The Saturday 7

1. We survived the ice-pocalypse last weekend and never even lost power! Whew! It was kind of nice to have a relaxing weekend at home, but we were all going stir crazy by Monday afternoon (snow day).

Everyone in Levi's crib

All of our East facing windows were iced over like this most of the day Sunday

My misleading Instagram picture - like we're spending our ice day playing board games happily. We did play this game, but there was a lot of yelling, "It is your turn!!" and for every game we played, the girls watched 3 hours of TV. Lol

Sunday morning, the girls made me breakfast with a special treat. Levi stole all my treats. 

Teaching Grandpa how to play Headbanz

It never ceases to amaze me that when Justin lays in bed to watch TV no one notices. But when I lay down to watch Fixer Upper, everyone piles on top of me. (I had a girl on each side of me in this picture.) 

Craft time

2. I spent much of our ice weekend reading books. Last year, I came across a couple of books at a thrift store that I remembered reading and loving in high school. I was excited to try them again, but questioning my high school tastes when I saw the covers. Lol.

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I promise it's a Christian book and not some Harlequin romance bodice ripper. And I'm not sure what it says about me that my tastes haven't matured in 15 years, but I still really liked it! It had much more mystery/political intrigue than romance and was well written. The second book was a little slower-paced which I don't appreciate as much, but I still liked it. And the cover was still really cheesy (as was the title).

That stache . . . (affiliate link)

I have the third one on hold at the library because the thrift store didn't have it. I also read A Name Unknown by Roseanna White. As I wrote in my Goodreads review, White pulled off the ultimate marketing ploy by appealing to introverted readers. The premise of the book is that a rich man has a library that is overflowing with books and he needs a librarian to organize them for him. Sold. I really liked the book and put the next two in that series on hold at the library too. I actually went a little crazy with my library holds this week. I've been in a reading rut and Goodreads has been warning me that I'm behind schedule to reach my goal, so I started going through my "to read" shelves on Goodreads and just started placing holds on anything that struck my fancy. I forgot that they all tend to come in at the same time. I picked up 7 books in one day this week. Oops. I get 3 weeks to read them, though. No problem.

3. After all that treacherous ice on Sunday and Monday, the temperatures slowly started climbing up the rest of the week. 30s on Tuesday, 40s by Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday, it got to mid 50s! Stupid Michigan. This was Monday:

And this was on Friday:

Lena may have jumped the gun a little on the swimsuit, but as my friend Karen said of this picture: "You know it's been a long winter when there's still snow in the first bathing suit photos of spring." True that!! Here's hoping that's the last of the snow for a looooong time!

4. Today was our yearly trip to see the butterflies at Frederik Meijer Gardens. Justin's wonderful grandparents have a membership, so they can get us in for free. First, we met them at their condo for lunch. I probably write this every time we see them, but I hate that we live so far away. They are some of the sweetest people ever.

Grandma playing marbles with Levi. (We had pizza, hence the lack of shirt.)

The girls looking at photo albums.

This is the last week of the butterfly exhibit and the first nice weekend we've had in 6 months, so the gardens were absolutely packed. I have never seen them so busy. Lines out the door to buy tickets, more lines inside to hand in your ticket, even more lines to see the butterflies. But the kids were really good sports, we got to see a ton of butterflies, and then we headed outside to the children's garden. Some years when we see the butterflies it's so cold we can't bear to stay outside for long. This year, the weather was beautiful and the kids had a blast.

In the cactus room

We always have to take a picture in front of this sign. It was kind of bright today. Haha. (And Lena is dressed to attract butterflies. She was really hoping one would land on her. No such luck.)

The sandpit!

The girls about to be stepped on by the horse, and Justin trying to get Levi in the picture. Haha.

There were tons of kids rolling down this hill, so our kids had to try it too. As you can see, Lena wiped out running down and got her white leggings slightly muddy. 

Lena on Lena Meijer's lap. 

This kid never stopped running the entire time we were there. (Can you tell he's trying to get off my lap in this pic? Haha.)

Lena always finds hats to wear in Justin's car. And you can tell Levi's getting tired by the way he's stroking his Binky.

He finally gave in 10 minutes from home.

5. Next week, Justin is working a job on the East side of the state, so he's spending the night over there for 4 days. I'm already dreading doing dinner and bedtime by myself for 4 days. Thank goodness my parents will be around to help. I'm actually pretty jealous of Justin. I know he's going to be working hard manual labor and it's no vacation, but he'll get to leave the job every evening, go to a restaurant for dinner, then go back to the hotel in peace and quiet to watch whatever he wants to watch on cable TV. Sounds like a vacation to me! Haha.

6. Well this is already too long and my family is all playing outside without me, so I'm going to wrap it up with a few more pictures and call it a day.

Lena loves those boots and wears them with every outfit. Even leotards. 

The girls wanted to make me a snack one day this week. They offered me a menu and I chose "cheddar blast." A little while later, I received this. It was so disgusting. I finally asked Lucy, "Did you put something other than cheese in this?" and she admitted, "Just a tiny bit of sugar." Lol. It was not a good combination.

Lucy's Awana leader fell and broke his shoulder last week, so I asked her to make him a Get Well card. I thought she'd scribble "get well" and throw a few stickers on it. I was so shocked to read this thoughtful note she wrote all by herself! (She did ask me how to spell "sincerely.") 

Levi and I went to Goodwill on Thursday and he found this Cars chair. It was $5 well spent. 

Cute new hairstyle.