First lost tooth, tadpoles, pizza!

Last Friday was Nico's Snack & Share at school. He got to bring the snack for the day, and then also something to show the class. He brought his batman car to show everyone.

It goes on its own and sends flying discs up into the air.

Saturday was a fun day. We ran errands in the morning, then we went for a walk to find a home for the tadpoles. We did some research about the tadpoles and how to keep them and we figured out we just had too many to take care of, we would need a much larger area for them to live, so we went with the intent of finding another home for all of them but one. But when the time came, it was impossible to just keep one because we couldn't access the water to refill our jar, it was a situation where Guy had to reach through the sticks to dump them out. So, we said goodbye to all of them. 

Evelyn came with us.

Nico put his arm around Evelyn for a short while as we were walking home. 

Pizza Saturday night! We have restarted the tradition! We made Nico his own personal pizza and he ate the whole thing!!! I think Guy's sauce is winning him over. This is Guy's pizza they're building. Guy put some pesto underneath his own sauce. Nico didn't want pesto on his.

While we were sitting on the couch watching Three Stooges and eating pizza..

Nico chomped hard and lost his very first loose tooth! Milestone! 

The tooth fairy gave him $5 for his first tooth and a riddle he had to solve to find a red clown nose somewhere in the clubhouse. The red clown nose was what I bought ($1 at Walgreens) so that I could get the $5 cash back to put under his pillow that night.

On Sunday we were able to see Papa and Grandma Salisbury, and we gave Grandma her birthday presents since her birthday was on Monday. Nico made her a rose with a stem out of modeling clay (I helped a bit, and showed him how). I apparently didn't take a picture of it, just video! But unfortunately iMovie has been crashing so I wasn't able to put together the snippet video! The video will have to come later. So I took a screen shot from the video so you could see.  After the clay dried he painted it, green and red like a rose. We put a few drops of lavender essential oil on the flower so it kind of smelled good. 

Happy Birthday Mom/Grandma!!! We love you! 

On Monday was Nico's next doctor's appointment to check on progress. Everything is going well in that regard. Since stopping his allergic foods he hasn't had many tummy aches and when he did it was easy to tell what caused them. He's had just 2 since his first appointment. Of course, when he goes to bed he sometimes will stay in there for a minute before coming out with a smirk on his face telling me his tummy hurts. I ask him when his tummy ache started and it's always the same: "When I got into bed". I haven't been counting those as tummy aches. He has them only on the nights when he is having a hard time winding down and seems to just not want to be in bed. I hope I'm making the right call on not calling them tummy aches! I usually rub some oils on his feet and he goes back to bed just fine.

In a few weeks we are doing a stool test on him. This will check for inflammation and bad bacteria and a host of other things. Then we'll start him on probiotics...

On Tuesday I taught an essential oils class in the evening. 

Some random pictures..

We went to a playdate at Quarry View on Wednesday morning and one of Nico's school friends, Wendy, was there. We walked her to school that day. They ate watermelon on the way.

We tried out his new adjustable crayons. He drew a sun.

Sorry for lack of video this week, we will hope for next!!

G.G., dentist

Last Friday was Nico's snack day at school. He wanted to bring apple sauce and string cheese so that's what we did. He also got to share something with the class and he wanted to bring the Advent Christmas tree with him so we put that in a bag and carried it along.

Friday night was Guy's work Christmas party and it was held at Winter Garden Aglow. Nico stayed home and got to play with Evelyn and Avery. We walked all the way to the top, as high as you could go, and we got a pretty good view of all the lights below. We talked a lot with one of Guy's work buddies, Derek, and his wife (I can't remember her name!) They also went to NNU and that is where they met. They are pregnant expecting their first next year, and they love board games, and we left with the understanding that we would be getting together at some point to play board games. The party was held in a large heated tent and food was served buffet style. Then they gave away awards, and Guy got his 5 year plaque plus a bonus check. Then they did a raffle. 

I told Nico that if he was really good for Jeff & Allicia on Friday that on Saturday we could go to Joann Fabric's and pick up some stuff for a Christmas craft. So... we did! We bought glitter and jewels and sequins. When we got home, I brought out a folder I have that contains all of the Christmas cards we've received in the past. We took turns choosing which ones we wanted, and then we proceeded to decorate our individual poster boards with cut up christmas cards and glitter and jewels. This craft is one my brothers and I used to do as kids, a Grandma Salisbury original! Nico cut out a few of his cards and glued one portion of a card onto his poster board, but he preferred instead to just use glitter.

He kept looking at mine and saying "It needs more detail. There's too much white space." Probably learned that from school, so I tried unschooling him a tad and told him that when you're doing art you get to decide exactly how much detail you want and it's ok if there's white space. But he kept telling me anyway :) Every time I paused what I was doing to look at my picture, he would say "You need more detail. It needs more detail." The funny thing is that when we were done, Nico's poster was mostly white space.

Sunday evening, Guy and I sat down to talk about the budget. It wasn't very encouraging at first. We had been thinking about getting another car so that he could have one to drive to work. But when we started talking about NOT saving up for a car, and plugged in all our numbers, it looks like we will be able to pay off our last debt in 1 year exactly. So we decided we would do it. We can make it one year without a second car if it means paying off our debt so much sooner! We also decided that after we are done paying off debt we will move to a bigger house! We will rent, not buy just yet. It's exciting to think about. 

On Tuesday we visited G.G. Nico wanted to bring one of his games, so we did, and G.G. and Nico had a fun time playing it. They took turns. (see video at end!)

We will see her again in a few short days when Grandma and Grandpa Russell come into town!! Wahoo!!!

On Wednesday morning Nico had a dentist appointment to get two of his cavities filled. Allicia let us borrow their white car that day since Jeff was out of town, so that Guy could have a car to drive to work and Nico and I would have our own car. Nico did great at the dentist. The day before I had told him what they would be doing and I told him that afterward we could go get him a small toy. They described everything to him before he sat on the chair, showed him all the tools. He brought his stuffed dog Alvedo with him, and he sat on the chair next to Nico. The hygienist  also put a little paper bib on Alvedo. They hooked him up to the nitrous oxide and boy, Mommy was more nervous than Nico was! Nico did awesome while I was in the corner shaking in my boots. When the dentist came to work on Nico, he would talk to Alvedo every once in a while and check his teeth too, along with Nico's. Nico responded once "He can't open his mouth because he's not real!" hehe. This dentist is the same one I've had since I was 8 years old, and I've had many a cavity filled by him. I love that he still whistles and hums while he works.

After the dentist we went straight to Fred Meyer where he picked out a Spiderman lego. We came home and he put it together. He said he wasn't hungry but I put some food in front of him and he ate it. He chewed too much on the wrong side and his mouth started to hurt. Right before school he said "I'm sick, I can't go to school." because his mouth hurt and he had a tummy ache. I rubbed some diluted clove oil on his teeth and gums and cheek and told him I was going to take him grocery shopping with me if he stayed home. He said "Ok let's go to school!" and he was his happy chipper self.

Guy was able to work from home today. His boss last week texted him and thanked him for something and told Guy to take some time for himself this week. So he's been home today. Pretty cool!