Children's Run, Homework, and Summer!

Last Friday we made the rest of our trip back home to Boise from Yakima. We stopped at every rest stop and arrived home around 4:30pm. Before coming home we stopped to pick up Nico's race packet from Papa (Capitol Classic Children's Run), who picked it up for us on Thursday. Thanks Pa!

Friday after arriving home, Allicia offered us all food out back on the porch. She had family coming into town that night and had made a big pot of sloppy joes.

Final count on the license plate game:

• Nico: 19
• Guy: 10
• Joanna: 9

We have 13 states unaccounted for, license plates that we didn't see on our trip.

Saturday was the Capitol Classic Children's Run. While we were on our trip, all of us caught colds. Nico caught his early on and it wasn't too bad. Guy and I caught ours later, but it didn't really hit us both until we arrived home. Saturday was the worst day for us, but we powered through the Children's Run in the morning. We dropped Nico off around 9AM at the train depot just like usual.

We drove downtown to find a parking spot and then waited for the race that started at 10AM. Nico's time was 13:29, he beat last year's time by more than a minute!

Check out this great shot from one of the race photographers

All the kiddos got free TCBY yogurt, so we stood in line for that, then we headed back home. I got into bed and didn't move for the rest of the day with a fever and body aches. Guy was a little better off, but still wasn't feeling too hot. I think him and Nico played 6 games of Pokemon that day! We had no energy to make pizza that night so we delayed it until Sunday.

Sunday Guy chose The Emperor's New Groove to watch while we ate pizza. Great movie!

Nico had been asking me for a long time to do "homeschooling" where I give him work to do during the day like he's at school. So I told him Monday we were going to start the homeschooling and he was so excited he could barely contain himself. He kept begging me to let him start working on his homework Sunday night.

Monday was back to work for Guy and back to normal life! We both were functioning pretty well by then.

There's a variety of things I had planned for homeschool. He rocked it the first day and stayed super excited. By Wednesday he was done with it and told me he wanted "to have fun this summer". Ha!  Sounds good to me, so we've stopped most of it. I told him there were a few things we were going to continue doing every day (things we were already doing every day even while he was in school) like him reading out loud to me. Regarding the workbook: I told him he could just pull that out whenever he wanted to. He's already pulled it out to work on stuff. He LIKES doing the work, but he likes to have freedom to choose whether to do it or not.

Tuesday we took Evelyn with us to the library for Pokemon Club, they both had a good time. I sit right outside the room in the kids area and do work. It works out really well. They both checked out a book (they each chose a graphic novel), and then we headed home.

Tuesday night was the first Cub Scout meeting this summer. They will meet every two weeks. They talked about rocks and geology, and Nico came home with two new rocks. I think the whole theme for the summer will be geology!

On Wednesday, Allicia offered to take Nico to the dollar summer movies with them in the morning. The movie was Puss in Boots. They got popcorn. Nico loved it. Allicia said they will do it again next week.

Today we went to the Scouts shop to get his new uniform.

Nico also went to visit Merek several times this week. They are moving from their house in a few days. I'm not sure I updated here or not about the house - we re-evaluated our budget and saw that we wouldn't be able to rent the house even if she doesn't raise the rent. So we're going to look for a different place in a few months.

Looks like the only pictures I have are from the race on Saturday! How's that compared to the picture-heavy post last week? At least I have a video! Check it out - the first part is from the race and then it's what our house looks like when you come home from a trip sick and can't clean up after yourself. Ha ha.

Until next week!

Piggie and Gerald!!

On Friday Nico and I went to see G.G. at the hospital. He had the day off from school so it worked out really well. While we were there she wowed us with how well she was getting around even after being cooped up in a bed for a few days!! She was released later that day. Yay! We will see her this Saturday again!

