Legos, Mother's Day

I felt like we needed to go out and do something last Friday so I asked Nico what he wanted to do and he said Fred Meyer. To get legos. He had saved up about 15 dollars. When we got to Fred Meyer he was very quick about his decision. I wasn't used to this. When picking out a toy car it takes him forever plus changing his mind. Legos I guess are different. He bought an Ice Crawler. We came home and put it together. He is amazing! He opened up the lego booklet and saw all the related pieces for the Ice Crawler set and asked me to buy him all of those sets too. I think for his birthday we will get him a huge lego. Hmm, but then I talked to Guy about that idea and he reminded me that with big lego sets, he loses interest before getting to the end. So I think we'll do lots of small ones for his birthday. Including a lego block separator, since taking pieces apart is hard work if you don't have fingernails.

Saturday we went to the market for 3 pounds of ground beef. Nico decided to spend his 2 coins from the market's Sprouts Club to buy some asparagus. You have to buy fresh fruit or veggies with it, and no fresh fruit was available. (apparently fruit is for boys and vegetables are for girls?) When I made him the asparagus later he was not happy. ha ha. He didn't even want to try it. 

About a month back he started saying "EWWW YUCKY!!!" to every dinner I put in front of him, so we told him about a nicer thing to say: "This is not my favorite." Sorry if I have already posted about that, I forget what I have already written sometimes :)

We got this cute poem and handprints from his preschool. Oh man, the poem made me imagine what it will be like someday when Nico no longer crawls into bed with me at night and no longer enjoys snuggling and no longer asks me to play cars with him or rough house. I was definitely feeling grateful this past week that for right now I do have a little buddy that is snuggly and wants to spend all of his time with me.

This next one was a nice Mother's Day Gift, except I don't think Nico understood about it. He showed it to me and I asked him what it was and he said it was a flower. I asked him who it was for and he told me it was for himself. Oh well! I did get quite a treasure of things from Guy - a whole stack of coupons he wrote himself!!! It was fabulous. I am already making a mental list of things for him to do when I cash in his "One weekend of complaint free and instant 'honey-doing'"

And here's the envelope that the first one with the double handprints came in. Nico thanked us for his chocolate yogurts from Trader Joe's.

I saw my Mommy on Mother's Day and Guy called his Mommy on Mother's Day, it was a pretty complete day. No Bible Study that night but we did go out as a family to the Co-op and WinCo. Running errands is fun together, we don't do that very often.

Guy started a long stretch of work days on Wednesday. He is working for about 15 days, though some nights he will be going in at 9 PM instead of 5 PM, which gives us more time with him.

Nico brought home the flower on the left today from school. The flowers on the right are ones that Nico has found growing wild on his adventures outside with Evelyn. He comes running to the front door yelling "JOANNA! JOANNA!" I open the door and he says "I have a flower for you!" The stem on the yellow one was about 2 feet long so I trimmed that one before putting in this jar.

Here is Nico's recipe for lemonade. You can see he numbered the steps 1-3. 

1 - 8 lemons

2 - 1 cup of sugar

3 - 4 cups of water

He was watching Leap Frog this morning on his iPad, and a character in there called Burfder really likes lemons and wanted to make lemonade. Nico was inspired and asked me to pour him some lemon juice in his cup so he could drink it. I explained that it was going to be sour and he said "I want sour lemon juice!" So I poured him about 2 tablespoons and he drank it all. 

He's been drinking from his "baby cup" lately, which is actually a shot glass. He likes having a tall glass full of water next to his baby cup so that when the baby cup runs out, he can refill it.

He is in bed right now singing songs. He stopped for a minute and whined and said "Mommmmmmy, I need some tea."

Me: You need some tea?

Nico: Yes

Me: Why do you need tea?

Nico: Because I want to go to the cabin and have tea

Me: When we go to the cabin on Saturday we can have some tea

Nico: Ok

I think that's it for now. Nico has had no more tummy aches, thank you for the prayers!

