Christmas, Christmas, happy time of year!

On Friday the Grandparents Russell arrived! They stayed up in the suite while they were here, so they were just a staircase away. Quick hanging-out access! Nico enjoys taking baths up in the suite's huge bathtub, so he did that on Friday night after dinner (which we ate in the suite!) He opened a gift that night, a very funny book called "The Dumb Bunnies Go to the Zoo". Grandma read it to him, then it was bedtime!

Saturday was a full day. Pancakes in the morning, then we drove over to Nampa to celebrate Christmas with GG and Aunt Pat. Nico opened a quilt that Grandma Russell made. My favorite is the Three Stooges fabric you can see in the corners, it has sayings from the Three Stooges like "Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk". It is an awesome quilt. We put it on his bed that night!

While we were in Nampa, Nico had a birthday party to attend, one of his friends from church was turning 8 years old. Straight from there we went to the Christmas Party at the Grandparents Salisbury's house. GG also came along with us! We ate pizza, sang songs, Papa gave a devotional and read the Christmas Story from the book of John. A fresh perspective! And then we played games! The saran wrap game started with a huge ball of saran wrap that had prizes wrapped up in it. (Thanks to Aunt Jill Marie for putting it together!) Everyone got a turn trying to unwrap part of the ball, while someone else rolled dice until they got doubles. If you unwrapped a prize while it was your turn, you got to keep the prize. Then the person who rolled doubles  had a chance to unwrap the ball while someone else rolled the dice. It was so much fun! Lots of prizes for everyone.

Thanks to Uncle Jonny for catching this picture of us :)

I think Nico won both bags of M&Ms that were in the ball (they are his favorite candy) so he was a tad over-sugared that night. heehee. We had so much fun. Thank you Papa and Grandma Salisbury for the incredibly fun time!

On Sunday we went to church, a shorter service than usual and Nico read from his Bible Luke 2:10-12, part of the Christmas story. Then the children sang Away in a Manger on stage and everyone joined in. Sunday was a lazy afternoon, Grandma and Nico went out snow-playing. They walked over to Quarry View Park.

After we ate dinner, Nico opened a gift from Guy and I, a board game called Cat Lady. We played it that night before bed.

I finished wrapping presents that night and we stuck everything under the tree. Nico didn't stay up at all, and didn't hear Guy say "Ho Ho Ho, Merrrrry Christmas!", he was fast asleep. The first thing Nico did upon waking is open his stocking. Then all of us gathered for breakfast (cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, bacon), and started opening presents! While Nico was waiting to open presents he had pulled all of his from under the tree to make a big pile.

That afternoon we watched White Christmas while Nico played with toys and read his new books. What an enjoyable and laid back day! Grandma and Nico went on another walk that day to Quarry View to play in the snow again.

Some random pictures from our time!

Playing with his Alphabots

Most of these pictures are thanks to Grandma Russell!! And then below you will find a video of our time, most taken by Grandma.

Tuesday morning after breakfast the Grandparents Russell headed to the airport. We planned out a few of the next trips this next year, and we will see them again in March during Nico's spring break! They are adding a kitchenette up in the suite that will be there when the Grandparents come next. Yay! Thank you for the visit, the visiting, the sitting, the talking, the watching, the eating, the laughing, we enjoyed your visit very much!

Tuesday was a day of cleaning-up-Christmas for us. We don't necessarily take down our Christmas tree the day after Christmas, but this year we did, it was dried up and leaving its green petals everywhere. We pulled it out through the front door and parked it next to our front window in the corner until trash day. Then we packed up our Christmas box and shipped it back down to the cellar. That afternoon we sat around being lazy, reading, playing with toys, watching a movie. 

Wednesday was the start of Nico's Hitting Clinic for baseball. Held at Timberline High School, he is doing 3 days of the camp where he practices hitting baseballs. He has had so much fun the past 2 days. Wednesday after it was over, Guy and I and Evelyn picked him up and then drove over to the mall. Nico received a Build-a-Bear gift certificate for Christmas from Jeff & Allicia so he could get a YOSHI stuffed animal! So we went there to redeem it. Evelyn also got a gift certificate for Christmas. Instead of getting another Build-a-Bear (she already has one, a dragon named Toothless, from How to Train your Dragon), she brought Toothless with her and bought him a saddle.

Afterwards we ate lunch at the mall, then stopped off at See's Candy to get everyone one piece. Nico chose a lime truffle, the same one he had chosen from Aunt Pat's See's candy box when she offered him one on Saturday. Evelyn chose a strawberry cream one. Guy picked up some Starbucks coffee at the mall using the Starbucks gift card I won doing the saran wrap game, then we headed back home. 

