Baseball and Chess

Baseball and Chess, two of Nico's favorite things!

Saturday was a fun day! First, a baseball game. It was rainy and a bit chilly, so I ran to Fred Meyer to get Nico an undershirt and a jacket. I was back just as the game started but I did miss Nico's first hit. Grandma Salisbury is back from Moscow and was able to join us! Her and Pa pulled up next to us in their chairs. We had to bundle up to stay warm.

Nico is #9, all dressed up as the catcher for this particular inning.

Jimmy John's afterwards!! We talked about Three Stooges during lunch and Guy got everyone laughing (especially Papa!) over his explanation of a Three Stooges episode. We are going to go over to their house soon for dinner and Three Stooges!

On Saturday night Nico had a chess tournament! Half of the tournament is an "official" chess tournament, Nico doesn't participate in these, he does the just-for-fun half. The just-for-fun group was split into 2 divisions and he was the champion of his division and got a 1st place trophy. His first! He played 4 games and won 2.

Sunday was Mother's Day, Nico gave me something he made in school, and a card. It was sweet. 

On Tuesday we went to visit GG and Aunt Pat. It rained hard that day and I think that's why the interstate was so backed up, we were about 20 minutes late! Great to see them as always! GG asked Nico what kind of animal she could crochet for him and he picked out the pink elephant, she said next time she'd have it for him. I can't wait to see it!

Wednesday, Avery came with me grocery shopping.

Wednesday night was another baseball game. Papa and Grandma Salisbury were able to come again! It was a comfortable weather day, too! Our pastor and his wife came to the game as well, that was cool!

Today after school all of us went down to the basement and I played Zelda while everyone watched. Avery always asks me when I will play Zelda next, so we decided to do it today. I don't know why they love it so much! But it's fun for me too ;)

Then I made a yummy new dish, Taco Chicken Pasta, and Evelyn came over for dinner and we watched Three Stooges while eating. She loves Three Stooges and laughs so hard while watching it. She also told me 3 times how much she loved the food I made.

😳

So that was pretty cool.

Here's Ivy sometime this week reading Curious George on our couch.

I love all these kids!

See you next week!

New Preschool, and New Books!

Monday was a holiday, so Nico's first day at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Preschool was on Wednesday. And darn, I did forget to bring my camera to take pictures. I will try to remember tomorrow. When he gets to class the first thing they have him do is wash his hands, then he can play! I brought in a whole bag of safe Nico snacks for them to use as needed. One of the other students, Michael, made Nico a Valentine even though Nico didn't go to their Valentine's Party. Michael and Nico really hit it off as friends, too. Nico came running up to me excitedly while I was talking to his teacher after school, and asked me if he could go play in the grass with Michael and another boy. Michael is also going to Adam's Elementary next year, just like Nico! They are trying for afternoon session, though, and I am vying for mornings. But, it might work out anyway.

Nico did get to go to his Valentine's Party at White Pine, though! Grandma Russell had sent Nico some boxed valentines that she had found in Great Grandma Gohl's stuff, so Nico chose the Spiderman ones and made all his friends a valentine. He wrote their names on the valentines all by himself, and also signed his name. Going down the list of kids in his class, he came to his own name and made himself a valentine, too. To Nico, From Nico. He also made some for his teachers. They were going to decorate cookies in class, so I sent him with a huge gluten free chocolate chip cookie plus some homemade pink frosting and some pink sprinkles from Whole Foods. I couldn't find a good gluten free sugar cookie, so he got to make himself a frosted chocolate chip one :)

So he still loves his pigeon books, but lately he has been really getting into Curious George. He has "The Complete Adventures of Curious George" book that we got him for his birthday 2 years ago, that came with a CD. He loves to listen to the stories and flip through the book. He is getting very good at this, even though the stories that are read aloud do not have that useful sound that tells you when to turn the page. He has figured it out. He is recognizing more and more words. Orange and zoo are two I can think of off the top of my head.

Then a few days ago he pulled out a different Curious George book that he had, and we read it, and then he flipped the book over and saw that there were 7 other Curious George books that he DIDN'T HAVE! So he asked me to get them from the library. I put them all on hold and this morning we picked up the first two. He is turning into quite the reader. I think he would enjoy more read-aloud picture books so I think I will search for some of those at the library. Any suggestions?

Nico had a stuffy nose for the past week, and then on Monday he had a fever, I think it got up to 101 something. I kept him back from school on Tuesday so he could rest. He now just has a slight cough and stuffy nose.

Tonight at dinner Guy and I were talking about this funny website about Women Laughing Alone With Salad. I just happened to be eating a salad so I joked about taking a picture of me eating it while laughing. Nico heard me talk about taking a picture so he asked me to take a picture of him eating his hot dog. So I did. Then I gave the camera to him and he took a picture of me eating my salad while laughing. He did a pretty good job of framing it I think.

Speaking of salads, the Grandparents Salisbury have been providing us with sprouts that they have grown. Sunflower sprouts, alfalfa, bean, all kinds! Grandma gave us a tray of sunflower seed sprouts that were still growing in their soil and everything, so I've kept it on the counter to harvest them at will. At dinner time I tell Nico to go pick out two or three for himself and he harvests them and then eats them. He doesn't seem to mind that they're green and vegetable since he gets to pluck them out of the soil himself.

See you all next week!

