Evelyn's Birthday Party, and Grandma Camp!

Last Saturday was Evelyn's birthday! I tried to capture some pictures on my camera but I think the SD card is toast, so none of them were saved. Bummer! But I did catch one on my phone.

The theme of the party was "7 Evelyn". They even made her a shirt that said it using the 7-11 logo. So there was "gas station" type food, including sushi, which Nico actually loved. They were california rolls. He brought his chopsticks out and ate it with that. There were also fireworks, as usual. All the kids crowded around the front window, safely and warmly inside, while Jeff set of fireworks on the front lawn on a huge wooden board. 

Evelyn received a Zelda video game that the kiddos went downstairs to play after the party. Evelyn was nice enough to give Nico one of the memory slots on the game so that he could have his own account and play it too. He started his game on Sunday night I think!

Evelyn's cousin was in town for her birthday, and they invited Nico downstairs quite often to play Mario Kart or Zelda. They got along really well. They rough housed and played downstairs while they took turns playing video games. 

On Tuesday Guy and I dropped Nico off at the Grandparents Salisbury's house for a Winter Grandma Camp. I can't wait to hear all about it when he gets back tomorrow. Grandma has sent over a few pictures from their time:

They played Hide and Seek outside

Nico counting

Playing with clay

Eating breakfast with Bruce. Grandma said that Nico asked Bruce: "Can you be my friend?" and Bruce said "Yes, that would be awesome!"

Playing Jenga

I know they went to see a movie, Ferdinand, and then today they went ice skating. They also roasted hot dogs over a fire outside. 

Guy and I have been hanging out, watching movies, we also went for a very long walk along the greenbelt. Taking naps, reading books, playing games. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and The Case for Christ, and also a bunch of Burn Notice episodes. 

That's really it for this week! Nico comes home tomorrow after lunch, he starts up school again on Monday!

Oh one last thing! Nico told us he wants to hack when he grows up. I had visions of him breaking into computers but what he really meant was doing hacks, like those videos you see online of certain ways to do things that are supposedly awesome. "Hacks". He wants to do hacks. While packing for Grandma Camp he implemented a hack he saw on YouTube, where you fold up the underwear and the socks into the t-shirt that you're packing, and then fold the socks over the whole bundle after you've rolled it up. He was very excited about doing that.

Ice skating and pigeons

We went to the ice skating class on Saturday again, and Nico seemed excited at first, but as soon as he got on the ice he just kinda stopped. He stayed in the middle of the rink for the whole class and didn't want to get off the ice and didn't want to join his class. There was the teacher for the class and a volunteer helping out with the class, and one of them was always over with Nico trying to convince him to come to the class, or to come over to where I was so he could get off the ice. He wouldn't let anyone touch him and when they talked to him he would turn his back to them. When they tried to pick him up under his arms to try to move him to the class or closer to me, he said No and wriggled free. So, 30 minute class. After it was over, Lexie skated up to him, where he was with both the teacher and the volunteer trying to talk to him. The teacher asked her "Is he your brother?" No, cousin. "Great, can you help him? We're having trouble." She gracefully brought him back to the exit with no problem or resistance on Nico' part. Then he wanted back on the ice so Lexie helped him over to the coned off section. There were no "ice walkers" that they could play with, so he just stood in the coned off section for a while before making it back to the exit, with a little help from Lexie.

I talked briefly with the teacher, who said that it might be that he's just not ready to take a class. I think she's right.

When I sat down with Nico a few days after that to talk to him about it, he told me he didn't want to go back to class but instead wanted to go to the rink with just me. "Just you and just me" So that's the plan. We didn't go this week at all, but will try to go next week.

Pictures from school. He pointed to one of his friends and told me her name was "Erra", to which I said, "Erra?" and he said "No, Erra!" I obviously was hearing him wrong so he SPELLED her name for me. I was impressed. "E, L, L, A" OHhhh.. "Ella!" Of course!