Last Saturday was the Sensory Friendly Movie. We went with Tiffanie, Aadam and Sammy and we met friends from church there as well. The movie was Kubo and the Two Strings. It was kind of scary. Near the end of the movie Nico said he wanted to go home and I asked him why and he said he was tired. The last few times we've been to a movie he has started getting antsy about 30 minutes before the movie is over. He always asks me "How much longer?" I'm not sure we'll go to the movie next time.

Sunday after church we went to a Piggie and Gerald party at the library. Not the library downtown but a different one over on Overland. Tiffanie and kids followed us there, and then we met Grandma Salisbury and Lexie there too. They had reader's theater, which Nico and friends participated in, and coloring and painting and decorating cookies. There was a drawing for free tickets to the LIVE Piggie and Gerald show at the Morrison Center this Friday. Each family could put one raffle ticket into the fishbowl, and so we did. When the drawing took place an hour later, there were only a handful of us still there, so we all waited eagerly to see if we would win. They had a lot of tickets to give away. Name after name after name after name... most weren't in the room so they moved on to the next one. Then, Lexie won!! They gave her 3 tickets so her whole family could go. Then name after name after name... Tiffanie won! 3 tickets to her. More names were called and I could see we were getting to the very last of them and he still had tickets available. Finally, the very last ticket which he struggled getting out of the fishbowl because it was stuck - OURS! That's right. 3 tickets to the Piggie and Gerald Show - TOMORROW! We are going. We might be a little late, but we're going!

Reading "Let's Go for a Drive!"

Reading "My New Friend Is So Fun!"

I can't remember which book this was! (That's Lexie in the middle) They did a great job!

Reading "Today I will Fly!"

On Monday it was G.G.'s birthday. Happy Birthday G.G.!! We will have your present for you on Saturday (you already know what it is!)

That night we had our last night of Financial Peace University. Everyone graduated and we all got a certificate. Nico fell asleep while we were there, with Guy holding him. He had to put Nico down on some of the chairs to take this picture with us.

Guy and Nico bought a few games at Fred Meyer. Life, and Uno. Here's Nico playing Life with 3 of his stuffed animals. He woke up early that day and spent about an hour before breakfast doing this.

That's it for this week. See you all next time!

Nico's Journal, Bike Ride, and Tornadoes

So last week I told you that at the Parent Orientation I wrote a note to Nico in his journal, well on Friday afternoon I received an email from his teacher and she had taken a picture of the note Nico wrote back to me in his journal. I assumed that she had done this for all the kids and parents, but when I talked to her this past week she told me it was just him because what he wrote was so adorable and he did such a good job writing :) Then he wrote a journal entry for Guy, too...

Guy took Friday off from work and we watched Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell on Netflix, the first of the mini series. We have both read the book and so this was very fun. We went downstairs in the basement to watch it.

This past weekend, Allicia's sister got married, so there were lots of family in town and they actually stayed at a house rental in Eagle for the weekend. It was strangely quiet around here. I didn't have any henna booths so we were able to really enjoy spending time together. Nico and I went to the Sensory friendly movie on Saturday, they played Ice Age: Collision Course. It was funny. Tiffanie and boys also went.

Tiffanie took the boys plus Nico for a bike ride on Monday, everyone had the day off! They went by the golf course.

Nico is always excited to go to school in the mornings. This past week he has had to wear certain colors to school so he searched for the right shirt every morning. He's been struggling to eat all of his lunch so this morning he told me to just pack him half a sandwich. It doesn't seem like enough food, just half a sandwich and some veggies, but he did eat it all.

He likes to chatter while we walk to school and tell me things and ask me questions. I love it.

No Spendtember is going swimmingly. Would you believe it if I told you we only have $850 left of our debt?!??!?!??!? I can't believe it! The blog update in 2 weeks might have some super good news about debt payoff... Nico is excited about the huge Star Wars lego we are going to buy when we pay off debt.

Not much else happened this past week!

