I’ll start with the latest outfit photo from a few days ago.
As you can see, I cut my hair. I do a short haircut every 2 years and then grow my hair out again. This time my hairdresser girlfriend, who was visiting from Switzerland, practically forced me to cut it because I was damaging it badly by wearing it in a bun ALL THE FREAKING TIME. I wasn’t planning on going THIS short and was a bit shocked when I touched my hair and realized how short it was. She said it was necessary to cut off all the damaged ends… Oh well…
After about 2 days of going back and forth on whether I like it or not, I was starting to really dig it. The biggest complaint I had before is that my only option for a hair style was a bun or a ponytail. Now I am having fun wearing it down, having fun with styles and the way it was cut it is SOOOO easy to style it. I’ve never had my hair cut this particular way. I wake up and my hair is ready to go. I also had her cut bangs so that when I do wear it up, it looks more styled.
It looks awesome lightly blow dried and looks great air dried, too ( my hair has a strong wave to it when not blow dried). I am not planning on keeping it short, I’ll be growing it out, but a change is always fun. By the time it grows out again in year, I’ll be ready to cut it short again a year later.
One tip she gave me for bun wearers is to give scalp massages daily, because it promotes the growth and keeps roots healthy.
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Elena
Hair flower: Hopscotch Boutique on Etsy
Studded Tank top: MyHabit
Skirt: Victoria’s Secret
Sandals: Boutique 9 from MyHabit
Alexis
Hairband: Ruffles and Fringe on Etsy
Onesie dress: Zulily
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Formula
I have a can of elemental formula (powder), Neocate that we bought as a backup back in the first few weeks of breastfeeding when we were concerned about supply. I also have a 6 pack of Similac Alimentum.
For those who don’t know what elemental formula is: it doesn’t contain milk or soy proteins, it’s basically broken down to amino acids, so it’s impossible to have allergic reactions, or gas or reflux using this kind of formula.
Because I am a big believer in eliminating milk proteins out of infants diets (whether through breastmilk or formula), I would like to mail it to anyone who is currently feeding their baby standard milk based formula and their baby is experiences any gas, reflux or colic symptoms regularly.
Both will expire by the end of the year and I would hate to waste it, so if anyone is interested in it, let me know in the comments.
{formula is claimed, thanks for your emails}
I have a good friend that has a 3.5 mo old little girl named Eliza. Due to complications at delivery (severe hemorrhaging) she has had supply issues. I’ve been pumping what extra milk I can for her, but she’s still having to supplement. I believe she’s using regular formula and Eliza cries and gets quite fussy during and after every bottle of formula. Breaks my heart 🙁
Can she email me at contact@everyavenuelife.com?
Scalp massage and a loose braid is what I’m having today 🙂
Your hair looks great! Glad it’s easy to style, too. You’re cute though; I was reading about your shock w/how short it is and expecting to see it actually short. It’s medium length. 😉 But I love it, and I love Alexis’s dress.
It seemed very short to me after having long hair, but once it dried, I realized it was cute 🙂
I’m not sure how a bun damaged your hair. I have very long hair (to my waist) and belong to several long hair communities on the internet, and the constant advice to people wanting to protect their hair is to wear it in a bun! I wear my hair in a bun pretty much every day and my hair is in great condition. What do you wash your hair with? Maybe that is causing the damage? You might want to try to oiling it to, that has really helped my hair stay in awesome condition. You have really pretty hair, so I just thought you might like to look into some other options.
I think the problem was that I wore it in a bun all night and all day long. And the kind of bun I’d do is where I roll my hair tightly, and it’d just sit there that way. I could see that it was getting bad just because of that’s I bet you do a loose pretty bun instead.
What she told me is the roots aren’t getting the blood circulation that way.
There isn’t blood circulation in hair lol. If there was you would bleed during a hair cut. The root is alive but the rest of your hair isn’t
You look adorable! Love your new hair!! You are so fit! Sometime I’d love it if you wrote a post on nutrition and what you eat. I exercise a ton, but have poor eating habits. Do you recommend any books on clean eating?
Thank you, Joelle!
I believe in proper eating for weight loss, and exercise for toning. I’ve never seen exercise only to work well for weight loss.
That being said, I desperately need to tone lol
Anyways, tips on nutrition, if you look at the top nav bar there’s a link to my old nutrition posts. I still go by all of that- it’s become my lifestyle.
I also think being {fish eating} vegan has A LOT to do with that, even from the calorie load standpoint if nothing else.
Good luck!
E-
I think that hair flower your wearing would look lovely tucked just above your ear (like you would a real flower) with your new cut!
Also, deep condition by using a wide tooth comb to work through conditioner once a week- works wonders on my thick fine long blonde hair!
