a little slice of life catch up

I've been avoiding blogging for a little while, but I want to take a step back in because I need to write down and share some of our joys and just life.

- Visit to Nana and Papa K's house. First pool visit of the summer, long-lost grandparents'-house toys, new toys, and a little petting zoo visit. It was also extra fun as Josh's sister is back from Australia! She was gone, except for a couple weeks over Christmas, for a year!

- Jordan kept trying to swim away on his own and wanted to jump in the pool on his own. He went under water multiple times.

- Visit from Nana and Papa R, including first Omaha pool visit.

- Jordan tried to jump in the deep end on his own, thankfully the lifeguard was around the corner to stop him as we were all in the water and couldn't move fast enough when he darted off!

- He went down the small water slide on his own over and over and over again!

- I spruced up and cleaned out our bedroom to make it a more inviting, relaxing place.

- We went on our first real family vacation: overnight at Jordan's great-grandparents' in KS, then on to Tulsa, staying with Josh's brother, Jon and wife, Ashley, for almost a week, back a night in KS, then home. Jordan did SUPER in the car, and even though I brought lots of movies, we had just seriously cut back on his screen time, and he did great with only watching something a small fraction of all the hours driving! He also kept his pull-ups dry. Awesomeness.

- Vacation was so fun, relaxing, and a good mix of just-us family time, and time with Jon & Ashley (they still worked). And it was great for me, I unplugged a lot, let go of structure quite a bit, and got to swim and sit out by the pool. I came home a lot less focused on all the things not crossed off on my to-do list than weeks prior.

- Jordan learned how to use pool arm floaties, as the pool wasn't zero-entry and he insisted on always going further and going on his own.

- Every time someone asked Sophie (their dog) if she was ready to go outside, Jordan would say, "yes!" and both Jordan and Sophie excitedly ran to the door.

- The neighbors renovated their front yard and we got part of a new retaining wall, too. Jordan loves all things construction vehicles more than ever now. {He knows by name: tractor, speedy tractor, bulldozer, backhoe loader, forklift

- We got to go to Touch A Truck, an event put on by Omaha's Child Saving Institute. He loved seeing large versions of all the trucks he loves in his books.

- Jordan swam in a lake for the first time and got to ride on a boat.

- We've officially paid off half our student loans. Tight-to-the-dollar budgeting is TOTALLY worth it, and I usually feel couponing & price matching are worth it ;) Debt freedom, here we come!

- We've been going to the library almost every week. Jordan absolutely loves going, loves new books, and we love the variety :)

- I'm trying to get to a healthy weight, and at least kind-of succeeding :) I remembered my love for biking, and that helps!

- Jordan got two new cousins within two weeks this month.

- Josh seminary classes started up again and we are pretty maxed out as a family. Trying to focus on remembering to be thankful that I get to work and care for Jordan at the same time, and that Josh can have a full time job in ministry while he goes to school.

- Jordan is super excited about the idea of football, Huskers, Go Big Red, and wearing lots of Husker outfits right now. I promise we didn't even over-emphasize it! lol! It's really cute :)

- We transitioned Jordan to a big boy bed.

- Jordan is all about doing things on his own, and asks "why?!" what feels like a million times a day.

- He is super excited about fall and leaves and, most of all, pumquins.

I also don't want to forget:

• "Just a minute!" when we call for him.
  "Come on, come on phone" (good thing we got new phones we don't have to say that to now ;))
  "I like you skirt, you skirt make me happy!" on a Sunday morning.

  "I in here! I in [here, living room, bedroom, etc]!" if he just hears us mention his name from the other room, lol!
• He loves to say "poop" and laugh about it. And make up other poopy words. He laughs SO. very. hard.
• He loves to play on our bed with daddy.
• He loves: Bless the Lord, oh my soul; Amazing Grace, and Amazing God right now. We love listening to him work on singing them.
• He is figuring out creative play, setting up situations and making toys talk more. 
• When you call to him from another room he yells, "whhaaat" like a minion... like the McDonald's minion that laughs and then says, "what," to be exact :)
• He knows his full name, Jordan Brian Klein.
• He knows: ABCDFGHJMNOPQSTWZ, and 12345 by sight every time when he is just playing or notices himself. If you ask him, he's more likely to say the wrong one than the right ;) {Side note, we've really been trying not to push these, knowing he really doesn't need to know them right now, but we identify them in fun often, and he has his daddy's memory.} Now he notices letters and numbers everywhere and loves to point out the ones he knows, but especially D for daddy, M for mommy, P for papa and N for nana still, hehe :) P for papa wins, because there are stop signs and no parking signs all over! :)

I know this post is lacking photos. I just don't feel like choosing and uploading this time :) You can check out a handful that pertain to many things on this list on my instagram here. 

I struggle with wanting to record every joy, so that I can have it ALL to look back on later, but decided I needed a happy medium. There are a lot of moments I never want to forget with Jordan, but between my terrible memory, sleeplessness, and my desire to capture (of course, so I won't forget...), well a lot has already been forgotten already. And he's not even 2.5. And we don't even have another one yet. So I'm thinking, what do I want to share and why? I want to share some moments and pictures to have somewhere, since I hardly kept a baby book, and I want to be able to share with our parents, family and friends who so care, because I know some of them are like me, and LOVE knowing the details, LOVE seeing a lot of pictures. Maybe someday, we'll even look back on this stuff, too :)