Watching the Kids, Painting at Rory's Birthday, The First Summer Grandma Camp,

Last Friday we awoke bright and early as the kids started to wake up - Nico and then Avery, Ivy, and Evelyn. Jeff and Allicia left at 5AM that morning to catch their plane to Missouri, and we watched the kids for the weekend. Looking back, the weekend feels almost like a blur. Friday we played video games downstairs, and then after lunch we went to the park with our bikes, so we could ride around on the dirt loop. I told them to see how many times they could lap me while I was walking.

Saturday morning, Guy took Nico and Ivy to Free Fishing Day at the church. They met there at 7:30 and from there they drove to Arrowrock Reservoir. They didn't catch any fish but they had a fun time!

Evelyn, Avery, and I stayed home. Evelyn made chocolate chip pancakes, then we played some more video games and after lunch I even convinced Avery to take a nap!

Hanging out downstairs after his nap.

Sunday morning we attempted to ride our bikes to church. I thought it was going to work well, but there were a few hiccups in my grand plan.

1 - I didn't notice which shoes Ivy had chosen. Slip on shoes. She rides a Strider bike (a bike that has no pedals, you push with your feet), and she sweetly lost her left shoe every 15 seconds. I was riding behind her and would scoop it up and drop it right in front of her foot so she could put it back on easily, but it did cost us a bit of time.

2 - On the way to the greenbelt I told everyone to stay in a line, which no one liked, so when we reached the greenbelt I told the bigger kids that they could ride ahead, but since I was the only one who knew the way I asked them to stop every time there was a choice between which way to go. So Nico, Evelyn, and Avery rode on ahead. Ivy and I plodded on behind dropping and scooping shoes. The big kids stopped at the first road split, way to go! I told them to turn right, so off they went. And went. And went. They missed the next split, and the next, and we missed our turn. Since they had ridden on ahead, there was no way to tell them to stop. They stopped a ways ahead, and once we caught up with them it was too late to turn around and make it to church on time, so instead we headed home with the intent of driving to church late. We had inadvertently made a huge loop so it was easier to head home than to turn around.

We arrived home at 10:30, the time that church starts. I contemplated skipping church but then I was overcome by resolve to not miss this important opportunity to have a bit of time to myself in the church sanctuary during the service. We hopped in the car. It was the closest I got to raising my voice during the weekend. Imagine a car full of bickering children that would not stop hitting each other and refused to buckle their seatbelts. After my stern command, Avery looked at me and said quietly "Ok, ok, I'll sit down." Zoom!

We arrived late. No surprise there. We got into the children's room, which was dark and loud because they had a music video playing on the screen and all the kids were singing and dancing along. Avery looks at me and says, "I don't want to go in there, I don't like dancing!" I told him it would be ok and that he didn't have to dance. Evelyn grabbed his hand and stayed with him which I was grateful for. As we were getting their name tags printed out, Avery again looks up at me and quietly asks, "Are you sure this is a church?" 😂😂

Ivy was young enough to be in the little kids room so I dropped her off there, she went right over to the other kids and started playing.

The church service was... amazing. I'm so glad I didn't skip it. We had a guest speaker and it was one of the best services we've had.

Sunday afternoon was Rory's birthday party. I left the other kids at home with Guy while Nico and I went to the party. Guy and the kiddos finished watching some shows and then played video games while we were gone.

Rory's birthday party was at a painting place, the theme was flamingoes, and all the kids got to paint! It was super cool.

After they finished painting the background, the kids took a break to eat cake and ice cream so the background could dry completely before painting the flamingoes over it.

It was super fun. Happy Birthday Rory!

Monday morning I created chore lists for all the kids. Their parents were returning that afternoon, and I wanted the house to be as clean or cleaner than it was when they left. Each kid had 3 chores. Despite the complaining, they all got through the chores, and were rewarded with some video games.

Right before they came home, Ivy and I were sitting on the couch, and she looks over at me and sweetly says, "You're not the boss of me. My parents are." It wasn't a malicious statement, but a matter of fact. I looked at her and said, "You are totally right. But while they were gone I was taking care of you huh?" and she said "Yep". Their parents arrived home around 3PM and Nico and I retreated to the Clubhouse, leaving them to decompress. Allicia and I caught up that night when we took a walk around the neighborhood to exchange weekend stories.

