Dinosaurs and Tigers

Went to the Zoo on Friday. Nico was ok with one of the dinosaur exhibits: the one with two small dinosaurs.

All the other ones we needed to stay away from. He would yell "MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY NO!" whenever I'd try to go near another one. Our zoo circuit was reduced a bit and we stuck around the giraffe slide and the prairie dog tunnel. Not sure how visiting the zoo in the future will go, I'm hoping he'll be interested in trying to get through his fear, but he had no interest in it on Friday. Perhaps I don't have quite the same touch as Grandma! :)

Prairie dog tunnel

On Saturday we went to the market. Nico was intent on getting a balloon in the shape of a yellow train. The young girl that usually does our balloons wasn't there that day but we found another few that were making them. The only vehicle they could do was a motorcycle, and Nico picked orange. He was very happy with it. It was very well done!

Saturday night Guy took Nico to Movie Under the Stars in Julia Davis Park. They were showing Despicable Me 2, starting it at dusk, but the fun started at about 7 PM with activities for kids plus music. Guy and Nico met Jeff and Evie there. Guy said the music was very loud and Nico looked a little shell shocked at first, but after a while he wanted to go up front with the other kids and dance, so they did that. Then after Evie arrived, they ate snacks, sat on the blanket, and waited for the movie. Sunset was at 9:30, dusk was at 10 PM. Nico asked to go home at 9:30, so they left, and they started the movie about 10. 

They had fun, but I think they'll skip the rest of the movies this summer. They'll choose another type of outing to enjoy some bonding time. I think they'd both prefer to go to Red Robin or something!

On Tuesday morning we went to see G.G. She pulled out her piggy bank and Nico had fun putting all her spare coins into it. I think we emptied her purse completely of any change! She gave him a "credit card" (a used Applebees gift card) which he held onto the entire way home until he fell asleep and dropped it. He woke up briefly and said "Oh no my credit card" and then went right back to sleep.

Tuesday night I taught my last essential oils class for the summer. Nico's speech therapist from school, Miss Susie, came to the class with her daughter-in-law. Guy and Nico went out for a while but stayed long enough to see Miss Susie. Apparently Nico kept asking to go back home to see her again! He was very excited about it and I know he just wanted to talk to her and tell her all about everything, he just stood in front of her saying "Miss Susie" again and again, like he was working up to saying something important for her to hear, but I think in his excitement he just couldn't come up with anything more important than just repeating her name. He was very pleased with it. Guy and Nico did come home early enough to see Miss Susie again, which Nico was very excited about. She left soon after and said "see you when school starts!"

Wednesday morning we went up to the cabin. Me and my Mom made a double batch of Cowboy Casseroles so we could put some in our freezer, and so she could show me how she makes it. We finished in record time and spent the rest of the morning just hanging out. Nico wanted to join us in the kitchen with an apron so we let him choose which one he wanted. He wanted the LEOPARD one!

And then later we pulled out the old TIGER costume after we remembered that they existed and that Mom probably still had one. When we were younger, my Mom made me and my brothers tiger costumes. I think there were 4 originally, and this is the one that is left. Just Nico's size! After putting it on, we went upstairs to show Papa.

And then that night, I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk in his tiger costume and he said YES. He decided to ride his tricycle instead. All the neighbors thought he was just so cute. I could hear laughs as we walked along and one of them opened their front door so their 3 year old could look and say hi. He got too hot halfway through so we took the costume off.

Stopping to "fix the sidewalk"

Some more of this week in pictures:

Fish Park

 Beetle

 Playing hide and seek as "Double-O Nico" (Curious George is Double-O monkey)

And, all the snippets from June in a video! Extra points if you can find where I messed up writing one of the text descriptions.

Watch-a a [th]is!

Nico has started asking us to watch him when he does stuff. He doesn't say the "th" in "this" so it sounds like "Hey Mommy Hey Mommy, watch-a a is Mommy!" You'll see an example of this in the video. He has also picked up on the prayer before eating. I asked him to pray twice and he did, saying exactly what I do before every meal.

Saturday Market on Saturday, got some cinnamon bread but Nico wasn't too fond of it this time. We went for a lot of strider rides this week, too. Once he even rode his scooter around the block for the first time ever! He prefers the Strider, though.

Tuesday was my first ever Community Ed class, teaching about cleaning your home with essential oils. It was a lot of fun. Jeff and Evie came over that evening while I was gone and then all of them went back to Jeff & Allicia's house via walking/strider/biking/roller blades. Then I picked my boys up over there after my class.

That's really all that happened this week, so, enjoy the video!
p.s. one of the titles on the video didn't go through, you'll see it. Whoops!

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!