Anyway, I digress. In the last year we have also been using it to play games with the kids. They love watching Jason and I play “Super Mario Galaxy,” “Mario Kart,” and Star Wars, among other games. Alex loves it so much that he wants to have a Super Mario Birthday party in February when he turns 4. Notice that I said they love to watch Jason and I play. We have never let either of the kids actually play the games. They have just been too young and not coordinated enough and they, especially Alex, didn’t have the attention span to sit long enough to learn how to play. Occasionally if one of the remotes didn’t have any batteries or we had an empty steering wheel we would let Alex pretend to play and he never knew the difference.

In the last few weeks that has all changed. Alex has started to understand that he is not actually controlling anything that is happening on the screen, and he has asked many, many times to play. He had been to a friends house a few times and watched him play his Game Cube and was starting to catch on. So with Christmas coming up we decided that it was time to find him a game that he could play with little or no assistance from us adults.  We have always been hesitant to get the game systems that are geared for preschoolers. They have such a limited life span and we already had a Wii. I didn’t really want to spend the extra money on a completely new game system, when we already had nice system at home. So we decide to try to fine a Wii game that Alex could play. This is where I ran into some problems. Nintendo has several games intended for children as young as four, unfortunately all of them except one are geared for girls. There was a Dora game, a Disney Princess game and a Barbi game. As I am looking for a game I was starting to get a little discouraged, I needed a game for a young boy. Well we finally found one.

“Go Diego Go, The Great Dinosaur Rescue” This is a brand new game, it was just released at the end of October. The few reviews I had been able to find were good and since it was all we were able to fine we decide to give it a shot. I love it!!! We have had the game for two days now and Alex can play almost completely independently. He does need a helping hand now and then, mostly because he is impatient and tends to go to fast. When you are playing the game in the dinosaur rescue mode there are hints at the bottom of the screen that help the child figure out what they are supposed to do. The hints are little circles with a little person in it showing the child how to perform the action needed at that time and if the child needs to push a button on the remote there is a picture of that button at the bottom of the screen. You can also enable a feature called the helper feature. During certain times in the game at the bottom of the screen a circle with two people in it show the helper that they can use a second remote to help the child complete the action faster.

Alex loves the game, and it is a pretty active game. So he is not just sitting on his bottom playing a video game. He has to jump, dig, and swing, among many other actions. As with the computer we limit the time he is allowed to play, he is still only 3 after all. I don’t want him spending all day infront of the Wii, but all in all I am loving the game, and I am sure our next purchase will be a game for Lizzie, since she can’t stand to be left out of anything.

To me celebrating Christmas and Easter is much more than presents and Santa or the Easter Bunny. Much Much more. For me during those two holidays we are celebrating the gift of Jesus. First with the celebration of his birth and second the celebration of his Resurrection. How can you not celebrate those two holidays. I look forward to Christmas and Easter every year, I love celebrating with my family and teaching my children all about the holiday and why we celebrate. I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this idea. It just baffles me to no end. It is not that I think we have to spend a ton of money on either holiday, in fact I agree with the idea that we spend less. In fact I am going to give it a try this year, Spend much less on gifts for friends and family, and try to make many of the gifts that I give this year. I had already planned to help the kids make gifts for each other and family members this year. Santa is a very small part of Christmas for us and the Easter Bunny does not exist in our house at all. I have to believe that you can celebrate the holiday and not be too materialistic and go overboard.

Heather