Tuesday was my birthday, I received so many text messages and/or calls, it was very sweet. Nico was the first to say Happy Birthday that morning! I drove him over to my parents' house in the morning for the very first Grandma Camp of the summer! This summer there will be Grandma day camps, Tuesdays and Thursdays most weeks.

I had told Grandma about the Pokemon League at the library every Tuesday, so she tried out bringing all the kids to the library for it, and they loved it! She was even able to pick up Evelyn to bring her along too. Afterward they went to Pizza Pie Cafe.

Wednesday Allicia took Nico again to the summer dollar movie with the kids. Despicable Me 2. In the afternoon we put together a puzzle. I'm sure we did other things too but if I don't have pictures of them then they didn't happen!

This afternoon we visited GG. We brought our new Travel Scrabble game with us and we played it. Nico won by a lot! It was fun. GG gave us one of her Scrabble dictionaries. Yay! Nico really likes to plan his words well and get the best ones possible.

There are 2 videos below, one of just the time with Jeff & Allicia's kiddos (a separate one so I can share with Jeff & Allicia), and one that has a few snippets of just Nico at Rory's birthday party.

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!

Returning to School

Guy and I were without Nico last Friday, we had a quiet day at home sorting through some stuff. Nico came home on Saturday from the Grandparents Salisbury's house. He had so much fun while there. He has been asking ever since when he will be going back.

On Sunday our church dedicated the new construction starting on Monday, to add on to the children's wing. All the kids wore construction hats and were given a shovel to be a part of the groundbreaking. We helped Nico push his shovel through the grass, it was difficult. He dug a big hole and would have kept digging if we hadn't stopped him. It's not often you can dig a hole in the middle of thick grass in a big yard. The rest of Sunday was a lazy day at home! Miss Erin, the children's pastor, asked Nico if he wanted to read a verse in front of the congregation during our Christmas Eve service. He said Yes! He will be reading Luke 2:10-12.

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Nico went back to school on Monday after having the week off for Thanksgiving. The book fair has been happening this whole week and we always let him pick out a book to buy. This year he chose a diary with a lock and key on it! He picked it up today and has been working on it all afternoon and is now even working on it while he's in bed (he gets to read for 30-45 minutes before lights out. Most of the time he chooses to do a workbook, or something similar like filling out his diary). It's a diary that asks questions "What do you and your friends like to do for fun?" Or, "Whats pets do you own or want to own?" I don't know most of what he's writing because whenever I look at him he says "DON'T LOOK AT MY JOURNAL!" Heehee. But I have caught snippets of it because he has to ask me how to spell things sometimes. Currently he's filling out a free-write section where he has to write all about his life up until this point. He started with talking about how he was a baby in my belly and all of a sudden at the hospital he popped out. I hope I get to read the rest of it someday!

A few of his other before-bed reading choices this week:
An advent calendar that belongs to Evelyn but Allicia is letting Nico read it until before December 1st comes (we returned it tonight). It tells the story of Christmas in 24 little tiny books. Nico loves to know if something he is reading or watching is real, and he asks us all the time, "Is this real?" He asked me while reading this story if the places were real - Bethlehem, Jerusalem, etc. I said yes and he was very excited and said he wanted to visit Jerusalem someday. Then he got down to the details and asked When. Can I miss school for it? How long will we be gone? :)

Filling out his project journal with bird facts. He chooses a card from his bird deck and first draws a picture of the bird and colors it in, then flips the page and writes down all the facts about the bird as listed on the card. The journal even has a little flap/envelope in the back where he stores the card he is working on. He did 2 1/2 birds over a few days and then it kind of petered out.

Yesterday morning Nico told me it felt like he had an eyelash in his eye. Yesterday evening I noticed a blood bruise on his eye in the corner. When I saw it I freaked out (quietly) and did a quick internet search. That helped quite a bit, and it supposedly just looks worse than it is, especially since it wasn't hurting him or affecting his vision. I figured it happened because he was rubbing his eye too much when he had something in it. But the next morning (this morning) it had grown much larger, so we decided to take him into the doc just to be safe. His finger in this picture is covering up the exact spot on his eye that the red blotch is. This is him in the doc's office signing the word "No". Which means, Mom, stop taking my picture.

