That time of the year!

My Dancing Girls

It's that time of year when there are concerts and parties. This year was the first time I had the girls doing dancing so there was plenty happening and it was new territory for me. At least the costumes were already purchased and all I needed to do was hair and makeup and of course, the drop-offs. Yesterday was concert day and it was a busy day for us. I had to drop them off after church, but not until I got another hair donut as the sock one was not working at all. Then I came back to have lunch at the in-laws. Then after the break, I had to pick them up at 2:15pm and I was already running late. I missed a phone call from the parent helper, who was minding the children, at 2:27pm and I had just made it from the car park upstairs in the club. Apparently, I was the last parent to pick up their kid my girl tells me. Then it was a line up to order pizza and the essential "afternoon coffee" and whilst I was there I could see other mums putting on their girls make-up. I felt like it was an episode of Dance Moms but without all the drama.

I figured if I don't do it now I wouldn't get a chance so I started doing the basic makeup for the girls. Mind you, we did the bare minimum. I saw other mums use foundation and blush and red lipstick and hair nets. I just did blush and mascara and lipstick. Anyway, I did the buns and got the girls to go to one corner near the green leafy plant and I sprayed the hairspray. Poor plant! At least hair was done. That was the trickiest and longest part for me.

Perfect Hair Bun

Mia's hair is quite long so I had to research how to put her hair up in a hair bun. I've seen heaps of tutorials for short hair but none for long hair. If you do it the usual way I end up with way too much hair to pin under the bun and it looks terrible. There's this way to do it which comes out perfectly.

You start off with the hair in a ponytail. Then add the donut (I had a heavy duty one with velcro bits to keep the hair in place). Then wrap the ponytail along the top half of the donut and smooth it out on top. Bring the tail of the hair under it. With two fingers through the middle of the donut pull the tail through so it comes out of the top of the donut. Use this tail to complete the bottom half of the donut and then tuck in the remaining pieces of hair. I pulled the tail through a second time so I didn't need to pin much and some of the hair was just making it over the donut. It looks so good and I was really happy with this method. It's really clean and neat. I used this method when I did Jacquie's hair the second time as Jacquie has shorter hair but it's thick too. Some of it was loose from the bottom but I didn't mind as they had to wear this weird scrunchie made of fake hair anyway so it didn't matter. I couldn't find hair nets at any shops so I didn't bother with adding it but it would have made it better.

Finale

I took a sneaky pic at the end of the concert as they were closing the curtains. It was so much fun to be there. The venue was fantastic (Rooty Hill RSL) and we weren't in the back, we got the 7th row. Even though hubby arrived just in time (always late, that's us) He enjoyed it alot and the boys found it so much fun. The theme was Wizard of Oz and the dancers were really good. I found it rather emotional for me. I was tearing up in the beginning, seeing all these girls on stage and feeling so proud of them. There were kids who didn't know what to do and just cracked us up. There was a little girl with Down Syndrome and she was doing her own thing and had her back to us. She was so cute and when she was the last one to find her streamers we all cheered for her. It was really beautiful. I'm so glad my whole family got to experience this magical thing. My Kindy boy asked "When is it going to be Eye of the Tiger?" I laughed. He was talking about his own primary concert dance. Oh, so much joy. My heart is full.

In other news, I bought myself a new stereo (aka head unit) for my car. I had it replaced about a year ago with a spare one but it was kind of crappy and didn't have an option for cd's which an old fart like me still uses. So I found this one at JB Hi-fi and when they had a 30% off sale I had to buy it. It only cost me $118. It has bluetooth, cd player, radio and it has fancy lighting colours! Anyway, to save even more I figured I'd install it myself. I saw this Youtube (my saviour) video that this guy posted and I kind of followed it. I don't have a harness and the guy who installed my last (ahmmm) head unit directly wired it up from the car wiring. He also charged me $60 ($70 cos I had no change) for his services. So basically I followed the colours from the old stereo and replaced them with my new headunit ones. The only issue was, in the end, I had one orange wire that wasn't attached.

As it turns out the orange wire is the Illumination (Dimmer) wire. It's for night time. When you turn on your headlights it dims the lighting of your stereo. After searching for this I saw that it was the green/white wire from the car so I did this and it's working now. Awesome!

The Kindergarten boy brought home Toby for the weekend. Poor Toby. His bow tie fell off and had to be re-sewn back on. At least he got to bbq with us. We were so tired after the concert so I uploaded all the pictures and type up some text to go into Toby's book for school. Phew, at least that was all done by bedtime. Then at my desk at work I remembered that I was meant to pack his concert rehearsal clothes and shoes! Ooops. It will just have to go in tomorrow!

Hope you all have a full and blessed week!