Nico has been carrying Yoshi around everywhere with him. Feeding him food. He even brought Yoshi with him when he crawled into our bed in the middle of the night.

Enjoy the video!!

Chess Tournament, Slapping

On Saturday Nico attended his very first Chess Party & Tournament. It was at Smoky Mountain Pizza, for 3 hours, I just dropped him off and then picked him up later. They had charge of the two banquet rooms, one of the rooms was where they played chess, and the other room was where they ate pizza and watched a movie. Nico played 4 games of chess, winning 1 of them, and came home with a 2nd place trophy. Everyone got a trophy, so that was cool! They made sure he had a gluten free pizza and he said he ate 4 pieces while watching the Batman Lego movie. At the end they had an awards ceremony where the parents could see Coach Vellotti hand out the trophies. On our way out the door he handed out candy canes. Nico chose a strawberry one.

Sunday was the church Christmas program. Nico sat with me in the service while Guy ran the sound. It was a fun drama. Afterward, there was a taco bar lunch. It was very good. 

Guy has had this whole past week off, which has been awesome! We have been eating lunch together while watching some Burn Notice on Netflix every afternoon. Nico had a half day today and Guy joined him at school during the Christmas Around the World Buffet lunch they had in his class. Nico is now officially on winter break! 

Tonight Guy took him to band practice with him for a little bit so he could practice reading Luke 2:10-12 from his Bible while holding a microphone. Apparently he did well! We will see him do this in front of the church on Sunday.

A few of the ways we have been passing our time in the morning. Playing "Chessers", which is a combination of chess and checkers, rules by Nico.

Playing Bird Bingo

Nico asked Guy at the beginning of the week that every day he comes from school could Guy slap him in the face when he comes inside the door. ????? Guy, of course, agreed to do this. See video below of how Guy did this on Monday. Every day after this Guy has chosen a different way to surprise Nico with slapping. Yesterday he waited outside in the alley right next to the clubhouse. As Nico came home he was telling Evelyn that his Dad was going to slap him when he came home so he asked Evelyn to go inside first. But before they could even get inside, Guy jumped out and slapped Nico. Then this afternoon Guy was hiding inside again and Nico made Evelyn go inside first. Guy of course didn't slap her. heehee.

Tomorrow Grampa and Gramma Russell are coming into town!! We are so excited to see them. It will be a fun Christmas!

And without further ado, the slapping:

Trebuchet, GG, Reader's Theater

On Sunday we opened up the trebuchet assembly kit that Grampa Russell sent us. Nico even remembered to put on his safety goggles while assembling it :) heehee.

See the video at the end to see him demonstrate how it works! Here he is the next day using the sandpaper that came with the kit to smooth out some of the rough edges on his trebuchet. 

When Guy came home from work that night he had it all set up to fling the clay ball at him as soon as he came in the door. 

On Monday, Grandma Salisbury and I hiked up Table Rock while Nico was at school! It was very cold, brrrr!

On Tuesday Nico and I went to see GG after school. It was great to catch up with her!

Nico had a bit of a fever this afternoon after school, and a headache. Before bed tonight he said he had a tummy ache. We'll see how he feels in the morning! I'm hoping it resolves quickly for him. He seemed really interested in essential oils this afternoon after I showed him how he could look up stuff in the book to see which oils to use. He asked both Guy and I what kinds of problems we had and he looked them up and offered oils to us, then he said, "I'm an aromatherapist because I used oils, right??"

He is reading Magic Treehouse books, he is on #25. And he started reading the Amulet graphic novels again, checking them out from the library. He just finished #1, there are 7 total.

Guy is doing sound for the Christmas program at church, so he has been at practice every night this week except Monday. The performance is Sunday, with a potluck afterward. Guy has 3 weeks off from work starting Saturday!! He is very excited and ready for this work week to be over.

Video below has Nico demonstrating the trebuchet, and also some snippets from Reader's Theater at school. His teacher took video of all the kids' presentations to the Kindergarten class, and sent them to the parents. Cool that she did that! Looks like I messed up the title on the video when the Reader's Theater starts, it's supposed to say "Reader's Theater" :)

See you all next week!

Winter Garden Aglow, Advent Calendars, Birds!

Last Friday we went to the Botanical Garden to see the Winter Garden Aglow! You know how we typically get our picture taken there, but for the past 2 years there has been no photographer there like there used to be. So our family picture this year is coming from a different source (stay tuned for that!)

We went straight to Santa to avoid the lines. Nico asked for Alphabots and Numberbots (toys from a catalog that he looked through last week)

Nico knows that Santa does not actually exist, but he still enjoys playing along.

