Friends and Family

We visited G.G. on Friday! She got Nico a police car which she had ready for him when he walked in. He was very excited about that. She also shared some of her garden's bounty with us. Onions, beans, lettuce, so yummy! We will get to see her again this weekend at Nico's birthday party. He will be 3 years old!

On Saturday we went up to the cabin for a BBQ. Lots of cousins for Nico to play with. And a Papa, who attempted to build for him the most difficult lego possible, because Nico asked him to :) They have a lot of fun together.

Reading a book with Papa.

Nico's 3 year checkup was good. Right on target for growth, etc.

On Tuesday our friend Josh came over for a visit. We knew Josh in college, and he was the one who played the mandolin at mine and Guy's wedding. He also lived with us for a while when we lived in Washington. He brought us some tools to transfer our VHS tapes to digital. He also gave Nico some Korean coins to put into his piggy bank. He has been a school teacher in Korea for the last few years, and will be heading back there in the next few months. He plans to be at Nico's birthday party, so we will get to see him again soon.

Nico and Josh building towers.

We gave Nico one of his birthday presents early - a $5 sprinkler! He has had so much fun running through it. He liked rotating between running through the sprinkler and playing with his sandbox. He must have been feeling beachy. He also likes picking up little bits of sand and throwing them into the sprinkler.

Nico had his last speech therapy appointment today. He turns 3 on Monday, so he no longer qualifies for the Infant/Toddler Program. He will be a month without speech therapy before he starts school in August. I am so excited for him to go to preschool. He will have so much fun with the other kids. He is quite a socialite these days!

We checked out a "kit" from the library about Music. It has a bunch of instruments in it (tambourine, sticks, other things I don't know the names of) and some books and CDs. Nico looove banging on the tambourine with the sticks. I think he'll like his birthday present from us (a drum!).

The Grandparents Russell are coming this weekend for Nico's Birthday! We have a birthday party planned for Sunday and his actual birthday is on Monday. It will be so much fun, I am looking forward to celebrating my little buddy.

Stay tuned next week for birthday pictures.

Sprinkler

Jumping right into pictures here..

We harvested from our garden for the first time - broccoli!

Playing

 At the Aquarium

He read his tractor books and decided to attach some floss to the hitch on the back of his tractors. You can kind of see the floss at the bottom of the picture.

Nico wasn't feeling well on Saturday, woke up with some stomach problems. But we have finally reached the milestone of Nico knowing when he is going to throw up! He asked for his bucket several times, and hung his head in there to wait for it. I don't think it was viral, as he made up for missing breakfast and more after his nap. I think we're dealing with some food intolerances.

We skipped church on Sunday to make sure he was fully recovered.

Nico seems to be a lot more interested in repeating sounds and words this week without being asked. I've stopped recording individual words that he says, because he now repeats too many things to keep track.

Short and sweet today. Leaving you with a sprinkler shot!

Ten-tee

Nico said a sentencey phrase on Monday! I went to the dentist and when I came home, Nico said "Mommy. Ten-tee. Car. Daddy." Interpretation: Mommy went to the dentist in the car, and Daddy stayed home with me! I told the speech therapist about this on Tuesday and she was excited. Also, Nico was really cooperative on Tuesday and Marcia was able to move on to more advanced techniques, like trying to say a word with a consonant on the end, like BED. He's not able to copy the sounds just yet on those. She also worked on repeating sounds a certain number of times, or alternating sounds. Like "buh buh buh" or "buh ba buh ba". Nico caught on to the repetition, but not the alternating. On Thursday (Marcia came over twice this week!) Nico initiated his own ABC app on his iPad and took Marcia through it, repeating everything in it, just like she would have asked him to do. He seems more eager these days to repeat words.

Nico has also been doing a lot of two syllable words all on his own. He said "meatball" by saying "Ha (the Hhh sound that an H makes) bah". The "Ha" means that it was hot. So, he said hot ball! He strung two words together to describe something else! This is definitely a milestone for him. Also, cocoon, and various other random ones.

On Sunday we went to the cabin to hang with family. Nico got to see his cousin Alexis, they have a lot of fun together!

We also saw Sarah, and Allicia and Evie this week. The speech therapist also was here twice, trying to get more appointments in before Nico turns 3 in a few weeks.

Nico got a black eye this week from falling into his bed after trying to swing his leg over the last step without holding onto anything. Ouch!

Now for some pictures..

Playing with the sandbox.

 Helping me sort foam shapes for an activity we are doing at his birthday party. He was getting really fast at this near the end. He would hold two different colors, one in each hand, then scope out where they went, and then ... paused... and said GO! And then would put each color away at the same time.

 Our broccoli is almost ready to harvest!

An interesting seed pod on our walk tonight.

And one last note - on a walk earlier this week, Nico spotted a MINI on the street, and pointed to it and said "MINI!" So impressed with his car recognition!

Pee, Ah-bee!

Before I talk about this week, there is one thing about last week that I forgot to mention. We checked out a book from the library for Nico about Classic Cars. He loves it, and on his way through it the 3rd or 4th time, we turned to a page with a Mini on it. I said "Mini" and he repeated it right after me. Then he said "Dah dah!" and pointed to his room where his cars were. He went to his room and found a hot wheels MINI! He kept saying "Mini" over and over again. He talks about the Mini all the time, finds it in his book, pulls his own out, points to both.

He is also now able to identify a Beetle ("Bee-dee") and a Bug ("Buh"). He says so whenever he finds them in his book. I've started pointing Bugs out to him whenever we're out and about.

We went to the zoo on Friday. I brought Nico's snack with us and we ate it on a bench. We stayed at the zoo longer than usual. We saw the butterflies, fed the goats, and tried to avoid the dinosaurs.

Saturday we went to visit Lizzie and Bruce and Rory again. 

On Monday, the Library. We've been trying to go to the Library as a family every Monday afternoon.

At the Fish Park on Wednesday, we saw 3 fawns total, two of them were feeding on the Mommy deer, it was sweet to see. Didn't catch a picture of that, but was able to get a picture of Nico and the deer.

And Nico and the owl.

Fun with water (it's been so hot lately!)

Fun with holey socks.

Advances on the potty front: Nico pees standing up! For the first time today. All over the iPad. I've been letting him go into the bathroom by himself sometimes, and this morning I went in there about a minute after him, and there was pee all over the floor and he was standing up. I figured he had tried to empty the potty into the toilet and had missed. But then it happened again, and this time he was standing over the iPad, saying "Pee, Ah-bee" (Pee, iPad!) I wasn't sure what had happened... But then Guy got up for the day, took Nico potty once, and before he left for work he warned me: "Nico peed standing up today, so be careful if you ever let him try to pee by himself." Ah ha! So this evening, whenever he walked into the bathroom, I bolted in after him. Sure enough, he lifts the lid on the toilet and tries to pee right into the bowl. I think after his practice sessions today, he almost has it down!

Another new-ish thing that Nico has been doing is getting out of his bed at night. I told him that if he has to go to the bathroom, that he is able to get out of bed and go potty. Last night we hit a new record, he got out of bed about 4 times right in a row before he finally admitted he had to go potty. Once he went potty, he went right back to sleep. Cool!

That's it for this week!