can’t believe our daughter has already been with us for 6 months! So much has happened and there is so very much still to come!
Scratch sitting up off the “to-do” list!
Going Mom was adamant about strictly breastfeeding until the 6 month mark, and true to her word, she has held her ground. So many babies miss out on the best source of nutrition (and free!), and I am glad Kelley forged through the rough patches to make sure Avery was fed well!
Now the time has come to introduce solids to Avery since at this point her digestive system is developed well enough properly breakdown and utilize various foods. Breast milk will still be her main source of nutrition up to her one year mark, but now I get to take part in “producing” food for Avery!
In my last Top Ten Pinterest Picks post, I shared links related to homemade baby food purees, but baby-led weaning is something different. Baby-led weaning (BLW) is simply letting your child feed themselves at the very start of introducing solids.
Many parents stand by this style of teaching their little ones how to feed themselves and love that they don’t have to fret over steaming, pureeing, and storing food in ice cube trays. Of course, things will get messy, and we accept that…..I think.
Although I was all for and ready to puree away, I started to get more and more into BLW as I read about it. So now, I might do a mixture of both, but we’ll be starting Avery with the BLW method this weekend and I hope to have a successful report next week.
I have green beans, baby carrots, and avocado to start with; all organic. I’ll steam the green beans and carrots to make sure they are plenty soft for Avery’s toothless mouth, and the avocado is fine as is. I plan on sticking with veggies and savory fruit like the avocado at first just to try and keep Avery from developing a sweet tooth right away.
If these prove successful, I’ll happily start giving her mango slices and bananas as a nice treat. Big things happening here in the Liley household, and we’re excited to watch our daughter experience another first soon!
Check out my top ten Pinterest picks for Baby-led weaning and share any thoughts/advice you may have in the comments section.
1. Starting Baby-Led Weaning – This is an informative post with tips on what to start with as well as covering any concerns you may have. I felt better after reading this one.
2. Getting started with baby-led weaning – Going with the “always get a second opinion” motto, this is another post on the same site as above, but it’s reassuring to read positive comments from another source, and then another, and another, and…well you get the point.
3. These might start feeling redundant, but I promise, you feel more comfortable after reading about BLW from various authors/parents. This one shares good foods to start with as well as how to properly prepare them.
4. I’m not “paleo”, but I know many are, and I assume they’d want the same for their little one. Just so happens, there’s a parent blogger who felt like sharing their experience. Paleo or not, this is actually a good source of info and is worth the read.
5. I plan on just using single ingredients to feed Avery, but if you feel like cooking, here’s a 100 recipes to get you started!
6. Unless you’re on an all liquid diet, I’m sure you know what happens when you eat solid food; poop with substance. We’re a cloth diapering family, and since we need a way to remove the “big deposits” before putting in the diaper bin, a diaper sprayer is our chosen way. Some people dunk their diapers….no thanks.
7. Since I prefer not to paint our bathroom walls with poop, this Spray Pal will keep the poo from splashing everywhere when you are spraying. I just received one free of charge from Spray Pal to review, and I’ll share my experience very soon!
8. Just another option if you don’t feel like making one yourself. Nothing wrong with it, and this is the one we just purchased.
9. Again, just making myself comfortable be reading about BLW from multiple sources. We’re all different and it’s good to get many different opinions!
10. A simple site on why these parents love BLW and a list of benefits over being spoon-fed.
What are your thoughts on baby-led weaning?
Do you prefer the traditional spoon-fed method or like BLW better?
An at-home dad on a mission to keep it real when it comes to food, fun, and raising a healthy, happy family.
