Birthday Party, and Back to Normal after the Holiday.

Speaking of "Back to Normal after the Holiday", I was in Trader Joe's yesterday and was shocked to see they had wreaths and mistletoe out front for sale. For some reason it felt like Christmas was last week and was over, and I was shocked they were "still" selling Christmas stuff. Slow down, brain!

Gluten Week: Last Friday

Guy took Nico to The Griddle for breakfast. Nico ordered a hot chocolate and a waffle! This was the only time he complained of a tummy ache after eating gluten, and he said it was because of the syrup. I believe him! 

On Saturday we went to Fred Meyer to get a Christmas tree! Here's Nico trying on the Christmas glasses that make every twinkle light look like a reindeer.

 We listened to Christmas music and decorated the tree.

We found the Santa hat later, so he wore it while setting up one of our advent calendars.

Saturday night was a birthday party for one of Nico's friends from church, Lyam. He had his party at Pojo's. This was the first time in Nico's life he was able to eat the food and cake at a birthday party! Woah baby!

One of the birthday boy's brothers was playing a game and won the Monster Jackpot. Everyone took turns helping the tickets as they came out so they wouldn't end up in a huge pile. He won about 30,000 tickets!! It took more than an hour for all the tickets to come out.

Sunday after church we went to the Mall. Nico wanted to try a pretzel and cheese from the mall for his gluten that day. He also wanted his usual Great Steak and Potato meal, so we got both. He ate his meal and then opened up the pretzel. It was burnt! He took one bite and said, "Ick!".

Guy chose some New York Pizza for his lunch.

That was the last day of gluten for Nico. As far as we can tell he has had no reaction. We haven't discussed it yet, but it's very likely that even if the test comes back saying that he's sensitive, we will continue to let Nico eat gluten. Still, haven't talked about it yet so I can't say for sure, but that's the way I'm leaning. Go by the symptoms I say.

It has been a normal week back to school. Nothing on Monday, Cub Scouts on Tuesday, chess and youth group on Wednesday, hall monitor and drama club and band practice on Thursday.

On Sunday we started doing our online advent calendar we receive each year from Grandma Russell. Cute videos or games/activities every day. Nico and I have been fighting over who gets to play the solitaire-like game it has. Guy looked at it and said, "Looks like Spider Solitaire." I have never heard of that! But I bet that's what it is.

Speaking of spiders, I don't think I mentioned this last week, but we found a black widow inside our house by our front door. Ick! I killed it.

I didn't take as much video of gluten week as I thought I did, but here is the video anyway! I also included Thanksgiving snippets.

Grandparents Russell Visit, Birthday, Grandma Camp, Zoo

The Grandparents Russell arrived just in time on Friday for Grandma to come with me to pick Nico up from his Birds, Bugs & Botany camp. He was excited to see her!

I had a henna booth that night, but Guy was home from work early and made the crew a batch of Pad Thai for dinner.

Saturday morning was pancakes, of course! Nico also opened his presents from Mommy and Daddy. Rock Tumbler!

Then we hung out until it was time for Nico's birthday party. The Grandparents Russell drove to Nampa to pick up GG, and me and the boys went to pick up Nico's birthday cakes. We ordered a gluten free one, and a gluten one, so we went to both places (WinCo, and Amaru).

The party at Pojo's was epic! Nico had two friends from school who were there, Linus and Olivia. Nico really likes Olivia *wink wink*. We had also invited Linus' sister, so she was there too. Then we had all the grandparents, GG, most of the cousins, plus some of my own cousins who adore Nico, and my Aunt Ellen, in addition to Jeff & Allicia and kids. The kiddos played games, ate cake, Nico opened presents, we had a huge birthday picture taken, and Nico had some time in the Grabber booth, where he had two minutes to grab as many pieces of paper as he could. The pieces of paper symbolized a certain number of tickets. Nico ended up with 450+ tickets from the grabber booth. Then we hung out while we used up the rest of our tokens, and we weren't out of there until after 4pm, still leaving behind some cousins and my Aunt.

Ok so now let's catch up with the pictures!

They couldn't quite fit us all into the picture!

Nico said he wanted Red Robin for his birthday dinner, so we met there that night with both sets of grandparents plus GG.

Sunday we headed for church and then the boys spent the afternoon hanging out while Grandma Russell and I went shopping. We made pizza that night and rented the Lego Movie to watch. It is a good movie, with a good message!

A few more pictures from the visit...

Putting his Technic Lego together Sunday morning.

Since the Grandparents were staying up in the suite, Nico was able to take baths. He doesn't get to do this very often, so he took a bath every night that they were here!

