Ho Ho Ho!

Santa brought the children iPod touches this year--remember back when I was pining for them to have these? You'd think that's the only gift they opened--I've never seen them so silent and absorbed in what they're doing.

So far, I've downloaded Angry Birds, Doodle, Handy Manny Workshop, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Preschool Connect the Dots, Talking Tom Cat, Tesla Toy, Toddler Fun Phone, Toy Story 3, and Wheels on the Bus. They all seem pretty easy for them to figure out, to varying degrees. Any other suggestions for educational apps for a six year old and smart three year olds with limited fine motor skills?

Note: I'm particularly interested in musical instrument apps. I'd like for them to be able to tap on piano keys or strum guitar strings. I know a piano app for iPad exists, but I can't find the magic words to search for anything that works for iPod touch.

New music ideas, please.

I'm an iPod/iTunes whore. And I'm desperate for new music. I have 2,000 songs in my music library, but only 389 songs in my usual everyday playlist. I need some new stuff. I need good, new stuff. Something not by The Fray or Miley Cyrus or Jonas Brothers (heaven help me) or Katy Perry or Black Eyed Peas.

Post your 5 favorite songs in comments, all 2 of you who read this blog. Your favorite songs don't even have to be from this year--I'll take any suggestions.

To get this party started, here are my top 5 (in no particular order), using my own playlist as a guide:
1. Pick Up the Pieces -- Average White Band
2. All the Small Things -- Blink 182
3. Santa Monica -- Everclear
4. I'm Yours -- Jason Mraz
5. Leave Out All the Rest -- Linkin Park

and a few more favorites, to continue the party, because I'm in charge and I can list more than five because I say I can:
6. In Your Eyes -- Peter Gabriel
7. Closing Time -- Semisonic
8. Rock This Town -- Stray Cats
9. Hard To Handle -- Black Crows
10. I'm Beginning to See the Light -- Bobby Darrin

Give me more good stuff, oh blogger world.

A Good Week

This was a great week. The babies saw their pulmonologist for a post-hospital checkup. He agreed that they're doing great. He sympathized with the hassle of making them wear their bi-pap machines at night, and just told me to do the best we could with it, and not to worry right now if they are only on their machines for a few hours per night. I told the doc as soon as they're old enough to be reasoned with (aka "bribed"), we'd try to go all night. But their lungs sound great again, and hopefully we don't see the inside of a hospital again for a long time.

Jenna had a great week, as usual. The sophisticated vocabulary that continues to tumble out of her mouth amaze us, as usual. Kindergarten registration is in ten days--yeeps!

I finally saw Twilight at the theater this week--score! It sort of sucked--bummer. I will wait for the extras on DVD next month and hopefully time passes quickly between now and then. I can't wait to see it again and hopefully I'll like it better the second time around.

I got a new iPod. Most of my songs won't transfer over from my old iPod and my new iPod. I've always had problems with music files that I obtained from old fashioned music CD's, but now most of the songs that I've purchased on my old iPod won't transfer over, either. Apple says I can only download them once, so there's no help there. Wah! All that money wasted! Off to the library to check out dozens more individual CD's to rip one little song off of each one. I love iTunes, but I refuse to give them extra money for the songs that another Apple product won't recognize now. Grrrr.