Oh but I have a funny story. A few nights ago Nico crawled into bed with us and seemed a little restless. Then I heard "Mommy?" and I said "What?" and then he asked me if there were any tomatoes in Idaho. Tomatoes? Yes, there are tomatoes.

N: There are tomatoes in Idaho?

M: Yes

N: A boy at school told me there were no tomatoes in Idaho

M: Oh, well, Jeff and Allicia grow tomatoes in their garden and we've eaten them!

N: But there are no tornadoes?

M: OH, tornadoes? Yes there are tornadoes in Idaho but they are small and don't last long

N: I don't want to live where there are tornadoes

M: Oh but you know what? If there is ever a tornado in Idaho we are in luck because Mommy knows exactly what to do when a tornado happens and we will be fine.

N: I don't want to live in Idaho

I assured him that tornadoes in Idaho are rare and small. They get confused around mountains. Then he fell back to sleep. A few weeks before this, we had been watching tornado videos on YouTube because Nico didn't know what a tornado was, and then I told him I had to turn it off because it was making me nervous because I didn't like tornadoes. Whoops. I'll have to work on that.

Birthday Party, and Grandma Camp: Movie Marathon!

Jeff and Avery had a joint birthday party last Saturday, catered by Chipotle. Wow they have good food! It was my first time trying it. We each had our own burrito bowl. YUM! We played games and had a piñata. Video will be coming soon.

Because we missed our pizza night on Saturday because of the party, we made pizza on Sunday. We had pepperoni and Nico was very excited about that. He will eat this whole pizza while we sit and watch two episodes of Three Stooges.

On Tuesday we went to see GG. He played with her toy cars and then we watched some Paw Patrol on tv. It was great to see her, and I am excited we will get to see her again next week for Nico's birthday!

Tuesday afternoon a fire began in the foothills off of highway 21, completely closing off the highway. Grandma Salisbury had to take the long way home after dropping Papa off at the airport for a business trip (3 hours to get home!). She lost electricity Tuesday night. When Guy was putting Nico to bed that night he told Nico that if the highway was still closed the next day that we may not be able to do Grandma Camp. So he started coming up with all the ways that we might be able to get to Grandma Camp, like taking a helicopter or something. In the middle of that night he crawled into bed with us and he whined. I asked him what was wrong and he said "Mommy, I know how we can get to the cabin if the fire is still going. We can go to the airport and the plane can pick up our car and carry us to the cabin. Then I can say Hey, excuse me? Can you put our car down here? And it will be at the cabin." I said that was cool and that we could talk in the morning. Then zzzz.

The highway was open in the morning! And the electricity was restored by 2 PM. When I drove to drop Nico off, the foothills were still smoking. We saw a helicopter heading over to the mountain to drop his big bucket of water on the fire. Another helicopter was making its way to the reservoir so we pulled over and got out of the car and watched as the boats in the reservoir stopped and the helicopter dipped its huge bucket into the water to fill it up. Then it pulled up and went straight to the mountain. Thankfully the fire never got close enough to Wilderness Ranch to cause any worry.

The theme for Grandma Camp this time is Movie Marathon. Nico brought Paddington Bear to watch. Nico was so excited that he wrote a list of what he needed to pack.

Thursday was a full day for both Guy and I but then in the evening we went on a date to watch The BFG. It was a good movie and worth owning. Guy has today off from work (Friday) so we were able to go for a bike ride this morning, and then watch a movie downstairs together. Jeff & Allicia and crew are all out of town for the weekend so it's very quiet around here!

double espresso shot for Guy before the movie

Next week we will have Grandparents Russell in town!! Birthday week!!! Excited to see them!!

MST3K, Splash Pad, video

Grandma Camp was a huge success. Here are some more pictures

Reading for 30 minutes after dinner

Pillow fight

 Breakfast

Hangin' with the boys

The next Grandma camp is less than a week away, the theme is Treasure Hunting. I was pleased to learn that Grandma had served chicken soup that Nico ATE! He liked it, too. I will start making it myself. He seems to be over his fear of ALL noodles, and can eat some of them now.

