Trampoline and School. Then bed.

I'm pretty sure we didn't do much this past week but let me think for a minute. Oh the picture reminded me, we received our trampoline! We set it up in the main house living room for the first day so the kids could take turns playing on it. It's easy for them to take turns on the trampoline because they tire quickly when jumping. After taking some time on the floor while the other jumps, then they're ready to go back at it. We then moved the trampoline to the Clubhouse where it resides in the kitchen most of the time. Nico uses it as a table to color sometimes but mostly as a trampoline. He sets his iPad up on the stool in front of him and he jumps and jumps and jumps while watching cartoons.

I use it for exercise, too, and have been enjoying it!

That's the only picture from this week, so I may have forgotten what else we did. Well, Nico did go back to school on Tuesday! He was very excited to go back. The bus driver told me yesterday "Give Nico some extra vitamins because there are two sick kids on the bus."

He hasn't been falling asleep on the bus, strangely enough. That was his usual thing before Christmas break. He was out at 6:15 PM tonight. Which means he will likely be up early tomorrow, which means it is way past my bedtime! Goodnight! :)

Sloooow Week

We have had a very slow week, but we had fun relaxing!

Last Friday my Mom took us shopping at Target. She got Nico some trucks and we picked up some other things we needed. Then we had sushi takeout! So much fun. That was our one adventure this past week.

Saturday was the sensory-friendly movie but we didn't end up going. We spent the morning filtering things from our living room closet and into bins. That sure felt good when it was finished.

On Tuesday morning I was writing some cards and Nico saw me doing it and asked if he could write a letter. I said Yes! And I asked him who he wanted to write to. He kept answering "Yes" to this question and I kept trying to explain to him what "Who" means but I'm not sure he understood. Until I gave him choices: "You can write a letter to Grandma or Papa, Grandma or Grandpa (he knows the difference between these two sets!), Evie, or Daddy. Who do you want to write to?" and he said Evie. I wrote out her name on a piece of paper and he copied it onto the card twice. I asked him what he wanted to say to her in the card and he answered Mommy. Then Daddy. Then Nico. Then he got one "P" into Papa when he stopped. So all of our names were in her card.

Then he saw me printing pictures and wanted to print some too, so we chose some to print for Evie and took those with us when we went to visit them later that morning.

We also saw them this morning!

We've started doing quiet times in the afternoon, where Nico hangs out in his room and plays quietly for an hour. Not "nap time", but occasionally he falls asleep. He climbs into his bed and pulls the covers up. When I don't hear noise for a while I go in and check. So if he's sleeping I close the shades and turn the light off. The first few times we did quiet time Nico would come out of his room every 5 minutes or so to ask if the time was up. So yesterday I put the iPad in there with a timer set for one hour. It's a pie chart that counts down to zero. He climbed into his bed and stared at it the whole time, sometimes reading the numbers from it and counting down with it for each minute. We went back to no timer today and everything was fine. He did fall asleep today, which means he is up tonight!

I will give him a bath in a few minutes and put him to bed. What usually happens when he takes a nap during the day is that after I put him to bed, later than usual, he doesn't fall asleep, but keeps getting up. Over and over until finally it's time for ME to go to bed. And so he comes to bed with me and is asleep quickly.

I'm trying to think of any other tidbits this week but I just can't recall anything else.

Here are the few pictures I took.

Reading "Too Much Noise", Nico has most of it memorized.

Playing during quiet time today

Teddy Bear

Nico and I are still holding onto our illnesses. We've got stuffy noses and coughs over here.

We've had the opportunity to snuggle on the couch and take naps in the afternoon, though, which has been so nice!

On Monday we went to see Allicia, Evie and Avery in the morning. They were just starting to get colds over there, and I'm hoping it doesn't last very long for them! They had a teepee set up that Evie and Nico played in.

On Monday night we drove to Nampa to a going-away party for our friend Josh. He left to go back to Korea yesterday, to resume working as an English teacher. We will miss him!

This week for school, Nico had to bring in a teddy bear. He had 3 to choose from, and he chose Bud, his black bear. They took a picture of him with his bear and sent it home so that we could write a note about the bear on the page, and send it back. The teacher said to try to write down in the child's own words what they have to say about the bear. When I asked Nico about his bear and showed him the picture of him and his bear, the only thing he relayed to me was "Picture of Nico!".  When I asked him to tell me more about his bear, all he said was his traditional "a dah". Tomorrow we return the picture with the note, and also the bear, so that he can show his whole class his bear and what he had to say about it. I added some stuff in my own words. The picture will go into his "About Me" book.

Also this past week we've been working on words that the speech therapist sent him home with to work on. After filling out the sheet, we return it and then he gets a prize. So this morning after breakfast, we finished up the last day of word practice and marked it on his sheet. He did such a great job, that I figured I would record him saying all his words. So, here's the video!

If you notice at the end, he wanted me to take a picture of him. He has just recently started asking for pictures to be taken of him. And this time I got some good ones, but only because he POSED FOR EVERY ONE OF THEM! Each and every one of these pictures was planned by him. I kept pushing the capture button, but he knew when the picture would be taken because it counts down for us.

And then I snuck a hug in there.

And I'll leave you with one more picture - Nico covering his micro machines in play-dough. He spent almost an hour doing this after dinner last night.

Bobbing for Legos

A few pictures today, since I couldn't choose. I was all set to just post the first one, but then this evening another photo op presented itself.

The first one is while we were on a walk. Nico wouldn't nap today at his normal time, so we went on a long walk to pick up something from my homeopath. She works in our neighborhood, so it wasn't too far. And he took a nap afterward.

The second picture is Nico bobbing for legos in his lego tub. He never actually caught any with his mouth, but he did have a few good laughs after falling in a few times.

Nap Grump

Tonight Nico and I went to Fred Meyer to pass the time before bed. He woke up really grumpy from his second nap, so a distraction was good. When we got home I wrapped Guy's birthday presents and Nico had a blast playing with the wrapping paper and the empty roll (what we call a dodo). He was his happy self until bedtime!