The Saturday 7

1. We had another busy week of summer fun. We're actually trying to cram it all in now because we're starting school in 9 days! The beautiful thing about homeschool is that if we start early enough in the day we'll still have our afternoons free for swimming and other fun stuff. But by starting now we can be done in mid-May when we're all desperate for school to be over. I've been working on lesson plans and organization for the past few weeks. It's my favorite part of homeschool. But now I actually have to do all the lessons. I'm trying to be hopeful, but I'm honestly dreading it. I don't want to fight the girls' attitudes. I don't want to feel like a failure as a parent for being unable to keep Levi under control. I just want to send them off to a good Christian school where they'll be educated and taught to love Jesus. I'm happy to reinforce that at home. I just don't want to be their only source. BUT, I'm also really working on being content where I am. This is where we feel God has called us for this season, so I need to be grateful for the opportunity, and make the most of it instead of whining and despising it the whole time. Wish me luck!

2. Levi unwittingly experienced another milestone this week: the end of the Binky. We made the girls give them up when they turned 3, but Levi's birthday fell a few days before we moved into our new house, so we didn't want to force too many transitions at once. And then his sleep went to pot, so I didn't want to make matters any worse. And of course he's my baby and I'm an emotional basketcase, so I was putting it off. However, he was down to his last Binky - and when that went missing Tuesday night, we were forced to bite the bullet. I was sure that he would be up crying until midnight, but he actually didn't ask for it that much, and went to sleep at a fairly regular time! It always takes hours to put him to bed, so it wasn't much different!

I think it's the hardest in the morning, actually. He always ends up in bed with us about 5:00. He climbs between us, presses himself as close to me as physically possible, and goes right back to sleep. But when he wakes up later I see him immediately look around for his Binky, and watch his face fall as he realizes it's gone. Hopefully he'll get over that soon.

3. On Thursday we went to Deer Tracks Junction for the first time. It's actually not that far from our house, but we've never been before. It was so cool! For my local friends, I felt like it was a combination of Boulder Ridge and Schwallier's. There were huge play structures with really fun tunnels, lots of cool animals, and freely roaming goats and piglets that were adorable. Plus, newborn piglets were born just a few days before our visit, so those were fun to see too! If we hadn't gotten so hot we could've stayed for hours!

I didn't appreciate the taxidermy . . .

Nash loved the camels!

Cuties going down a tunnel

Holding a bunny

Pretty much how I felt as a nursing mother . . . (I never knew piglets came in so many colors and patterns! They're like kittens!)

You could buy pellets to feed the pigs so they love people.

Tina! (And Levi with his precious map. Haha.)

Cousins! (Minus Levi who refused to pose for a picture.)

It was a little pricey, so we probably won't go very often, but it's a good place to remember and visit once in a while!

4. The other big news around here is this . . .

She finally agreed to cut her hair!!! And despite my assurances that she only needed to cut off a few inches of the dead stuff, so insisted on going big.

The stylist holding the chunk Lucy cut off to donate. We didn't measure, but it had to have been 8+ inches.

So cute!! She loves it!

The short curls tend to get a little mushroom-y, so we're experimenting with mousse and stuff. This curly hair stuff is so out of my league.

Levi got his hair cut too and couldn't be left out of the pictures:

5. I finished the book on contentment that I talked about last week. My recap is this: contentment boils down to accepting the sovereignty of God. Discontent is essentially telling God he's doing it wrong and I deserve more/better. Where it gets tricky for me is when I'm discontent with things that I feel like fall under the realm of free will. What if my discontentment with homeschool isn't something God has called me to? What if I could be free of it by overcoming my fear of public school? But the author reminded me that no matter the circumstances, discontent doesn't help anything - it only makes us miserable, unhappy people. She gave the example of a time when her husband was late picking her up for an appointment so she was late to the appointment. She could've been discontent and ornery with her husband, or she could have grace and avoid a fight. Either way, she was still going to be late, but at least by choosing contentment she didn't damage her relationship. It reminds me of what I tell Lena when she's whining about something that can't be changed: "Does whining help? Will it fix anything?" No. This morning, she was wailing that she had to wait 3 hours to go to her friend's birthday party. I told her I can't speed up time and I can't change the time of the birthday party, so whining only makes us all miserable. I don't want to be a miserable person. I don't want these blog entries to be filled with my whining about homeschool and parenting and depression. I want to find contentment and be thankful that God's plan is perfect. Feel free to hold me to that! ;-)

6. We finally made it through the second Harry Potter movie last Saturday, then both finished book three this week, so we started that movie last night. (Hopefully we can finish it tonight.) I'm fiiiiinally starting to buy into the hype. By the end of book 3 I was starting to feel invested. And everyone says it only gets better from here. Justin has whipped through book 4, even though it's insanely long, so I have to hurry and catch up with him! I haven't been reading much else, even though I'm up to 44 books for the year. I need to keep crack a lackin' if I'm going to make it to 75 for my yearly reading goal!

7. Pictures:

Major incentive for this week's haircut!

My beautiful anniversary roses, and the one dinner I make pretty well.

Snow cones with friends at the summer party in the park

Levi has recently become obsessed with the movie Frozen, and apparently that extends to all princesses. He was so excited to have his picture taken with Belle. Lol.