Adventures in Parenthood: friday five 2-7-14

{I know it's not Friday (though I DID write this for Friday!)
and there's more than five, but I like calling it Friday Five! Ha!}

I can't believe it's already February. Where does the time go?
{Speaking of February, the youngest I nanny turned 3 on Sunday. Un.Real.}
Thankfully, as the minutes fly by, everything slows down for at least a few moments as I relive the joys of roller-coaster-filled weeks.

We love book "series." When he sees the pictures in the back/on the back cover, he asks us what they are a few times until he knows them by glance, and then gets super excited when they're available on our reserve at the library. I love how much he loves to read :) Last week we got "Penguin on Vacation" after seeing it in the back of "Penguin in Love," and he was pretty sad when he asked the librarian for "Penguin and Pinecone" too, and I told him the library doesn't have that one!

His favorite set of books so far.

On that note, we love some new books I read mention of, about being "bucket fillers": "Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Young Children" and "How Full Is Your Bucket? For Kids." They basically take the 5 Love Languages idea of a love tank, and give it a twist for kids. We are enjoying how it helps Jordan communicate, sometimes when he otherwise would have just fussed, he now says, "you're taking drops from my bucket, mommy!" Sad, but helpful! Also, I can communicate it the same way to him. My super favorite part is that his favorite way to randomly fill mine and Josh's buckets is to give us giant hugs - "I fill your bucket!!" he often says with pride. :)

I always tell him maybe we can ride the carousel at the Children's Museum next time daddy comes. He didn't forget when daddy got to come last week!

February means the start of a new semester for Sioux Falls Seminary students. I know many have gone before us (or currently go through) having less family time than us, but it doesn't make it any easier to have Josh gone for school. I am so, SO thankful he can get his Master's in Divinity now, and in Omaha. I'm thankful for the classes that challenge him, and for the financial aid we have so we don't have to take more school loans. But it's hard to have him gone!

Josh had Dare2Share. He and some leaders took 11 students to Lincoln over weekend. It was about "Helping you mobilize your teenagers to relationally and relentlessly make disciples who make disciples," focusing on the Gospel. As he gets older - ha! - he returns quite worn after 24 hours of teens, with little sleep, and lots of teenagers, but the stories he has to share about new realizations that come for them through the experience are wonderful! I'm grateful for the way the Lord moved in Josh's heart as well as the students. Pray as they process and hopefully put into practice!

Sending daddy loves on Saturday morning

My favorite part of the last two weeks was, by far, sledding!!! Josh is not a fan of snow, but he can definitely enjoy the joy-filled squeals that playing in the snow with a toddler bring. Jordan even went on his tummy by himself. So. much. JOY! :)
{A special thanks to our neighbors, for letting us tromp in their yard! Last year we went sledding next door and it worked great to walk up their steps, then sled down, but they got retaining walls put in. Thankfully (?) we live in a hilly neighborhood and have some good neighbor relationships, so we headed to another yard! This year, Jordan was full of happy grunts and squeals as he powered back up the snow-covered hills to zing down again!}

"Pizza angels" - no idea why he started calling them that!
[*edit: thanks to a friend for telling me it's from Veggie Tales Silly Songs!
He obviously listens more carefully to those than I do ;)]

Oh, and I'm so excited! I scored a Kitchenaid mixer and an attachment for grinding food/ straining fruits and vegetables, and I got both of them together for $79, hopefully minus a decent chunk for selling our old mixer. I love it :) Jordan and I tested it with cookies, *thumbs up.*

Other wonderful things we won't want to forget:

His love for letters and numbers continues to grow. (We don't overdo it, but definitely do stuff with letters and numbers now, while it's all fun!) Also, we have a calendar to do the date, day, weather, etc at nannying, and he LOVES that :)
We did part of my shopping as a family last week. Jordan and Josh had fun while I got some super deals at Target :)

He hugs us a lot these days. If we sit really close to him, he'll give a big hug every few minutes, often sprinkled with some kisses and "I love you" too. I'm totally okay with this :)