Bed Bugs Revisited!

Nico came home from Grandma Camp (not technically a Grandma Camp but we're calling it that) last Thursday night with a diary he could fill out a la Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He was working on it Friday and created his Dream House. I love that it has an art gallery in it.

Friday was a total relax day. It wasn't the best weather outside so we stayed indoors and watched Three Stooges.

Saturday was a slow day as well, I had some cleaning and organizing planned, but I hurt my back Friday night so we made Saturday a slow day as well. Nico went over to Rylan's house for a while in the afternoon.

It was my turn to pick the movie for pizza night and so we rented Ralph Breaks the Internet from RedBox at M&W Market. It was funny, we all liked it!

Sunday started like any other day, but after church I noticed Nico was itching. Nico had bed bug bites! Uh oh! Guy went on a search and found a live bed bug in Nico's bed frame. So he killed it. Then he got meticulous, and pulled out the rails on Nico's bed, searched the wardrobe, and our bed. He found no other live bed bugs. But what we did find was a previous infestation in the frame of Nico's bed. Lots of bed bug casings and in the cardboard room separator Guy found EGGS. They are visible to the naked eye, as are bed bugs. Can you see them in this picture?

These are likely dead eggs that were killed in the first heat treatment. We called the bed bug guys on Monday and they were able to come out on Tuesday for another heat treatment. We spent Monday afternoon getting everything ready for the treatment, and Tuesday he showed up bright and early before 8AM to get started. In addition to the heat treatment, he also sprayed a "safe"? pesticide on Nico's bed frame.

We stayed the night at my parents' house on Tuesday night. We played a game I don't remember the name of, and Grandma made these things called "Ogre Bars" that we ate while we played.  The game was fun, and the ogre bars were delicious! We arrived home Wednesday morning for an early school day with chess. I spent Wednesday cleaning up the Clubhouse after the heat treatment.

For the next few nights Nico is sleeping in our bed, to let his pesticide bed air out. Not that our bed is much further from his bed than his own mattress, but the less exposure he has to it the better I'd feel!

Some unexpected melted things upon our arrival home Wednesday:

Nico made a big decision this week. Baseball season is starting up, and every Tuesday he has baseball practice or a baseball game. Tuesdays are also Cub Scout nights. We asked Nico to choose between Cub Scouts and baseball, and he chose Cub Scouts. So, we are dropping baseball for now. We recently signed him up for swimming lessons at the Y, they start next Monday. Twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays until he knows how to swim!

Yesterday Nico came home from school and asked Alexa to play Potato Dog. Funny song! I asked Alexa who sang it and she said Perry Gripp, so I asked her to play songs by Perry Gripp and all of a sudden Alexa was playing all these songs that Nico knew! He was stoked!! He had his very own dance party. You can check it out in the video :D :D :D Nico knows these songs from his Chess class, Coach Vellotti plays them. They are really hilarious. Some of them even have videos on Youtube.

Playing the Game of Life!

When I picked up Nico from Drama today, we passed by his classroom and we talked to his teacher a bit about the project he was going to do that requires a tri-fold poster board. It's a voluntary project that requires research and presentation. For the previous 2 years Nico has done it. The first year it was about a particular bird (can't remember which!), last year he only started it but didn't finish, it was about different boat sizes (based on a YouTube video he had seen). This year he has chosen to do his report on India. He spent some time researching tonight on the computer. I had to find a safe internet search site for kids, and came across kidtopia.info, run by Google. He found some good stuff from National Geographic Kids about India that he copied down. 

After dinner tonight we all went to band practice at the church. Nico and I only stayed a little while. Myself and another girl will be doing a piano/flute duet for Easter, so I was giving her the sheet music. Guy is bringing home a keyboard for me to practice on for the next month. 

I had an interesting discussion with Nico tonight on our way to church about God, after the radio mentioned the sometimes-used tactic to disprove God by asking, “If God can do anything, can he create a rock so big that he can’t pick it up?” 

I think God already did that by creating the law. A rock that he can’t “pick up” (dispose of), and by creating his promises, which he can’t break. Sin requires death, and that can’t be changed, so he created a way around it by sending Jesus to die.

Nico asked so many questions, and he reframed back to me what I was saying. I've never seen him repeat back to me what I was saying in different words just to make sure he got it right. We talked about sin requiring death, that's why the Israelites sacrificed animals. But then Jesus came and died once for all. So Nico said, "So sin is like all balled up into one place, and Jesus takes it away. Then we sin again, and he takes it away, then we sin and he takes it away. Like we're fresh."

Right on, little dude!

That's it for this week, enjoy the video!

First Snowfall, and Advent Calendars!

Last Friday I had Ivy and Avery over for lunch. Avery looked at my calendar and said "how many more years until you play Zelda again?" he pointed to November 11th and said "That's when you're going to play again, ok?" They love to watch me play Zelda, and I had played right before lunch.

After school on Friday, Nico was excited to hear the news that Grandma Russell purchased him the online advent calendar again this year. He couldn't do much with it on Friday but he did play the games available as we waited for December 1st to arrive.

Saturday morning, Guy took Nico to a sensory friendly movie, Small Foot. I had some work to get done that day so Guy took Nico out for a bit. I'm pretty sure Nico got another Italian Soda that afternoon, too!

Saturday night it was my turn to choose the movie, Incredibles 2! And then later that night as Nico was reading in bed, we heard a knock on our front door. Avery was outside, frantic to ask Nico to come out and play in the snow. It was wet snow, and after a snow ball fight, Nico arrived home looking soaked to the bone. He had his first chance to play with our new neighbors across the street. They have 3 boys. One of them threw a snowball at Nico and it got him on his right ear.