My other tip- fedoras. My go to style is no style, throw a hat on and multi-task by protecting your hair, skipping the styling and keeping sun off your face somewhat. Plus, they look cute 🙂
PS
Baby is looking adorable in her little headband!
i have a friend whose 22 month daughter is on an elemental diet only. i know they could use it.
you can read a little bit about them & their story here if you’re interested http://answersforaddison.blogspot.com/
My daughter is allergic to both soy and dairy and we could really use the formula as my husband was just laid off. Thank you for your consideration! I love your blog!
Email me contact@everyavenuelife.com
OMG! Your hair looks fantastic! Please consider keeping it at this length. You look very put together and, in my opinion, sexier.
I personally am not a fan of having long hair just for the sake of being long.
Thank you!
We will see. I love having long hair when I have time for upkeep.
Cute hair! It’s like the Rachel!
Yes! So 90’s!
I love your hair short. I saw pictures on the blog from when it was shorter and was wondering why you didn’t cut it when you had Alexis since you don’t seen to have time to style it often, which is understandable. Really, it looks great now.
Thanks! I’m glad you like it 🙂
How sweet of you to give the formula to a mom in need. 🙂 Love the haircut, and the outfits!
Yes, the formula giveaway was a great idea.
I’m shocked to see how insanely expensive the hypoallergenic formulas are. I had no idea. I feel for the people who have no choice but to buy them for their babies.
It is pretty crazy right?
I think you mentioned earlier that you only planned to go dairy free until Alexis turned 6 months. Just curious…now that Alexis is over 6 months, have you reincorporated dairy into your diet? I ask because I’ve (mostly) cut out dairy and was planning on starting it again once my son turned 6 months (and hopefully no longer has the open gut), but I’m wondering if you’ve found a reason to continue dairy free? I can’t wait to eat ice cream again…
No I haven’t and I am not planning on getting back to it. My hubby is vegan, so we are just going to continue being dairy free (I do eat fish, so I’m not a true vegan).
There are several reasons for that. For one, Alexis still spits up regularly and I don’t want to make it worse.
Two, even though her intestine is closed, I still feel strongly about not exposing her to any cow’s milk.
And three, cow’s milk just isn’t good for you. We as humans weren’t supposed to drink cows breast milk. I was sort of planning on going vegan once Lexi is born as it is though.
So those are my reasons.
As far as missing certain foods, there are so many milk substitutes that taste amazing that I honestly don’t miss anything but cheese pizza (I don’t think vegan cheese is all that). Coconut ice cream is great, almond milk taste better than fatty cows milk.
That being said, now that she’s 6 months, I don’t sweat the trace amount of milk in things. Like I’ll eat cookies made with milk, or something like that. And if I absolutely wanted to, I’m ok eating something with cheese.
At this point, the taste of milk, butter or cheese grosses me out because of how fatty it tastes (hard cheese like parm seem to be fine from that standpoint).
So that’s where I am at.
What about you? Have you thought about making it a permanent lifestyle choice?
Hey Elena! I would be really interested in reading a post about your eating habits and how you intend to translate them in Lexi’s lifestyle. I am currently a non-strict vegetarian and I would like to learn about how you made the transition into veganism, as well as why you took that decision. I am also very curious to find out how you intend to deal with veganism with Lexi – is she gonna be vegan too? How will that impact her social life (i.e.: not being able to eat what her friends eat, etc.)? If you decide to make her vegan, when do you plan on explaining her what it means, etc. TIA! It’s a topic that’s almost endless to me.
It’s an endless topic to me too! I’ve never raised a vegan baby, nor have I read books about it, so I am a bit clueless at the moment. I know we won’t be introducing meat or dairy since we don’t eat that ourselves. She’ll eat the diet we eat at home and when she’s out with friends, I guess she will have to make her own decisions as to what she wants to do. That’s pretty much as far as I’ve thought about it for the moment lol
From the few vegan families with kids I know, they say their kids actually end up not wanting all the bad stuff they see kids eating, like chicken nuggets, macNcheese, hotdogs.
As far as my decision to switch from being a vegetarian and then non-dairy vegetarian, it is a very long story. I seem to remember getting into it a while back. Check out the nutrition tab up top. I’ll try to write about it when I can, though 🙂 Thanks for the questions, Jeanne!
I’m not sure yet…I’ve put “The China Study” on hold at the library and I’m looking forward to reading it. I’m sure it will change the way we eat some things, but I doubt we’ll end up going vegan. I tend to think that God gave us animals as part of our diet (although I don’t believe he every intended us to raise them the way we do…hormones, steroids, antibiotics, etc.). I’m going to look into the coconut ice cream…sounds delicious!
That’s the biggest thing “hormones, steroids, antibiotics, etc.”!!!!
Coconut milk ice cream is great and there are so many different ones, you just gotta find the one you like.
So delicious brand peanut butter and chocolate flavor is the most amazing thing on this earth! Be careful b.c it comes in a soy milk version that is not nearly as good. Enjoy!
