Happy Valentine's Day (early)!!

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful weekend with better weather than most of you have recently experienced. Ours is still very much cold, but oh-so-sunny! We've had sunshine 4 out of the last 8 days and that's as much as we've seen the sun in 2 months. It's been a hard, long winter here, but the sun is finally starting to shine on us and it feels great! I took Jakub for a mid-morning stroll outside today and it was truly heavenly to point our faces into the sunshine and smile and laugh. We walked across the street to the playground and Jakub went down the slide for the first time (he's been on them before in other places, just not at home due to weather). He's doing well at walking outside on sidewalks and such. It's good to just be able to walk together a little, even at a snail's pace, instead of always having to get the carriage out to take him around block or for small walks. This is one more reason I am REALLY looking forward to spring weather.

Another reason today was joyous was that Josh and I were able to celebrate Valentine's Day a little early. Our friend and teammate Christie volunteered to watch Jakub for a few hours in the late afternoon so, Josh and I enjoyed the afternoon, did a little shopping, and had a delicious Chinese dinner before heading back home. It was very sweet and kind of her! Jakub did well and didn't miss us much, at least on the outside. :) She said he played well, didn't cry for us, and that they had a good time together. We were so glad and do not take this opportunity for granted. It's just the nature of life here that we don't really have many babysitting options, so it's not often that we get some much needed "us" time. It was a great day!


Here are some other fun things we've been doing:


Teaching Jakub to thoroughly inspect his toes after his bath to make sure they are clean. :)




Getting pajamas on before reading together in bed.




We do a lot of reading before naps and bedtime. He loves to look at books. He especially loves to point at every object to learn it's name. He's even starting to repeat some of the sounds or names. He loves teddy bears and this book is full of them. He also loves the "I love you through and through" book with the bear inside. In the picture below you can see him "reading" it. :) A couple of months ago he started turning the book upside down when got to the page you see below (with upside down teddy bear). Pretty clever!





On Friday we had our very good friends Stana and Mikuláš over to celebrate her birthday. Despite their disparaging looks here, the boys had an amazing time together. They playfully screamed, laughed, chased, and actually shared many toys and good times together. I was able to make dinner and a cake for them and we enjoyed a nice evening together. I made Risotto for dinner and if you've never made it before and would like a recipe let me know. It's a delicious rice dish that is not difficult to make, and great for kids, too. It's pretty popular here.



I hope you all have a great and blessed weekend. :)