a welcome (and an introduction): part one

Welcome to Our Blessed Life... With Curls!  I am so excited about this new blog home for all things related to the care of the special curls in our family.

But, first, let me introduce myself.  I'm Nikki, and as you can see, I do not have curls:

Nope.  No curls.  My hair is straight and currently cut in a pretty short style. 

So, how is this Our Blessed Life... With Curls?

Well, it all started with my family's blog home, which I called Notes From a Blessed Life.  When I describe my life as blessed, I don't mean it's all coming up roses or anything!  But I do count it all, whatever 'it' may be, as a blessing.  And no matter the trials, this is a blessed life.

Recently, I added another wrinkle to my little blog life.  That was a blog devoted to all the recipes I used with my family and I called it My Blessed Life... In the Kitchen.  Are you sensing a theme?  

That brings us here to Our Blessed Life... With Curls.  As we've already established, I do not have curls of my own.  But I do have a very special person in my life who does have curls.  Fabulous curls in fact, and she is my daughter.

Pretty cute, isn't she?  (I mean, if I do say so myself!)

So, yes, since it's pretty obvious, we are not necessarily your typical mother/daughter.  {Or are we?  But that's another topic for another day.  And I'm sure it's a topic I'll come back to.}

I am blessed to be Hope's mom through the beauty of adoption.  Hope was born in Ethiopia, and was brought home to our family in November of 2009 when she was 10 months old and had just a little bit of hair.

Today, Hope is an active, outgoing, sweet, and funny 4-year old girl who has, well, a lot more hair.  We make hair care a priority, but we do not make it the center of our lives.  The time we spend putting in a particular style is an investment because it may allow us several weeks, or even a couple of months, when simple maintenance is all that is required.  I don't think much of what I do with Hope's hair is particularly fancy, and if you are looking for a blog that will teach you how to design and put in intricate cornrows in cute and fancy patterns, you should probably keep looking.

But, if you are looking for a blog that celebrates the beauty of natural hair, then this is the place for you!  My plans for this space are to make it a space for me to document the hairstyles my daughter is wearing, with instructions and product recommendations where appropriate.  I may also talk at times about the particular issues that come up for us as a conspicuous family, especially those issues related to my daughter's hair.  I'm sure I will come up with a lot more uses for this blog over time as well.

In part two, I'll talk about why I'm starting this blog devoted to hair care now, and say a little more about why taking good care of Hope's hair is so important to me.  In the meantime, I've written a number of posts about Hope's hair at my family's blog, and you can link to any one of them by clicking here.

Blessings,
Nikki