The "Saturday" 7
You're getting this special advance edition of The Saturday 7 today because I'm leaving for Ladies' Retreat tonight and will be gone all weekend! I'm excited now, but the anxiety about leaving my girls will hit me at about 5:00 tonight when it's time for me to go. Haha.
1. I made it to Ezekiel in my One Year Bible this week. Wow. That is some weird stuff. I've always avoided reading it because I knew it was strange, but seriously, in chapter one alone:
2. I feel the need to record that my girls are suddenly playing with each other so much more than they ever used to. They dress up together and play school together and put their babies in strollers and go for walks together. It is adorable. And freeing. One day this week I actually made dinner alone in the kitchen while Lucy read books to Lena, and then they played doctor with their babies. Amazing!
A quick sidenote: Lucy is wearing Lena's button-up cardigan in the above picture. She put it on to be silly last night and ended up wearing it to bed. When Lena saw it this morning, she freaked out, shouting "Lena's! Lena's sweatshirt!" Oh boy. So it begins. Lol. (And I wish Lucy didn't have the apron on so you can see how 3 inches of her belly sticks out the bottom of the sweater. It's hilarious.)
3. We took a break from homeschool this week. I think that's part of what has inspired the girls to play together. I've been doing less structured work with Lucy, leaving her free for unstructured play with Lena. It has also resulted in a lot of boredom - both on her part and mine. I like homeschooling because I have pre-planned activities for us to do. When I don't have that, we spend more time watching TV/puttering around on facebook and whining about how we're bored. Haha. It was really nice to have a break, but it will also be really nice to get back to it.
4. Yet another reason the girls have been playing together more is because they have more time together now that I've cut out Lena's morning nap. I think it's finally starting to have its desired effect. She has been taking incrementally longer naps (yesterday was 2 hours and 15 minutes - going in the right direction!), and she's sleeping longer at night . . . kind of. She consistently wakes up between 5:20 and 5:40 am, but I've discovered that if I pull her into bed with me, she snuggles up as closely to me as possible and immediately falls back to sleep until 7 or later! Justin gets up at 4:30, so it's not a hardship for me to have another warm body to snuggle with. And I'll do pretty much anything for a couple extra hours of sleep!
5. My article to share this week is this one. I've seen it circulating on facebook a little bit, but wow is it powerful and convicting. It's inspired by C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters - wherein the Devil is writing letters to a demon giving him tips on how to distract his subjects from Jesus. The twist is that this article is written specifically about moms with young kids. The Devil tells the demon to make sure the young mother neglects her marriage, prizes productivity over all else, and focuses on all her problems and her pains. That last part was especially convicting for me. Go read the article for yourself.
6. I'm getting so excited for Christmas! We've been listening to Christmas music non-stop, I've started stalking bfads.net for Black Friday ad leaks, and I've even bought a couple presents online. I can't wait! Every year, I try to do something with Lucy to focus her on the true meaning of Christmas. We'll probably do our Advent activities like we have in years past (here and here), but I'm also going to do this one from focus on the family this year. It's free and draws in so much of the Biblical background that I think she's finally starting to be old enough to understand.
And don't worry, we haven't completely skipped over Thanksgiving. We're doing a thankful tree again this year. I'm loving the things Lucy is thankful for: the sky, her pretty dresses, Christmas trees, etc. Haha. I'll share them all at the end of November, so stay tuned. :-)
7. I read the first book in my "30 Before 30" venture: Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. My cousin Alisa recommended it to me, I was intrigued by the premise, and it got incredible reviews on Amazon, so I ordered it through the library. The day I went to pick it up, one of the librarians posted on facebook that she had just finished reading it and it left her completely spell-bound. When I got it from the library, it had a sticky note from said librarian on it telling me she loved it and I had to talk to her about it after I finished it.