Reading Dogman before bed.

I have a few videos I will put together of this trip, but they aren't ready for tonight's update, so hopefully they will be on next week's!

We said goodbye to them Monday morning, and will see them again at Christmas!

Nico spent the next few days at the Grandparents Salisbury's house with some of his cousins. Grandma took all of the kids school supply shopping. School starts in 3 short weeks!  Nico brought Ticket to Ride to play.

Then today we were able to meet up with one of my cousins that is visiting from California. She has two young sons that I have never met before, one is Nico's age and the other is a few years younger. We met her (Jessica) and her husband (Monty), and their two kids (Oliver and Matthew) at the Zoo this morning!

Nico brought $20 of his birthday money with him so that after the zoo we could go to the bookstore and buy Dogman #3 comic but he instead decided to buy something from the Zoo gift shop. He chose a turquoise penguin which he named Bluey, and later changed his name to Flappy.

Nico brought Lion Cub with him to the Zoo. Lion Cub participated in everything with Nico that morning. He went down the giraffe slide (by himself), looked at most of the animals, and enjoyed a few rides in my purse, too.

I did get a video uploaded of Nico swimming while at the hotel pool up in Moscow when they took that trip a few weeks ago. Nico says of this swimming experience: "I thought I was dead!" 

See you guys next time!

Birthday, Bike Rides, Pojos

On Sunday we went to Red Robin to celebrate my birthday, after church with the Grandparents Salisbury and my Aunt Ellen. I had a great birthday! Got some fun gifts and had a fun time with family. That evening Guy and I and Nico went to Whole Foods to get some treats and we sat in the car and drank Izze Pops, then came home and ate dinner and split a Hail Mary dark chocolate tart for dessert while watching a Tinkerbell movie. (my choice:))

Nico and I practiced our calligraphy, I used my brand new pens from the Grandparents Russell and Nico used the pens they got him for Christmas.

We've been going for bike rides, it's a fun way to pass the time. We made it over to where we used to live on Krall street the other day and saw a killdeer hanging out near a puddle on the street. We ended up at the Fort Boise Community Center so Nico could go to the bathroom, which is the furthest we have ridden!

Since the greenbelt is flooded, we are spending time biking the neighborhoods, which I suppose is a good thing because Nico is learning all about bike safety when riding on the street. We rode into the middle of the East End neighborhood and I told Nico to find our way home. He went for a while before recognizing a street and then he knew where we were.

We have rented a storage unit! We are inheriting a few furniture items from the cabin that we want to store until we move, and the moving men brought the stuff from the cabin on Monday. Grandma Salisbury came and picked us up and took us to our storage unit, which is just down Warm Springs about 1/2 a mile away, so the moving men could unload it.

Nico asked Grandma when they could hang out next, and Grandma invited him over to their house on Thursday (they were already planning on watching him on Thursday because of a doctors appointment I had), and Nico was very excited. Grandma told him to be there at 9 AM and so he was sure to remember. I took him over there today at 9 AM. He had a really fun day. He brought over the game of Life and they played it 3 times. They also went to Pojos! And when I came to pick him up, him and Papa were playing Minecraft on the iPad.

Nico is doing a Reading Bingo that he picked up from Rediscovered Books when him and Guy went there to buy a fidget spinner. If he gets a blackout then he gets to go to an after-closing party, so he is working on reading books to fill up the whole thing.

Right now he is reading El-Deafo, a really good graphic novel auto-biography of a girl who became deaf after a childhood illness. He is reading this one to be able to fill in the square that says "A book with a differently abled character".

I spent some of my birthday money on some patio furniture! Target was having a good sale.

"I want to go outside without shoes and take a picture too"

"Not tonight, you need to be in bed reading!"

Now we can sit outside and .. do stuff!

That's it for this week!

Spring Break!

Nico had a bit of a cold last weekend, with a fever on Saturday. We were planning a trip to see Allicia's Roller Derby game on Saturday night but I stayed home with Nico and Guy went to the game. He had never seen a game before so we figured that would be the best arrangement! We actually had a pretty fun night ourselves, we ate dinner and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Saturday and Sunday I went over to the Grandparents Salisbury new house to help unpack. All their stuff was moved on Friday.

Grandma and Aunt Ellen laughing.

SPRING BREAK is happening this week, and Guy also has the whole week off. We've had plans to go do some fun things but haven't realized those plans yet. It has been rainy and we've been working hard to get stuff organized for our garage sale and clearing the clutter out of here. We purchased a wardrobe and switched around Nico's bed so that he is now sleeping on top of the bed. When we pulled his mattress from the floor underneath the bed we discovered mold on the bottom, so we tossed it outside and ran and bought a new mattress.

