Christmas!

Last Saturday night we joined my parents for the University of Washington vs Boise State football game. They ordered pizza for us all, it was fun! Thank you Ma and Pa!

Sunday was the Christmas program at church. The play this year was very good, and the kids sang some songs as well. I caught a video of Nico singing during the practice before the service, you can see the video at the end of the blog! Sunday afternoon we went to a Christmas party at the church for all the band members. One of the women on our team made everyone personalized coffee/tea/drink tumblers. She did an amazing job and I was very touched by her thoughtfulness.

Monday morning, Grandma and Grandpa Russell arrived! Nico went outside to wait for them, we were tracking them as they got closer.

Monday night we went to the Winter Garden Aglow. We were able to take GG with us! Nico got to sit on Santa's lap and we bought some kettle corn and saw all the beautiful lights. Thanks to Grandpa Russell for some of these pictures.

GG was the designated popcorn holder.

Tuesday morning, Guy and Nico and Grandpa Russell went out to breakfast to The Griddle. Nico chose french toast.

Before heading to the candlelight service on Christmas Eve.

After the service, Nico helped blow out all the candles.

And Wednesday was Christmas!

I went out into the living room at about 6:30 and found Nico snuggled on the couch surrounded by his stocking stuffers.

Nico's new hoverboard

Opening gifts

A new Peanuts book.

After opening presents and eating some lunch, we watched a few MST3K episodes.

It was a great Christmas!

Today I took Nico over to the Grandparents Salisbury's house for an afternoon Grandma Camp! Nico brought his hoverboard.

This will be my last blog! It's been a fun run with ya'll and I'll miss having the weekly record, but it's time to say farewell.

Here are some snippets from this past week.

Holiday Concert

Friday morning Guy and I went to Nico's Holiday Concert performance at the school. 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. I honestly wasn't planning to record any of it, and make it just an "enjoy" moment, but as Nico was walking out onto the risers with his class, he found us, waved really big, and then made a rectangle with his hands and pointed at me, then did the sign for "video", rotating his index fingers around each other. He wanted me to video it. So, I did! We had the perfect shot of him from where we were sitting and I was able to video him and watch him at the same time (not through the video). I turned off the video while they were standing up there waiting for the concert to start, and Nico looked at me again and made the same symbols with his hands, so I pulled it out again. Guy and I couldn't stop laughing.

 This hand signal means "Come closer to take the picture, MOM"

Watch the video at the end of the blog to catch a peek at Nico singing with his class. At one point he looks at me and makes a rectangle with his hands again to make sure I had my phone out and was recording. I caught that part on video so go watch it and have a chuckle. The video just includes about 10-second snippets from each of the songs they did. Also in the video are snippets of Nico dancing: the moonwalk, and at the church Christmas Party.

Saturday was the Church Christmas Party for the kiddos. Every year our church buys gifts for kids on behalf of their parent or parents in prison. We invite them to a party at the church and hand out gifts. It's called the Angel Tree Ministry. All the kids at our church are invited, too, so Nico went and had a blast.

They dressed him up as Olaf from Frozen.

Saturday night was a chess tournament at Smokey Mountain Pizza. Guy and I watched Perry Mason and ate our pizza.

Sunday Nico wasn't feeling well at church so I took him home early. He had a fever of 100.4, looks like he caught whatever it was that I had, except he threw up once on Sunday evening. He stayed home from school on Monday and Tuesday, and I sent him back on Wednesday. He still has a slight sore throat and a cough, but his tummy seems to be better.

Today we went to his doctor and had the gluten test done. I am happy and surprised to say that he is not as sensitive to gluten as he was the last time we were there! She said it had improved. Woah baby! And thank you God! But she did point out a few things to watch out for, because he may have a gluten limit. Bumps on the back of his arms was one of them (which he has some already), and she encouraged us to not let him eat it every day. Sometimes a reaction can be delayed and she was concerned about it building up in his system with continued exposure. We will take it easy. I hope.

Enjoy the video!

The Wizard of Oz Drama Performance

Last Friday was the Ladies Christmas Party for our church. It was a re-gift party where we were supposed to bring a gift someone had given us that we didn't want anymore. One of the things I was given was this hot chocolate mix with marshmallows. Once I got home, Nico saw it and asked for a mug of cocoa, so he got one!

I've been trying to grow sprouts. These are clover sprouts. I can't seem to get them as yummy as my mom's are, but she's helping me troubleshoot. I'm using a sprout heating pad on my next batch.

Nico eating breakfast and doing the Advent Calendar. His new breakfast love is toast with cheese melted on it, from the oven.

On Monday shortly after Nico arrived at school, I received a call from the nurse telling me that Nico had a tummy ache, so I went to pick him up. He seemed fine otherwise, and spent the morning calculating how many minutes are in a year. He put the paper in his backpack so he could show his teacher the next day. In the afternoon we tried to go for a walk up to Castle Rock but the trails were closed due to mud, so we turned around and came back. Halfway home, Nico started getting really bad stomach pain. He rested when we got home and was fine.

The next morning he still felt a little sick, but I sent him to school anyway. He said his tummy ache went away while he was at school, in the morning.

Tuesday I had my last final for my last class of the semester at CWI. I went to the testing center in Nampa, and afterward I visited a gluten free restaurant in Nampa to get myself a treat. Local First Idaho. I got a turkey sandwich and tomato soup. It was very good, though I kept dreaming about the turkey sandwiches they have at Lemon Tree in Boise (I'll go there next time!) I brought my lunch to my parents' house and ate there, then I met Guy for our Tuesday afternoon date at Caffe Capri.

One of the big topics we discussed on our date was the gluten question for Nico. Our consensus is to make the decision based on symptoms, not on tests, so as of now we are allowing Nico to eat gluten. Guy's suggestion was to still keep our house gluten free (for my sake), but when we buy food at a restaurant, or if he's at school or anywhere where there's gluten, he can eat it! We will thank God for every day that he can eat gluten. Nico is super psyched. He loves the donut holes at church. I may not have mentioned this but I think he ate like 12 of them on that Sunday in gluten week.

Reading before bed.

Today was Nico's Wizard of Oz drama performance!! I came down with a fever this afternoon and didn't end up going, I was so sad to miss it! :( But Guy got some video! Evelyn was also in the performance, she is the evil witch, so keep an eye out for her when you watch the video. Nico played the Wizard. He had a few other small parts, too. Everyone went to Tin Roof Tacos for dinner after the performance.

In February we are going to see the Idaho Music Theater performance of The Wizard of Oz. 

That's it for this week! Enjoy the video!

Birthday Party, and Back to Normal after the Holiday.

Speaking of "Back to Normal after the Holiday", I was in Trader Joe's yesterday and was shocked to see they had wreaths and mistletoe out front for sale. For some reason it felt like Christmas was last week and was over, and I was shocked they were "still" selling Christmas stuff. Slow down, brain!

Gluten Week: Last Friday

Guy took Nico to The Griddle for breakfast. Nico ordered a hot chocolate and a waffle! This was the only time he complained of a tummy ache after eating gluten, and he said it was because of the syrup. I believe him! 

On Saturday we went to Fred Meyer to get a Christmas tree! Here's Nico trying on the Christmas glasses that make every twinkle light look like a reindeer.

 We listened to Christmas music and decorated the tree.

We found the Santa hat later, so he wore it while setting up one of our advent calendars.

Saturday night was a birthday party for one of Nico's friends from church, Lyam. He had his party at Pojo's. This was the first time in Nico's life he was able to eat the food and cake at a birthday party! Woah baby!

One of the birthday boy's brothers was playing a game and won the Monster Jackpot. Everyone took turns helping the tickets as they came out so they wouldn't end up in a huge pile. He won about 30,000 tickets!! It took more than an hour for all the tickets to come out.

Sunday after church we went to the Mall. Nico wanted to try a pretzel and cheese from the mall for his gluten that day. He also wanted his usual Great Steak and Potato meal, so we got both. He ate his meal and then opened up the pretzel. It was burnt! He took one bite and said, "Ick!".

Guy chose some New York Pizza for his lunch.

That was the last day of gluten for Nico. As far as we can tell he has had no reaction. We haven't discussed it yet, but it's very likely that even if the test comes back saying that he's sensitive, we will continue to let Nico eat gluten. Still, haven't talked about it yet so I can't say for sure, but that's the way I'm leaning. Go by the symptoms I say.

It has been a normal week back to school. Nothing on Monday, Cub Scouts on Tuesday, chess and youth group on Wednesday, hall monitor and drama club and band practice on Thursday.

On Sunday we started doing our online advent calendar we receive each year from Grandma Russell. Cute videos or games/activities every day. Nico and I have been fighting over who gets to play the solitaire-like game it has. Guy looked at it and said, "Looks like Spider Solitaire." I have never heard of that! But I bet that's what it is.

Speaking of spiders, I don't think I mentioned this last week, but we found a black widow inside our house by our front door. Ick! I killed it.

I didn't take as much video of gluten week as I thought I did, but here is the video anyway! I also included Thanksgiving snippets.

Gluten Week! And Thanksgiving!

On Friday Nico woke up with a sore throat. He wanted to stay home from school but I sent him to school anyway. An hour later, the nurse called me and told me Nico had been to see her twice, she said, "You know how determined he is when he wants to go home, do you just want to come pick him up? Or do you want to talk to him?" I said I would come pick him up. I couldn't help laughing and giggling when I went to meet him at the school. It cracked me up. He was fine. We ran to Whole Foods to return an Amazon package and pick up some strawberries, and then visited Allicia and Avery and Ivy that afternoon to play video games.

He had the sniffles over the weekend but nothing much came of it.

Saturday started Gluten Week. We told him he could choose one meal and one dessert a day with gluten. We didn't want to overwhelm his system with 3 meals a day. Saturday he chose Pizza Hut. It was also Odd Saturday at Jeff & Allicia's that Guy and Nico attended. They came home in time for Swiss Family Robinson (my choice) and Pizza Hut! Nico loved it. And he didn't appear to have any negative reaction to the gluten. 

Sunday he chose to eat a cheese quesadilla from Taco Bell where I dropped him off after church so he could eat with cousins and the Grandparents Salisbury. Afterward, they went roller skating.

Monday I took him to Blue Sky Bagels for breakfast. The place smelled sooo good. And he was soooo excited. After his first bite he said, "Why does this taste so good?" He chose a cinnamon and sugar bagel with berry cream cheese. He said next time he would get the same kind of bagel but different cream cheese. He couldn't finish it so we wrapped up the rest for later. He ate the leftovers as his chosen "dessert" for Monday.

Monday afternoon and evening was Grandma Camp. Guy picked up dinner for me and him from Thai Basil and we watched a few episodes of Dr Who while we ate.

Tuesday's chosen meal was Jimmy John's. He got a sandwich with cheese and guacamole on it (that's it). I also got him a Jimmy John's cookie and a bag of their salt & vinegar chips (which also have gluten so he hasn't been able to eat them.)

We were going to meet Guy there, but Guy wasn't able to get out of his meeting in time, so we took Guy his sandwich after we were done.

Wednesday we had Evelyn, Ivy, and Avery over for a few hours in the morning. Then in the afternoon, Nico went over to their house for a few hours. A good way to spend a day off. They took turns playing Mario Kart on our Wii.

Nico's chosen meal for Wednesday was Papa John's pizza. He loved it. He couldn't tell a difference between Pizza Hut and Papa John's, he says he loves them both. He had some snickerdoodles for his dessert.

And then today.. Thanksgiving! Nico could eat anything he wanted. He loved the rolls. He ate chocolate cream pie for dessert.

After the food, we had the lego challenge. Grandma Salisbury planned this one well! It was a family challenge so we all worked together to put together our car. Bruce, Rory, and David won that challenge. The next challenge was to see whose car could go the farthest and the fastest. Each car could be pulled back and released. Lexie won both of those challenges; way to go!

Ornament exchange.

Unwrapping the box! This box Nico is working on is covered in duct tape. An entire roll. It took the kiddos quite a while to unravel it. Each kid had about 15 seconds to get what they could from it. The initial box was a large box, and this smaller one was just one box inside of bigger and bigger boxes.

After the box, it was time for dessert. Pie pie pie pie!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I have a video with Thanksgiving snippets and some snippets of gluten week which I will post next week.