So, Nico memorized his Pigeon books, both of them. See the video below! There is one page that says SPLASH! You can notice how he says it loud first, then soft, then loud again. The soft version is when he covers up the exclamation point at the end of SPLASH! Guy taught him that the exclamation point makes things loud. So he covers it up (you can see him do this in the video) and whispers <splash> , then takes his finger off the exclamation point and says it loud again SPLASH!

Nico noticed the list of other Pigeon books on the back of one of his, and asked about them, so I logged onto the library website and looked them all up and put them ALL on hold. Except the activity book, which a library would obviously not have anyway. I told him that I'd receive an email from the library when they were ready for us to pick up. We got to experience the excitement of picking up pigeon books TWICE this week, 3 new books each time. "Nico! I just got an email! Guess where I got the email from?" "Library?" And then he would literally watch the clock for the next three hours until the library opened.

When we got the books back home, he attempted to read the books with me by following with his finger on the words and repeating what I was saying. It became confusing because the book was new to both of us and our words became a jumbled mess. So I told him I would read it to him first, and then he could read it to me. He is halfway to memorizing all these other pigeon books too.

A few nights ago he was cracking himself and me up while we were reading the Bath book before bed. He was being silly and saying the wrong words sometimes while "reading", and the word he always used was "car".

"Don't let the pigeon take a car!""wash wash car" "That is a matter of car". Or he would add the word car to the end of the sentence, "Don't let the pigeon take a bath car!" or would leave off the last word of a sentence "Don't let the pigeon take a"

Then he'd laugh hysterically and read it the correct way. This was really hilarious to see him read himself the whole book while I was holding it flipping the pages for him, saying every sentence wrong and then laughing.

That's it for this week. Enjoy the video!

Ice Skating

Saturday was Nico's first ice skating lesson. Alexis also had a skating class that morning and we ran into them in the parking lot as we were making our way inside. Lexie and Nico were in different classes since Lexie had already gone through SnowPlow 1. She was in SnowPlow 2 now. Nico was in a class with other 4 year olds, and 5 year olds and maybe a 6 year old. He was very excited about it at first. The place was packed with kids and parents, and we tried to keep up as his class made their way to the ice through throngs of people. He got a little behind, and spent a few minutes on the ice waiting for someone to notice him to take him to the spot where his class was, since he lost track of them and couldn't skate on his own. Me not having skates was very hard for me! I couldn't go get him when he was wandering, and couldn't let him know that I could see him. Then one of the volunteers found him and took him to his class. Yay!

When he got there, he was so afraid of falling that he was pretty immobile. I could see his mouth moving "Please help me", he was saying it over and over and over again. It was so loud in there I'm not surprised no one heard him. His lip was quivering. I was in full blown Momma anxiety wanting to run out there and grab him to tell him he wasn't alone and that I heard him and that of course I would help him. The class was fast paced and Nico spent about five minutes making his way slowly to the exit. I wanted to run out there and scoop him up. When he got to the exit, I was waiting, and he finally saw me, lamented the fact that he wanted to skate with Lexie, and then told me he wanted to go back to his class. Yay! He was on his way. And he knew now that he could see me through the glass. A volunteer helped him back over there, he engaged in the play for a few minutes and then the rest of the class he spent making his way again back to the exit. While he was on his way over, class ended. When he made it to me his eyes were red and welling with tears and told me he wanted to leave. I said OK and we put his name badge away and then he said "No I want to skate with Lexie." After the classes they let the kids play on the ice in a section that has been coned off. This is what Nico had been looking forward to the whole time, to re-enact what him and Lexie and Bruce did that day a few weeks ago when we went ice skating for the first time. He wanted to get himself one of those ice skating walkers and let Lexie push him around in it. So that's exactly what he did. He smiled so big the whole time! They played for about 10 minutes. When we got in the car, Nico kept telling me he didn't want to come back.

