A couple updates or whatevs

Update 1
I just watched Johanna give Eric a hair cut. With clippers. It's probably the best home hair cut he's ever gotten.

Which means I am off the hook for future hair cuts. That's the best case scenario, really. ;)

Update 2
I have been battling a mother of a cold since last Wednesday. You guys, this cold has been so bad that I missed a day of work. And all our planned weekend activities (see Update 3). It started with a tickle in the back of my throat, then advanced to a raging headache and coughing so hard that I swear I've broken my sternum. The alarming thing about THAT is that I have a high pain threshold, which makes me wonder exactly how bad I'm actually feeling. I mean, if I think it hurts, then it's probably really awful, right? Like punctured lung bad!

Well, whatever. It only hurts when I cough. Or sneeze. Or blow my nose. Or laugh. The dumb thing about all this is that, while I sound terrible and look worse and am constantly clutching my sternum (I'm kind of proud I even know what a sternum is, although I didn't until Eric told me this morning), I'm actually finally feeling better. I can feel the pressure leaving my head, and it no longer hurts when I swallow.

It's just those damn unannounced tickles that send me into coughing fits and bring me to my knees.

Eh, it's probably fine. No, it's not. God, that hurts...

Update 3
This weekend we had Big Plans in the Walker household: Abby and Johanna received awards from the Sons and Daughters of the Oregon Pioneers (Abby is Miss Pioneer Oregon,* and Johanna won the middle school essay contest), and then Johanna had a two-day basketball tournament. So we were going to spend the night with Eric's sister and have all this family time and whatnots.

So I missed that. Ah, well. But Eric taped both Abby's acceptance speech and Johanna's time in the basketball games for me, so I at least got to watch after the fact. Not quite as good as being there, but I definitely made the right call staying home, in that I was just in bed for 48 hours. Good times.

Abby is going to be mad at me for posting this.
Let's not tell her, okay?

*It's an essay contest, not a pageant by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to tell you this. Mostly because ... well, because I think pageants are dumb.

Update 4
So let's talk about Miss Pioneer Oregon's costume, shall we? We had exactly three weeks to get this together and have her portraits taken. Ha ha ha! Isn't that hilarious? Also totally true.

So we found out she'd been awarded the honor the day we left for the Christmas House in Lincoln City (relive those memories here and here). Abby and I hit the Goodwill there, not really expecting to find anything but also totally hoping we would because, as I've mentioned above, time was of the essence.

Anyway, so we hit Goodwill and go to the dress section. There's a lady in the way on Abby's end of the size rack, so we just go to the other end ... where we find this red gingham monstrosity in a size 18. Abby, incidentally, is like a 6. Well, what could happen? It's got a great front button feature and the pattern is definitely 19th century. Here's a close up of the top:

WHY ARE YOU SO ADORABLE?

The buttons were actually the best part of the dress. Emboldened by our discovery, we hit the "miscellaneous linens" section, hoping to find some sort of apron. What we actually found was a bed sheet (?) that had a nice crocheted bottom. We were like, we can totally make an apron out of this! 

Ten minutes and $15 later, we were feeling kind of good about ourselves. Although when we took our items up to pay, Abby was all, please don't judge us, to the cashier, and we told her about Abby's award and that was a mistake because the cashier had all kinds of ideas and she was clearly an overachiever. They're out there, you guys. All you can do is smile and nod.

Yadda yadda yadda, I took the dress to an alterations shop in town, and the lady took the dress in IN ONE DAY for $35. Score. Then my mother, bless her soul, made the apron, and my mother-in-law pitched in a green bonnet, and Abby already had some black combat boots (close enough to prairie-wear) and some grey tights, so wallah! That is how you make a pioneer costume in 18 days.

As for the portraits, I took them myself in our backyard. I figured, what the heck, I get paid to take pictures all the time (kinda) for the newspaper, so really, what could happen? This was a good route to take, by the way, because it's basketball season and figuring out when we could actually get pictures taken turned into a bit of a dilemma. But we did it. 

I'm kind of amazed it all worked out so easily, really.