lovely lady locks

Tuesday was the day the girls and I have been waiting for all summer ....... the day we had our lovely lady locks bound, trimmed and wrapped up to be mailed and sent off to Locks of Love, LFL. 

I had to straighten both my and Maddi's hair in order to flatten the waves.  Ellie's hair is pretty much how you see it.

Ever since I can remember I have wanted to grow my hair out long enough (minimum of 10 inches) to donate to LFL.  The thing is, my hair is super thick and quite wavy and gets SUPER frizzy with humidity, so growing long is a big pain.  Laziness & lack of hair appointments eventually lead to a decent amount of length, however, and I found my hair was long enough to pull back and tame down.  So I decided I would go for it and commit to going for the required length.

I sat down with Maddi and Ellie at the beginning of the summer and told them all about LFL and how I was getting really close to 10 inches.  I mentioned how awesome it would be if they, too, would donate their long locks to the cause.  We could make a day of it!  All for one and one for all! 

::crickets::

So I had to cajole and guilt them into giving by pulling up the website photos of all the little kids who lost their hair to cancer treatments and other diseases.  Really, though, it didn't take much to get the girls on board with cutting off their tresses.  Besides, they could always grow it back, right?!

from the left:  Me, Maddi and Ellie

The girls and I had a discussion about what we would miss about our long hair:

1. 
   
   being able to pull it back into a pony tail
2. 
   
   taking silly photos with our hair as mustaches

Things we will NOT miss about our long hair:

1. clogging up the drain in the shower and having to scrape the hair out
2. brushing out tangles (Ellie)
3. spending an hour+ blow drying and then flat ironing in order to have a tame head of hair (Maddi and me)
4. stinky, almost-moldy smelling hair from putting it up in a pony tail still wet, then not taking it down until 10 hours later
5. going through large bottles of shampoo and conditioner at break-neck speed
6. our long hairs found in places they don't belong.  'nuff said.