Sunday morning, Nico was invited to the field behind the school with Jeff & Allicia and the kids, to play in the 4 inches of snow that fell overnight. I picked him up for church and he was making snow angels.

Sunday night, he was invited to build a snow fort in the front yard of the boys' house across the street. He was over there for at least an hour before we called him in as it was getting dark.

Advent calendar, reading important things about Scotland.

Two Saturdays ago, when we watched the Labyrinth (which Nico now claims is his favorite movie), we encountered some "impossible shapes" near the end. Ever since he played the Monument games on his iPad, he has been interested in impossible shapes. At the library he picked up a book of optical illusions.

Playing Life. Nico is getting more and more interested in board games, he asks to play them a lot. He got this new game called "Dos", similar to Uno but with different rules. It is really fun. We play that a lot. Whenever there's a free moment, he asks if we can play a game.

That's about it for this week! Here's a 4 second clip of Nico making a snow angel.

Grandpa Russell, Library, Water Park

On Friday we welcomed Grandpa Russell into town! He came over in the afternoon and we all went over to Red Robin for dinner. Nico asked the server for soda water with coconut after Daddy asked for soda water with lime.

Then it was home to play The Game of Life. Nico is really into this game right now, we play it every day. Grandpa won!

On Saturday morning Grandpa brought Nico some coconut soda. I went to my post at the Saturday market to do some henna, and the boys had a fun morning hanging out and going places. They went to the Dollar Store so Nico could buy his marbles, and they also came downtown to go to the market and to see me. They also took a trip to the library before they dropped Grandpa off at the airport. It was a fun visit. We are all really looking forward to seeing the Grandparents Russell NEXT WEEK when we fly in to Seattle and stay with them for a few days! Next Thursday's update will happen from Arlington!

On Sunday Nico and I went over to the Grandparents Salisbury's house, Nico played Minecraft with Papa and I hung out with Grandma and my Aunt Ellen. 

On Saturday, a big moving truck went down the alley and severed our cable internet line. We were without internet until Monday night. So on Monday I loaded up my computer and we went to the library so I could get a bit of work done. We discovered his school friend Linus hanging out there with his sister, and they were on iPads playing Minecraft, and it turns out the library lends out iPads while you're there so you can play on them. We got one for Nico and he sat right next to Linus and all 3 of them played Minecraft. I sat next to Nico and got some work done. It was so cool we decided to come back on Wednesday. We were hoping to run into Linus again but they didn't make it to the library that day. But, his step-mom and I exchanged numbers and Linus and his sister will be going to Nico's birthday party! Mark your calendars! July 29th, Saturday, 1PM at Pojo's.

Playing Minecraft

On Tuesday we got to see GG in Nampa! Nico wanted to bring Life over to play with her, so we did that. GG won!! :)

This morning we went to the Roaring Springs water park and met some church friends there. Nico's friend Leona took him around to the smaller slides and rides and he had so much fun, and lasted about an hour. He was shivering so much. It started out around 70 degrees and windy, so I can understand that! I was cold at a few points and I didn't get in the water! He curled up under his blanket in the sun and warmed up, then we headed home. He took a shower, we ate lunch, then we went downtown to get a smoothie from Jamba Juice.

A few random pictures from this week

When was the last time Nico fell asleep in the car??

Park play date with Allicia and crew

 Silly picture time

Piggie and Gerald!!

On Friday Nico and I went to see G.G. at the hospital. He had the day off from school so it worked out really well. While we were there she wowed us with how well she was getting around even after being cooped up in a bed for a few days!! She was released later that day. Yay! We will see her this Saturday again!

Last Saturday was the Sensory Friendly Movie. We went with Tiffanie, Aadam and Sammy and we met friends from church there as well. The movie was Kubo and the Two Strings. It was kind of scary. Near the end of the movie Nico said he wanted to go home and I asked him why and he said he was tired. The last few times we've been to a movie he has started getting antsy about 30 minutes before the movie is over. He always asks me "How much longer?" I'm not sure we'll go to the movie next time.

Sunday after church we went to a Piggie and Gerald party at the library. Not the library downtown but a different one over on Overland. Tiffanie and kids followed us there, and then we met Grandma Salisbury and Lexie there too. They had reader's theater, which Nico and friends participated in, and coloring and painting and decorating cookies. There was a drawing for free tickets to the LIVE Piggie and Gerald show at the Morrison Center this Friday. Each family could put one raffle ticket into the fishbowl, and so we did. When the drawing took place an hour later, there were only a handful of us still there, so we all waited eagerly to see if we would win. They had a lot of tickets to give away. Name after name after name after name... most weren't in the room so they moved on to the next one. Then, Lexie won!! They gave her 3 tickets so her whole family could go. Then name after name after name... Tiffanie won! 3 tickets to her. More names were called and I could see we were getting to the very last of them and he still had tickets available. Finally, the very last ticket which he struggled getting out of the fishbowl because it was stuck - OURS! That's right. 3 tickets to the Piggie and Gerald Show - TOMORROW! We are going. We might be a little late, but we're going!

Reading "Let's Go for a Drive!"

Reading "My New Friend Is So Fun!"

I can't remember which book this was! (That's Lexie in the middle) They did a great job!

Reading "Today I will Fly!"

On Monday it was G.G.'s birthday. Happy Birthday G.G.!! We will have your present for you on Saturday (you already know what it is!)

That night we had our last night of Financial Peace University. Everyone graduated and we all got a certificate. Nico fell asleep while we were there, with Guy holding him. He had to put Nico down on some of the chairs to take this picture with us.

Guy and Nico bought a few games at Fred Meyer. Life, and Uno. Here's Nico playing Life with 3 of his stuffed animals. He woke up early that day and spent about an hour before breakfast doing this.

That's it for this week. See you all next time!