I don't want to force Nico to do anything that he doesn't want to do, but I know also how much he wants to learn to skate. So I gave it a day or two and then sat down with him and we talked about it. I told him that it will take a lot of hard work to learn how to skate, and that it was going to take time. I gave him 3 steps to do whenever he needs help on the ice. 1 - Ask God for help, 2 - Ask someone else for help as loud as he can and 3 - Keep trying until help comes. Then I asked him how he would like going skating with just me so we could practice his skills before his next lesson. He said OK and we planned it for Thursday. Today! So this morning we showed up 5 minutes after they opened and when we got on the ice there was just one other person besides us. They hadn't even started up the music yet so it was very quiet.

The very first thing we practiced was falling. Once Nico learned how fun and OK it was to FALL and then get back up, it was a lot easier on him. We got some good tips from an elderly gentleman to look straight ahead and to keep your feet together. We were there for about an hour, but only on the rink for about 30 minutes.  Potty break, tying/untying shoes, and then we stopped to play an arcade game and get a prize from one of the machines.

Getting tickled by Daddy

Nico asked "Take a picture of me with my ice cream cone!" He said "Cheeeeese" without any prompting.

Normal things happened this week, too. Church, then we saw Papa and Lexie on Sunday when they came to drop off eggs. Then school, and legos. 

I got a video of Nico reading the Pigeon Takes a Bath book all by himself, but didn't have time today to edit it and upload it, so look for it next week. He has most of the book memorized. 

Ice Skating and Birthday Party

Guy recovered pretty quickly from his illness and was back to work on Saturday night. Saturday during the day Nico and I went to Ice World to go ice skating. Grandma Salisbury had invited all the cousins to come and eat pizza and ice skate. Nico has a lot of fun with his cousins. I got some skates too and took Nico out for his first time on the ice.

Then he joined Bruce and Lexie with an ice skating walker. Pretty soon it was just Bruce and Nico, going around and around and around the rink. I would pass them every so often and see Nico holding onto the front of the walker and letting Bruce push him. Nico would look up at me matter-of-factly and say "Hi Mommy, I'm ice skating", and wave briefly while I passed. Ho-hum, just another day on the ice rink. Here's his ho-hum face that I loved so much.

He couldn't get enough of it. After Bruce moved on, I took Nico out with the walker for a few rounds and he started pushing himself with it. He caught on pretty fast! 

When we got home he couldn't stop asking to go back. And in one more week Nico will start ice skating lessons! He is totally ready for it. It is half an hour every Saturday for eight weeks.

I came down with a cold over the next few days but nothing really bad.

Our car battery went kaput on Wednesday, and it was quite the ordeal! I didn't think it was the battery because I used Jeff and Allicia's car jumper battery and it didn't work. But it turns out that the jumper battery was not charged. So long story very short, when the tow truck that I canceled showed up because they forgot to tell the driver that I canceled it (I canceled it because we figured out it was just the battery), he pulled out an ELECTRIC car jumper and started my car up. Allicia and I were outside trying to hook up a trickle charger to my battery when the tow truck pulled up.

Wednesday was also Evie's birthday! We got her some glow-in-the-dark pajamas because her birthday party (which was today) had a glow-in-the-dark theme. Which brings me to the party tonight. Food, presents, cupcakes (I got Nico a gluten free cookie in exchange for a cupcake. The cookie was huge! I don't think he felt the loss of not having a cupcake:)), then fireworks outside then sparklers! And a LOT of glow sticks in between. She also wore her new pajamas.

 LED Balloons across the living room!

He had been asking to eat this cookie ever since he knew I was storing it in the fridge.

And a few more pics from this week.

He's been spelling words lately with his Bananagrams. Then he had the idea to use his "Words" book so he could spell the words in it.

After I took the previous picture Nico looked at me and said "No, Mommy, take a picture with my iPad."

And here's an ice skating video. Thanks Grandma Salisbury for ice skating lessons and taking pictures and giving all of us a good time.