GG, Pinewood Derby Car, Evelyn

Last Friday, Nico had been invited to go to Urban Air with his friends across the street. I texted their mom and she said that Rylan actually had wrestling practice that day so they weren't going to be going. But they did go on Saturday! Nico was gone when we made pizza but came home in enough time to eat some and finish watching the end of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", chosen by Guy. It was quite a funny movie, I enjoyed it. When Nico came home we told him we could switch to a different movie but he wanted to watch that one. He liked it.

That night while he was lying in bed he said, "I don't really feel like myself right now. I don't feel like myself whenever I go out in the evening." He was sad for a while.

The next day was Guy's and mine Anniversary! 13 years married on the 13th of January. Guy scraped my windows that morning 😍

Sunday was also the first day back at it with Bible Study. We are doing a study called Overcomer, about the armor of God. It looks good, it's a DVD study with a study guide and optional book.

Tuesday we visited GG in Nampa. We gave her a gift from the Grandparents Russell that had been lost under the tree and we didn't find until after GG had left.

Nico spent some time putting together a puzzle with Aunt Pat. Melody came over for a visit while we were there, too (Aunt Pat's daughter).

GG sent us home with a handful of oranges.

That evening, Guy and Nico went to Cub Scouts to drop off Nico's pinewood derby car. Guy and Nico have been spending a lot of time working on it, getting the weight just right and painting it lime green (Nico's favorite color!)

It wasn't an official Cub Scouts meeting, they just dropped the car off, Nico played tag for a little bit, and they came home. No uniform required. The race is tomorrow evening!

Tonight Evelyn came over for dinner. We aren't doing every Thursday with her like we used to, we've slowed down to about once a month. Before dinner, Nico was insistent that he wanted to read his book and wanted Evelyn to read a book too but he didn't want her sitting next to him. She chose to read on the bed like this. (And hey check out our new cabinet!)

Nico had checked out a new book from the library today - Tom Gates: Everything's Amazing (sort of) and he was very anxious to read it. He was not in a playful mood. They ended up playing a bit after dinner.

Chicken nuggets. Yummmm

And now some random pictures!

Nico said, "take a picture!" so I did.

Nico has had a lot of math homework lately, doing multiplication and division, and he was getting super frustrated until I told him he could use his numberbots to help him. He said "OH YEAH!" and he has been excited about it since. We bought him some multiplication and division wrap-ups to help him learn his times tables, and he has been enjoying that too.

I've also really been enjoying our new Instapot pressure cooker. It turned these frozen turkey legs into something tender and yummy.

Allicia and I attacked this huge pile of sock mismatches on Tuesday morning. We found a few socks that belong to us in the pile, too!

 Snow on Wednesday morning. Leaving for school early for Chess club.

Stopped in their tracks trying to solve a chess problem.

Part of Nico's homework yesterday was to log on to a typing website and spend 10 minutes learning to type. He spent about 45 minutes! (He's wearing around his neck a new medal he got in Chess!)

That's it for this week!

Birthday Party, VBS, and Grandparents Russell!

Last Friday was Avery's birthday, and his party! He had a Mario birthday.

There was a pinata, and Koopa Troopa cupcakes and yummy barbecued pizza.

Saturday was a slow day at home, pizza at night. Nico has been really enjoying the old MacGyver shows. It was his turn to choose the show on Saturday and he chose to watch MacGyver. Nico asks a lot of questions and Guy tells him everything. It's been quite a learning and entertaining experience for him. Guy and I enjoy watching him be so interested in all the things that MacGyver is doing. We watched an episode on Tuesday night that he didn't care for, though. One of the people in the show died being eaten by ants. Shortly after this happened he said he didn't want to watch it anymore and to go to the next episode. I totally agree, Nico. Sorry you had to see that :(

Here's our setup at our new table, watching MacGyver on the iPad.

VBS started on Monday. All the kiddos went. Allicia picked them up today, the last day of VBS, and Nico remarked to her that he didn't want to do the VBS next year! I will have to ask him why when I get a chance. Every day he would take his name tag off after getting home and put it on the fridge. He wants to keep them.

There is a video at the end with VBS scraps.

 Playing in our new hallway.

Nico and I played Hang Man one morning, and one his words was "GG". I told him that wasn't a word and he said "YES IT IS! Grandma GG!" We went to see GG and Aunt Pat on Monday after VBS. She gave me a peek at his birthday present :D

On Wednesday we went to Bricks & MiniFigs to get some party favors for the kids coming to Nico's party on Sunday. He built a MiniFig for each kid who is coming. I love the one he made for Evelyn.

Guy fixed the corner booth chair by attaching a wooden leg that Papa had cut for us (Thanks Pa!) Guy added a cut at the top so that it was stair stepped and attached easily with screws to the chair. It is now safe to sit on!

