The Saturday 7

1. Lucy got her first hair cut last Saturday. She loves her long hair, but it's getting so scraggly that I've been working on getting her to cut it for a while. Saturday night I gave her a bath and she finally said, "I think I'm ready to get my hair cut." I enlisted my mom and we did it then and there before she could change her mind. In the end, we hardly took anything off. Like seriously an inch. But we didn't want to cut off all the curl and were really just looking to cut off the dead stuff. It definitely looks better and still has the curl!

2. This week has been consumed with homeschool planning and prep. I'm probably making it more involved than I need to, but that's just how I roll. On Wednesday, we spent the day at Kelly's house to share plans/bounce ideas off each other. That night, we left the kids with our husbands and went shopping at 6:30 pm. I didn't get home 'til 11:30 pm! Woohoo! Crazy childless moms out shopping 'til the wee hours of the morning! It was so fun and I'm feeling much more prepared.

3. Lucy has been on a Junie B. Jones kick lately. We went to a different library than usual this week and found a whole bunch of new Junie B. books. I have been reading to her until my mouth dries out every night and have been thinking in Junie B. phrases. But I love to see her excited about reading! I can't wait to move on to some less obnoxious literature! I got a couple Alex books from my childhood for her, but they're too long and don't have enough pictures. She lost interest before I finished the first page.

4. Have you seen this article all over facebook this week? (Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt) I finally read it after my 3rd facebook friend shared it. I loved it, too, but thought it was interesting to see how it resonated among so many of my very different friends. My social justice loving friends shared it. My conservative mom friends shared it. My liberal activist friends shared it. My rich friends and poor friends shared it. Do we all resonate with wanting to "Keep Up with the Joneses" and love how she gives us reason not to try so hard? Do we identify with calling out our greed for what it is and recognize our need to be thankful? Or are people just sharing to shame those of us who are vocal about wishing for bigger and better kitchens/houses/what have you? Haha. I'm gonna go with options 1 and 2. ;-)

5. Random Lena observation from this week: she always wants to be included when something funny is going on. The other day I had to bring my dad home from the mechanic. Lena was in the backseat, and when my dad and I chuckled about something, she started laughing too and said, "funny!" Today, Niki came over and was telling us a hilarious story. As we were all laughing, Lena ran into the room, started cackling and again shouted, "funny!" I love her. Little cheeseball.

6. Yesterday, we had a family fun day at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo! I didn't actually know there was such a thing until I got a call from our local library letting us know Lucy had won a 4 pack of tickets through the Summer Reading Club! I looked it up online and was a little nervous that it wouldn't really interest Lucy, but we decided to try it anyway. I underestimated how far of a drive it is to Kalamazoo. Poor Lucy thought she was going to die. The girl has some major motion sickness. We hadn't been in the car longer than 15 minutes before she started crying that her belly hurt. I gave her some children's pepto and tried to distract her, but she was inconsolable after an hour and a half in the car. We finally had to pull over and let her walk around for a while and buy her a Sprite. We made it without any puking incidents and she was totally fine on the way home - didn't complain once about her belly! So weird. 

Anyway, the Air Zoo is definitely a little over Lucy's head (ha ha - pun), but they had a small section of kid rides that she loved. I don't understand how she can get sick in the car, but can ride spinny rides all afternoon without a twinge!

Group selfie on the Ferris Wheel! Lena was OK at first, but got more and more nervous as the ride continued. 

Justin and Lucy on the Ferris Wheel.

The plane. Lena didn't like this one either. Haha.

Lucy's favorite! This one went really high and fast and made me sick. Justin had to go with Lucy like 10 times. Haha.

The only ride Lena liked.

In the clouds on the way out. (With a very sleepy Lena)

It was a great day! And the best part is, both girls got in free, so we still have 2 tickets! Theoretically, we could have another family day, but I think Justin and I might go back by ourselves. There were a ton of huge war planes and exhibits that Justin wanted to read all about, but the girls wouldn't have any of that. And until I figure out how to better handle Lucy's motion sickness, we're going to avoid long car rides with her!

7. I've been feeling really guilty about how little time I spend really playing with Lucy lately. I have a hard time with un-structured play, but it's hard to play games or read books with Lena around. That's one reason I'm looking forward to homeschooling. I'll have pre-planned activities for us to do every day, and we'll be spending lots of time together. Of course, in a couple months I'm probably going to be crying that I don't get enough time to spend with Lena, but hopefully we'll be able to make it work!