Apples, G.G., Tiny Houses

We had an epic time-out last Friday that lasted 3 hours. Nico lost iPad privileges for two days, too. That was a first for him. He didn't seem to mind too much to be without the iPad, he never threw a fit about it, just asked every once in a while and I'd always remind him that he had to wait.

On Sunday we took a family trip to Quarry View (I think I'll officially switch to calling Old Park by its real name - Quarry View). On our way there we noticed how much wind there was, so we excitedly got out the kite once we arrived at the park. Wind wind wind, I could sense the kite wanting to take off in it while we were walking to the field. But the minute, no, the second, that we got into the field, the wind stopped. Completely! Guy tried running with the kite, which got it up in the air temporarily, but it always came back down. 

So we scrapped the idea and instead we took some pictures by the apple trees.

Nico wanted to pick apples so he got on Guy's shoulders.

Apples keep fallin' on my head

Saw Allicia on Monday, brought some of Nico's toys over, the ones we plan to keep downstairs so everyone can play with them. I chose Nico's floor puzzles, his train set, duplo blocks, some large trucks and his wooden trucks. We put together both floor puzzles while we were there. 

They have made a lot of progress on the garage! While Allicia was out of town with the kids last week, Jeff and his dad got a lot done. They tore down all the external walls and put a fireproof layer on the outside. Since the garage is so close to the garage next door (separated by maybe 2 feet, with a fence down the middle), the city code requires some fire protection. Then they'll put siding on it. 

Allicia told me where the kitchen sink and counters will be. The fridge, more counters, and a bar for our table. The rest will be living space, which we will figure out later. I am very excited.

Allicia shared this article with me written in the Idaho Statesman about a woman who lives in a tiny house. She lives in a 196 square foot house with her infant daughter. You can see the pictures slideshow on the article page. Apparently there is a group in Idaho called the Tiny House Enthusiasts! I didn't even know we were part of a movement :) Our situation is of course a little different, but it's similar.

On Tuesday we went over to Allicia's house again to watch the kids while she flipped the suite because she had back-to-back bookings. My Mom came with me for a few minutes so she could meet the house and the suite and see the garage they're working on. 

On Wednesday we went to visit G.G. She gave Nico a book that has a CD to follow along. His favorite! We watched a little bit of t.v. while we were there and it was quite a treat this time since she now has Netflix hooked up! Thanks to Grandpa Russell for doing that while they were visiting. Nico chose a Curious George movie and recited a lot of it as it was playing. He loves interacting with people while he's watching something he knows. He loves to share his favorite t.v. shows.

Today we had to get our tires rotated. Nico got 2 bouncy balls and 2 trinkets from the machines in the lobby while we were waiting. Then we got our emissions test done, and since the emission testing place is in the same parking lot as Pojo's (arcade games!), we decided to go. Nico had about $10 of birthday cash left that I've been keeping in my purse, so we took $5 and spent it all on games. This was a fun place, and much quieter than Wahooz. There were less people, it was smaller, and it didn't seem as loud. Nico played a fishing game and a claw game that he really enjoyed. Also bowling, and a few other ones.

Then this afternoon we took a trip to the fountain downtown to throw some coins in.

Reaching into his pocket to get coins

 Popping ice cubes from our new ice cube tray. Push the bottom of them and they POP out.

Running through the sprinkler

Fuzzy new hair cut. I see a stray hair!

Guy has been in serious overtime mode. He worked all through his last weekend. Not full nights, but 6-8 hours each night. Which, goodness, is still a lot! And he is working through his next weekend, too.

Christmas

The Grandparents Russell came into town on Saturday (Forthwith they will be referred to as Gpa and Gma.) Woohoo! Dinner, playing, "watching the baby". It was a great night. Guy and Gma played Pandemic, and Nico fell asleep on Gpa while snuggling on the couch after dinner. Early bedtime, but oh so sweet to see.

