Wiiiiii! (amongst other things)

My cousin Esther just recently got a Wii with their tax returns. We've been over a couple of times to play, and the kids love it (well, the older kids of course-meaning us!!). They have the "Outdoor Adventures" games, and that's been the best to play because Parker and even Madisyn can do it. There's a mat that plugs into the Wii and you can run and jump on it and it does your movements on the screen. So you race each other, have jumping competitions, go kayaking, race on mine carts, rollerblade, etc. I only had our camera the first time we went over and the kids have actually gotten a lot better at it, but here's some videos of Parker and Madisyn both "running" on the Wii. Maddie is absolute hilarious to watch because she can do it so good now (like I said the video is from about 3 weeks ago, so it's kind of old). She really has no idea what she's doing and she doesn't even know it's connected to what's happening on the screen, but she has seen us do it enough that now she gets on the mat and runs like crazy on it. We did a running race between her Parker when they were both on it together just a few days ago, and she actually beat Parker by a lot!! Parker mostly likes to just jump on it, so he doesn't do the running part that great. Kenya, Esther's 4 1/2 year old, is helping Maddie on the first video, and on the second Parker is playing under my character (so see if you think it looks like me or not).

Parker has recently become obsessed with puzzles. For a family activity that we had at my Aunt's house a couple of weeks ago, she gave us some puzzles to do. Since Parker is just barely three I didn't think he could do them at all, but he completely surprised us and was totally interested in them (he's only done 12 piece puzzles before). He became so obsessed with doing them that he would wake up and immediately ask to do the puzzles. He has now done the two 54 piece puzzles that we have so many times that he's bored with them. So now I have to go and find him some new ones to do.

This next video is just a funny one of Madisyn. Parker, Maddie, and I went up to Rexburg (1/2 hour north where Ben is taking some college classes) with Ben the other day to get us out of the house and to see my old campus again. While Ben was meeting with some group members, I took the kids to a burger place to play inside their play area and to get a little bit of food. Well Madisyn just LOVED their fry sauce. In fact, she loved it so much that she eventually ended up try to drink it. It didn't work that great so she had to resort to sticking her fingers in it and licking them. So here's a video of her and Parker eating at the burger place.