Today was travel day for Grandpa and Grandma Russell! They arrived this evening!! We went right to work putting together the puzzle we needed to do for a birthday party game on Sunday. It was a fun way to jump into it.

Grandma and Nico read comics before bed. Then she tucked him in.

I'm so happy they're here! It will be a great weekend!

Here's the VBS video. Plus Nico playing "The Floor is Lava". There are so many new obstacles to learn how to jump over in our newly arranged house. And now that he's a stuntman, thanks to Parkour Camp, he knows how to take risks ;)

G.G., Bible Study, and the ickies

Nico had a lot of fun with Grandma while I was gone! Thanks so much for watching him, Mom! 

I returned home Saturday night, and saw Nico the next morning. He woke up while I had gone to the bathroom and I came back into the clubhouse with an angry-voiced Nico saying "Mommy! Mommy!" because I wasn't there. Hehe.. he was grumpy but I made him smile and then we snuggled for a long while in the bed before getting up.

Sunday we had church and then that night was the first night of Bible Study this year. We dropped Nico off at the big kids group and Guy and I went to our group. It was great to see everyone again. We had to go around the room and introduce ourselves (even though we knew most of the people) and say something interesting about us that nobody would know. Mine was that Guy and I did a lot of puzzles together while we were dating and that a few years ago we did a 13,000 piece one. When it was Guy's turn, he told everyone that he likes to try to identify sandwiches from long distances. Hehe.

We haven't heard anything about Guy's job yet, but he did tell me that he got a "wink" from the hiring manager. Not sure if I already mentioned that. Now we're just waiting... and waiting... and waiting...

On Tuesday morning we went to see G.G. and Nico wanted to bring his checkers game to play with her. He brought it with us and G.G. taught him how to play. G.G. also let him feed Scamper two treats, and Scamper ate them right off his hand, to help him learn that Scamper wouldn't hurt him.

On Wednesday morning we went to the park with Allicia and crew. We usually do this Monday but on Monday we both desperately needed to go grocery shopping, so we postponed it until Wednesday. The plus to doing it on Wednesday was that there were no lawn mowers.

For the past few days Nico has been complaining of tummy aches before, during, after bed and before, during, after eating. Wednesday morning he only had a few bites of pancake and started whining. After lunch he told me he was sick and needed to stay home from school. Hmm.. I sent him anyway. He did fine at school but didn't eat anything when he came home, and right before bed he got sick once. He felt so much better afterward, and slept until morning, when he ate some food and then again for lunch. I kept him home from school. He skipped dinner again tonight and though he's telling me he doesn't have a tummy ache, he really has no appetite for food. He ate a few monster teeth before going to bed just now, but wasn't very interested. He had a temp of 99.3 earlier. Not that that's significant, but sometimes that can mean something.

I'm hoping he'll be okay tonight and wake up his chipper self tomorrow. He does seem to have a runny nose, so perhaps that's related.

That's it for this week... hopefully next week we'll have news from Guy's job!

Reunion, Puzzle, G.G.

On Saturday we had a mini friend reunion with my High School friends. Nico enjoyed jumping on the trampoline and playing with the toys and the kids. Me and three of my friends, together have 10 kids. It was the first time Guy had met any of them. He said he liked them and wanted to see them more often. I agree! I invited them all to Nico's birthday party so we may or may not be seeing them then.

Later that night we went to Smoky Mountain Pizza. Guy watched Nico. While we were there, our 5th friend from High School called us and we were all able to talk to her. It hasn't been since High School that all five of us were together, and perhaps someday soon we'll be able to do that. 

On Sunday, Papa came over for a bit to drop off some eggs and milk and the truck. And to watch a few minutes of Despicable Me 2. Nico has really been digging that movie.

We needed to borrow his truck so that we could move our 13,200 piece puzzle from our house over to Jeff and Allicia's, which we did successfully on Tuesday evening. They have a nice large wall in their front room that is perfect for the puzzle. Guy and Jeff hung it while Allicia and I and the kids read books and played. We were also able to bring over some bins that were ready for storage. They are storing some things for us since we will be living in a small space and won't have room for everything. We are all getting very excited about moving in 2 months! I've told Nico several times that we're moving into Evie's house and he seems to understand. I am so happy that he'll have someone to play with more often.

Our living room without the puzzle, and with an almost bare bookshelf from packing.

We kept the truck until today. I enjoyed being able to see EVERYTHING while driving it. It is up high and I don't know why but it felt like it had more windows than our car. That's not true, but it sure felt like it! Papa came by to pick up the truck tonight, and he is heading straight to Yakima. My Mom is in Yakima with my Grandma. My Great Uncle Jerry passed away early Sunday morning, a few days after my Mom and Grandma arrived to see him. I didn't know him but I have heard great things about him. The funeral is tomorrow, I am praying for everyone.

Some more pictures from this week..

Memorial Park

 "Where's the airplane? I don't see the airplane!"

