Ty’s Weblog

I don’t want to be a casual gamer. Lately, however, that’s what happens.

At least I can admit I have a problem.

Today was Mira’s 3rd birthday. I took the day off from work so I could be here with her.
We got up this morning and opened the presents that she had gotten at her birthday party. We’d intended to open them before now, but things just kept coming up to prevent it. After that we let her watch some shows she wanted to watch while Kate and I got ready for the day.

For lunch we headed out to Red Robin. Mira was really looking forward to that, because she remembered Xander getting sung at and his sundae when we were there for his birthday. She was very shy about the singing, but she enjoyed the sundae very much.

After that we came home and Mira watched Alice in Wonderland while Xander played up in his room since he wasn’t really interested in watching it.

When that was over, we had her princess birthday cake. The whole day, she had been insisting that she was still 2 years old, and we’d pretty much let it go. After she blew out the 3 candle on her cake she announced, “Now I’m three!”
Then we opened up the remainder of the presents. Mira was beside herself with excitement. She really enjoyed opening the presents.

Then she had some play time with all the new toys she had gotten. We ordered pizza for dinner and sat on the couch and ate it while she watched one of the princess movies she had gotten recently.

She’s up in her room now trying to calm down from such an exciting day and get some sleep.

She seems to have had a great day. Kate and I spent much of the day remembering this day 3 years ago. We even spent some time in the morning looking at pictures from the day with Mira. It’s amazing how much she has changed in just 3 years.

Xander was finally able to buy his Soccer Match Playmobil toy today. He’s been saving up for it for months. He’s had enough money for a while, we were just waiting for it to come in.

Kate had been checking with the store every couple weeks. Finally the owner called up the distributor and asked why it wasn’t in yet, since it’s been available on the web site for some time now. The distributor actually brought one of each of the sets down for them off the shelf at the warehouse. She didn’t even have an invoice for it, so she just charged Kate what the website says for it.

Xander was very happy to finally have it. We got the main set put together yesterday for him to play with. He had a great time with it. It was a lot of fun to watch him play his soccer matches on it.

Xander and Mira were watching the baby bunny and the birds in our backyard.

The bunny started hopping toward the birds.  The birds just kind of hopped away from them.  The bunny hopped closer, and the birds hopped away again.

Mira looks out the window and yells, “You can fly, birds!”

Today was Xander’s last day of school.

They had an easy day of it. Someone brought in some games for the kids to play. They also went on a nature walk today and had a school wide picnic before school got out at 1pm.

After school was out, lots of the kids and parents from Xander’s class met at the Maggie Moo’s nearby and had icecream and played at the fountain that is near it. Xander’s teachers even showed up to see everyone one last time before Summer.

Xander has had a great year this year, and a great three years in the Primary program at his school. He’s very excited about starting in the Elementary class next year, and Mira is excited about starting school as well. We’re looking forward to a nice Summer and a good rest for them before that all starts though.

We had Mira a birthday party today, even though it’s a couple weeks early, since that was when the scheduling worked out. It was pretty simple. She and Kate have play group with the Mom’s Club every week on Thursday morning, so we had the birthday party during that. Last week one of her friends had a party at Burger King and she loved it, so we decided we’d do one for her there as well.

Like I said, it was pretty simple. We pulled Xander out of school for a few hours for it as well. The kids played on the indoor play equipment in the party room for a while. I was inside it helping the smaller kids get to the top so that they could go down the slide. After a while, the kids Happy Meals were ready and we all climbed out to eat. Then there was some more playing while lunch was cleaned up. Then the cupcakes were brought out and the kids same Happy Birthday to Mira. Then there were about 15 more minutes of playing before we all packed up to leave. It was about 1 1/2 hours all told. The kids all seemed to have a great time and I know Mira enjoyed herself.

We took the kids to see Cars this morning. We went to the 10:30am show. We all enjoyed the movie a lot! It was great. Xander and Mira both did a great job, even though the movie was about 2 hours long.

The movie was great! The racing scenes were amazing. The rest of the movie was great too, but for different reasons. There is a lot of humor in it for adults that the kids won’t really get, in addition to the stuff everyone will laugh at. We spent a lot of time laughing.

After the movie we went to Arby’s for lunch. We all had a great morning.

Xander had his Kindergarten graudation tonight. It was a nice little ceremony.

First the school director read a bit to the students from Oh, the Places You’ll Go. Then the students sang I Love my Montessori Classroom. After that they showed off their Spanish by having a conversation in Spanish and then singing a song in Spanish.

Then they came down and got their diplomas. After that they recited a poem based on All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, they each had a line to say. Then the parents read a poem back to them.

It was a very nice night. Mira did a great job being still and quiet again, we were very proud of her.

And of course, we are very proud of Xander. He has thrived at school. He constantly amazes me with the things he has learned. We are looking forward to next year when he moves up to the Elementary classroom.

I almost forgot. I bought Uno for my Xbox360 this week. Xander loved watching me play it. He asked if he could play, I said sure and handed him the controller.

He said, “No, I want to play real Uno.”

So Kate went down in the basement and dug out the Uno cards we’d bought when he was too young to play. We’ve had a great time this weekend playing it. He’s the perfect age for it now. He wins often enough that he doesn’t get frustrated, but loses often enough that it’s helps teach him how to handle that as well. We’ve all had a great time with it.

The Xbox360 game is excellent as well, btw.

Xander had a birthday party to go to today at the Dulles Golf Center miniature golf course, so I took him. He had a great time and did a great job. He even got a hole in one on hole 7 once.

He’s had a certain amount of practice swinging the golf club from playing his golf video game, but this was his first time at a real mini golf course. He did several things that made me proud.

First, he was very patient in the line. He was pretty much the oldest kid there, and he was very patient waiting in line behind younger kids while they took their turns at the holes. Several of the parents even commented to me how impressed they were with his patience. Lots of the kids were whining and jumping line and such, but Xander stood nicely and waited his turn. I was very proud.

Second, he cheered the other kids on. While he was doing the waiting mentioned above, he would cheer on the other kids as they played.

Third, he took instruction very well. I was trying to give him some idea of how to actually swing the club and how to aim the ball and such. He did a wondeful job of listening to what I had to say and doing his best to do it when his turn came up. He could see the difference in how well he did between when he would just swing the club randomly, and when he would take the time to set up the shot and think about what he was doing. It seem to give him a lot of pride when he’d take a second to think about it and then make a shot that went right into the hole.

I was very proud of him today. He and I both had a great time. We are likely to make a weekly trip to the golf course over the summer, since he enjoyed it so much. His soccer camp didn’t work out, but we can play a couple round of golf each week for the same price (for him at least), so we might just do that instead.