Simi's party prep

(I found this unfinished post in the draft file - this is from a week or two ago)

I don't mean preparing for a party for Taisim, but Taisim preparing for a princess party. We first had a party at the bottom of the stairs, and she made art work to decorate the wall by the stairs:

We had a little bit of drama at the bottom of the stairs, so we decided to decorate a box to use for a party platform. I wrapped a box in some pink paper that we used for painting, and then she cut and glued colored shapes to it:

Then Taipan came to join us, and we all played legos - Taipan did a circus train, with a train station, while Taisim and I made a princess house and rode the train:

Cozy kids

Last Thursday night Yuta went to see District 9, and the kids and I were at home playing. At one point they went into the bedroom and shut the door - I think Simi was being a princess at a princess party and Taipan was protecting her from enemies. I could hear them giggling and chatting from the living room, and after about ten minutes it got quiet. After a bit longer of almost pure silence I cracked the door to see what was going on.

The first thing I noticed was that the bed had been stripped of blankets and pillows, and the kids were not in sight, but I could hear them in the bathroom. I peeked around the corner to find them cozied up on the blankets and pillows on the bathroom floor, with Taipan reading to Taisim. I snuck back in with the camera, and then left so as not to disturb their fun.

I came to find out later that they were pretending that the bathroom was the bedroom, and they made themselves a bed on the floor, and Taipan was reading stories for bedtime. It was one of the sweetest things I've seen them doing together:

Our sunflower has bloomed

Chi Chi gave us a sunflower plant in early June. It bloomed a week and half ago. It's been so fun watching it grow.

Simi on her path

The other night Simi was setting up wooden trees in a line on the train table, and she pointed to part of the track and said that she was going to go on that path. I thought she meant that her train or one of her dolls was going to go on that path. Nope. I was wrong. I left the room, and when I came back, this what I found - her walking on her path:

After snapping the pics I let her know that the table might not support her weight for very long, and she climbed down.

Plants vs. Zombies - LIVE

We've recently fallen in love with a new game - Plants vs. Zombies. It's so much fun, and each of us enjoys playing it. It's like a tower defense game, only with plants and zombies.

Taipan also enjoys *being* the zombies, and he is amazingly good at doing the zombie movements and sound effects. I'm not so good at being a zombie - awkward movements, not so good at dying - so usually Taipan and Yuta are the zombies, and Simi and I do the planting and attacking.

Yuta as the buckethead zombie, and Taipan as the football zombie:

Simi watches from the sidelines and tells me what to plant to fend of the incoming zombies - she uses her map (the DVD case in her hands) for reference:

Taipan as a newspaper zombie, having recently lost his newspaper during an attack from a plant:

Taisim attacking Yuta's zombie ... the horn was a specific weapon, though I can't remember which:

About half the time we successfully defended ourselves, and the other half we got our brains eaten. Here's what our dead zombies look like:

Like I said - we love this game. I highly recommend it - it's a PC/Mac based game, and well worth the $$. At the very least it might tide us over and give us our zombie fix until Left for Dead 2 comes out in November.

Painting ... all weekend

Late Friday night Simi said she wanted to paint ... and I mean very late ... too late for either me or Yuta to want to bring paints out, so we told her we'd do it the next morning. First thing Saturday morning, before anything else, she said she was ready to paint, so she got to it, joined by Taipan. We have large rolls of paper that we can put on our kitchen table, and we had paper and paints going sitting out nearly continuously. Not until we had company over on Monday were they ready to put them away. And even then Taisim wanted to paint, but on smaller paper so she could give her pictures away.

Here are just a few pictures of the painting - they used many brushes, fingers and hands. This was the first time that they dipped brushes straight into bottles of paint, and it is now the preferred method around here (for me too - much easier clean up).

Taipan's on xbox Live!

Taipan has for a while liked playing xbox online, and had used Yuta's xbox live account to do so. A few weeks ago Yuta changed his password, and was at work, and we couldn't get online, so I decided to go ahead and sign Taipan up for his own account - this way Yuta and Taipan could play online together .... and I think Yuta feels better not having Taipan using his ID.

Taipan has a local friend who he plays with now, and also a cousin in Utah. It's pretty cool to watch them play and listen to Taipan's end of the conversation. Here he is concentrating on some Castle Crashers:

Seven Hills Homedays (7/24/09)

We went to the Seven Hills Home Days again this year - the highlight of the evening was definitely watching fireworks with some friends.

When I got home I realized that one of the pictures I had from this year is similar to one I took last year (Taipan is even wearing the same shirt - what a coincidence!).

Below is this year's pic, and the one from last year is here.

Pile (from 7/22/09)

One evening a few weeks ago, there was a lot of energy and bouncing around the bedroom. We decided to pull all of the blankets and pillows into a jumping pile at the foot of the bed. Yuta got some cool pics (and video, at Taipan's request).

Either Taipan or Taisim will request a "pile" every day or two now ... seems to be a good way to burn off end of the evening energy.