Birthday and a Boo Bash!

Friday after school Nico and I went on an hour long bike ride on the greenbelt. Nico brought home an activity calendar from school and you can color in a star every time you spend 30 minutes exercising. If you fill in all the stars you get a free pass to Wahooz.

For dinner that night we made "Crabby Patties", Spongebob style. Nico even put onion and tomato on his burger because that's how you actually make one on the Spongebob show! Eating Crabby Patties while watching Spongebob, we thought it was appropriate :)

While we were over at Grandma and Papa's house last Tuesday, while Nico was home from school sick, he discovered a drawing book in their living room that Rory must have left there. He practiced drawing from it, and when we got home that afternoon he gave me cash so that I could purchase him a similar drawing book from Amazon. It arrived on Friday! Here he is drawing.

Saturday was Guy's birthday! We went to Touch-A-Truck in the morning. Nico got to sit in a lot of different kinds of trucks.

After that we went for a little walk on the greenbelt, we hit the post office and the library.

Nico wanted to catch a leaf that was falling from a tree. We found some trees that were dropping lots of leaves, and he caught one!

That evening we made pizza and watched Matilda downstairs in the basement because Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos were out of town. Then we cut Guy's birthday cake and ate a few pieces of that! If you remember, we were trying to get to the bottom of Nico's tummy aches. We went a few days without one, we pulled all sugar out of his diet. On Saturday night we let him have a piece of Guy's cake, and the tummy ache came back! So we know sugar is involved somehow!

On Tuesday we went to visit GG and Aunt Pat. Melody was there and Nico brought out the US map that he had brought with him and they looked at that together for a while.

After leaving GG's house, we stopped at the Farmstead. We met Guy there, and Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos. First stop was the huge inflatable monster maze. 

Then tonight was the Boo Bash at Nico's school. He is going to be a ninja again this year for Halloween. Yes this is the THIRD year Nico is wearing his ninja costume! That was quite a good investment! Not that it cost much.. he he.  Here he is walking with Ivy.

Nico won the cake walk on his first time. Apparently Evelyn won the cake walk on her first time, too. It was a strange coincidence. Nico picked out these purple spider web gluten free cupcakes. Evelyn picked out a spider cake! Evelyn was standing on #1, Nico was standing on #2. Not at the same time, they had to be in different rooms because the 3rd - 6th graders were separate.

It's tradition... eat some of the cake you won at the cake walk this very night!

That's it for this week!

Table Rock, Cupcakes

Last weekend I got to spend Saturday with Nico! It was nice to spend a Saturday with him after all the henna I've been doing on weekends. Guy had the day off to go look for interesting things at garage sales and thrift stores that he can "flip". He found a Game Cube and games and controllers for a good price which he will try to sell on eBay. Until then.. we have been enjoying playing Mario Kart! Instead of the boys playing Minecraft they now spend their game time playing Mario Kart. Evelyn usually joins them.

Nico is still super excited about chess and checked out another chess book at the library at school today, so now he has two checked out. At night he's been reading them, and setting up our chess board with certain setups, and showing us how to capture the king in only a few steps.

Anyway, I got distracted, back to last Saturday! After chores in the morning, Nico and I went through a large portion of his toys. Not all, but some, and ended up with a laundry basket full of things to donate. So then we went out. At Whole Foods we picked up a Stevia soda "Zevia", which Nico really liked, he chose ginger root beer. It actually tasted like root beer! He wanted me to take a picture of it and send the picture to Daddy.

Then we went to Costco, where Nico spent his own money to buy the next book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. In the afternoon we decided to go for a hike, and we successfully made it up to the top of Table Rock. 

We took several breaks along the way.

We saw a guy controlling a drone while we were on top. Nico stopped for a while to watch the drone flying around.

When we got home we noticed the squirrel had been in the bird feeder again.

Then Guy arrived home and we started pizza. Guy started cleaning the Game Cube he bought, taking pictures of the games and getting everything ready to sell. He also picked up a free CRT tv, which makes it a little easier to play some of the games we have. As luck would have it, Jeff and Allicia's TV broke and so we put the CRT downstairs and everyone has been playing games on it. The games had to be tested to make sure they worked, you know, and so did the Game Cube.

