Red Robin, Bike Trailer

Well, last week I forgot to mention two things that happened, both were Birthday parties. You can see a video at the end of this post of the highlights of each. Nico's friend Vincent turned 3, and then Nico's cousin Rory turned 6!

Now on to this week...
Sunday was Father's Day. It was also the summer solstice, which we completely forgot about. Whoops. We considered celebrating last minute, but we are going to try to instead, celebrate this coming weekend, so we can have some time to plan ahead. I think we are going to attempt a picnic. Someone at church gave us a $25 Red Robin gift card, so Guy had a pretty good Father's Day. Nico even ate the tomato they put on his cheeseburger. Surrprise!

Then we did other things that Guy loves - we bought coffee and went to the Co-op. Happy Father's Day Guy! 

Then started another week of school. One thing I like about our bike rides every morning is that Nico has adopted the habit of saying "On your left!" whenever we pass someone. So the person hears it twice, first from me, then Nico echo. It is pretty cute and most people laugh and say Hi as we pass them.

On Monday we bought Guy a bike, which we've been saving up for for a while. On Tuesday we bought Nico a new helmet. This is part of his birthday present. The rest of his birthday present is going to be a skateboard and knee/elbow pads. He knows this and we are likely going to be purchasing this for him sooner than his birthday.

Today we went to the PO Box and picked up a box that Grandpa Russell sent to Nico. He got a frisbee that lights up and Nico was so excited about it he went to bed with it, telling me that it was great because it would be a nightlight for him, and he put it right by his head. Then he got up several times, "What color is that?" (the color on the frisbee changes, and he was curious what the non-color was, the normal flashlight color. White!) "Can I get Daddy's flashlight?", "Can I put together some legos?" then he got out of bed silently and walked across the room holding the frisbee in front of him. I asked him what he was doing out of bed, as he had walked right in front of me without looking at me while I was sitting on the couch. "I am looking over here with the frisbee." then he turned more lights off. hehe. I had showed him briefly how to throw it like a frisbee, so we will make it to a park soon to try it out. 

Tonight I told him it was time for a shower and he said no. So I told him that we'd have to skip reading books tonight if he didn't take a shower. He said no. Then he looked very concerned and asked me: "Am I going to turn into a potato?" I explained to him that even if he didn't take a shower, he would not turn into a potato. Then he asked me if he would turn into a potato while he was sleeping. I told him that he would never in his whole life turn into a potato. 4 months ago Guy had told him a story about a little boy that didn't take showers, and how this little boy turned into a potato.  I didn't think that Nico had taken it so seriously, but he had!

When he asks to play with legos at night in bed I say "Try to sleep for 10 minutes, then if you're still awake you can do legos." Every time, he falls asleep. Then in the morning, DING! Lego time. One morning last week when this had happened the night before, Nico woke up at 5 AM and said to me from his bed "Where's my legos? It's too dark in here. Mommy! I can't even see my BED! It's too dark in here, I can't see anything." Then he got up, got his legos, took the lamp with him, and went into his bed and put his lego together. When he was done, it was then time to get up.

Hmm... I am pretty sure nothing else happened this week. I hope I'm not forgetting something.

Enjoy a few more pictures from last week's Parktacular...

Video time!

I found out that for some reason, YouTube is really sensitive to GoPro camera settings and I obviously haven't researched it enough to get good results. All the biking videos I upload there are translated into bad quality, though they look pristine before the upload. :( I will try to fix this, but in the meantime, here's the bike trailer video of us going to school (I enjoyed picking out the circus music, it's kind of silly). And just a warning, there is fast forward movement in this video in case you need to prepare yourself (for those who may get dizzy:))

I keep editing this entry, because I keep forgetting things. The part where the video slows down (where it's not in fast motion) is the part where Nico and I go downhill really fast. You may be able to perceive the really big bump we go over.

Also, if you switch the settings to HD in the lower right corner of the video - click on the gear symbol and select HD, then the quality will improve a bit.

Birthday Party Video

Preschool Changes? And Pigeons and Packages.

Nico got his progress report back last Friday. He has met two of his goals! He can successfully identify emotions and responds to the question "Why is he sad/happy?"

Then on Monday I called the school to ask a few questions about Kindergarten, and I ended up talking to his teacher. She said that she had been talking to Karen, the speech language pathologist and they both thought that perhaps Nico didn't need to come to preschool for all 4 days but could reduce his days to 2 or 3. She said that Nico was doing very well with fine motor skills and academically, so they didn't see the point in him continuing to come for the whole week. She did say, however, that Nico might benefit from being a part of a more traditional preschool with kids that had normal speech development.

So, we've been looking into other preschools. The one that Evie goes to might be an option for us, she goes to Beautiful Savior Lutheran Preschool. But we're still waiting to hear back from Nico's teacher about whether his switching to 2 days is actually going to happen. Right now it's speculation!

Last Friday we also saw G.G., Nico really enjoyed playing with the large lego blocks that she has. He made several of the things that were printed on the side of the bucket. G.G. showed me the Fire Engine quilt she is making. Amazing! I can't wait to see it when it's finished! Then we watched a little bit of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (one of his favorite shows).

So, after last week's update, Grandma Salisbury decided to order Nico the Pigeon Activity Book, the only one he didn't have. She told me the box would be here on Tuesday. I told Nico he would be getting a box on Tuesday and the first thing he said was "With a pigeon activity book in it?"  ha ha! He knew. There is so much to do in that activity book. Guy and Nico have been playing with it. I went out for a bit on Tuesday night and when I got back, there were finger puppets, a bus stop, and they were working on putting together a Newspaper. I was impressed! And there's still so much more to do. Thanks Grandparents Salisbury!

Oh and I forgot to mention, the VERY FIRST THING he did with his pigeon activity book is line it up with the other pigeon books, as it appears on the back of the "Pigeon Takes a Bath" book. Same order and placement. THEN he could go play with the book.

At night while he's in bed he sometimes asks for his books, so I hand him a flashlight and his tall stack of Pigeon books and he reads them while "tucked up" into bed. Out loud, of course, and it's fun to hear him.

Then today, Nico and I went to the post office. He doesn't often come with me but this time he did, and there was a KEY in our box to open another box. This is his favorite thing ever. It's like opening treasure boxes. And this time was sweet because when we opened the 2nd box, the package inside had HIS name on it! He was so excited. What a morning, too, because we were on our way to the dollar store to spend two of his dollars. He purchased a Mickey/Donald/Pluto puzzle, and a car.

The package contained a few boxes of Valentines that Grandma Russell found in Great Grandma Dee's stuff. Nico can use them for Valentine's Day at school! There was also a Curious George look-and-find book, which we read through immediately. This is the book he took to bed tonight with a flashlight. There was also a picture in the package that Grandpa Russell had drawn for Nico. Nico said "OOOOOOOH".  Thanks Grandparents Russell!

Nico tried to catch Avery in a bucket as he came down the slide.

That's all for this week. Sorry for being a day late! I remembered about the blog this morning while we were running errands. Whooops!