Taking the Scenic Route

#118 Uninterrupted Mario Time. Zane is the only one not sick in the family and is really enjoying being able to play mario as much as he wants to because mom and dad feel too rotten to really worry about it.

#96 Potty Rewards. The long awaited “first poopy in the potty” and we dug out the long stored game that he had been wanting as a reward. He was quite pleased. (probably not as much as we were though)

#65 Zane likes playing with the wii volume on mute, and add his own music in from youTube videos

#7 “wii are family”

The day after Christmas was warm and windy. Zora wanted some bubbles, so Zach went out with the kids and enjoyed the weather.

In the afternoon we discovered that Gamestop had Mario Party 8 (1 copy) and a used Wii Fit (1 copy) so Zach rushed over there, stood in an insanely long line, and made it to the front of the line with nobody else requesting the WiiFit (it was behind the counter, first come, first serve), so we got it for $80! Woo Hoo! Zane has been requesting Mario Party 8 since before it came out, and that was the whole reason he wanted the Wii (we told him we couldn’t get it unless we had a Wii to play it on). We had an older version of Mario Party for his DS, but hadn’t found a Wii game for his birthday, so at the final hour we were able to get his dream gift.

Late afternoon Robert brought his boys over to play the Wii. The had a ball boxing each other (on “Boxing Day”, how apt) and then we broke out the WiiFit and made avatars for everybody (except me…no way was I going to be weighed in front of a roomful. I did it later instead). Later in the evening Zach and Robert were boxing and had the unlikely occurance of both knocking the other person out at the exact same time. It was classic.

We have played the Wii every day, and both Zach and I have been sore from the WiiFit. Sad, but true. I wish we could have gotten it sooner (we wanted it last Christmas), but I am so glad we got it now. There is nothing in the world cuter than watching a 3yo wiggling her little tush on the balance board to make the little Mii (avatar) ski, or see her trying to do the yoga moves. Zane is really enjoying the games too, and I noticed that if he flaps, it messes up his balance (on the wiifit games) and actually saw him stopping flapping to play, even though he is still totally excited. It will be interesting to see if this helps him learn to control the flapping when he is excited.

This is a post I had started, but hadn’t published when we got word. Because I am too OCD to just post it afterwards, I will post it now. lol.

The original title: A Grandma and Grandpa kind of evening.

Once again, my folks come over to check out the car and see what is needed to fix it, and spend the evening with us. This time I remembered to grab the camera and get a few shots of them with the kids.

Playing downstairs in the “school” room (also known as the “room of things that must be supervised to play with” for those million piece toys and scissors and messy things.)

Way to drive your brother crazy:  Interpret the spinner results as the picture of the character on the corners of the spinner card instead of the number it points to. (and picking up that character and moving it a random number instead of sticking to your character)

I gotta give mom credit here.  She hates puzzles.  A lot.  And Zora won’t pick out a puzzle she can actually do, she picks out Zane’s puzzles (This one is “Pintzets Peetz”, aka “Princess Peach” from Mario series).  This one is particularly annoying to put together, so after watching mom try to patiently get Zora to put it together herself, I put down the camera to help. lol

After I put down the camera, Zane picked it up and ran around taking pictures.  Most of them are blurry, so I will show smaller versions.

Before I leave the downstairs, I just wanted to show a picture of the chalkboard.  I really liked the quick cartoons Zach made.

Then, as he often does, he asked “four players”, his way of asking if we can play video games up in his room.  When Grandma & Grandpa are here, they limit it to Mario Cart (or at least a driving game) and we insist that Zora is allowed to join in, something that Zane isn’t thrilled with, but worth the sacrifice if he gets to play Nintendo with Grandma & Grandpa.  (Usually Zora is not allowed in his room).

Zach, Zane and Mickey playing a game.  Mickey was player #3 with a working control.  Zane “helped” Mickey play by putting his hand over Mickey’s hand and moving the joystick for him, while controlling his own with the other hand.  Notice how carefully he made a seat for him so he would be comfortable. 

Cleaning up the snow this morning.  Zora helped out her daddy.