The Saturday 7

1. It dawned on me this week that when we set our clocks back tonight, Lena is going to start waking up at 5:00 am instead of 6. Oh boy. So I decided I need to get really serious about dropping her morning nap. It is not going well. She actually does pretty well with skipping the nap. She's usually pretty grumpy by 11:00 am, but nothing too ridiculous. The worst part is that she is not making up for it elsewhere. She used to take a 2 hour morning nap, a 2 hour afternoon nap, and sleep about 9.5-10 hours at night. So 14 hours total. Inexplicably, since dropping the morning nap, her afternoon nap has gotten shorter! Only by about 15 minutes, but I thought it would get longer! And she is not making up for it at night. Last week, when she randomly started getting up at 5:30 am, I started putting her to bed at 8:30 at night. One day this week, Lena was up from 4-6am for no apparent reason. She wasn't in pain, she didn't need anything, she just wanted to be awake. I ended up pulling her into bed with me and she slept until 8. Other than that day, she's still be consistently sleeping from 8:30-6ish. Sometimes a little bit earlier. So frustrating!! She has gotten 2 new molars in the past two weeks, so I really hope that has something to do with it.

2. After my complaining about not losing weight last week, I lost 4 pounds this week. Woohoo! I've still been laying off the Dr Pepper and eating Lean Cuisines for lunch, but I've also been eating a lot of candy and homemade bread. Haha. I'm gonna keep at it. Maybe there's some validity to the whole "Dr Pepper makes you fat" conspiracy, after all. ;-)

3. Thanks for all the book recommendations for my 30 Before 30 list. I pinned a whole bunch and have started ordering some through the library's interloan system. I'm really interested to see how I like non-Christian fiction. Maybe I'll branch out, do this little experiment, and realize I was reading Christian fiction for a reason. Haha.

4. Just a little note on the weather for me to read back on someday: On Monday, we had highs in the 70s and spent the day at the park with friends. By yesterday, we had highs in the 30s and big, fat snowflakes! Yesterday's facebook statuses looked something like this:

Friend 1: Oh my word! Snow! Not yet!
Friend 2: Yay, snow!
Friend 3: This is Michigan, people. Get used to the snow.
Friend 4: Snow?! On Halloween! We're going to freeze tonight!
Friend 5: Our state is shaped like a mitten. It snows every year. What do you people expect?!

I don't know if I was just more irritable than usual or what, but it irritates me to no end that people have to be all high and mighty. I wanted to make a status that said this: "This is Michigan. It snows every year. And every year, people will get excited about it and facebook statuses will reflect that. Get off your high horse and just let people update their statuses as they wish!" Lol. And in case you saw my status about being annoyed with the facebook snarkiness, it was based off of way more than just the weather posts. So don't get your grundies in a bunch.

5. Despite Friday's irritability, I actually had my best Thursday in months. Thursdays are historically my worst depression days. I haven't totally figured out why. I think Monday through Wednesday I'm motivated to clean and do homeschool and play with my kids, and by Thursday I'm just done. I'm bored with my life and sick of cleaning and sick of my kids' endless demands. Attractive, right? I don't know if this Thursday was better because my new drugs are finally kicking in, or because we were busy a lot of the day or what, but it was glorious!

6. We had such a fun Halloween. Growing up, I wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween, and before having kids, I really deliberated over whether or not I'd let them participate. I know that Halloween started as a religious holiday (All Hallow's Eve), but it seems to have been taken over by guts and gore and evil-glorification. And I know of a few Satan-worshippers who claim it as their holiday, so that makes me a little uneasy, too. I want no part of that. But then I decided that Halloween is what we make it. Just like atheists celebrate their version of Christmas, we can celebrate our version of Halloween. To us, it's just an excuse to dress up in an innocent costume and get some free candy. I've seen a lot of Christians call it an opportunity to witness to their neighbors and be a light in their community by handing out tracts along with candy. I'm not sure tracts are ever beneficial, but turning off the porch light and hiding inside seems like a better way to alienate the community than engage with it. We live in the country and don't pass out candy, so it's a non-issue for us. But as long as my girls can manage to wear appropriate costumes and see the holiday as just a silly, fun time to dress up and eat junk food, Halloween is OK in my book. (And to each his own! If you have strong convictions against it, then by all means, don't let me try to convince you otherwise!)

7. In the past few years, we've trick-or-treated around my sister's subdivision. But this year, all our friends' kids were finally old enough and none of us had family obligations, so we all went together. It was so much fun! I know I write this all the time, but I'm so glad my girls have this group of same-aged kids to grow up with. They don't have cousins their age and none of my sibling seem in any hurry to have kids, so the small group kids will have to be my kids' "cousins." I'll wrap this up with a few pictures you've already seen on facebook, but must also be immortalized forever on the blog. ;-)

This was Lucy's original costume choice: Elsa. (Worn Wednesday to storytime at the library.)

At some point, she changed her mind and decided to she wanted to be Anna instead.  I was glad, because the Anna costume is bigger and much easier to stuff many layers underneath.

Lena was an adorable little jaguar/leopard/wild spotted cat. 

On Wednesday, she hated her costume and kept crying "too big!" On Friday when I told her she had to put her costume on before we could go get candy, she suddenly loved it and wanted to wear it all day! Haha. She wore a long-sleeved onesie and fleece footed pajamas under that thing and stayed toasty warm. She loved the "face paint" (eyeliner) too. When I started drawing it on her, she exclaimed, "Colors! Nose!" She couldn't believe I was coloring on her face. Friday night, whenever anyone said, "Aww, are you a kitty?" she enthusiastically patted her face and said, "Colors! Nose!" Haha. Also, quick word of recommendation: I dipped a kleenex in coconut oil and swiped it across her face and the eyeliner melted away like magic!

The whole gang. I love Harper and Lena's identical looks of confusion. The ninja turtle on the end (Presley) is the oldest, but Lucy seems to be towering over most of the group. 

I think one of the reasons Lucy decided she wanted to be Anna was because my mom brought this cape home from Once Upon a Child. Apparently Anna's cape is pinkish, whereas Elsa's is blue, and Lucy really wanted to wear the cape, so she decided to be Anna. Nevermind that Cinderella is emblazoned on the front. Haha.

We attached a few foam snowflakes to make it more "Frozen-esque."

Presley, Lucy, and Bob ready for candy!

These three (RJ, Lucy, and Presley) held hands most of the night. So adorable.

Memories!

*Edited to Add* I just hit "publish" on this entry and noticed it's my 400th post! Wowza!