I have not been very good about updating this lately. First off we had Miranda's third party but it really was just a get together with friends. Aaron smoked a pork loin and I made a pasta salad and had a few platters done by Metropolitan Market. I really liked them. We got a fruit, veggie, and falafel platter done. I thought everything tasted really good. We had Rockband set up in the living room and most of the people gave that a shot (I still have not tried it). I was downstairs for a while with others and the Wii for Wii sports, our old neighbor's 5 year old bowled with my mom and seemed to have fun. Miranda visited everyone and tried to play Wii too. I think we will have her playing soon. We had homemade carrot cake too. I made it but it kind of failed. I bought a flower cupcake pan to make the cake in but I overfilled the flowers and the cake did not want to come out. So I instead of throwing in all out I scraped all the cake out of the flower pan and put it in another, covered the crumbs with the overfilled tops I cut off and frosted the whole thing. For being a very crumbling cake it tasted really good. I just hope others enjoyed too.
Looking to keep Miranda busy and interacting with others I enrolled her in
My Gym, its a once a week gym class that is wonderful. They have a large gym with all different equipment and obstacles for the kids to play on and they change them every week. Miranda loves the slides and trampoline there. She also does the activity of the class, last week it was balancing on one foot the week before was a headstand. They also do two things in each class that work on the kid's muscle strength; singing on the bar, balance beam work, and jumping skills. The gym was a bit expensive but we can go more than once a week if we want at no additional charge. Miranda also seems to enjoy this type of class versus the gymnastics class where there was not as much other stuff to do. A few of her preschool friends also do this class so she around familiar people.
I also have been cutting out our tv viewing to only a few times a week and for no more than an hour on those days if possible. We have found she just becomes a zombie staring at the TV. I was being bad and using that time to drink coffee, surf the net, or read. I only let her watch a few shows a day but I noticed that she was getting upset if the TV was not on and would turn it on or change the channel if it was not one of her shows. With the tv being off more Miranda took even more interest in books, usually she only wanted me to read them but now she likes to look through them on the floor. She loves books on Dora but we were getting sick of reading those so its nice that she likes to look at them on her own and for her birthday she got a few new non Dora books that are fun to read. Her favorite is
Kitty's First Full Moon I've been reading it every night for the past few days and she is enjoying it. I also got bored sitting in her room waiting for her to fall asleep so I started to read the
Chronicles of Narnia to her. We are only a few chapters into it and I think its more than she understands but she did not fight as much to go to sleep last night and fell asleep while I was reading to her.
I am getting over a cold and spent last weekend reading I reread all of Debbie Macomber's
Blossom Street books. I really enjoy this series the characters are enjoyable and the stories always make me feel good. I got the latest one yesterday but have not started it yet. I've also been listening to audio books while Miranda naps and I knit. Right now I am listening to
The Kite Runner by
Khaled Hosseini. I am finding the book sad, interesting, and very informative. I'm learning about a culture I knew very little about. I have also read his book
A Thousand Splendid Suns and enjoyed that one. The women it
A Thousand Splendid Suns were amazing characters and the book was well written. Well that is all for now Miranda is done playing and wants attention.