Lexie, Parks, Signs, Stooges

Friday was Valentine's Day and Nico came home with a bunch of Valentines from his friends. It was very fun to open them all. Friday morning I had asked Nico if he wanted to give the bus drivers a Valentine and he said Yes. So we put two of them together. One for Dan, the morning bus driver, and one for Miss Donna, the morning bus attendant. Nico signed his name on both of them! He carried both out to the bus, gave them to Miss Donna as she helped him up the steps, and then stopped when he got to the top so he could take one and give it to Dan. He wanted to communicate something, I could tell, he kind of mumbled and stood there for a bit. They were both so happy and said thank you and Dan shook his hand. Dan and Miss Donna are so friendly and I am so happy Nico has them in the morning! Nico often stops when he gets to the top of the steps so that he can shake Dan's hand.

Then Friday night, we hung out with Lexie while Jonny and Alanna went on a date. Nico had a blast watching Curious George with her late into the night.

Lexie even introduced him to a different cartoon on Netflix about pirates! There is always fun and excitement whenever Lexie is around. 

We had some SUN and warmth this past week! We took full advantage of it and went to the Goose Park two days in a row. I woke up with sore arms after the first day, from pushing Nico on the swing! 

There were also several walks around the block this week. One of note was on Tuesday night. Nico emptied his lego bucket, the one with wheels, put a screwdriver in the bucket, and kept asking to go outside, and kept saying what sounded like "sun". Did he want to go outside into the sun? Guy took him for a walk, and Nico pulled the lego bucket behind him. When they got home Guy told me what the purpose of the walk was. Nico wanted to take his wagon around the neighborhood, not because of the SUN, but to collect SIGNS. An instance of Curious George mimicking! There is an episode of Curious George where he takes his wagon around the town and uses his screwdriver to take down a bunch of signs and put them in his wagon to take them home. Then he goes back out and returns them all. Nico got a good dose of pretend play, they pretended to unscrew signs and put them in his bucket, then pretended to screw them back on.

Other things that Nico wants to do because of Curious George: plant a garden, build a car wash, fly a kite, build a sand castle. I've started making a list of things to do this summer, I mentioned two of them already in a previous entry, but the list is growing, and here it is:

1. Fly a kite

2. Shoot off a rocket

3. Go swimming

4. Go to an apple orchard and pick apples

5. Plant a garden

6. Paddle Boats

7. Feed the ducks

8. Discovery Center

9. Apple Pie

10. Build a sand castle (if possible!)

And a few long term goals (ideas gathered from reading books)

1. Build a car from a kit

2. Fly a plane. Or at least, fly IN a plane.

There is also a ritual that has recently started. It doesn't happen every morning, but perhaps 50% of the time. After breakfast, Nico will get up onto our bed with Guy and watch an episode of Three Stooges before Guy goes to bed. Nico laughs and laughs and laughs and reenacts. We've had to talk to him a few times about not hitting, and Guy is being careful in what episodes they watch (he is, after all, in a mimicking mood these days), but it has been a lot of fun for both of them.

Guy's elimination diet has revealed a sensitivity to lemons and to peanuts! Lemons gave him a migraine and made his trigger finger swell. Peanuts gave him a migraine. We are slowly reintroducing foods, tomorrow we trial grapefruit. And an unexpected outcome: Guy has lost a lot of weight in just the 4 weeks we've been doing this.

This week in school Nico is learning about Dinosaurs. For homework, we had to ask Nico how to cook a dinosaur, with some leading questions, and then write down what he said. Nico agreed that the dinosaur had to have a bath first, and that he had to be boiled. I asked him if he needed to be cooked with vegetables and Nico said broccoli. When I asked him again later how to cook a dinosaur, he pointed to the oven and said "Rrraaaaarrrr!!" I wrote all that down on the paper and sent it back to school with him today.

This morning I taught another essential oils class for pregnancy/birth/babies. It was so much fun! I love teaching that class. I have one more planned for March.

Guy got up to go to the bathroom and when he came back, Nico had grabbed his computer. Multitasking with the iPad!

Watching Curious George on the BIG BIG computer while playing with cars.

 He fell asleep at 6 PM tonight while I was reading him a book about cars. Zonk.

Sprinkler

Not much happened this past week, but I'm okay with that!

For the longest time, Nico has been imitating something he saw on one of his cartoons, but we couldn't figure out which one! We would ask him if it was on Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Curious George, and he'd say "yes" to one of them randomly. But by chance, this week, we found which cartoon it came from! Guy was watching cartoons with him and it happened on a Curious George episode. The imitation is him saying "guh guh guh" and stabbing the air with his folded hand. You can see it in the video.

Today we went to see Allicia and Evie. They recently got some chicks, so we got to hold them and pet them, they were so cute.

Not much else happened this week, unless I'm not remembering very well, which is a possibility.

Pumping up his ball

Rolling himself up in the rug (as seen on Curious George)

Running through the sprinkler

So wet!

Video!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! This morning was like any other morning except we read the Christmas story over breakfast and then opened a bunch of presents! Nico loved all his new things, but may have been a bit too overwhelmed by all of it because he had some crabby parts throughout the day. He watched his hour-long Curious George movie a few times, we ate a nice roast chicken dinner, played with his new train set with Daddy in the evening, and then we finished watching Totoro. A very nice day indeed.

We took the picture with our new camera (stay tuned for high def videos, I'm sure I'll be posting some!) We sat in front of the tree for a while, not sure when the self timer would go off, then we realized that it was taking a picture every 5 seconds until we turned it off. Cool feature, because we have a nice collection of about 10 pictures and we actually got a good one!

Curious George

Daddy and Nico finishing up watching Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas. A present from Grandpa Russell!