The Saturday 7

1. Birthday week for Lucy! I have a teenager now, which hardly seems possible, since I was just a teenager last week. I honestly can't even think about how my first baby is 13 years old. It makes me unspeakably sad, so I just don't dwell on it! Justin took her out for dinner on her actual birthday, then she celebrated with a sleepover with 5 of her school friends last night.

Books, Legos, room decor, and journaling supplies. She's been tearing through the Christy Miller series, so I bought her all the Sierra Jensen books from Thriftbooks to read next.

Around 10:00 pm

9:00 this morning. Haha. A sure sign of a good "sleep"over. Lucy and one other girl stayed up for 24 hours. The other 4 dozed for a couple hours in the middle of the night. Crazy kids.

2. The weather finally got warm enough this week for our first swim of the year!

The water was only 65 degrees, which is cold for our spoiled kids, but they swam for a while and had a blast. My sisters and I have started to plan out our "Cousin Fun Days" for the summer, and I'm getting so excited for lazy days spent at the pool. We only have 14 more days of school and the countdown is definitely on!

3. I made it to season 3 of Designated Survivor this week, and it suddenly took a turn. I realized that while the first two seasons originally aired on ABC, the third season went straight to Netflix - and there was a noticeable difference. Almost within the first few minutes of season 3, the characters started spewing the F word. And in the first episode, they introduced their first gay character kissing his boyfriend. The plot lines also got decidedly more woke - taking on transgender issues, and even calling out the U.S. rules on "child marriage." One storyline was about the president's hypocrisy in condemning a Saudi prince for marrying a 14 year old girl when the US allows marriage for minors with parental consent. By the end of the episode, he was vowing that he'd create a law to outlaw marriage for minors under the age of 18 . . . which is ironic considering the trans rights he was championing in the following episode. It's ok for a child to surgically alter his or her body, but not to get married. Hmmmm.

4. I've read a few more books to share with you. I got a bunch of Babysitter's Club Graphic Novels for free from Embrace and have read most of them. I liked Kristy's Big Day the best. Dawn and the Impossible Three and Kristy's Great Idea were ok. Clean except for some minor boy/girl crushes if that bothers you. I did not like Claudia and the New Girl. It was very negative and full of drama. I put the first three in the school library, but donated the last one to a Little Free Library on our street. I also read and enjoyed another Maria Parr book: Astrid the Unstoppable.

This is my Goodreads review:

More serious than Parr's Adventures with Waffles, but almost as fun. Astrid is another Anne of Green Gables type "girl with spirit." Her relationship with Gunnvald is precious, and the themes of fatherhood, regret, and forgiveness are beautiful. Kids will love the stories of Astrid's antics, but adults will appreciate the emotional elements. I'm growing to love anything Parr puts out!

Content considerations
- A fair bit of the story surrounds Gunnvald's relationship with his estranged daughter. The backstory is explained that Gunnvald had a short relationship (not marriage) with the estranged daughter's mom, but she moved away. She came back four years later with a daughter Gunnvald didn't know he had.
-I noticed one instance of God's name taken in vain.

I also finished an adult book this week: Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund.

I started it over a year ago, got bogged down by the writing style and gave up after the first 14 chapters. But I was determined to finish it, so I picked it up again this week to plow through the rest . . . and absolutely loved the last ten chapters. So I don't know if the last half of the book is really that much better than the first, or if I was just in a better place to appreciate it this week. Haha. I've never read such a compelling treatise on God's immeasurable love/mercy. Chapters 21 and 22, especially, are possibly the best argument for the security of salvation that I've ever encountered. I know that I'll find myself coming back to these chapters again and again. This was one of my favorite quotes, but I highly recommend reading the book to truly understand the context:

"When we are united to Christ, Christ's punishment at the cross becomes my punishment. In other words, the end-time judgment that awaits all humans has, for those in Christ, already taken place. We who are in Christ no longer look to the future for judgment, but to the past; at the cross, we see our punishment happening, all our sins being punished in Jesus" (187).

5. Tonight, we went out to dinner with our small group. We wanted to avoid chain restaurants, so decided to try out the Brick Haus in Sparta. It was . . . an experience. Lol. We waited for an hour to be seated, and then it took another solid hour before we got our food. We did get some free apps for our trouble, but the service was not great. Fortunately, we weren't in a hurry, and intended to sit and chat for a while anyway - we just would've preferred to eat while we were chatting. Haha. I got up to go to the bathroom at one point and left my phone on the table. I came back to a bunch of selfies, but the joke's on them, because those selfies are now getting plastered on the Saturday 7, and we know I have prolific readership! 😂

Justin and I didn't want to be left out of the selfie game, so we played too.

We love those crazy phone stealers and are thankful for time spent with them.

6. On to pics and memes, because I have a lot.

This was from a couple weeks ago, but I forgot to share it, and it's so cute. Lena and Thea.

Comfy cat

Lena and Levi got to go to a bowling party for learning all their verses at our church's Wednesday night program. Levi was so excited to actually win a game for once!