all dolled up

you may have noticed that the teen's presence was rather limited during the bean's actual birthday party.  and why was that?  well, i happened to schedule the big bash on the same day as the homecoming dance.

yeah.  mom of the year, i tell ya.

but MIL had already booked her plane ticket to come home for the shindig, i'd already alerted a bunch of people as to the date well in advance to ensure their attendance, and it was just too late.  and so while we were ice cream social-in' it up here at home, the teen was out and about doing fun stuff like getting her hair and make-up done.

by the time i'd stuffed the last partygoer full of sugar and handed out the last goody box, she was finally home and killing the last bit of time before getting into her dress and heels for her big night.  she and her date were part of a group of about 50 kids, had already forked over the cash for the party bus and ordered flowers.  funny thing is, out of all those partiers, only one couple was actually going into the dance - and that was just to appease their folks by taking formal portraits with the dance photographer.  the hub and i just shook our heads as we discussed how this was all just an excuse to get all dolled up, take a whole bunch of pictures, and ride in one happy group to in-n-out for dinner (yup) and then out towards somewhere fun.  sheesh.

so a good month ago, rock-ell and i had made arrangements to get the teen out of the house one afternoon so that her date could make it official.  now, the way these kids do it these days is to pair up and go to these things as a big ass group - in most cases the couples aren't actual *couples* but simply friends who've decided to coordinate flowers and take pictures together.  still, it was fun to watch her come home, make the usual beeline to her room, and - well, this.

i was more aghast at the vast quantities of confetti that covered every square inch of the damn floor.

i'm pretty sure there's still confetti in the very darkest corners of the room.  ugh.

when it was time to head over to the house that the group was meeting at for pictures, all of the bean's party guests had already gone home.  most of the cleanup had already been done by then too, thanks to lots of hard work by the hub and MIL.  the bean was happily in the bathtub, playing with her grandma. the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

the first person we saw as we headed up the driveway was rock-ell.

the teen's date came over to say hello and introduce himself and his mother to me.  he seemed like a really nice boy, and we all watched and snapped away as they fumbled through putting their flowers on each other.  so cute.

do you love her nails?  bling bling, mofos.

BFFs.

you know i had to get one too.

the panoramic feature on the new iPhone OS6 is pretty snazzy.  how else would i have gotten a shot of the entire group?

i was exhausted and was in bed long before she got home.  i'm such an old lady.  haha!  and she reported the next morning that they'd all had a lot of fun.  the hub picked her up from the afterparty, there were no crazy shenanigans, and all was well.

now we have some time to relax until we have to think about...prom.  dun dun dunnnnn.

brows, blowout, beautiful!

my poor teen - she caught a cold last week that turned into a sinus infection.  she's now on antibiotics for the next ten days.  she missed two days of school, and when i picked her up yesterday i had a little "hope you feel better and didn't have a shitty day at school" present for her:

and it was awesome when she got in the car, grumpy from her last class, and totally brightened up when she found her little surprise. 

i still had something else for her - a trip to the salon to get our brows done.  we'd both been bitching and moaning about how badly we needed it, and i thought it would be nice to pull up without a word.  we were munching on a snack when i parked, and as we sat there chatting, i saw a flash of movement just outside her window. 

"OMG, dude, that chick totally ate it just now," i sniggled as she whipped her head around to look.  but her interest didn't go unnoticed as the girl noticed and screamed out "what the FUCK are you looking at?!?"  yikes.  and i was most amused because she was so obviously twisted - at 3:30 in the afternoon - and as she fell, held her cup in such a way that not a single drop of whatever poison was in it came splashing out.

as she stumbled away in her drunken stupor, the humor of the situation hit me and i burst out laughing and snorting uncontrollably.  damn.

but the joke was on me, because the first thing we laid eyes on as we set foot inside the salon was her dumb ass, sitting on a chair, mumbling incoherently as a couple of salon employees helped clean her cuts and cover them with band-aids.  i just hoped she didn't recognize the teen and say something to her that would make me have to pull my inner bitch out and get my ass beat.  heh.

luck was on our side, as she hardly took notice of us and continued to ramble on and on about how she'd fallen in the parking lot but her nails were a mess and she really needed a pedicure.  and when she heard us ask for our services, she decided to add an eyebrow wax to her list of needs. 

except that they didn't really want to work on her drunk ass with bloody feet and told her that she should go home, take a nap, and come back the next day.  when she finally figured out what they were telling her, she got crazy belligerent and started spouting off all sorts of obscenities.  "don't any of you speak english?"  "i pay you people good money, you do what i tell you!"  and other loveliness.  i personally would have thrown her ass out, but they decided to shut her up by sitting her down in one of the spa chairs and doing their thing. 

you KNOW i had to.

damn, she totally busted me.  i was trying to be so stealth, too.  i don't know that she realized what i was doing though, because she didn't say a word to me.  instead, she continued to ramble on and on about how she couldn't understand anything they were saying, demanded translations, whined about the water temperature, and so on and so on.

when we were finally done, it was time to scoop up the bean and take her for some beautifying too.  her hair had gotten really long from the last time she'd had it cut, and it was time to chop it again.

we'd been talking about going for her haircut for a few days, so she wasn't freaked out by it this time.  she still wanted to sit on my lap, though.  no biggie.

snip, snip.

she even got her first "blowout."

and then she was all done.

cute, yes?  oh, and speaking of cute - behold, the teen's official sophomore portrait!

man, i've got me some super fabulous girls.