The Saturday 7

1.

Haha. It really wasn't that bad. I only had 11 kids at most, and was down to 8 by Friday. I had great helpers. And everything went really smoothly.

How perfectly does this capture the spirit of preschool? I promise I didn't stage them this way. Lol

It's just exhausting. I forgot what it's like to get all the kids and myself up, dressed, fed, and out the door before 8:30. So glad I don't have to do that in the fall!! It was also really hard on Levi. His sleep schedule got horribly out of whack. On Monday, he crashed when we got home and took a 2 hour nap. Subsequently, he did not fall asleep until 11:15 that night. Poor Lena is sharing a room with him now. I asked her to lay on the beanbag in Lucy's room so Levi could fall asleep. Needless to say, this happened:

Anyway, that pattern continued all week. I shouldn't have let him take a nap, but I really enjoyed taking a nap then too. Lol.

2. I follow a blogger who sometimes makes lists of "things that are saving my life right now." I don't have a long list, but this summer free school lunches have been saving my life. Our school district offers free lunch to anyone under 18 every weekday during summer break. You never have to show proof of income - or even prove that you live in the district. We didn't start going until part way through July and I can't believe I missed out! Not having to make my kids lunch is the best thing ever! Lol

3. It also came in handy this week because of this:

One night a few weeks ago the oven made a weird popping noise and there was a slight flame. But it burned itself out and I decided to ignore it. (#ignoranceisbliss) Eventually, though, we noticed that it wasn't heating efficiently . . . or at all, so my dad took it apart to fix it. He's a busy guy, so it sat like this for a few days. I'm not much of a cook, but I did miss having a stove to make macaroni and an oven to make frozen pizza!! The good news is, Dad worked his magic and it is now back in working order. The bad news is I no longer have an excuse to avoid cooking.

4. I read an interesting book this week: God's Daughter (affiliate link) by Heather Day Gilbert. It was about the Vikings discovering North America. I know very little about that time period, so it was fascinating to me. I'm so grateful for authors willing to do such exhaustive research and then present it in story form so it's not as boring and dry as history books. But it was horrible to read about the awful customs and pagan rituals the people participated in. As a woman, it made me very grateful to be alive now and not then. Rape was almost an inevitable part of life, pregnancy and childbirth were dangerous and painful (#epidural), and then the chieftan or even the baby's father could arbitrarily decide they didn't like the infant or it needed to be used as a sacrifice. Oh, and if you were the prettiest servant in the house, when the master died, all of his friends took their turns with you then killed you to be buried with the master. What the what?!? 

5. Last night was the much awaited "Girls' Sleepover" at Niki's house. We're still on the fence about our kids going to sleepovers at their friends' houses, but once a year, Aunt Niki spoils them with fast food, McDonald's, ice cream, and "spa treatments", let's them stay up late watching movies, then takes them out for breakfast in the morning. They look forward to it all year and drove me crazy all day on Friday asking, "When is it going to be time to go??" As soon as Lucy got home today, she started whining, "How am I going to wait 'til next year for the next girls' sleepover?" #facepalm

Niki also invites the youngest of the kids she used to babysit for. The girls love the chance to see Addy once a year.

6. Tonight we took Justin's new boat out for its inaugural voyage. The kids actually really enjoyed it. Justin was just happy it runs and doesn't have any structural flaws. #craigslist

Afterward, we stopped to get ice cream at a new-to-us ice cream shop. It's right next to this establishment that recently went out of business:

Anyone else see anything wrong with this sign?

The ice cream shop is just a walk-up with outdoor picnic tables. Levi ran up excitedly when we arrived, but stopped abruptly and said, "Oh man!" We couldn't figure out what he was upset about until he said, "No door!" He thought we couldn't get ice cream because we couldn't get inside. Lol. Unfortunately, the ice cream was expensive and weird tasting. Neither Justin nor I liked it.

7. More pictures:

Sunday morning, Levi woke up unconscionably early, so I pulled him into bed with us. He promptly fell back to sleep until 9! That never happens! 

Probably shouldn't share this, but let's be real. Haha. Justin's car died less than a mile from our house. Some belt snapped and then got caught in something else and ruined some more junk. (I'm obviously quite the car expert.) Apparently I canceled our roadside assistance the last time I renewed our insurance, so we had to pay for a tow truck, plus another big chunk to fix the dumb thing! And don't worry, I drink responsibly on the rare occasion that I imbibe at all. I was not hungover at VBS the next day. ;-) 

Face painting at the library's party in the park.

Lucy's "arm painting."

13 years of wedded bliss with this hottie.