On Sunday after church, Tiffanie asked if Nico would like to go with them to the splash pad in Meridian. Yes! We had no sunscreen so I whipped up a batch real quick and slathered him in it.

On Tuesday was the MST3K Reunion Show. Guy and I had purchased tickets more than a month ago, so we had a DATE NIGHT! We went to the theater downtown to see it. There was supposed to be a pre-show for the 30 minutes before, with trivia and music, but the theater had started the live show an hour early (it was supposed to be an hour delayed for the Mountain & Pacific time zones) so we missed it. After the show was over the theater called all of us over to give us free movie tickets to apologize. Those that had showed up on time missed a big portion of the show :( Thankfully, we were early enough that we didn't miss any of the content. 

Then we went to Trader Joe's and bought Guy some ice cream, and came home at about 8:30 and Nico was still not asleep, he was awake reading books in his bed. I thought this might happen, since he had taken a nap earlier that afternoon! 

We implemented a summer schedule for Nico on Monday, he has "family contributions" instead of chores, and we have switched the use of the iPad around so that he gets 30 minutes of screen time every day. There is emphasis on the WHEN-->THEN of the schedule. WHEN he finishes his family contributions for the day, THEN he gets to have 30 minutes of iPad and can also then play with his friends outside. The schedule also has snack and meal times on it. We are also implementing an allowance, $3 each week with opportunities to earn more doing other jobs.

I've been promising a video, and you guys get one this week. It's not too spectacular but I had to start somewhere. I'll get the rest of the videos made soon.

Cabin and Doctor

On Saturday we had the sensory friendly movie, they played Kung Fu Panda 3. It was a good movie with a good message. I loved it! We met some friends from the church there.

Saturday afternoon, Papa picked Nico up, they met up with Lexie and Grandma Salisbury and all drove up to the cabin for an overnight visit! When we were at the cabin on Easter, Jonny and Alanna had brought a game called PieFace:

Nico kept asking to play it and we kept saying "later, after the egg hunt..." But when the egg hunt was over, it was time to head home! So this sealed the deal for him coming over on Saturday, because the game would be there. And here he is on Saturday...

Papa and Grandma also took Nico and Lexie to Elk Pond where Grandma had heard a bunch of frogs croaking earlier. The frogs were still in full force when they arrived (see video below for the volume of frog sounds they heard!), and they even found some pollywogs to bring home. The pollywogs were in the egg sack and are still currently there, growing tails, in a jar on our windowsill. 

Here they are today. When Nico brought them home, they were just dots. Now they have some tails growing.

Apparently Grandma returned to the pond yesterday and there was no sign of any frogs or pollywogs! Did a raccoon get them??

Nico also got to eat coconut milk ice cream, and chocolate chips! He returned to us Sunday morning right before church. Thank you so much Papa and Grandma for the fun time Nico had!!!

While Nico was gone on Saturday, Guy and I attempted a hike. But, it was 2 in the afternoon in full sun and we wilted very quickly. Hehe. We need to build up some endurance! We then decided to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens! We have been wanting to see this movie for a very long time, and we wanted to see it together. And, we finally did! We used some movie tickets that Allicia had given to us a few months ago.

And did you know... that this movie is the very first movie Guy and I have seen together by ourselves in a theater? There was one time where we went to a movie with a group of people. But this was the first time we have been by ourselves. Pretty exciting! So we had to take a picture, though there is no indication that this is a movie theater we are standing in front of. We couldn't fit everything into the picture :)

On Tuesday Nico had a nutritionist appointment, to help us figure out what Nico could eat based on his allergy testing. She said we should take him off dairy completely for 6 months, though an occasional cheese is ok. So, no cream cheese or sour cream. She gave me ideas for how to replace those, and I diligently went and bought some cashew cheese to spread on his sandwiches, and then dutifully attempted to make vegan mayonnaise. The cashew cheese made Nico feel really sick, so that's a no go. He went to school on Wednesday with a tummy ache. And the mayonnaise didn't emulsify so it's just a cup of liquid. But, we're learning :)

A few more random pictures...

