well, i am having a hard time downloading my pictures to my very tempermental computer (insert colorful language directed at Vista..), and so i cannot illustrate this post as i wanted to. but i will try with a link. a few days ago, we were trying to decide what to do with ava's hair. It absolitely MUST be put up somehow, since it is thick, yet fine, and down to her bottom, and gets terribly terribly tangled if left down for more than 30 seconds. she has been going along steadily with 1 braid now for a while, and we wanted to mix it up. i thought of swiss braids/heidi braids etc, and tried to describe them to her. it was not translating well -- the look on her face pretty much said "what in god's name are you talking about?"--so we googled them. of course, heidi braids pop up with pictures of many other braided styles, including "crown braids." and when pictures of crown braids pop up, inevitably pictures of Yulia Tymoshenko pop up.

Ava took one look at her, and wanted a crown braid.

A half-hour of internet research and self-tutorials, and another half-hour of confusion later, I managed to complete what is known as a dutch crown braid. The dutch part is for the way the hair is brought into the braid--under vs over like a french braid, and the crown is because you do this in a circle around her head, vs straight down the back (100x easier, I presume). It was complicated, but wow. It ended up looking great, and she looked adorable. And it keeps the little strays off her face. It is really formal looking, but she has had one in for 4 days now (not the same one...). She loves it. If I ever get my pictures on my computer, I will post it. It is 100% Ava.