Guy cleaning the games.

Nico's drawing of a monster with eyes like Laser Moose

A sweet story... I went to pick Nico up at school for a doctor's appointment and I went into his class to get him, and as he was leaving everyone said "Goodbye Nico!" and his friend Grace said "By Nico, I'll miss you for the rest of the day!"

They celebrate birthdays at school, and Ms Lung brings in 2 gluten free cupcakes every time, so that Nico and another boy, Eli, can share in the fun. The first time this happened, Nico came home and cried to me, saying that Ms Lung made him a special cupcake and that he couldn't eat it because it had sugar in it and he was allergic to sugar, and that everyone else got to eat a cupcake. I wrote Ms Lung and told her that Nico misunderstood why we weren't giving him sugar, that he wasn't allergic, and that the next time that happens he can have the cupcake. So the next day, she brought in that same cupcake that he didn't eat the first time, and he carried it home gently, beaming, and then ate it all up. He was so happy.

Cupcake

Nico, modeling the new pumpkin cupcake.

All better

Nico's fever broke a bit before midnight last night. He woke up as cool as a cucumber and quite his normal self. Go immune system! I gave him some homeopathy last night, perhaps that helped a bit.

I made scones tonight for when Guy comes home from work tomorrow. Saturday morning is our "date night". But I burnt them! Whoops!

Picture is of Nico watching MST3K on the iPad. He enjoys listening to the opening song and rewinds it after the song is over so he can hear it again. You can see his cupcake on his plate, and a little piece of the failed scones. Nico wasn't a fan of the burnt.

Ankle

Went to church this morning after stopping by the Co-op to get some bananas. Our after church snack on the way home is bananas and cheese, and we were out of bananas!

After Nico's nap, we were playing in his room and I was helping him do a backwards somersault. When he came down on his legs, I heard a loud POP and Nico started crying. I was afraid he had a broken bone, but he was moving around okay, so I think it is just a strain. He isn't able to walk on it, though. I went and bought an ace bandage to stabilize it, and Guy pulled out an ice pack for a while to try to ice it. We also used homeopathic Arnica 30c by mouth and Arnica Gel on his ankle.

We hung out on the bed (not much different than usual), but I DID make him some cupcakes. You can see we put a sock over his ace bandage so that he wouldn't try to pull it off.

Cupcakes and Smoothies

Two pictures today.

Grandma Salisbury sharing a banana nut cupcake with Nico.

And then this evening all of us went to Tree City Juice and Smoothie! Guy got a peach smoothie, Nico got a banana/strawberry/peach smoothie and I got a veggie juice with carrots/spinach/celery. Nico still hasn't learned how to drink from a straw, so we took the lid off for him to drink it that way.

Camels

Another trip to Camel's back park. He asks to go all the time.

Another thing he asks for all the time: cupcakes. When he woke up from his nap today it sounded like he was crying and whining. I tiptoed over to his door and listened in: he was saying cupcake over and over and over again, in a very whining voice. He has woken up in the mornings twice this past week and the first word out of his mouth: cupcake. CUPCAKE!

Daddy Time

Most every morning, Guy is still awake when Nico gets up. So we go into his room and sing his wake up song (which he bounces to while continuing to lie down), get him dressed, and then Guy and Nico watch an episode of Shaun the Sheep while I make breakfast. That's the first picture.

The second picture is of Guy and Nico sharing some cupcakes that I made today. Nico ate two and a half of them!

Nico's fever was gone this morning, he is just dealing with a runny nose and some coughing.

Birthday Party!

Today was Nico's birthday party. We had it up at the cabin and it was tons of fun. Hot dogs first, then "cupcakes" (apple-cinnamon muffins and banana muffins with optional cream cheese frosting), then presents. The cousins had such a fun time playing.

Nico got an awesome garbage truck that was an instant hit. Some books, balls, other toys.

There was a huge grass fire off of highway 21, so bad that the road was closed for a while and David and Jaynelle weren't able to make it out to the cabin! And we were stuck out at the cabin for a few hours. The roads opened again at about 7 PM and we were all able to leave.