More Christmas and New Year

Christmas week we went to Queensbay Mall where we had been once before to a fantastic Kid's Play Place.  But when we got there - it was gone... being replaced with a video game arcade :o(  Huge disappointment all around.  Going with friends was supposed to be Jasmin's Christmas present... we hung out in the mall anyway: found a much smaller, not-quite-satisfactory play place which they visited for 1/2 an hour, explored the huge "gingerbread" castle display, browsed a big book store, and ended up buying Jasmin a stuffed horse instead.  Good thing she is pretty easily pleased :o)

There was a "Christmas" party for our condo complex last Saturday too.  Really it was more like a kid's fair... still lots of fun!  There were about 10 stations of different games/challenges for kids to try.  They could win coupons for a prize store, and at the end there was pizza for everyone.  Grace did every challenge more than once, and didn't really care about the coupons or prizes, but Jasmin counted carefully to work to get what she wanted.  Aiden was thoroughly taken with the magnetic darts and would have monopolized it if we let him!  He was not that difficult to distract once Jasmin bought a ball with her coupons :O)







Christmas Eve we discovered that a short run is actually quite helpful for mom's current back issues.  Rather counter intuitive, but we're not knocking it.  Behind our complex is a small strip of a dead end boulevard. So we are going there daily now. Jasmin has learned to ride her bike without training wheels, Grace is working up to 100 skips, and mom and dad are running.  Aiden gets to play with the loads of falling leaves (its dry season now) and gets rides around the loop in the stroller.  A New Year decision to keep it up all year, as it is good fun as a family and good for us too!