A Slice of Smith Life: 7 Quick Takes a Few Days Late: Haircut, #JumpforDystonia, Our REALLY Flexible Baby Girl!

7 Quick Takes a Few Days Late: Haircut, #JumpforDystonia, Our REALLY Flexible Baby Girl!

It's been awhile since I updated my blog here. (Over a week and a half to be exact!) I'm beginning to be consistently inconsistent with updating my blog, but I'm not really sure if that bothers anyone but me. So for this post I'll do it 7 Quick Takes style hosted by Kelly at This Ain't The Lyceum. I know I'm a few days late on the link up, but that's blog and real life sometimes. :)

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I'm happy to be here again with another post while my husband takes my oldest daughter to the beach to hang out with some of her soccer teammates and the other kids are outside playing with neighbors and my almost 2 year old (she'll be 2 this Thursday!) is napping. Ahhh... a quiet house! I'm savoring it. So after The Edel Gathering 2015 and my (early) 40th birthday party surprise my husband organized and threw for me, I haven't been busy blogging (obviously), but rather...

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I've been busy getting a (much needed) haircut! This is the same salon where my daughter got her haircut last year. My daughter donated 10 inches and I cut and donated 8 inches. Somebody needed my long hair more than I did! The salon gives free haircuts if you donate at least 8 in. that is uncolored and can't have too much gray in it. No problem with either of those restrictions for me :) The salon cuts the hair and mails it off to Pantene vs. Locks of Love. The reason the salon donates to Pantene is because they will give wigs to cancer patients where Locks of Love charges people for the wigs. I haven't confirmed this information, but it sounds like a good reason to me to donate to Pantene.

And while I was at the salon one of the hair dressers looked so much like my oldest daughter! I had to do a double take! Here's my daughter and the arrow below is pointing to the hair dresser that I think looks like my daughter. What do you think? It really did "wig" me out. (pun intended..LOL!) :) Their hair is so much alike and I think that's what I first noticed :)

And here's the "After" shots....It's so much cooler and faster and easier to manage my shorter hair!

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Last week our family participated in an awareness campaign for Dystonia. The campaign was called #JumpforDystonia and you take photos of family/friends jumping and then post the pictures on social media with the hashtag #JumpforDystonia.

Have you heard of Dystonia before? My parent's neighbor, Tom, has suffered many years with this disorder characterized by involuntary muscle contractions that cause slow repetitive movements or abnormal postures. Tom has written a book titled Diagnosis Dystonia about his life and journey as he continues to battle the disorder everyday. His story is inspiring and I was so happy that he asked if my kids could #JumpforDystonia one afternoon last week at my parent's neighborhood pool as a way to make others aware of the disorder and have a little fun at the same time.

The Smith kids loved to #JumpforDystonia

My daughters take gymnastics and so I had them and their friends jumping too!

And then my daughters' teachers were so kind to show us their mad jumping skills...

For more information about Dystonia and Tom Seaman's book be sure to visit his website.

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Speaking of gymastics, my almost 2 year old daughter is super flexible (and she doesn't get that from me or my husband!) That's not quite unusual for a little tot, but she is like really freaky flexible. (Note: I'm not calling my precious little one a "freak" :) ) She hangs from our oven door and shows off her skills.

See? Crazy huh? I will be taking her to her 2 year well visit and I will be asking the doctor about this to make sure her legs/hips aren't doing things that they shouldn't be doing and could give her problems in the future. Thanks T.T. for our discussion on the beach about how I should really get her checked out to make sure all is well :)

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So what do you do with a super flexible child who likes to hang from oven doors? Sign her up for a gymnastics class as a gift for her upcoming 2nd birthday, of course! Yep, for the rest of the summer she is enjoying her class and really loves to hang from the parallel bars, like all.the.time.during.class!

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I captured this sweet moment with my youngest and my mom one day last week. My mom came over to wish my 11 year old daughter a "Happy Baptism Anniversary" on July 17th. Baptism anniversaries are always acknowledged and I love that my mom always remembers my kids' baptism anniversaries! I can't say I always do something special for the anniversary day except give my kids' a big hug and kiss :) If I was really on top of my family's sacramental lives, I'd have a blog post about how we always do A, B, and C for my children's baptism anniversaries. But, I think just having my kids spend time with their Nana makes for a great way to celebrate such a special day! :)

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I've been busy trying to prepare my children's curriculum and lesson plans for the upcoming 2015-2016 homeschool year. I don't buy a "box" curriculum which is good and not so good sometimes for our family. Maybe more on that topic later. This year I'll have my oldest going into 10th grade, my son will be in 8th grade, my daughter in 6th grade, another daughter in 2nd grade and then our youngest will be 2 this week! Yeah, I'm not sure how I do it either. By the grace of God for sure!

So if all goes well I'll have a blog post about my daughter's birthday this week (I'm working on an idea for her cake too) and I'll post our 2015-2016 curriculum (and photos of our homeschool room) like in year's past. So stay tuned! :)

Hoping your weekend was blessed!