Five Things on Friday [vol. 17]

This post contains affiliate links.  That means that if you make purchases through said links, I will earn a small commission.  This helps to support Live Well Play Together.  For more information, please see full disclosure. 

 

Happy Friday, friends!  What a week.  We’ve been moving and grooving this week and if you follow on Instagram, you know that Hubs and I took off this week for some much needed vacation before we welcome Baby #2 into the Live Well Play Together family.  I’ll have a full re-cap of that coming up in November so you’ll want to keep your eyes open for that. But, today is Friday, vacation or not, which means that it’s time for another round of Five Things on Friday!

Even with some time away, there were so many other things that happened around home that I want to share this week.  I’m reminded this week that there is joy in the big, elaborate, and fun as well as the quiet, mundane parts of our life.  There’s a whole post to be unpacked from that nugget on another day.  Until then though, let’s dive into this week’s list:

Growing Vegetable Soup

One of my favorite things we did this week was play outside with Little.  We grilled out for dinner on Sunday since the weather was GORGEOUS and Little decided he wanted to cook “vegetable soup” while Daddy cooked our burgers.  This is inspired from one of our favorite books, Growing Vegetable Soup, by Lois Ehlert.  The book walks through the whole process from seed to table of making vegetable soup and it’s a great read for little ones.

Little happily took it upon himself to gather sticks, grass, leaves, some rocks and mulch, and left over lumber from the deck project to make his own vegetable soup.  We talked about each “vegetable” we put into the pot: carrots, onions, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, etc.  We did the same on Monday morning after waving goodbye to Hubs when he went to work.  I had totally planned on working on patterns and sorting, but Little called a quick audible and we made more soup.

His imagination is excellent and I love every bit of it.

Some Daily Truth

I’ve also been reading this great devotional by Melissa Kruger, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood.  One of the pieces that stood out to me this week was some of the commentary on the Lord’s Prayer.  Melissa writes:

“Yet God invites us to pour our hearts out before Him.  We can ask God for spiritual life, physical bread, a forgiving heart, joyful obedience, and protection from evil.  He sets a larger goal of His glory as our priority, but He also INVITES us to pray for all the circumstances of our lives…Prayer is both a means by which God accomplishes His purposes for us and an opportunity for us to deepen our relationship with Him.  It also serves as an example for our children.” (p. 53)

Y’all.  Praise God that he is big enough to be in control and personal enough to walk with us in the everyday details of our circumstances.  And he INVITES us (aka wants us to) share those details in prayer.

A Big Boy Bed

In other big news this week, we began the process of transitioning Little into a big boy bed and out of the crib this week.  I really wanted him to be in his own bed well before we have our second baby and when he demonstrated a few times that he could get himself out of his crib, Hubs and I decided to take the plunge.  It’s a work in progress, that’s for sure.  Little loves his new independence – and the ability to walk himself into our room in the middle of the night.  But I think he’s learning and it makes me proud to watch him grow.  That said, if anyone has any stellar transition tips, please feel free to send them my way.

Some Thanksgiving

Finally, I’m just feeling really thankful this month over here on the blog.  I’m not sure what happened, but this post has been going wild on Pinterest.  For at least two weeks this month, it has been the highest viewed post and has brought lots of new traffic to the blog.  It’s one that stays pretty relevant at least for me since I am constantly working to make sure that we keep clutter to a minimum in our home.

But, mostly, I am just reminded how dependent the blog is on readers being engaged and sharing – so I just want to give a great big thanks to those of you that stop by often, or even just a little.  I always love to hear from you!  (And if you feel so inclined to share the post below, I won’t be mad about it.)

New Content for November

Finally, I’m working on November’s calendar and I am really excited about some of the content that is coming your way soon.  I’m especially excited for next week’s post which will help us kick of Thanksgiving month right.  Be sure to check it out next week!

 

In Case You Missed It

And in case you’ve missed some of the recent posts around here, I’ve recently shared this really simple and fun Sight Words Matching Game to help your toddler, preschooler, or elementary student with reading and this really delicious sweet & sour stir fry chicken recipe!  Be sure to check those out if you haven’t already!

—————————————————————

If you enjoy these posts, you can see more of my Five Things on Friday posts here.

And be sure to check out other great Five on Friday posts at these link ups:

Five on Friday | Friday Favorites | Friday Favorites | High Five for Friday | Friday Faves