That's it! Enjoy the sound of frogs in the video! :)

Park, Movie, Dentist

Fun times this week. Took Nico and Evelyn for a trip to the Co-op. Allicia provided some money to buy them treats, so I got them each a fruit leather, and then they were enamored by those single serving containers of cream cheese, so I bought them each one. Then we stopped at home to pick up some bread, and we went to the park and they ate cream cheese sandwiches and then played for a little while.  Evelyn picked off all the cream cheese from her sandwich with her finger and left the bread behind. She is a cream cheese lover, just like myself.

On Saturday we went to another sensory friendly movie, this time they played SpongeBob Squarepants. I had never seen the cartoon before, and it really wasn't a very good movie, but Nico really enjoyed it! There was a rap battle at the end of the movie that made me smile though.

We had a few hot days there. We went to the park with Evelyn again one night and came home and Nico was so hot, so we did something we used to do at our old house. I took his socks off and washed his feet in cold water and then let him sit with the water running over his feet.

On Monday Nico had a dentist appointment. He let the hygienist polish all of his teeth this time! I think once he discovered that it tasted good, he was fine with it. His teeth look great, they complimented the wide gaps between his teeth.

One day last week when I took Nico to preschool, we showed up at the same time as someone else so we walked in with them. This has been happening a lot, actually! And Nico is always so excited to see her, her name is Sydney. While we were walking with them he asked her "What did you do last night?" heehee. She told him and then asked him the same question. Sydney's mom commented and said that Nico is the happiest kid she's ever seen.

I've been trying to make more Nico-friendly dinners. For some reason he has lost his taste for chicken!! All he wants now are cheese sandwiches. I am trying to branch out our breakfast, too. I am going to try some breakfast cookies tomorrow instead of making him a chocolate chip pancake. The cookies are made with almond flour, with pecans and dried fruit in them, and maple syrup to sweeten. They are in the freezer right now and tomorrow morning I'll cut them into rounds and bake them. I hope they turn out!

Please pray for: Nico's summer literacy program, that he's able to adapt to the large classroom easily. And for his tummy aches.

That's it! I leave you with a picture of a ladybug that Nico found on the tree out front while we were waiting for the bus on Tuesday. 

Easter, IEP Meeting

Nico got to do 2 Easter egg hunts on Easter! The first one was at church. Every egg he picked up he had to open first. I think he was remembering preschool egg hunt where all the eggs were empty! (Empty tomb, you see).

The second one was at the cabin that afternoon. We ate a yummy dinner and then Grandma brought the kids upstairs while all the parents hid the eggs. Grandma had Bruce read a story to the kids. When I went up to listen, Nico was sitting in the same armchair as Bruce, squished in next to him.

Then the kids were released! We told Nico that all the eggs had something in them so that he didn't have to open any of them first. When all the eggs were found, we counted them and then traded until each kid had 46 eggs. There were just 4 kids, a smaller gathering than usual. Bruce, Rory, Lexie, and Nico.

There were toys and candies in the eggs. The candies that Nico couldn't eat, he tried to give away. There were also notes in the eggs that you could redeem for $5 cash. Each time you redeemed a note you had to do whatever the banker asked you to do. We all took turns being the banker. Nico got 4 such notes so he made $20. He was asked once to jump on the trampoline as high as he could go in order to receive his $5. He really enjoyed that one.

Snuggled up outside while the grown ups finished eating

Guy talking to my brother David

Trying to find the last few eggs

Then we said our goodbyes, loaded with leftovers (Thanks Pa & Ma!).

