Adventure!

Saturday we went to the Saturday Market where we discovered the Sprouts Kids Club. Every week they have an activity for the kids. This week the activity was coloring a plate with whatever foods the child wanted. They also give every kid 2 tokens each week. Each token is worth $1 at the market and they can go buy any fresh food item (fruit, veggie, meat, cheese) at the market. They just can't buy from the food trucks. And if they want something that's more than $2, they can save up! So we decided on 2 roma tomatoes and ended up spending just one of his tokens, so we are keeping his 2nd one for next week. Nico drew his two tomatoes onto his plate. We also ran into his teacher at the market, whose daughter was also participating in the Sprouts Club. We often see her there, so much so that Nico mentions her every time we go to the market, even if we don't see her.

On Sunday, all of us went over to some friends' house for a potluck and game night. We ate hamburgers and played Munchkin while the kids entertained themselves with the Wii. It was a lot of fun.

Monday we went to visit G.G. I was talking about maybe taking Nico for a go-cart ride for his birthday, but that he had to be 40 inches tall in order to be a passenger. So G.G. pulled out the yard stick and we measured him. He looked to be right at 40 or maybe even taller (a yardstick ends at 36 inches so we weren't 100% sure). When I got home I verified it. Looks like we'll be doing the go-carts! He was about 40.5 inches. I plan to take him for a Mommy-Son birthday date where we'll also play miniature golf and then go out for lunch afterward. This summer will be a hoot!

On Tuesday I taught another class and the boys hung out at home. Wednesday I woke up with a bad runny and stuffy nose which I am still fighting.

Today, oh today! We went on an adventure. It happened like this:
After lunch was over and the dishes were done, I came into the living room and said "Hey Nico! Do you want to go on an ADVENTURE?!? I hear there is a Strider Bike Park near by, do you want to go try to find it??" He was excitedly up for it, so we packed ourselves into the car and took off.

I had heard about this park from someone who was in one of the classes I taught. He told me it was downtown, turning on a specific street and going up close to the foothills. I knew the street he was talking about so we went down there and turned onto the road, followed it up and up and up. We couldn't find the park. We took several detours on connecting roads, but just had no luck. So I told Nico that we would go home and I would do some quick internet research and if I found anything that then we could head back out. He was all for that, so we did. After about 5 minutes of internet searching, I found it!

Off we went! It was on the one street that we didn't venture down! We found it easily now that we had directions.

This trail was apparently just built last November. It is for kids age 12 and under, for Strider bikes and any other kind of bike. It makes a .6 mile circuit, with ups and downs and curves. There was no shade and starting to get hot, so we only went a short distance before turning around. We will come back some early morning after summer vacation starts so we can beat the heat and make the full circuit.

Right next to it was a playground with a spongy floor and lots of neat new toys. It has a small climbing wall and twisty turny poles and bars and climby parts. It was a lot of fun. It had no shade, either, so we will need to come back soon to play longer.

Nico's last day of school is June 4th. They invited all the parents on May 30th to watch the kids as they have their music class. Cookies afterward and certificates. I am looking forward to seeing what they've been doing in music class.

That's all the news this week!

Airplanes and IEP

I went to download the pictures off my camera from this past week and I had ZERO on there. Really? I forgot to take pictures again? Thank goodness my Mom took some over the weekend when Nico stayed with them. Oh but I must show off his new haircut, so I will take a picture tonight of that.

On Friday I put Nico on the bus to school and then drove up to Cascade for an essential oils retreat with a bunch of other women (and a few men) at a nice, large cabin. I do have a picture of this! This was about 1/3 of the people. I made a few friends and had a good time!

Guy woke up early on Friday to get Nico off the bus at 12:30, and then my Mom came to pick him up at 4. They picked up Papa at the airport where he had been flying his plane, and Nico got to sit in the cockpit and play with all the controls. I can just imagine he must have been in heaven!

He stayed that night at the cabin with my parents, and had an incredible walk adventure with Papa the next day. Nico was trying to go in the direction of home, so they walked around and down to the main road, then for their return trip they made a shortcut up the mountain through the ravine next to the cabin. After lunch they both sacked out on the chair in the living room while reading a book.

I came and picked him up that afternoon and brought him back home. Thank you to the Grandparents Salisbury for watching Nico for us overnight!

Sunday was church and then in the evening we took a trip to see our friends Cassi and Cory. Nico got to play with their kids and had a lot of fun playing with toys and running around the back yard. He even played a bit of tetherball.

Monday we went to visit G.G. and had a blast there, too. Nico is intrigued with her TV so he watches a bit while we're there. G.G. brought out some new cars and Nico enjoyed playing with those.

Tuesday was Nico's IEP meeting, which went really well! Next year he will continue going to school 4 days a week, but in the afternoon class this time. We agreed it was a good idea because his peers will also be moving to the afternoon class and we wanted Nico to stay with them. We came up with goals for next year, you can see how detailed they are:

During classroom activities with peers, Nico will stay in his designated seat and participate appropriately (look, listen, and respond as directed) during adult-directed group activities in 8 out of 10 observable opportunities with 3 verbal prompts from adults by April of 2015.

Pretty specific, huh? That's how all the goals read.

There are a few related to social/emotional, and a few related to speech. Here's a speech one:

Nico will speak using correct grammar forms (pronouns, present progressive "is" + "-ing" verbs, plurals, possessives) with 75% accuracy in conversational activities during a 5 minute speech sample, over 3 consecutive sessions by 4/2015.

Nico didn't need any goals related to academic performance or fine motor skills.

We will find out in May if he will have his same teacher (crossing my fingers that he will!)

I also asked who the child was that Nico likes to play computer games with and they told me it was Bailey. Whenever he sits at the computer he always looks around for her to see if she wants to come play with him.

Nico's haircut

Apparently there were 3 blond haired boys that came into school on Tuesday with haircuts, Nico being one of them. It was a hair cuttin' weekend!