Chess Tournament and Sushi

On Friday our friend Brianna visited from Pullman, WA and we ate dinner with her. She brought Nico a book of birds in North America and he sat in bed and read it that night. He wants to try some of the experiments in there, like making a bird feeder out of a 2 liter bottle (looks very hack-ish, right up his alley).

Nico had a chess tournament on Saturday at Smoky Mountain Pizza. He LOVES these chess tournaments. Before we left this one he asked, "When is the next one??" He won 4 out of 7 games, he is improving! His last tournament he won 1 out of 4 games. Everyone received a trophy, and his was 2nd place again. He seemed discouraged over this and said he wants to practice more so that he's better next time.

Instead of making pizza at home while Nico was at his tournament, we ordered it! We tried a new pizza place, Extreme pizza, with unique signature pizzas. Guy chose 2 of them and had a half-n-half pizza. He said it was good! We watched Burn Notice while eating dinner. Then I picked the buddy up. 

Sunday the kiddos put on a "show" for us in the backyard that included remote controlled cars and fireworks (smoke bombs and sparklers). 

Ivy sitting on my lap during the show.

Doing his chess homework. He answers the questions on the paper then sets the board up to mimic the problem.

At Evelyn's birthday party in December Nico ate sushi. He now says it's his favorite food, so I thought I'd try to make it. I have done it in the past but haven't for a while. We got a sushi kit to help us do it, but the cutting guide really made a mess of the first roll I tried to cut.

So I abandoned the cutting guide and the rest of the rolls turned out looking fine. These rolls just had cucumber, avocado, and carrot in them. No fish. Nico says, "These don't taste like the ones at Evelyn's party" Hehe... I will keep trying. There are a few ingredient upgrades I will do that may help.

For the next month, Avery has parkour classes in the afternoon on Thursdays. Evelyn stays back at the house with us while Allicia takes Avery and Ivy with her. Evelyn and Nico played Minecraft for a while and then Evelyn sat at the table with us and we all ate dinner together. Oh Nico was so excited to have a friend for dinner! Then afterward they had a chance to play in the clubhouse (rare opportunity!) They chose to play cars. In this picture Nico is pretending to be a cow while eating his sprouts.

Nico checked out Big Nate from the library at school today and is reading it in bed right now. It's not quite a graphic novel but it's somewhere between that and a chapter book. He says he doesn't like it because there is some text that doesn't have a picture :)

That's it for this week!

Movie and Park and Zoo, oh my!

We found out last Friday that Guy didn't get the job that he applied for. It was hard news for him and all of us, but we are moving on. Not sure what will be in store in the future, but I know it will be good things!

On Saturday we went to a sensory-friendly movie. They show them on the first Saturday of every month. They leave the lights on, turn the volume down, and keep the doors open. This wouldn't necessarily be for Nico, but more for me. I am happy that I am able to take him to the movies this way! There are three this summer and we will try to make all of them. This first one was showing Muppets Most Wanted. I think if it would have been an animated movie that Nico would have had more interest. We left about 30 minutes after the movie started. He enjoyed the animated previews, but after he finished eating his sandwich (that's the other thing, they let you bring your own food!), he was ready to go home. I was filled with so much joy being able to experience this with Nico! I love going on new adventures with him. I snapped a quick photo and had to brighten it quite a bit because even though they left the lights on, in a movie theater it is still dark!

On Sunday evening, Guy and I and Nico had some fun together going for a bike and tricycle ride plus a trip to Old Park.

Trying to take a picture of all three of us.

Almost got it..

That's better! It was really hard to hold this pose but I love it because all three of us are looking at the camera and smiling.

On Monday we had another trip to Allicia's house. We brought them muffins, and Evie and Nico played so well together. We were outside, and they both were trying to catch butterflies. Evie had a net and Nico had a broom that he was swinging around. 

Some news that I think everyone who reads this blog knows about: We plan to move in with Jeff and Allicia in September. They are renovating their garage for us and we plan to stay there on a temporary basis to help us pay down some debt. We are very excited and can't wait. A lot of this summer will be spent packing and sorting through things so that we don't have too much to store away while we are staying there. 

Wednesday was my birthday! It was probably the best birthday I have ever had. Guy and I celebrated early because he worked on my birthday, we had a lot of fun talking after Nico went to bed on Tuesday. We don't get a lot of time to chat sometimes, but Nico went to bed early and it was perfect timing. Love my Guy and all his thoughts and ideas. And then on Wednesday my Mom took Nico and I up to the cabin and and we ate sushi, ate brownies, opened presents, hung out, I even got to take a nap! We stayed the night there, and this morning we came back into town and Nico and Grandma went to the Zoo while I did some shopping with my birthday money. Thank you so much, Mom and Pa! 