A new game Nico invented. Falling off Daddy's shoulders onto the bed.

Nico loved riding in Papa's truck. We had many discussions about Papa's truck and our car. He loved to repeat how Papa took our car and left his truck so we could use it. He was very careful to correct me whenever I called the truck a car. "It's not a car, it's a truck!" He often asked to go to Grandma and Papa's house when we'd get into the truck. 

A suggestion in his Curious George sticker book was to make a raft out of craft sticks, let it dry, then float it on water and see how many pennies it could hold. We tried this out. We got up to 6 pennies I think. Then after all the sticks were wet it could only hold 2 before sinking. Then the glue melted away and the raft fell apart. Then we were done and we left the raft and the pennies in the sink while we took a nap on the couch. Lots of work hauling pennies around on rafts.

We visited G.G. today. Nico got to feed Scamper his food and his snack-bone afterward. He played a bit with some of the toys around, but then started asking to leave. We could attribute it to a few different things. G.G. noticed that the cartoon he had started watching had a dinosaur in it. When we asked him if he wanted to leave because of the dinosaur, he said "Yes". But when we changed the channel he still asked to leave. Then he made more of a complete thought than just "Go home"… he said "Go home and get gas in the truck." I had mentioned to G.G. that we were going to fill up the truck with gas before going home and Nico heard this. Nico loves the truck!

So sweet!

Fireworks, Puzzle, and Splash Pad

Friday was the 4th of July! We went to the zoo. We got to the park a little early so we wandered a bit and went over to the huge Abraham Lincoln statue. There was an American flag sitting on the bench next to him, so we used it as a prop. 

Then to the zoo. I brought some of Nico's summer birthday money with us and he chose to rent a jeep cart and then buy a truck at the gift shop on the way out. He let me push him in the cart for a while but he mostly preferred to push it himself. He still is very wary about going to any part of the zoo, though we did find out that the whole left side of the zoo is devoid of dinosaurs. I'm sure they found that there were a lot of kids afraid of them, so they opened up half the zoo as dinosaur-free. You can still see the spots where they used to be, and Nico remembers from last year where they all were. It has taken a while to warm him up to going even to those parts that don't have dinosaurs anymore. 

 I wanted to take a picture of him with the truck he got at the zoo, and he told me to take a picture of him while he was posing like this. heehee.

Guy was able to go to work a few hours later that night so we could set off fireworks. We just bought sparklers, snakes, pop-its, and ground flowers. Nico had a lot of fun until we did the ground flowers, then he asked us to not do anymore. Those are louder than he prefers. We did one more ground flower and then stopped.

Playing with pop-its.

Watching the snakes grow.

On Saturday we packed a lot into the morning. I had to go to the Saturday market, so we did. We couldn't find parking right away so we decided to go through the carwash that was right there. We had tried to do the carwash on July 4th, but it was closed. And this seemed like a good opportunity. We imitated Curious George going through a carwash as each of the things happened. Blub blub blub. Fwap fwap. Swish swish swish. It was loud so we plugged our ears some of the time.

After the carwash, we found parking and made it to the market. Unfortunately both vendors we went there for were not there. We left, and were headed to a sensory-friendly movie in the theater, but I noticed we had a few minutes, so we jetted into a parking garage and raced down to the OTHER Saturday market, and got a balloon in the shape of an elephant! We raced back to the car and headed to the movie. 

The movie that was playing was Rio 2. It is an animated movie about blue parrots. Nico was talking about "blue parrots" all morning, knowing that we were going to this movie. I thought he might be a bit more interested in this than the muppet one we saw last month, but he lost interest again after 30 minutes and asked to go home.

He won his monster truck by going #2 on the potty and filling out all the spots on his potty chart with stickers. The chart seems to have helped him remember how to go, and he hasn't had an accident in a while.

On Tuesday night we pulled out a puzzle and Guy and I worked on it for a few hours. The next morning, Nico found it and wanted to work on it a little bit, so we did. We moved it to a card table and it's now in our living room, almost put together. While we still had it on the kitchen table, we ate our meals on a blanket in the living room as a picnic. That was fun, but I soon realized how much I appreciate having a table.

Wednesday we went to a park that has a splash pad. After watching the water for a while, Nico started playing in it. The park has no shade, so it was perfect that there was cloud cover so the sun wasn't shining right on us. Otherwise I know I wouldn't have lasted more than 5 minutes! Nico got soaked. Then he played on the playground for a while, lots of different playground toys that he enjoyed.

We've been playing word bingo, which is one of the games Miss Susie sent home with him for the summer. Nico likes that. He also loves tracing the alphabet on papers his teacher sent home with him. He uses dry erase markers and the papers are in sheet protectors! I put all of his summer work in a binder that I pull out twice a week. I figured since he used to get speech therapy every Tuesday and Thursday, we could follow that same schedule during the summer. I sure thrive on schedule! I think Nico does too.

That's it for today.