Five Things for Friday, first edition

1. Keeping people busy.

I love my daughter.  I do.  I just like to play by myself sometimes, that's all.  Saying, "Go away."  doesn't get her to go away.  Hiding doesn't get her to go away.  She needs to choose for herself to do something else.  I can help with this.  Heidi's favorite activities include me setting up a Reading Station (which is cute to hear her say herself) which involves me piling books up next to her table and chair.  She can amuse herself for half an hour, sometimes.

A blessed moment that I took a picture of to make it last longer.

 She also LOVES to play with sparkles.

I made that box!  Isn't it awesome?  It almost contains the sparkles. 

I think God sets up these situations in my life so I can understand how people feel.  Heidi is to me as I am to Bryan.  Bryan loves to accomplish things.  I think he needs to Finish Things and Learn Things as much (at least as constantly) as he needs to breathe.  And I, of course, love to spend time with him.  He does spend time with me, but he doesn't need to spend every minute off work with me.  So I've told Bryan to do what I do for Heidi to me.  If I'm ever bothering him, or if he ever has a project he wants to work on, he should help me get excited about or get started on a project of my own.  I have projects... I have a few scrapbooks that need updating, I have blogs, I have family history.  If he gets me set up with a project, I am just as happy and he is too.

2.  I recently received a blow to my ego.  I don't want to talk about it.  One of the thoughts that kept me going was, "I'm not that smart, but I'm important to my family."  Related to this is, "No one could replace me."  Good stuff.

3. I'm taking a class from coursera.org.  It's awesome.  It's a free online learning website.  You sign up for classes, which are taught by professors at prestigious universities.  Thousands of other people all around the world are taking the class at the same time as I am.  For my class, the only thing we do is watch lectures and take weekly tests.  And I'm sure that I would learn more if I had to write or read or do projects or whatever.  But I would learn less because I wouldn't take the class at all.

The other day, I downloaded one of the lectures on my ipad and watched it on the treadmill at the weight room.  Doing both at the same time made each go faster.

4. The exterminators came this week.  I forgot they were coming on Monday so we rescheduled for Wednesday.  I had to take everything out of my cupboards.  After an hour of Heidi playing with everything, my house looked like this.

And then the exterminator never came on Wednesday, so I had to reschedule again, put everything back in my kitchen, and take it out again for Friday.  The second time, though, I managed to get everything out of reach.

5. Free toys are awesome.  For the past several months, I've saved every yogurt container (the bigger ones), milk lid, jar, or box that is fun to open.  Now I have a box full of stuff to play with.  Toddlers love putting on lids and taking them off, and opening up boxes.  I have fifteen or so yogurt cups now, so they are fun to stack in pyramids, or put one little toy in each one, or kick over, or put on heads. I feel like supermom, for just a second every day.

There you go, five things.  You probably could have asked for five more interesting things.  Try back next Friday.  Or some Friday in the future when I decide to do it again.  In my defenese, it was more awesome when this blog did it.

Haircut

I'm not sure what the social ramifications of posting a picture of your child's haircut on Facebook, so here it is on my blog. Allow me to mention that I DID IT!  It's a bit shorter than anticipated, but so much easier to keep clean and free from Peter's fingers.  

It's an adventure to go into her room in the morning; I never know what it will look like.  . 

One morning it looked like this.  

Little Mommy

This is my baby girl.

But she's turning into a little mommy.  When Peter is crying she often finds a binkie to stick in his mouth.  Sometimes, that's all he was crying about, and I love that she used her own experiences to decide how to help others.  

Her nursery leaders say that during play time, she always plays with the babies.  She finds a stroller, a baby, and a purse and sometimes spends the whole period like that. 

She's going to have a bit of a problem when that baby burps.
Oh, yeah. ...the baby's probably not going to burp.

There you go. 

I left out Peter's rice cereal, and I came in to find her dumping
powder all over her doll.  Laughed, took a picture, let her
dump a few more spoonfuls (because what does a
few more spoonfuls matter?  Just to her. I'm commenting about this
because it is one of too few times when I value her over my clean house.)

Gotta learn sometime.

Heh heh...

I've learned to not leave this out...

So fair. 

This happens a lot. 

Extremely cute photo of an event that really didn't last long at all. 

Already walking in mommy's shoes. 

This is the clincher, though.  She's on Pinterest.

Dad

When we go to church, Bryan carries the whole family and I carry my bag.  

We've all been through several rounds of colds this winter.  No fun.

But this is fun!  Burrito Heidi.

Heidi loves to play games with Bryan.  Although, someone here needs to learn to share.  :)  (Today, Heidi said, "Heidi needs a turn, too."

Loves his daddy.

Christmas 2012

Christmas was awesome! We elected to stay in Virginia for the holiday.  My parents had just visited over Thanksgiving and we had just seen the Brauns in September.  So we decided to try to be grown-up and strike out on our own for Christmas.  We planned on spending time with my sister and her family, but they got the bug that Santa brought to lots of people across the country.  So it was just us, all by our lonesome.  Which, of course, is not that lonesome.

It snowed for a few minutes!  Heidi and I went out to play, while Peter just got to watch.



And we did a Christmas craft.  Bryan enjoyed art with a one-year-old. :)



On Christmas morning, Heidi knew right away which were hers. A little chair and a little table. Which she still loves. Last night we had the missionaries over for dinner, and Heidi had her first Kids' Table experience.



And Heidi almost commandeered Bryan's new tool box. So many fun latches and compartments.



A diaper bag for me, and new sparkly shoes for Heidi.



You know, it's in kids' best interest to be really happy with the presents they get.  Peter has this down.

Heidi kept asking when we were going to have more presents.  I said, "When it's Christmas again." And then she'd say, "There it is!" Like I needed to find the Christmas tree, and then we could have more.

There it is!