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.

Christmas Time!

Friday, Nico really wanted to decorate for Christmas but I wanted to wait until after his chores were done on Saturday so we could decorate on a clean slate. If he wanted to decorate on Friday he'd have to do his chores Friday. So, he did! After he finished, we opened up our Christmas box and unloaded everything except the tree ornaments, which we saved for Saturday when we got our tree.

Here's our tree advent calendar. Nico wanted to replace the batteries so that the lights would work. We didn't have replacements, so Nico and I walked over to M&W in the dark to buy some.

Then Saturday was Christmas Tree time! When we rearranged the Clubhouse a few months ago we inadvertently got rid of the spot where we usually put the Christmas tree. We thought for a while that we wouldn't be able to get one, but then we decided we could just not use the back door during this season, and we put the tree next to our bed near the back door.

We stopped by Flying M on the way home and got some coffee and an Italian Soda for Nico. He is going through all the flavors, and this time he chose English Toffee.

That night it was Guy's turn to choose the movie, and he chose to watch Labyrinth. Nico stayed enthralled for the whole movie, which he rarely does.

Sunday evening we went to the Botanical Garden's Winter Garden Aglow with Jeff and Allicia and kiddos.

Hot cocoa and hot fire

We visited Santa right off the bat. Nico brought his Christmas List with him. Watch the video at the end of the blog to see that. After he was done, Santa told him to hang the list up where Santa could find it and he asked Nico if it was ok with him if he visited on Christmas Eve to deliver presents. Nico whispered to me afterward, "Is Santa really going to come over Christmas Eve?"

Hollow log lit up with lights.

There was a new attraction there this year, a huge "Tree" of lights, like a teepee, that was controlled by a bunch of aparatuses (aparatii?) inside the teepee. You can catch a glimpse of it in the video below. At first we didn't think that all of the neat tools had any effect on the lights, but after playing with them for a while we were blown away with what each of them did. The rain stick, when used, made the lights on the teepee look like they were raining. The metal wheels you could turn made certain colors of lights go around the teepee, up or down the teepee, or get bigger. There was also a TNT pump and some gongs. It was pretty incredible. That was my favorite part of the night.

We came home frozen, and ate dinner. I heated up some coconut milk from a can (leftovers from a meal I made), and added some maple syrup and vanilla flavoring and put a little bit in a cup for Nico and I to drink. It tastes like hot ice cream. It has quickly become a favorite of ours. Better than hot cocoa I think.

On Monday after school, Nico and I walked our bikes to George's Cycles down on 3rd street. We walked them there because Nico had a flat. I had accidentally poked his tire the week before with a screwdriver while trying to push the intertube back into the metal frame. Oooooops. Nico was very agreeable to the endeavor, because he still needed a few hours of exercise to finish up his Exercise sheet. We made it there and back in about an hour and a half.

Tuesday was Guy's work Christmas Party. They held it at the Botanical Garden, so Guy and I got to go back! They had a tent setup with food being served. We ran into someone I knew from Toastmasters. Her husband works at Photronics, too! We sat across from each other and it was great to talk to them and get to know her better. We had fun. After the dinner, Guy and I walked through the garden, up to the top and then back down. It was a rainy night, so there was hardly anyone there!! It wasn't raining while we were walking, which was nice, and it just started to sprinkle as we were getting into our car.

Tonight, Nico was invited out to help them decorate their tree.

They gave us tea. And that ends the night, and the blog! Enjoy the video!

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!

Christmas Tree

On Friday we got a visit from the Grandparents Salisbury, they brought Christmas presents, and so, we opened them early! I don't think Nico's would have fit under the tree anyway :)

He loves this chair! He has since discovered a better way to sit in it and I will get a picture of that soon. It also folds up and is easily tucked away. Thank you to Grandparents Salisbury!

Saturday we bought our Christmas tree!

Nico pointed out his name and date on the back of one of them. Every year, the Grandparents Russell give Nico a new ornament. Nico was very excited to rediscover this, and the next morning for You and Me Time we spent our 10 minutes finding all of the ornaments from them and saying them in order by year.

We also pulled out the trusty lego advent set and he put them all together and arranged them by day.

This morning, being the very first day of December, means that we got to do our advent calendars. We got our yearly computer-based advent calendar from Grandma Russell (thank you!) which we booted up today. Nico decorated the tree and we watched the Dec 1st animation.

He chose to purchase the Pokemon Handbook from the school book fair. He is excited about that. 

That's about it for this week! On to the next!

Playing with Papa, and Parties

I forgot to mention last week a special gift that we received at Christmas, from G.G., a story written by her late husband, Walter Russell. It's called Cowbells and Ice Cream, very cute story about the Boss Cow (the one with the bell around her neck), and how taking care of cows is worth it in the end because you get to make ice cream. She had it bound into a little book with illustrations. I am so happy to have this keepsake!

I caught the cold going around, the next day after writing my last blog post. I am feeling pretty good now. It lasted a few days.

A few pictures from Christmas morning.. Nico putting together a small lego from his stocking

Sunday was special because Papa came over to play with Nico, Alexis with him. They tried going to the park first but didn't stay long, it was coold! They came home with rosy cheeks. I turned on the space heater and they warmed their feet by it. 

Wednesday was also a fun day with Papa. Papa and Grandma Salisbury took Nico out to Chicago Connection for lunch, then Papa and Nico came back here and played for about 3 hours while Grandma and I took a trip to Costco. They played games, and played games, and had a really fun time. 

On Monday our car wouldn't start, so after trying to jump it unsuccessfully, we called roadside assistance and a tow truck came and towed it. Turns out it was just the battery, which lasted almost exactly a year! We upgraded to a better quality one this time, since this is the second time our battery has died within warranty, same brand, the first time the battery had only lasted a few days! 

Today is Evelyn's birthday and we celebrated with her twice! This afternoon she had a party at a ceramics place. Every child got to pick out ceramic figurines to paint. Nico chose a boat, airplane, and tank and painted each one. We left the pieces there so they could fire them in a kiln and then we'll pick them up next week.

Nico asked first before helping Evelyn open aaaaall her gifts

I got some video but that will have to come later. Then this evening we celebrated Evelyn's birthday again but over here at the main house with their family.  None of Allicia's extended family were able to make it because they are sick, so it was just a few of Jeff's extended family. It was a pretty low key party and was very fun! The theme was a hotdog party a la Pigeon. Then we set off fireworks, just like last year. Then before bed Jeff read all the kids "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late." It was very cute. All will be included in a video to be posted later.

Now it's time for the Christmas Snippets Video! I couldn't seem to locate the snippets from the Thanksgiving "Christmas" we had at the cabin. So this video picks up in December some time.