Then we walked up the mountainside a bit and found this view. You can see downtown Boise in the background, and the Key Bank building with the Christmas tree on top.

We visited the trains as usual.

You can see Nico's red eye in this picture.

Like the doctor said, the red spot is disappearing slowly. Nico told me that a few days ago two girls were running around screaming on the playground because of his red eye. And that his classmates asked him to look to the right so they could see the red part, because it's creepy. I asked him how he felt when they said that and he shrugged "fine" and then kept right on talking about something else. Pretty sure it hasn't fazed him!

Saturday was a FULL day. We first went to the church to help them set up for Christmas. We helped decorate the Christmas tree. Afterward we headed straight to the MK Nature Center. There was a birdseed sale going on plus other activities and a bird presentation where you could meet the birds. They had a peregrine falcon, an owl (can't remember what kind) and an American Kestrel. We learned all kinds of things, like how they swoop to get their food.

Kestrel

 The falcon

The falcon had part of his wing missing but twice he tried to fly away and started hanging from his string, flapping. The handler said "Oh stop, that's so undignified" and everyone laughed. He/she (they're not sure) kept looking around the room up in the rafters like he was looking for a place to fly up to. 

Nico laughed whenever it would poop on the floor (they put protective papers on the floor for the occasion).

The owl (Nico remembers that it was a burrowing owl)

After this we went home and had lunch, then went out again to get our Christmas tree!

I should have taken a picture of the tree in our car and Nico smooshed by branches. We didn't think about putting it on top of our car. Maybe next year? Inside the car Guy started getting a bit of a headache. In the past he has struggled with headaches and Christmas trees, but it hasn't happened for a few years. He had a headache that day and the next day but hasn't had trouble since then. The smell from the tree has died down a bit, so that may be why. We enjoyed putting the ornaments on the tree! It is a little squishy in here now, we chose too WIDE of a tree this time. We had no thought to whether we would have room to get around it! Heehee. Then we made pizza and watched a movie.

At church on Sunday Nico got a prize for finishing his weekly Gratitude Journal. For the month of November he had to write down 3 things every day that he was thankful for. Here's the list starting from the beginning. Long list, but fun to record for later. All punctuation is true to what he wrote. Parenthesis are my comments.

Trading candy.
pizza.
Fall.
Good pancakes.
My mom.
Halloween.
My G.G.
God.
Heaven.
Going to Washington.
My dad.
The world.
Having Mario Kart.
School.
United States of America.
To learn chess at school.
Going to Grama and Papa's house.
Going to Kids Discovery Expo with Grama and my cousins.
Grama and papa.
Winter.
A house.
My Grama and Grampa .
Books.
Clocks.
G.G.'s birthday.
Alexa.
Frinds. (friends)
Water.
Animals.
The sun.
paper.
My cousins.
farmers.
Thanksgiving.
car
Bed
Christmas
Backpack
Clothes
Bunnies
Money
games
flowres
stuffed animals
pencils
Homework
Grama and papa moveing.
Flashlights.
popcorn
chips
Lexie
Rory
Bruce
Lily
Kia (Kai)
Foth of July.
doors
meldls (medals from advancing in his Chess class)
smiles
soap
light
droors (drawers - because then everything would just be sitting on top of the counter)
graveyard
Oils
Henna
TVs
Christmas Trees
stickers
Bookshelves
Pictures
Glasses
Legos
Cups
Songs
A heart
tape
a diary
an Addvint calider (advent calendar)
cafe drops (cough drops)
rugs
me
angels
tissues
ornaments

It was a really good exercise, it got Nico thinking. I'd like to do the same thing next year if the church doesn't happen to do it. 

Sunday afternoon Nico and I went to the Grandparents Salisbury house and hung out for a few hours!

Reading a devotional in the morning. We've decided not to style his hair with pomade in the winter, because it prevents him from wanting to put on a hat or a hood, rightly so, because it really messes it up. This is the fuzz-ball look. You just need a little water on a comb and it calms right down.

We have started our Advent calendars. Our traditional Christmas tree one and then the online one Grama Russell gets us each year. Here's a few screen shots from that one.

This is what it looks like at night. In the day time (starting at 6am) it is light outside.

Snowflakes designed by Nico

We've also started doing our Advent candles. Nico has been enjoying lighting matches and blowing out flames every night. He has even learned how to extinguish a flame by pinching the wick with wet fingers. We have a little book we read from every night.

Nico has had a cold this week, some coughing and phlegm going on, but no fever.

And that's about it I think..

See you next week!