Monday - went through all our storage in the cellar, pulling stuff for the garage sale and repacking the storage boxes.

Tuesday - sorted through Nico's toys. Met Grandma Salisbury, Bruce, and Rory at Red Robin for lunch, then they took Nico for a sleepover at the Grandparents Salisbury new house. Tuesday evening I had a henna photoshoot at Quarry View Park. The photographer took pictures of the kids (Evelyn, Nico, Sammy, Aadam) with henna and also Allicia with henna. I took a few shots of Allicia myself after we came home, just to capture the moment, since I won't get the professional photos for a few more weeks :)

Wednesday - went to Pojo's with Bruce and Rory and Grandma Salisbury. He got 383 tickets and had quite a bit of fun playing games and riding bumper cars. We went to Big-Os to get the oil changed, here are Rory and Nico sitting down at Big-O Tires.

Thursday - This morning Nico opened a package from the Grandparents Russell that had some fun activities in it, we colored some bird coloring pages and we picked out where he would hang up the bird migration poster. This was also a Lego sorting day. Nico sat down with Guy and I at the table and worked on a miniature Lego panda while Guy and I sorted Legos. Rain rain and more rain, so much rain, snow too. But mostly rain, hard rain.

Here's a picture of Nico tucked into bed ready to sleep tonight. First night he has ever slept with a TOP SHEET in his own bed. I figured it was about time. We are using a quilt now that Grandma Russell made (can't remember if I helped or not?) It is beautiful, though, and so soft. And you can see the wardrobe we purchased. It has a mirror in the middle panel and Nico has been enjoying that. We find him practicing his ninja skills in front of the mirror sometimes.

It has been quite a cozy Spring Break so far.

G.G., Pojo's, Paddle Boats!

On Friday Nico had another trip to the cabin and another sleepover! I went up on Saturday to pick him up. We had a great time as always! My brother Jeremy and my nephew Kai were up there helping Papa chop down a tree. They used a chainsaw and I was hoping to see the tree fall, but it is still standing! It is HUGE! The chainsaw started smoking so they figured they'd give it a rest. They had been at it quite a while.

Monday was dance class, and I took a video! Unfortunately Nico didn't want to dance that day, so the video just has Evelyn in it. Well it does have Nico in it for a short second, but he's not dancing. Still, I will post it at the end of this entry. You'll get to see the moves they were learning in class and the dance and the cheer that they learned. Nico was happy that it was over and kept saying instead that he wanted to learn Hip Hop dance, like the dancing found in the video of his favorite song, Ready Set Go by Royal Tailor (I've often caught him singing "Oh! You put my life in motion so Oh! Your Love makes me want to give my ah ah ah ah ah ah ah all, ready set go ready set go oh oh!"). Or one of the songs from VBS, like the marching song, or the power shuffle. I overheard him telling his dance teacher about the Ready Set Go song.

So anyway, interpretive dance, ballet, and cheer, are not forms of dance that Nico enjoys. At least now we know :) Next year we'll choose the Hip Hop class.

On Tuesday we went to see G.G. I got to see her new smart phone. I am so proud of her using that thing! I showed her how to do some things, she is learning fast! I even set up Scrabble on my own phone so that we could play scrabble back and forth with our phones. Speaking of which, let me check if it's my turn... nope not yet :) Playing Scrabble with G.G. has been the highlight of my days since Tuesday. She gave us some green beans, tomato, and cucumber from her garden, yum!! Looking forward to seeing her again next month.

Wednesday was a grocery shopping day. We were planning to go to the School PTO Social at Municipal Park in the evening, but Nico fell asleep in a snuggle a little after 5 PM and slept until 3 AM, when he changed his clothes into PJs and then went back to bed until 5:30. Wow! He must have needed that.

Today I took Nico and Evelyn for a fun adventure. First to the dollar store where they each picked out a toy. Including me. My toy was index cards and some labels. Then I took them to Pojo's where we played for about an hour. Then it was off to paddle boats. I was feeling pretty seasick by the time we returned the paddle boat. I'm sure it was because I was trying to take video while on the water.

Tomorrow is when we go meet his teacher in the afternoon, and bring his school supplies. Nico is excited that Michael and Acelyn from his preschool will both be in his class.

Forgot to add some pictures..

Drinking soda at Whole Foods. He spilled half the can on the floor.

 Dawson Taylor's on Sunday picking up some coffee.

Now to the videos...

Dance Class

Pojo's, Paddle Boats

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