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Rebecca got some Avatar toys for her birthday. She had such a huge pile of gifts, I’ve been letting (read: encouraging) her to open one every few days since they started showing up in the mail. So she has these two Avatar figures and they come with these iTag things. You go to some web site and hook up your web cam and point it at these iTag things and then these 3D creatures and stuff show up on the web cam screen. It’s all very weird. If you have more than one of certain types, you’re supposed to be able to battle them. But you know what? It barely works and it’s very frustrating. You sit and wait for all this initializing to happen and then half the iTags don’t show up at all and it took us forever to get two to show up at once and then they didn’t do anything. Thankfully, the iTag bullshit wasn’t the main thing she wanted, she really wanted the figurines. So while it was a big waste of time, she’s still having fun with the little people.

But here’s some dudes hanging out on my messy desk. I should have had Becca put her hand in there, too, you can pretend to squash them and stuff.

Daphne and Delilah went out with us today. We went to the library and got some books and DVDs. And they got to make a wish in a fountain.

We had cocoa at Peet’s. Diego didn’t like it at all, Delilah is reclining because she drank most of it and is very full. (Aside: Rebecca said, of the cocoa at Peet’s, “Seriously, I’ve had better hot chocolate than this. The Mormon* hot chocolate is much better!”)

Also, Ed sent me a link to this, which I think is hilarious.

*A friend of ours is Mormon and since she’s been disabled, she gets food from the regional LDS food bank. She gives Rebecca these big bags of hot chocolate mix, it’s similar to Swiss Miss or something, probably does not actually contain real chocolate as an ingredient. Sometimes our friend gives us other items when they give her too much, bags of carrots or noodles. A lot of the products have distinctive labels and we call them the Mormon food, like Mormon noodles, the Mormon chocolate. We just think it’s funny, no disrespect intended :)

Daphne and Delilah were all ready to ring in the new year…

But Delilah was excited and running around all evening and is now in her mother’s pocket, nearly asleep, I don’t think she’ll make it to midnight.

Yotsuba used her ice cream bar to bribe a ride from a fancy bird.

(Ed made the playdough bird)

Rebecca got a Yotsuba! for Christmas, we’ve been taking photos of her, she’s lots of fun!

Yum!

Studying to be a slayer.

Oops. Wrong vampyre, actually.

Personally, my favorite toy that Rebecca got for Christmas is the RC Bumper Cars. We’ve had LOTS of fun with them. Basically, you have these little round cars, each with a little dude in the seat, and a button on each side of the car. You drive around trying to bump into the buttons on your opponent’s car, ejecting the little dude and then it makes this funny cackling noise. It’s funniest when you bump into your opponent’s button with your own button and both little dudes going flying in the air with the cackling. Hehe, very cool toy. Doesn’t seem to eat batteries too quickly, either, we played with them for a long time before the cars seemed to be slowing down a little.

I had to go to the pet store for cat food today. I picked up a pack of Emily’s favorite rattly mice, it was a “Christmas” pack, so on big sale. I put most of them in a bag of catnip to soak up stony goodness, but I gave her one of each color. In almost no time, we found them here:

There’s almost always at least one toy in the cat’s food dish. For the longest time we thought it was Emily putting them there since she’s the only cat who really plays with toys. The other cats will play with a string or a feather, but Emily plays with anything and she loves these mice, she carries them around, bats them around the kitchen floor, the bath tub. She tosses them in the air and chases them. She also plays fetch with them, which is cute. So really, it was an easy guess it was her putting them in the food. But one day I watched Mister, curmudgeon cat extraordinaire, pick up a mouse Emily had left lying around, and carry it it to the food dish, dropping it in. He then searched around for another one, put it with the other. It’s pretty funny. Anyway, Emily has the attention span of a, well, a mentally-challenged kitten on speed (never mind she’s 3 1/2 years-old), and she played with these new mice for approximately one second, give or take, but a little while later, Mister had done his thing.

I hate Bratz dolls. I hate a lot of girl toys, really, but Bratz is way at the top of the list. I think little girls have no business playing with dolls so sexualized. I’m not overly fond of Barbies, either, but I don’t dislike her enough to keep her out of my home. Bratz, though, GAG ME. Rebecca has repeatedly asked for one over the last few years and I have repeatedly weasled my way out of getting her one with various lame stalling and evasive techniques, none of which have truly addressed the real issue. I did put out feelers once, trying to talk to her about how I feel they’re too grown up, too sexy, but I felt like George Bush lecturing on family values or something and Rebecca was mad at me for insinuating that Bratz are anything but lovely glamorous dolls.

She told me again a few days ago that she REALLY wants one, and ALL her friends have them and oh the terribleness of a mother who denies her a Bratz doll! And here’s the thing, too. She has a number of Barbies, that she hardly plays with, and I sort of suspect the Bratz would be the same, although I don’t want to factor in how much play time it would get into whether or not buying one in the first place. I don’t know.

Has anyone seen Moxie dolls? Any opinions on them? Are they any better than Bratz?

Rebecca saved her money (from doing chores, from the tooth fairy and $5 from Grandpa) and bought herself Wall-e and Eve. She’s been very impressed with someone else’s photos of the pair and now she’s very happy to have her own. We’ve even had our first photo shoot with our new friends.