Nico is looking at Grandma and Papa as they're telling him not to strike the match and to put it back into the box. He's contemplating whether or not to listen to them. Papa and Nico made a fire in the fire pit after dinner that night.

Grandma helped Nico through some fear of the dinosaurs at the Zoo. He was even brave enough to sit on one!! 

This morning, while we were still at the cabin, Guy wrote me an email saying that a package had arrived for me, it was the camera that Grandparents Russell got for my birthday! I opened it up today and started charging the battery, and soon I will be trying it out. You will be seeing some new and improved pictures on this blog! I am so happy about this! In fact, after I am done writing this blog, I plan to sit down with it and play. 

While at Target today, I bought a bag full of water balloons. Nico wanted to try them out tonight so we did. Man I love seeing this boy experience things for the first time, it is so thrilling. We had to fill them up at our sink with the filtered water, since the hose connection that came with the balloons didn't work on either of our hoses, and the water balloons were too frail to stretch out to put on the hose or the sink faucet. The filtered water faucet was the perfect size. We filled up our big colander twice with balloons and then went outside and Nico threw them on the grass and the sidewalk. We pierced a few with needles. They splash everywhere when you do that! I thought I had remembered that putting soap on water balloons and THEN pricking them would leave a hole that water would squirt through, instead of puncturing the whole balloon, but this did NOT work. I will have to research how to do that. If it's possible.

Filling up a water ballon at our sink.

That's it for this week! More adventures to come!

Spring has Sprung!

The Mini Joys came to Nico's school on Friday. Miniature horses! Nico didn't say much about them after school but did agree that he got to see them that day. Grandma Salisbury was here on Friday and got to help get Nico from the bus. Nico was very excited! Grandma got us some sushi (Nico got some skewered chicken) and we ate lunch together.

This past week both Nico and I caught a cold, sore throat and such. We fought it off and have been successful at keeping it under the radar. We did have to miss out on Lexie's birthday party on Saturday because of it, and we skipped church on Sunday. But I did teach Nico how to play Slap-Jack and we played on his drum quite a bit, went through a lot of songs. He knows how to ask for which Tom T. Hall song for me to sing by calling out the song number. "Singa numba one, mommy!" He must practice drumming at school because he beats on the drum pretty well while we sing the ABCs.

Nico had a dentist appointment on Monday. He let them get further than ever before and actually let them polish two of his teeth. A few weeks ago in school they were talking about dentists and I wonder if that had something to do with how comfortable he seemed. He was even quite interested in touching and handling the tools that the dental assistant used. She always asks him if he wants to hold it and touch it and play with it before she uses it on him. He squirted much water onto the carpet and even let her squirt water into his mouth and suck it up with the sucker at the same time! His teeth look fine and she told me to start flossing between his back molars since they're touching.

Tuesday was another essential oils class. Allicia and Avery came to this one, it was a lot of fun. Guy and Nico went out again and had a blast. Guy called right before the class started to tell me that Nico sprained his ankle going down the twisty slide at Old Park. I was telling this to Allicia and she agreed that that particular slide is like a blender, and I think that's what we'll call it from now on. After they went to the park they went to the Co-op and then to the bookstore again to play with the train. I'm so glad they're getting some time together like this, Nico loves it!!

They came home that night and Nico was limping. He is still limping a bit, and we are going to the chiropractor on Monday to make sure everything is straightened out.

This week I forgot to take pictures until today. So all the pictures are from today, but you will see all the different kinds of fun we have in one day. So many exciting little things happen all the time.

Strider ride. Got up the hill and Nico wanted to turn around and go back home so he could "fix" his Strider bike. We got the pump out and the Leatherman, and he pumped up the tires and used the pliers to "turn" the knobs on the wheels. After he was done we went back out to finish our ride.

Spilled water required a change of pants. I come into the living room after telling him to go pick out some new pants, and he is crouching over a glittery shamrock he had decorated at school, with my hat on. He stood up and showed me his hands that were covered in green glitter.

A tasty food that we rediscovered today: olives. I put one on his finger and showed him how to bite it off. He asked for 10 olives in a bowl and he put one on each finger.

Showing Daddy his olives.

Today was also class picture day at his school. We endeavored to let him pick out his own shirt. We said: "Today is picture day at school, what shirt would you like to wear?" He just happened to be playing with dinosaurs, so he instantly chose to wear his yellow dinosaur shirt. Ok! And he woke up this morning with his entire head as a fluff ball of hair. I had never seen it that ratty before. I combed through it with lots of water and it calmed down a bit.

And tonight Nico had hot chocolate for the first time. I made it with coconut milk, cocoa powder, maple syrup, and water. It was very good!

Well, until we meet again!