Jada is Two

Our first born is two years old, time goes so fast. She is so smart. She knows her colors and is starting to count things correctly as well. She still calls herself two. Jada loves to eat chicken, carrots and eggs. She has learned to crack eggs and stir them and then an adult does the cooking.

For her birthday party we took her out to the corn maze just outside of lethbridge where they have a petting zoo. Everyone got a ice cream cone full of food to feed the animals. We all gave our cones to Jada. She got alot of attention from the animals with all that food. She absolutely loved the sheep and the chickens. They crowded on the other side of the fence to get the food she had. After the petting zoo we had lunch, presents and cake at our place. She loves, loves ice cream so we made her cup cakes cooked in ice cream cones and iced to look like ice cream with sprinkles. They were cute.

Jada's Favorite word right now is no (like so many other toddlers!) At least she says it very nice in her cute little girl voice. She seldom screams no unlike a lot of toddlers. She tries to copy almost every thing we say, but will say "no ..." The other day we said, "Jada its time for bed, its 7:30" (her normal bed time is about 7, but she got to stay up a little bit that day). Jada then said "No seven thirty". She tries to copy a lot of words, and she is getting a very good vocabulary.

Makayla is just over 5 months and she is really communicating. The other day we went over to my parents to have family home evening together and my brother nathan was bouncing Jada in the air and Makayla found it really funny. Have never heard her laugh like that.

Jada loves playing with her sister and Makayla loves the attention. Jada laughs at makayla and Makayla laughs with her, sooooo soooo cute.

Mike and I decided to get an x-box kinect to help with our goals to get more active. We decided together before we bought it that we would not get any x-box games that were not kinect (where your whole body is the controller) and we would have time limits (although that shouldn't be a problem, 1/2 hour on that thing you are pretty exausted). My mom said that she got the wii hoping it would help the family be more active and now only the inactive games are played so we didn't want that to happen.

Whoever is reading this and is like me and is leary of all video/computer games, let me tell you, it took alot of pondering and studying up on this to feel okay with this and now that we have it I am totally happy with it. When Mike and I got married we talked about how we wanted to raise our children and one thing that was super important to me was that we did not have video games in our house and I wanted really strict time limits for all inactive entertainment such as T.V., all things computer that are not homework/work, ect. He was fine with that and even sold his play station. There are people out there that would probably call me an extremist maybe I have only seen extreme examples but what makes me so leary about these types of entertainment is I have seen happy, active, striving towards goals and achievements, socially involved, helpful people get into these type of entertainments and totally change. Healthy goals and achievments are put off or stopped, they become lazy, stop doing any kind of work or helping out unless made to, start hanging out and joining in activities with people less and spend less time outdoors, start gaining weight and seem less happy and I have even seen people stop taking care of them selves. I have met very few people that are involved in such activities that don't spend way to much time on it and I have seen people trying to break their addiction to it and it seems equal if not more difficult than quiting smoking. I have seen people quiting smoking than it is incredibly difficult.

To me putting video games in my kids hands is just as bad or worse than putting a cigarette in their hands because it affects every aspect of their lives with alot more then health consequences but there are those as well. So now you know how I feel about those and different people will have different opinions but I must do what I feel is best for my family because my husband and I are fully responsible for the welfare of our children and ourselves as well. Mike is very supportive with this.

Pretty much all things are good when used correctly and all things are bad when used incorrectly. I have even seen reading too many books have negetive effects on peoples lives such as weight gain, social isolation and depression. I feel that Kinect allows us to reap the good benefits that video games have to offer with out the bad and that is that it is fun entertainment for the whole family that brings us together, enjoying each other in an active activity and like I said there is no way that too much time will be spent on it because it physically exhausts you in an half hour. It definetly does not make you lazy or socially isolate you. I love it and am happy with our decision.

Right now Mike and I are both getting alot of outdoor activity, walking, biking just about everyday, along with our at home muscle building workouts, but in the winter the kinect will help us get entertaining cardio exercise indoors when it is unplesant to spend alot of time outdoors. Did you know that dieting actually slows your metabolism (less you eat the less your body burns), eating certain foods and several other tricks you hear about raises your metabolism but only temporarily. But more muscle means higher metabolism all the time. Just having an active life style makes all the difference and you will actually start eating more and weighing less (kind of funny eh). Just a little tip for people trying to loose weight. Giving your body all the nutrients it needs is way better than trying to eat less. I like asian phylosophy, they consentrate way more on health then just looking good. I think or culture often puts looking good above health. The real truth is you take good care of your body and it takes good care of you and you will look and feel better than ever.

We recommend the game wipeout- it is highly active and entertaining.

Mike and I have found alot of common interests and spend alot of time doing things together as well as working towards goals together and feel our relationship is stronger than ever. He is such a wonderful husband and father. Next year we are going to take scuba diving lessons, get our certification and start exploring a whole other world that we have only ever seen on film. We are super excited about this. I really want to get a program for singing lessons that we can do together at home eventually (maybe around christmas), we didn't get to it this last time but next time we are in China we want to take erhu (a chinese musical instrument) lessons. Mike has really showed me how and taught me to live my dreams and now our dreams, if you want to do something you can do it just make a plan and a goal and do what it takes.