La La La La, La La La La...Asante's World {1}

Last week, Asante has started going to preschool/day care. It's this great, in-home place that is run by a husband and wife, plus a few MU students. They are from one of the local churches, and seem to be a great family. I actually found out about them by showing up at their yard sale, and after we got to chatting, she told me she had a couple openings. So, one week later, we visit and Asante doesn't want to leave....which is a great sign!

He goes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, from 7:10a-12:20p. He enjoys it so far, and has brought home fun craft projects both days. :) We're excited for him to get a little socialization and hopefully learn from the bigger 3 and 4 year-olds.

In the past week, he has also started doing his "happy dance", which is pretty funny to see. He'll do it anytime of day, and in lots of locations- his room, his bed, the bathtub and his car seat. I hope to post a video of it soon for those of you who are far away.

In addition, his newest phrase is "watch me, mommy [or daddy or aly]", and then he does something that he thinks we'll find to be funny or impressive.

We've been pleased with his sentence-making, sometimes stringing together 5 or 6 words. He started stuttering pretty bad last week, which made us nervous since severe stuttering runs in my side of the family. It was making him very frustrated, and he'd say, "No talk" and kind of whimper. I felt so bad for him because I was quite the stutterer for a very long time (and still do time-to-time). But, this week it's been a lot less, so it may have just accompanied his jump in vocabulary.

We've been thinking about 2nd birthday party details, so if anyone has any fun ideas/themes, let us know! Right now we're considering a farmyard theme, or maybe Elmo :).

[1] Elmo's World, anyone? If you're not familiar, youtube it.

The Week Before Craziness Begins

At the Imler-Malloy house, we've been enjoying the calm before the storm. Next week begins my and Henry's first week of classes-- eek! I think it's going to be just fine; crazy, but just fine. I've been working ahead on my reading some, so I feel like it's going to be manageable now.

Since it's the last week before classes, I've calmed down a bit on study/reading time, and have been working on some around-the-house projects so that I won't go crazy not being able to do them because of the start of the semester.

The first project has been putting the finishing touches on our bedroom decor and our part of the office decor/space organization. I should post a picture, but I'll wait until thing are clean.

The second one, as I alluded to in the last post, is gathering materials for learning themes. Every month, we'll have 1-2 learning themes that we'll spend some time each day doing. I'm working on gathering the big materials for each 16 themes, and I'll add a little as we're actually doing it. The themes include toys, learning objectives, signing, books, music, videos and art. At least that's what I'm aiming to do. It's a big job but I really like working on it.

Thirdly, I've been doing a little research on fun toys that I'd like for the future room of current Malloy + any more future Malloy children. Some things I've found are homemade kitchen sets, puppet show stages, wooden block building areas, reading corners, art tables/displays, and dollhouses/barns. People are creating some pretty cool things. Here's a link to one of my favorite creations.

Lastly, I've been trying to organize small things like scrapbooking materials, family binders, clippings that I've cut from magazines in the past, catch up on laundry, write a couple letters, do a few bills, things like that. This weekend could include a little scrapbooking of some past events, and then once Tuesday starts, I have little to no extra projects until Christmas!

So, that's an update on the world of Tiffany, the mother/organizer.