Bravery!

It has been a week full of brave decisions and accomplishments.

Exhibit A,

The new do:

A surprise for Daddy.
Something he has been asking-no begging me to do for almost ten years.

I Never thought I would give in to the request.

If you don't know me well, you know I absolutely cannot:

1. Be somewhere on time (since the addition of Corn dog Baby #3),
2. Wait to give a great present to someone until the appropriate time
   or
3. Keep a good secret.

But this was an exception.

I kept the haircut appt. a secret for four days

FOUR DAYS!

Torture it was!

The master plan was to get my hair cut

And just let Jake find out when he came home from work.

All was well.

Just a couple hours till the big change.

I decide to tell the kids.

I show them the picture of the gorgeous model that I am going to try to mimic,

and look into the rear view mirror

to see Lauren looking like a panic attack was on the horizon.

"Mom I think you will look like a man!"

"Don't do it!"

"I want you to keep you're hair long like me!"

It took a while to get her to stop being clingy,

but she calmed down a bit.

Then she leaked my huge secret.

To Dad.

AHHHH!

Seriously?

Now I have to go through with it!

Anyway, Some friends love it,

Some friends are polite and don't say anything about it,

One friends told me I look excessively 80's and would not stop singing

"We are young, Heart ache to heart ache we stand"

That was a downer.

Especially since I am not sure if I even like the look yet.

She sang f-o-r-e-v-e-r

"Sear-ching our hearts for so Lowowowowong"

Okay stop!

Really! I had to tell her to stop!

Really, it was all in fun,

But I am scarred.

exhibit B:

Brave boy randomly decides to trust his life vest this week,

And jumps off the diving board all by himself!

He even started yelling

"CANON BAALLLLLLL!!!!"

I swear he looked eight or ten years old

Not five.

The boy needed me not one bit.

It was amazing.

He also figured out the life vested doggy paddle

And made his was to the wall after every jump.

He was a champ.
Jump, Paddle, climb out, repeat

Then there's Baby Dolly.
She was a different case.

She only jumped when I coaxed her into it
By saying that people were watching and they all wanted to see her jump.
The girl loves to perform.

The other stipulations were
that I had to catch her,
Which meant to float directly below her landing path
And be pummeled on the top of the head
my her bulging toddler belly,

I had to count to three
At least four times,
Then finally,

by the time the line had reached half a dozen kids long,
I would have to say:
"Lauren Joelle, you jump now!"
And she did.

Not the typical approach I would use,
But I knew she needed to get over the frightened hump
Of thinking that neither her life vest or her Mama would save her life.
She was happily surprised to find that
When she jumped right on the top of Mama's head,
Only Mama ended up going under and sucking water.

Don't particularly like the haircut from this angle.

C :
Lauren asked me to do this.
This is brave for Lauren

She is usually like a kitten when it comes to water.
She has been known to get upset for running through a sprinkler and actually getting wet.

She asked so politely
which made it double cute.
It was something like:
" May somebody please pour this on my head?"

The other huge milestone for both the kids:

Silas learned to ride a bike without training wheels!

Lauren went from a tricycle to a bike with training wheels!

Both of them quickly learned and became champs at their new skill
While we were camping last weekend.
I am hoping to catch up and post camping pictures soon.


Lastly,
The challenge:

On Wednesday,
I went to the Wednesday market for produce,
Then, later that night,

two different families shared their summer bounty with us.
I was in hog heaven.

This picture only shows the stuff that does not need to be refrigerated!
I feel a great challenge to eat or preserve it all.
So far I have made yellow plum jam,
dehydrated the tomato and then packed them into olive oil, garlic, and herbs.
We used almost all of the fresh spinach and all of the peaches in our green smoothies.
Despite all of the produce,
I think I need to get more tomatoes somehow.
I am addicted to the sun dried in oil tomatoes.
It looks so pretty in the jars,

and smells more appetizing than it looks

I will share the recipe soon!
Have a great weekend!