Thursday, August 26th, 2010
A little update for far away friends and family who are interested…
I finally finished my last summer class on Tuesday night- yay! Which means, I have 2 weeks to enjoy life without homework and studying and reading. Of course I can’t stay away from reading, so I’ve been diligently reading through some books I have had piled up to review from the various book review blogging programs I’m in. I have a few more coming, so you can look forward to reviews on:
Everything you Need to Know Before College
As for personal things, I’m really feeling contentment here in Wilmore and at this duplex. As many of you know, I was not excited about moving into these duplexes because I was unsure about the size, the a/c situation and the carpets. But now those things seem really lame and I’m so content and thankful for this great place. The kids have a ton of room to play and we’re really feeling like this is home. We’ve done some hard-core decorating (for us, anyway), and it’s been fun to settle in somewhere. It feels funny to say, knowing we’ll only be here for a year. BUT, this is the longest we’ll have had stayed in one place since being on Hidden Creek Drive in Columbia 2006-2008.
I’ve also been working on some small changes in my and my family’s life… two of which include: 1.) eating more veggies/fruits (5 a day is our goal!) and 2.) cutting down on soda. Both are going well. We’ve been hitting 5 a day often, and this has even started including vegetables. Seems silly, but I really want the kids to enjoy and crave healthy foods. I also have been only drinking a can of soda every other day… and it’s going well. I’ve begun to not crave the caffeine and carbonation and enjoy other things. I know it’s a really healthy thing for the baby and for me (carbonation depletes the body of calcium, leading to a greater health risk of osteoporosis..something i’m probably in danger of anyway).
Okay, enough about me….
ALY
Aly has been adding new words and new signs to her vocabulary daily! She’s communicating great and her and Asante have been able to interact and play more because of it. She has also successfully slept in her big girl bed 3 nights in a row and every nap. We have to sit next to her while she goes to sleep so she doesn’t get out, but she’s staying in there all night long. Yippee! I contribute this feat to Jake alone– I was a doubter and said that I wouldn’t help in this transition because I didn’t think it would happen. He persevered and it only took about 5 or 6 days to create the habit. Our next transition for her will be potty training… she’s been telling us she needs to go sometimes, but we haven’t been putting her on it yet. We’ll probably start letting her guide us with it and see how it goes.
ASANTE
He’s been adjusting more and more, and I think he likes it here. We’ve been frequenting the playground by the seminary quite a bit, which he loves. His current obsession is story-telling. He and Jake spend a lot of time in a day making up stories together. Most of these involve a big bad wolf of some sort. 
He also has been getting better on his fear of being alone. When one of us is going to be alone, he reminds us that “God will be with you” (thank you veggie tales … and dad too!) I think it brings him a lot of peace for himself, so he wants to be sure that we’re okay too. We’ve been having some great conversations with him about all kinds of things. I LOVE hearing how that little brain of his works. Of course, he’s also approaching 3, so we are having some trouble with learning to obey. Lol, but I guess a lot of us adults have a hard time with that too.
He has also been learning to spell some simple words, and actually spelled out “rat”, “bat”, and “cat” yesterday morning. He’s pretty good at hearing the main consonants… but the vowels can sometimes be a little tricky. Right now he’s better at spelling than he is at reading. He thinks letters are REALLY fun, and so does Jake, so it works out really well .
JAKE
You can jump to his blog to hear what he has to say, but I can highlight a little on here. He just finished designing and building the kids some awesome tetris shelves which I am totally impressed by! We want to paint them, but I don’t think it’s a high priority right now. He also has been enjoying the time at home with the kids, and spending some significant time reading through blogs, website, magazines, etc. and compiling developmentally appropriate activities to do with the kids during the day. He’s taking this stay-at-home dad thing very seriously and the kids are going to be so blessed by it!
Whew! Okay, so congrats if you made it through this all. More to come next time as I write about preparing for my classes!
Tags: aly, asante, family, jake
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »