Papa's Birthday!

We celebrated Papa's birthday on Sunday at Smoky Mountain Pizza! We reserved a room and it was perfect! We ate pizza and then ate cake. Papa's favorite dessert is cherry pie, so I made some cherry pie filling to put inside and on top of his cake. Then he opened presents. It was great to see most of the family (Jeremy and Bambi weren't able to make it) and fun to celebrate Papa!! Happy Birthday Pa!

Now unfortunately I forgot to take pictures the rest of the week, doh! Except one tonight when I remembered that I was updating the blog. On Thursdays we are watching Evelyn after school and she eats dinner with us. After dinner I let them play in the clubhouse until shower time. They played with cars and micromachines tonight.

Other things we did this past week, we rented Wall-E on Amazon for Saturday pizza night. Our toaster oven broke and we have ordered the part for it, it will take a few weeks for the part to arrive so we have borrowed a toaster oven from Allicia. In the meantime I purchased gluten free pita pizza crusts from Trader Joe's that will fit in this smaller toaster oven so we can continue to have Saturday night pizza while our oven is broken.

Guy checks out Donald Duck comics from the library and him and Nico enjoy reading them together  before bed. 

Last Friday I drove Evelyn and Nico to chess class before school. I drove because I had a doctor's appointment directly after. Instead of pulling into the school parking lot, I pulled over and parked on Warm Springs, then got out with them and waited as they crossed at the crosswalk light. While they were crossing the crosswalk they decided to start asking me questions about why I drove them to school. 

Nico: Why did you drive us?

Me: I have a doctor's appointment.

Evelyn: Why do you have a doctor's appointment? (I couldn't hear what she said, they were across the street from me)

Me: Huh?

Nico: *YELLING* WHY DO YOU HAVE  A DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENT?

Me: INSURANCE!

Evelyn: Is she getting a flu shot? (again I couldn't figure out what she said)

The crosswalk light turns green for the cars so the cars start zooming by.

Nico: ARE YOU GETTING A FLU SHOT???

Me: WHAT?

Evelyn: ARE YOU GETTING A FLU SHOT??

Me: NO!

Evelyn: WHAT??

ME: NO!

They run off.

Heehee.

That's it for this week!

Birthday, Count Arthur Strong, Jan Brett, Baby Pushups

Last Friday it was dark in the early morning when the kiddos had to leave for chess. So I think from now on I'll try to walk with them on Fridays. Nico said he didn't like walking in the dark because he was afraid of monsters?

Friday after school I drove Nico over to the Grandparents Salisbury house for a sleepover! He had fun there and they went to one of Lexie's soccer games the next day, then went to Jimmy John's for lunch before he came back home around 1pm.

Friday was Guy's birthday. He had a late work meeting. After he got home we watched some Netflix while eating dinner and then he had a piece of Nico's leftover birthday cake from the freezer. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner and he said "potato salad". I convinced him to let me also make him some sausage to go along with it. I bought him a large container of Meat Magic for his birthday (a seasoning that we love on our pizza crust!)

Saturday we had pizza and then I took out a few more pieces of Nico's leftover cake, and put a candle in one of them. We sang Happy Birthday to Guy and watched cartoons.

Sunday was a pretty fuzzy day for me, I had started getting a cold on Saturday and had a fever and aches all day on Sunday. Guy took Nico to church, then out in the afternoon to garage sales, and then out again in the evening for Bible Study. The in between times they were downstairs on the computer or the Wii to give me a chance to rest.

My fever lasted until the very end of Wednesday when it started going down. I've been spending part of the nights downstairs on the couch because I've been coughing.

Guy has been SO HAPPY listing all his things for sale on eBay and Craigslist and then selling them, packaging them up and shipping them off. He's been stopping off at the Thrift Store on his way home from work several times this week to check the stuff out. He passes my 2 different thrift stores on his way home. Yesterday he came home with a very large bag full of stuff. He is storing it all downstairs. Nico has been tagging along on a lot of his purchase quests.

Whenever Guy and Nico go somewhere in the Ford Escape they listen to Count Arthur Strong through bluetooth. Nico is QUITE the fan. They came home yesterday after an outing and Nico had me and him re-enact a Count Arthur scene. He told me what to say, and this is how it went:

Me: Hi Arthur Strong
Nico: You forgot the Count
Me: 1, 2, 3, Arthur Strong
Nico: Thats's not right!

Then Nico stormed off, muttering about how people always get his name wrong.

There was another one he told me about but I have forgotten!

Nevermind, Guy reminded me: Why did the lemon stop running in the race? Because he ran out of juice.

Grandma Russell sent me a text with a picture that I just have to share. If you are familiar with Jan Brett (thanks to Grandma Russell for introducing me), there is a book called The Hat written by her, about a hedgehog that gets stuck with a sock on his head that had fallen from a clothesline. Before I share Grandma Russell's picture, you first have to see the clothesline from the book:

And here is the picture Grandma Russell sent me

I just thought that was so great!! I showed it to Nico, I had to remind him of the book (it's been a while since we've read it!) 

A sunny 74 degrees today, probably the last time we'll be eating outside this year! Tomorrow we are due for cold and rain.

Yep, the table is a mess, when you're sick it just happens (and sometimes when you're not sick😅 ) Nico is doing math problems while eating his breakfast.

"Baby pushups"

Compared to 7 years ago

Guy says that if he does it every few days, he'll get super strong as Nico gets older. They've been committed to it for a few weeks now!

Next Thursday is the Boo Bash at Nico's school. I'm not sure if I'll have time that night to update, but if not, then expect the next update that Friday instead!!

Lumberjacks and Boo Bash

On Friday we went to Pojo's in the morning just to have some fun with Guy around. Guy even got some tokens for himself! Nico really enjoyed playing air hockey and we played it about 4 times.

On Saturday we ALL drove up to the cabin at 11 AM for the lumberjack party! It was so cool to have Guy with us. Grandma Salisbury served a huge microgreen salad, chili, and all the fixins! It was fabulous. We got to see family and old friends and new friends. After lunch the men went off to split some logs for the neighbor. (Guy had to work half the night on Friday night so he stayed back). The girls had a fun time while the boys were away and Guy was our commentary and made us laugh. There were guessing games (how much does the pumpkin weigh? How many M&Ms are in the jar) and Nico won a picture colored by Lexie and Rory.

Then the fun with Guy continued on Sunday when he was able to come to church with us for the first time in one year! This was the second time he has been to our church's Sunday service, and the first time he has heard the pastor preach! Then Bible Study Sunday night.

Monday & Tuesday were fun with Guy home, he went with me to pick up Nico from school on both days. Guy carried Nico home on his shoulders.

Then tonight was the Boo Bash at his school. Sooo much fun! I never remember winning cake walks when I was little, but the FIRST round-about Nico did at the cake walk, he won! There was an allergy free table so he picked out a little gluten free chocolate cake. We got a polaroid taken of all of us and visited all the rooms and got prizes. We even played with electricity in the Micron room. In the hallway near the library were boxes and boxes of books that the library was getting rid of. We were limited to picking out 3 for free so Guy picked out 3 while Nico and I went to a few of the game rooms.

You probably noticed that Nico is wearing his Fire Chief costume instead of his Ninja Turtle.. well... the ninja turtle needs a little bit of fixing with safety pins, which we had, but Nico didn't want to deal with it and just wanted his fire man costume. It's a good thing we had it on hand!

When we came home, though it was 7 PM, we let him have a small piece of his chocolate cake. He is a bit bouncy now... hehe. Guy is snuggling with him in his bed but it is not going as calmly as usual. There is lots of talking and excitement and jumping around going on in there. 

Nico and Evelyn searching for rocks at the park. SO many to choose from! Evelyn is wearing her dinosaur costume.

Nico told me to pick him up a comic book at the library on Tuesday. I picked up Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland

He was actually pretty excited about it, and it has chapters. Guy has read it to him the last 2 nights, one chapter each night, and Nico is thrilled! Glad to see it when he'e excited about reading.