Christmas Pictures of Prince

Santa brought Prince many wondrous things - things so wondrous it was really hard to get his face in a picture with the gift:


A big red ball, TWO Mario toys, and a talking Lightning McQueen, plus these little medieval figures on the left and a Wii game. For those keeping count, Santa must have found several of Prince's gifts on sale and was not as lucky with Princess'.

He got two Wii games - Big Brain Academy and Toy Story 3.

Big Brain Academy is apparently designed for 8 year olds, so he currently gets a D on their learning test... but wait. My 4 year old can get a D on a test for an 8 year old? Sweet! ... I get a B--? Funky.

Toy Story 3 is his favorite activity to choose as the family game. I get one life to make progress, then he and Joy get 3-5 lives to figure out what they are doing until I move us forward again. It looks very well made and we're enjoying it.








He got three Pixar movies: Toy Story 1, Cars 2, Brave.

He also got a LeapFrog 3-DVD set from Grammy. His reading ability leaped up immediately after watching the Complex Word Complex. Very impressive. When he and I were down sick with the plague, we watched them from dinner to bedtime, reviewing songs and games after each to practice.





He got two Mario games for the DS: New Super Mario and Mario and Luigi inside Bowser.

The New Super Mario is I think the big winner. It was his introduction to the DS two years ago when we borrowed it from Uncle Steve. He was too young then for me to trust him with the DS, so he just watched me play and beat the game. Now he's playing it on his own and beating levels.

The game's biggest fault is that you can rarely save your progress. If Prince hasn't defeated a Bowser that day, he loses all his progress that night when I shut off the DS so it can be my alarm clock. Last night I helped him get through an entire section right up to Bowser ... and then it was time for bed. Instead of reading Peter Pan, I defeated Bowser for story time. He was extremely happy and gave me the biggest hug.

He got a Lightning McQueen watch (from us - we were supposed to be done, but he needs a watch and Santa had spent his budget). He loves to practice telling time, even though the plastic wrist band is giving him a rash. He also got Backyardigan Season 4, Kermit who featured in Princess' post, and Mario checkers.

Prince showed some real development this Christmas, becoming my little helper and showing some gift-giving maturity. He wanted to give Grandma Jewel some flowers. He and I drove to the florist and he chose the flowers he wanted for her. He told me that his favorite flower was this red one, but that Grandma would probably prefer the pink one, so it should be pink. Last year he gave Mommy the soundtrack to Aladdin (a gift for himself), but this year he really wanted to get her something that was actually on her wishlist - Brady Bunch Season 1.

He was also my little helper in passing out presents. Pop was not feeling well, so I took over as Chief Elf, organizing the piles of presents. Prince helped me pass them out to everyone. He did a very good job and was generally excited to see what everyone else got, though I had to explain to him that since he kept asking for a present for himself, he was going to run out before everyone else did. He went off to play one of his new games. As planned.

Prince has been very good at sharing Kermit and his other toys with Princess, who has been very grabby. He has been happy to take turns and try out new things. His daddy has been very impressed.