On Monday we went to the bank and opened Nico a ShareBear savings account. We want to start giving him a small allowance so that he can save up for all the toys that he asks for. He was able to buy a lego he's been eyeing with his $20 from Easter. We had fun tonight because we finally finished putting it together. The age range for this one started at 7 years old, I think because it was one of those technics legos that requires a bit more strength and spatial orientation than a 4 year old would have. So I helped him with it, and it took us a few days of 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, before it was finished. It's a RACE CAR WITH A TOWING HOOK!

Monday was also our IEP meeting. We went over how Nico is doing and we went over the IEP goals for next year. There is one goal in relation to him being defiant, saying "No!" and sitting down in the middle of class during transition periods when they're moving from one activity to the next. Could be just exerting his independence, we've certainly been seeing that at home, too. Anyway, the goal for next year is to help him transition better between activities. A lot of times the goals just state common sense type stuff but it's good to have it in writing. To help him meet this goal, there will be someone who comes into his Kindergarten class every day for 15 minutes to help him however he needs it. If there is a certain time of day that he has the most trouble, she will come in during that time. Since the class will have more kids than he's used to, they thought this would be good, to get his some one on one time.

No goals next year for academics, he is right on target. Miss Erica says that Nico is very precise, and she points to the wall where there is art hanging and says "I could probably pick out which one is Nico's, it's the one where everything is right in its place."

The only other goals are speech related. His biggest issue right now is articulation. He will get there. He has come so far in every other area!

I talked to the SLP about the Calico Learning Center possibility this summer, and she said she wasn't too sure about the place. When someone else joined us a few minutes later, she said the same thing. Something about how most of the kids enrolled there are not native English speakers, and Nico would benefit more from being around typical peers. Miss Erica mentioned that BSU has a summer language program that enrolls Nico's age, and that might be something better to look into. So, we're looking into.

Next Monday I have the transition meeting at Adam's Elementary school so I can meet his teacher and SLP for next year.

Nico has had tummy aches two nights in a row. There was a time about a month ago that he was telling me every night that he had a tummy ache, but I was pretty sure it was just a ploy to get out of bed. This is different. He LOOKS sick. He goes to bed, asks for water, then a few minutes later will get out of bed and say "Mommy, there's something wrong with me." I ask him what's wrong and he eventually will tell me it's his tummy. I rub oils on his feet and often times that just puts him to sleep. I asked him if the foot massage felt good and he sleepily nods yes, and then ZONK, he's out. Then he sleeps the whole night and wakes up happy in the morning. I feel so bad for him. I know what those tummy aches feel like. I have a guess as to the food culprit, so I'm hoping that tomorrow is better.

Last night he felt so terrible, he was rolling around on my bed saying he had a tummy ache, then he'd whimper, and then he'd roll some more, and then "Mommy, mommy, there's something wrong with me." Then he'd whimper and roll over again :(

Also this past week, we received a package from the Grandparents Russell! Nico just happened to be with me when we went to the PO Box to check the mail, and he was so psyched to find a package in there with his name on it. Waiting until we came home to open it was hard, because we had a few more stops before home: The library, and the zoo. In the package he got some books, including his favorite Pigeon book that we have checked out twice from the library, and now we won't have to do that any more! Also a game and a deck of cards, from Grandma Dee's stash, plus some stickers. All good things. Thank you Gma and Gpa! 

Saturday Market!!! Last Saturday was the first one of the season. Nico got a dragon balloon and a cucumber. Then we headed over to the movie theater for a sensory-friendly movie (lights stay on, volume is down, doors stay open, and you can bring your own food). Paddington Bear. Nico sat through the whole thing and it was a lot of fun. They do these movies every month. I'm looking forward to the next one!

One night this past week, Nico and Evie and I went to the park before bed, and they didn't even play on the equipment, they spent the whole time riding in circles on their bikes on the basketball court. It was pretty cute.