So my expectations were high going in. It took me a couple chapters to get used to the first person narration and British slang, but then I was hooked. I can't really tell you how I felt about the book without giving away the ending. There was a twist in the middle that kept me reading 'til midnight to find out how it ended. (I read the whole book in one day - 9 interrupted hours.) I literally did not know how it would end until the last chapter - which is more than I can say for 99% of the Christian fiction I read. Haha. It was beautifully written and incredibly thought provoking. It was also pretty clean. Some swearing, too much usage of the name "Christ" in a way that makes me uncomfortable, and references to sex - but nothing explicit. All that's to say, I'd recommend it, and want you all to read it so we can talk about it. :-)
1. I made it to Ezekiel in my One Year Bible this week. Wow. That is some weird stuff. I've always avoided reading it because I knew it was strange, but seriously, in chapter one alone:
15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. 16 This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 17 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. 18 Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.4-faced creatures and wheels covered in eyes? Is that what Heaven's going to be like?
2. I feel the need to record that my girls are suddenly playing with each other so much more than they ever used to. They dress up together and play school together and put their babies in strollers and go for walks together. It is adorable. And freeing. One day this week I actually made dinner alone in the kitchen while Lucy read books to Lena, and then they played doctor with their babies. Amazing!
3. We took a break from homeschool this week. I think that's part of what has inspired the girls to play together. I've been doing less structured work with Lucy, leaving her free for unstructured play with Lena. It has also resulted in a lot of boredom - both on her part and mine. I like homeschooling because I have pre-planned activities for us to do. When I don't have that, we spend more time watching TV/puttering around on facebook and whining about how we're bored. Haha. It was really nice to have a break, but it will also be really nice to get back to it.
4. Yet another reason the girls have been playing together more is because they have more time together now that I've cut out Lena's morning nap. I think it's finally starting to have its desired effect. She has been taking incrementally longer naps (yesterday was 2 hours and 15 minutes - going in the right direction!), and she's sleeping longer at night . . . kind of. She consistently wakes up between 5:20 and 5:40 am, but I've discovered that if I pull her into bed with me, she snuggles up as closely to me as possible and immediately falls back to sleep until 7 or later! Justin gets up at 4:30, so it's not a hardship for me to have another warm body to snuggle with. And I'll do pretty much anything for a couple extra hours of sleep!
5. My article to share this week is this one. I've seen it circulating on facebook a little bit, but wow is it powerful and convicting. It's inspired by C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters - wherein the Devil is writing letters to a demon giving him tips on how to distract his subjects from Jesus. The twist is that this article is written specifically about moms with young kids. The Devil tells the demon to make sure the young mother neglects her marriage, prizes productivity over all else, and focuses on all her problems and her pains. That last part was especially convicting for me. Go read the article for yourself.
6. I'm getting so excited for Christmas! We've been listening to Christmas music non-stop, I've started stalking bfads.net for Black Friday ad leaks, and I've even bought a couple presents online. I can't wait! Every year, I try to do something with Lucy to focus her on the true meaning of Christmas. We'll probably do our Advent activities like we have in years past (here and here), but I'm also going to do this one from focus on the family this year. It's free and draws in so much of the Biblical background that I think she's finally starting to be old enough to understand.
And don't worry, we haven't completely skipped over Thanksgiving. We're doing a thankful tree again this year. I'm loving the things Lucy is thankful for: the sky, her pretty dresses, Christmas trees, etc. Haha. I'll share them all at the end of November, so stay tuned. :-)
7. I read the first book in my "30 Before 30" venture: Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. My cousin Alisa recommended it to me, I was intrigued by the premise, and it got incredible reviews on Amazon, so I ordered it through the library. The day I went to pick it up, one of the librarians posted on facebook that she had just finished reading it and it left her completely spell-bound. When I got it from the library, it had a sticky note from said librarian on it telling me she loved it and I had to talk to her about it after I finished it.
So my expectations were high going in. It took me a couple chapters to get used to the first person narration and British slang, but then I was hooked. I can't really tell you how I felt about the book without giving away the ending. There was a twist in the middle that kept me reading 'til midnight to find out how it ended. (I read the whole book in one day - 9 interrupted hours.) I literally did not know how it would end until the last chapter - which is more than I can say for 99% of the Christian fiction I read. Haha. It was beautifully written and incredibly thought provoking. It was also pretty clean. Some swearing, too much usage of the name "Christ" in a way that makes me uncomfortable, and references to sex - but nothing explicit. All that's to say, I'd recommend it, and want you all to read it so we can talk about it. :-)
Kaitlin has amazing handwriting! :)
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