Erin Akin Carroll

…and growing.

As a blogger, I get lots of questions about random things. That’s one of my favorite things about the blogosphere and the Twitter community; we’re all able to share ideas and get ideas. Most of my questions are about things related to parenting, caring for an infant, what I do as a SAHM, party-planning ideas, wedding planning ideas, and even travel tips for babies. Another common question is about my hair.

Here’s my hair philosophy: “My body isn’t where I’d like it to be, so I’m going to focus on my hair.”

How long did it take to grow my hair out? How do I get my hair to be wavy and stay wavy? How does my hair look so “healthy?” (I’m not positive that my hair does look healthy. Maybe it just photographs well. My hair is very dry. I only have to wash it every 4-5 days)

I’ve had short hair for most of my life except for about a year in high school and a year in college. When I met Todd, I had shoulder-length hair. When I knew he was “the one” I decided to grow it out so I could have long hair for our wedding someday.

My hair is naturally wavy. I let it air dry and then the next day (or later the same day) do the “curl down.” Watch the video in this post for the curl down tutorial.

But the secret to long hair? Is these little guys right here. My hair grew a lot when I was pregnant partly due to pregnancy hormones and the other part was due to Fred, Barney, Wilma, Betty, Pebbles, and Bam Bam.

I didn’t take prenatal vitamins because they made me too sick. My doctor suggested I take Flintstones vitamins instead and they were great for the whole pregnancy.

They also caused my hair to grow, grow, grow. So I continued taking them after Hudson was born. I’ve had a couple of hair cuts where I’ve gotten 2-3 inches cut off since he was born, but it always comes back quickly.

So that’s the secret to my long hair.

Flintstones Vitamins. And patience.

Note: If you’re pregnant, please talk to your doctor before switching to Flintstones instead of your regular prenatals!

I’ve mentioned a few times that I was involved with our church’s Music Camp this week. Our church hadn’t done Music Camp in at least three years, I think, so this was my first year to help out. I volunteered to help and expected to be doing something like making name tags or being a homeroom mom or helping with registration.

But this is just a great example of how God can take you out of your comfort zone and put you in a place that you don’t know much about. I was asked to teach the puppets class. Three thirty minute classes every day. I don’t know anything about puppets except that I’ve made some lunch bag puppets a few times and I used to love those big puppets that used to come to church and school and teach you about saying no to drugs. You know, like these guys.

Our church actually owns a handful of these kinds of puppets, but I wasn’t really sure what to do with them. What were they supposed to say or talk about? Or sing? I just didn’t have a clue.

The coordinator of the camp put me in touch with the woman that taught puppets at music camp for years and I met with her. I found out that she knows a whole lot about puppets and she gave me some terrific ideas.

I basically decided that the class would focus on crafting and making the puppets and then at the end of the camp we’d have the puppets we made do a puppet show. I spent the past couple of weeks gathering up the pieces for all of the puppets we would be making and basically cutting out puppet templates. I didn’t want the kids to have to waste their time cutting out all of the eyes, ears, noses, etc.

Puppet Project #1: Noah’s Ark Song

The song we used is by the Donut Man and it mentions five different animals and features those animals’ sounds that they make. So each of my campers made those five puppets this week. I’ve taken pictures of the monkey, the elephant, and the lion. The song also mentions a bear and a hyena but I didn’t have the examples at home.

We picked out a monkey “puppet” that’s really more of a monkey headband. And when the monkey makes the monkey noise on the song, the kids bobbed their heads around.

These puppets (with the exception of the monkey) were mitts that the kids wore on their whole hand. They didn’t have to mess with moving the mouths with their hands.

Puppet Project #2: The Dancing Puppy

This project was really fun. The puppy is basically a styrofoam ball stuffed into a tube sock with a dowel rod hot glued into the styrofoam ball. Once the tub sock is on, you can slide the cup onto the stick and wrap the sock around the bottom of the cup. You glue the little facial features and ears onto the puppy and you’ve got a dancing dog!

Supplies needed: styrofoam ball, 16 oz cup or can (cup needs to have bottom cut out/ can needs to have both ends removed), a tube sock with no heel, felt for ears, pom poms in three different sizes for the muzzle, nose, and tongue, and the little crafting eye balls.

Boudreaux wanted his turn with the dancing puppy

And that’s what I’ve been up to the last couple of weeks. It was fun and a real learning experience for me. I’m not sure if I’ll do puppets again next year because I’ll obviously have to come up with new ideas since most of the kids will be returning. But I do know that I’ll work it out if I end up doing it again.

I woke up this morning and checked Twitter like I always do. The Today Show, ENews, People, and Us Weekly had all tweeted that Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston are engaged. Seriously? Bristol? (I’ll go ahead and assume that Bristol Palin is, in fact, reading this.)

This is the same Levi who has said horrible things about your family. He posed for Playgirl. He is and will always be the father of your precious son, but that doesn’t mean that you have to marry him. You have lived a year with your baby without being married to him.

I know that it’s always best if the child’s parents end up happily together in these situations. And I know that it’s best to be forgiving. But I can assure you that I’d have a hard time forgetting the horrible things he has gone out of his way to say to the media about the Palin family. I can only wish the best for them. And I can only hope they realize that marriage is a huge commitment and Tripp can have two parents without them making a mistake like getting married if they’re not reading. And maybe they are ready.

And, you know, it’s really none of my business. Who am I to judge? I’m just a tabloid reader who reads the statements that they willingly give to the media!

What do y’all think of the Bristol/Levi engagement?

My girl crush, Carrie Underwood, got married last weekend at Georgia’s Ritz Carlton Reynolds Plantation resort. She was so close and I didn’t even get an invite! People Magazine has released some pictures of her wedding in their latest issue, but this is all that I could see online without buying the issue. The issue will be on the news stands on Friday and you can bet your biffy that I’ll be picking up my copy as soon as possible!

From what I can see, Carrie looked stunning and appears to be very happy. I can’t tell a lot about the dress, so I’m not going to give any commentary on it just yet. Some parts are questionable, but her face is flawless and that’s all that matters.

Do you think Carrie Underwood is the most gorgeous bride ever?

*both photos from People

One of my favorite shows of all time is Behind the Music on VH1. I don’t even know if they still record original episodes of this show, but it was a fantastic show. I loved the back stories of all of my favorite bands. I loved hearing how they all came together and how they all broke up.

My three favorite Behind the Music episodes were about bands that basically fell apart because of crazy love triangles. It’s so sad that a woman can tear a band apart, but in these three stories they did.

Fleetwood Mac

The relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham is a tragic rock ‘n roll love story, but it makes for good music– and a good episode of Behind the Music. Fleetwood Mac is one of my favorite bands of all time and this is one of my favorite performances of all time.

The Mamas and the Papas

Such a fun sing-along kind of band. For a girl who loves to harmonize, this band is so much fun to listen to. They were also torn apart by a love triangle between Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty, and John Phillips. And Mama Cass Elliot was reportedly always in love with Denny Doherty. What a mess.

But, boy, could they sing!

Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship

Grace Slick and her ways with her male band mates make this such an interesting story! And I love listening to Somebody to Love and White Rabbit on repeat!

I’m going to sound like an old lady for a second, but they just don’t make music like they used to. Thank goodness for old episodes of Behind the Music.

Did you watch Behind the Music? Do you have a favorite episode?