Doc said it was nothing to worry about, even though it had grown. Because there is no pain and no restriction of movement in his eye, it is fine. It's like a bruise under the skin but since it's on the eye it's red and it looks so dark because the eyes are white. She explained that his eye was bleeding between two of the layers and Nico asked in shock "SO MY EYE IS BLEEDING?".

After the appointment Nico said it didn't turn out as bad as he thought it was going to. If he was nervous or scared at all he didn't show it one bit. He ate a huge lunch right beforehand (I mention this because when I'm nervous I can't eat!) and was his normal happy self while waiting for the doctor.

 I asked him if I could take a picture of his eye for the blog and he said NO.

Tomorrow is Dec 1st! We have our advent tree out ready and waiting, and we received our Jacquie Lawson advent calendar from Grandma Russell, we are looking forward to starting both of them tomorrow!

Easter Fun, Birthday Party, Friends

Friday was Ivy's birthday party! She turned 1 year old. Allicia kind of combined it with Easter, so each child at the party had a different color of egg to find, each had 8 eggs. After Nico opened his eggs, he went up to Camden (one of Ivy's cousins)...

"Can I help you open your eggs?"

She was happy to let him help. There was also egg coloring at the party. And a cute one year old that smooshed a bunch of cake into her face.

We colored eggs ourselves on Saturday. Allicia had given us an egg coloring kit and so we used it. It came with props to decorate the eggs as animals. So, we did!

I decorated one with a henna flower and then Nico followed suit and decorated one of his that way too. I think he did a pretty good job!!

Here was mine

Then Sunday was Eeeeeeeaster! We invited Nico's neighbor friends and their mom to go to church with us for the egg hunt there and the breakfast they serve before the service. Nico was totally psyched that they got to go with him. All of them had a lot of fun and they all came home with prizes. Because Nico can't have corn syrup, they made special eggs for him and put an N on them for him to find. 

After church we headed straight up to the cabin!! Yay!! I helped Mom get everything ready for the Easter meal at 4 PM, we had a wide selection of sandwich fixins plus a microgreen salad. Yummy food. And then the Easter Egg Hunt! I forgot to snap many pictures, but did get one.

Thanks so much Ma & Pa for the great time, all the goodies for the kids, and the yummy food!  Happy Easter!!

On Monday I had a dental cleaning and then Nico just had a follow up with x-rays from the cavities he had before. His cavities are the same and have not gotten ANY worse! Woohoo! The dentist said we could just leave it (as long as I understand the increased risk of needing to get something done quickly to his mouth if they do start to go downhill), and we don't have to do x-rays every 3 months, he will just check cosmetically at Nico's 6 month appointments and will be able to see if any of them are degrading. He said it would be different if these weren't baby teeth, and I understood that. What we had started doing to arrest the cavity development is consistent flossing plus using an essential oil tooth blend that I put on his toothbrush instead of toothpaste.

RIGHT next to the dentist is a LEGO store buy/sell/trade (called Bricks and MiniFigs), that just opened last week. So, after we were finished at the dentist we walked over there and looked around. They have a room to have birthday parties and so I got information about that. I figured after we were done, we had time, so we drove to the OTHER lego place (called Bricknowlogy) located in Eagle to look around there, so Nico could make a good decision about which one he wanted to have his party at. He decided he wanted his party at Bricknowlogy because each of his friends would get their own lego set to put together at the party. I reminded him that if he chose that option, that he would only get to invite 5 friends, as opposed to 12 for the other place. He was okay with that. So we plan to have 2 birthday parties for him (Phew!), one for his friends at Bricknowlogy and one for family the next day.

That afternoon after school we met Allicia and Evelyn and crew at the Discovery Center. They had a BUBBLE maker! 

We left from there to pick Daddy up from work. It was a full day!

Tuesday was a nothing day. Who even remembers what we did? Not me! 

Today Nico's friends next door came over for about an hour. They colored and played with cars. 

I think that's it for this week.

Christmas Visit!