Nico was up the next morning at 3:30 AM, wowza! We all headed to church, which was a blast. G.G. also joined us. Nico got to see his Grandparents Salisbury at Church, he was so happy! Lots of other family was there, too.  We then we headed home for lunch after a quick stop at the Co-op to pick up sandwiches. And a balloon hat for Nico that one of the clerks made for him.

After lunch it was time for presents!

G.G. gave Nico an amazing hand-made car play set that folds up and has a handle for easy transport. When you unfold it, it has a garage where the 4 mini cars are stored. You can pull the cars out and drive them along the road, under a bridge and under a tree. Nico played with this for a very long time. So excited to have this to bring with us to church/doctors offices/anywhere.

Then there were puzzles, digger, construction, books, an amazing "Brown Bear Brown Bear" quilt that Gma made for Nico. He is now sleeping with it on his bed. He's been wandering around the house this whole week reciting the book over and over again. When he sees the quilt it reminds him to start up again. He has got it pretty much memorized I think.

Didn't get a shot of the whole quilt, but here's me snuggled up with it.

On Monday we went to the Outlet Malls for a brief excursion, and more presents were scattered throughout the day. Nico was in heaven and so enjoyed having everyone around to entertain.

Sticker book time. 

They headed back to Washington on Tuesday, but not without a tentative next-arrival-date of April-ish. Woohoo!

Tuesday evening, Jeff, Allicia, Evie and Avery came over and we started a new tradition. We ate a quick and easy meal (rice and ground beef and broccoli), then we stuck a birthday candle in a satsuma and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. Then we opened the satsuma and shared the slices. It was so much fun and I hope we can do it again next year. 

Nico had a serious blast with Evie. They got each other so riled up, running around, throwing blankets on each other and having tickle wars with Guy. Evie was enthralled by G.G.'s handmade car garage and spent a good amount of time playing with that. 

Guy worked overtime that night, but didn't have to be there until 9:30 PM, and he got to come home around 5 AM instead of 6:30. Presents were opened on Christmas morning, we ate breakfast, and then spent the whole day playing playing playing playing. The living room has been in a state of Happy Christmas Mess ever since. Just the way it should be.

It has been a blessed week and I am so grateful for all the time we had to spend with family.

One last thing - Nico climbed into a paper sack today and I made sure to take a picture. Like mother like son!

Achoo!

We had a sick baby last week! He had a restless night last Thursday night, which I attributed to a sore throat. He was coughy and sickly the next morning, so I kept him home from school. I took some preventative measures for myself and for Guy, but I ended up getting the cold on Sunday.  I thought at first that it was a cold, but mine came with chills and hot flashes along with the fever, so it may have been the flu! We spent a lot of time chilling on the couch, watching Netflix. We watched Brother Bear 2, it was a cute movie. 

Guy seemed to miss the cold completely, thank goodness! He worked DAY-time overtime this past weekend and had no time to be sick. We made sure that he was sleeping whenever he wasn't working, so that switching from nights to days to nights again would go as smoothly as possible. I think it worked! He was a little woozy his first night back on Wednesday, but I think he's recovering pretty well from the switch.

Nico went back to school on Tuesday. He still has a bit of a phlegm buildup, but other than that he seems fine. This week in school they are reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" and they built their own book called "Preschool, Preschool, Who Do You See?" and each page of the book has a picture of a child in his class. They built the book themselves by gluing the pictures in. We are supposed to read the book with them at home. Nico knows most of the names of his classmates, I was pretty impressed!

He's saying more and more words, making more and more sound approximations!

We didn't get many pictures this week. Just the one of us snuggling, but I do have a sweet video of Nico watching for Papa through the window. Papa came over on Saturday to install our new water filter. (Thank you, Papa!) He often brings Nico a new toy car when he comes over, so that is what Nico is remarking about. This particular time, Papa actually brought him a little toy plane!