Taking the Scenic Route

Zane spent a good chunk of time on the computer, then showed me the list he made.  It is to turn the wi-fi/internet on his DSi.  He wanted it on, but didn’t know how to do it, so he looked it up online.  Apparently, the place he found, assumed you didn’t have a computer at home and started with “go to the library”.  He was insisting that we go to the library until I convinced him that we could do it from home, but to wait for Dad to come home and he would help him.  This is the note he made:

And Zach helping him go through it to get it hooked up.

He was feeling very happy when it was on.

Eilysh gave Zora the Cabbage Patch Touching Tunes Kids game for her Birthday.  It was a vintage game they had found at a second hand store.   There were a bunch of different games with the one system, and it featured a thing where you had to each touch a spot on the playing field, and touch the other person for the tune to play.  Zora loved it.  (not a game I want to play a lot, but she loved it, and that is what is important).  It was a cute game, good for the preschool set.  This one kept getting stuck on the “Happy Birthday” song, which delighted Zora, but made the grown-ups want to use a hammer on the thing after a while. lol.

a picture I found of the whole thing online:

Trying out one of the Christmas gifts from Dawn.  Mario-themed Yahtzee.  The kids both loved it.  I do understand the comments I saw online after playing it.  The pictures start rubbing off in the first playing, so I am going to have to take some clear fingernail polish to cover all the sides of the die before we play it again.  I also took some foam and lined the box so it wasn’t as loud.  That seemed to work really well.  Then, after trying it once, we discovered that the little score card was too tiny for Zane’s ability to write, so for this time, I scanned it in and enlarged it.  Later, after discovering some misprints that unnerved Zane, I remade the scorecard on my computer and printed it out in a full page version.  Seems like a lot of work, but worth it for a game that we all enjoy.

The new scorecard in .pdf, for anybody who ran into the same issues:

MarioBrosYahtzeeScorecard

Zane took the game very seriously.

After playing a few rounds, Zora got more interested in drawing pictures than playing the game. lol.

During the day I kept noticing Zane taking pictures of himself with his mouth weird and doing other odd things.  I couldn’t figure out what he was doing.  While we were at the restaurant he kept working, finally producing these hilarious masterpieces with his DSi.  Cool!

These children of mine are growing entirely to quickly. They went back to swimming lessons today and Zora definitely needs a new suit, and if Zane gains 2 lbs, he won’t be able to get his on. Slow Down! I can’t keep up with y’all!

Swimming across an area over her head.  Go girl!

Gymnastics Again. He is in a class by himself, literally. Next week there will be another kid, but she moved to another class when we chose to take a break in December. He lasted 45 minutes, which is pretty good considering how intense it is when it is one on one.

“Zora, will you please play with me?” Never thought I would hear that phrase unprompted, but it was said today, several times. Zane was enjoying the DSi feature of allowing the systems to sync up and play a game together. Zora was thrilled until she started getting frustrated at always losing the game.

Waiting in the ER. It is Sunday and the only Urgent Care clinic doesn’t take Healthwave, so to the ER we went. dx: Strep Throat.

Highlights of the visit: The prisoner in the orange jumpsuit & his guards waiting nearby, the “visit to the hospital” coloring book & stickers, and a red popsicle after the throat swab.

Upon taking her meds, she declared “YUCK! It must be for grown-ups, not kids.”

Poor miserable Zora.

The last day of the year was one of those days were the kids were picking at eachother all day.  So, in the evening, when they went downstairs to play before bed, I was happy to note that they seemed to be getting along better than they had all day.  Then Zora came upstairs to get a drink of water, and she was covered from head to toe in little white balls.  We followed the trail back to the downstairs bedroom and found Zane on the floor, making “snow angels” on the floor in the bajillion balls of a broken oversized bean bag chair.  It was obvious, from the indentions, that Zora had been doing the same thing.  It was well over 6 inches deep in places, and static electricity meant they were E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E

So, we brought the new year in with a vacuum cleaner.

Some day we will laugh.  Some day.