Your hair is absolutely adorable! I’ve been wanting to get my hair cut, it’s been falling out a lot this year, and I think shorter makes it less noticeable. But my prenatal’s are making it grow so much faster! I need to get some health issues under control before I can go to a salon.
You and Lexi both look great!
First off, that’s really sweet and good of you to offer up that formula. Good for you (:
Second, your hair looks really good! I just cut mine as well. Styling it just took too darn long because of it’s length, and I could see it was becoming damaged from being up all the time. Before I had my baby in June, I NEVER put my hair up for the purpose of avoiding damage. However, as you know, having your hair down around a newborn isn’t always the safest thing =P I had my hair spit up in and pulled too many times to count, lol.
So…you eat fish (an animal), cheese (an animal product…even hard cheeses like parm), and trace amounts of milk in cookies (which usually contain eggs, unless you’re eating vegan cookies which have no traces of milk…eggs are also an animal product). So you’re not a vegan.
I don’t eat cheese, and I don’t claim I am a vegan. But it’s a lot easy to say that I am a fish eating vegan than explain what it is exactly I eat and don’t eat.
FYI, I know a lot of full blown vegans who are “ok” with trace amounts of milk in certain products. It’s not an all or nothing kind of deal. It’s about what’s healthy and suitable for each person.
The vegan police are going to come and take away your special vegan powers (-;
Ahahahaha! Oh no! What did I get myself into? Damn you, blog!
Some people are vegan for personal health reasons, others due to deep moral convictions. I think that the moral conviction folks would object to you saying you are a vegan. My vegan friends won’t even eat honey b/c they consider it inhumane to the bees! So they’re not going to be okay with trace amounts of dairy in cookies, certainly.
It seems from reading your blog that you make decisions about what to eat and buy based on your deep fears for your personal health (and Alexis’s health as well) rather than out of concern about the environment or animal rights or what have you. I don’t think you’ve ever claimed to be an environmentalist- you live in a huge house on a golf course and drive a big SUV and buy lots of stuff. But I think that people get confused b/c they see that you are interested in organic stuff and eat a vegan diet and think that you’re interested in the health of the planet in the way that some people who are interested in organic stuff are. Probably we need a word for this to distinguish between green living and toxin-avoidance living.
I personally do not know anyone who are vegan for moral convictions, though it does play a small role in most vegan’s thinking. But I disagree that those vegans would object someone saying they are vegan just because they eat honey. They don’t have a monopoly on the word “vegan”. One can be vegan for many reasons, just like some people are STAUNCHLY vegan, and others are more relaxed. Most my friends/family who are vegan wouldn’t freak out if they had a restaurant meal that turned out to have had butter or milk, though they would prefer without.
My husband is vegan, because he feels better not eating animal products ( again trace amounts occasionally are no big deal for him, though he tries to avoid it). I don’t eat meats,dairy, because I believe they are not healthy for you. I don’t have “deep fears” though, as you put it. I just try my hardest to lead as healthy of a lifestyle as I can. I am by no means perfect in it, but I do what works for me. The same way I eat fish, because I believe it’s healthy.
I do wish they came up with a word for vegans who eat fish, that would make the explaining a lot easier. I think they will eventually, since more and more people who make a change to a vegan lifestyle eventually go back to fish for health reasons. BUT… I don’t think it’s necessary to distinguish vegans who do it for animal cruelty reasons and vegans who do it because it’s healthy. What does it matter why? The answer to the “why” question is never as simple as a one word answer anyways. 🙂
“I do wish they came up with a word for vegans who eat fish, that would make the explaining a lot easier. ”
You could use pescatarian, but it typically refers to a vegetarian. Or, macrobiotic, although I’m not sure of accurate it would be for you…depends on how long you chew your foods, I guess.
I really like your hair cut. It makes you look younger and the layers give its some oomph that the long straight style lacked. Your friend did good!
Yeah pescetarian refers to a vegetarian, who eats diary… 🙁
My brother is a very strict vegan (he doesn’t eat honey because it comes from bees and he’ll ask about ingredients in things at restaurants to make sure they use margarine instead of butter, etc) He would most definitely have something to say about someone being ‘vegan’ and eating anything containing any animal product, but that’s just his personality and he does it for the morality and cruelty to animals. He’s the only strict vegan I know so I can’t say how others would respond to one who eats fish and some trace animal products. My sister is a vegetarian who doesn’t eat dairy (lactose intolerant), but won’t claim to be vegan. She says “I’m a vegetarian who doesn’t eat dairy”.
So I say I am a vegan who eats fish! lol Same deal. I am not a vegan. I am a fish eating vegan. Or non-dairy pescetarian.
Oh no why?! I LOVE your long hair SOOO much!!!!! How long it takes u to grow??? 🙂 hope quick!!! It takes me about 6-8 years to go 🙁
About a year so it’s not biggie 🙂