What a fun filled week! On Friday was Nico's Christmas Party at school. It was Miss T's last day (she was the student teacher). The kids had each written her a page in a book saying their favorite thing about her and drawing her a picture. Miss T went through the book and as each child's page came up, they had the opportunity to go up front and read what they had written about her. Miss Lung said to the children that if they were too shy they didn't have to come up front, and most of the class did not. Nico did! He went right up there and told everyone what he had written. After he said it, Miss Lung came up and pointed him toward the audience and whispered to him to speak in a loud voice and repeat what he had said.

"My favorite thing about Miss T is that she plays with me."

The kids were able to decorate cookies, decorate an ornament, pin the heart on the Grinch, and play Bingo. I was at the bingo station with the Grandma of one of Nico's classmates. Nico decorated a cookie and gave it to Miss Lung.

Here he is making an ornament.

Nico brought home a gift for me and Guy, it was to "Mom and bad" ha ha ha! It was a beautiful ornament that he had made at school.

On Saturday Grandpa and Grandma Russell came into town!! Nico spent the whole morning asking when they were going to come. When they were on their way, Nico went outside with his umbrella and waited for them.

Nico opened a few of his presents on Saturday, coming in a video soon, will it be tonight when I upload it? We will see! You will know by the time you reach the end of this entry whether or not there is a video at the end of it ;) (p.s. no video tonight, will work on it this week and try to have it next week!)

Nico got a beautiful new quilt from Grandma Russell - it has a winter side and a summer side, and fits perfectly on our bed. I'm sure Nico won't mind us using it, and hey he sleeps in our bed sometimes anyway right? :) He also got a stuffed animal that used to belong to Guy, along with the book, "Beady Bear". Nico was so excited about that! He slept with Beady that night (and has been sleeping with him every night since then). But that first night, he got up in the middle of the night to crawl into bed with us and as he was crawling over Guy he yelled, "MOMMY! I can't find Beady Bear!" I told him we could look for him in the morning and that seemed to appease him.

Quilt on the Winter Side

On Sunday G.G. came with the Grandparents Russell and we all went to church, it was the Madrigal play they put on every year. The content is always different but it always takes place in Medieval times. They fed us food and the play was good. 

I should have snapped a picture of the stage. It was cool to see our friends in the play. Lots of great costumes. Last year we didn't know many people at the church yet, and Guy wasn't with us last year. But Guy was with us this year!! Wahoo!!

We came home afterward and opened the rest of the gifts. It was a lot of fun. Nico claimed that his nose was hurting so we gave him an ice bunny we have in our freezer (a tiny ice pack surrounded by a soft bunny), he would put it on his nose and it helped.

He spent some time putting together his new lego from G.G. that afternoon.

Monday was a relaxed day. Talking, hanging. Gma Russell and I and Nico went grocery shopping in the morning and Nico claimed tummy ache and was feeling sick for a large part of the day, even after a nap that afternoon. He had a slight fever after waking up. (100.3) Then he spoke up all of a sudden and said "I want a hamburger!" all he wanted was the meat. After he ate 3 small hamburger patties he was fine. The fever was due to the cold he caught. Guy started feeling the cold coming on him Tuesday morning. I might be fighting it at the moment too, kind of a scratchy throat. 

Tuesday we were able to see Gpa & Gma briefly before they had to be at the airport. Nico and Grandpa played a bit of one of our new board games - Ticket to Ride. They also did a lot of color by numbers together.

Some more pictures from the weekend..

Snuggle City!

Watching the iPad

Activity Book

Putting together a wood tractor

Overall it was a great visit!

Nico has been enjoying doing advent candles every night. We let him light them and strike the match himself. Tonight was the last night for it, Christmas eve! Also tonight we had dinner with Jeff & Allicia and family. Turkey sandwiches. Then Guy was excited to bring out the pumpkin rolls he received from Gma Russell. Then for the third year in a row we put a candle in an orange and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus! Nico led us in prayer for the dinner and Evelyn led us in the Birthday song for Jesus. Then after the kids went to bed we congregated in the living room. Guy is currently playing Ticket to Ride with Jeff and Allicia and their friend Justin, and I am happily plucking away at the computer. Living here has been a blessing and I'm enjoying the times like this that wouldn't happen if we didn't live here.