Christmas and Grandparents Russell!

Late last Thursday night, after I was done updating the blog, I noticed I had a fever! It looked like I had caught whatever Guy and/or Nico had! I laid low the next few days. Friday morning Guy sent Nico off to school and then we welcomed the Grandparents Russell into town! Nico had an early release and Grandma Russell went to meet him. Nico opened a few presents that day, and I slept into the afternoon while the boys went up to the suite where Grandpa and Grandma were staying. They went to Fresh Healthy Cafe for dinner and brought me home a juice. It was yummy!

Guy putting together his hurdy gurdy.

Nico opening his Little Passports: World Edition from the Grandparents Russell.

Hanging out upstairs playing Life with Grandma

Saturday I was feeling mostly better. Guy made pancakes for everyone and we started our day. We had originally planned to see a movie on Saturday but we decided against it. We made Crabby Patties for lunch so the grandparents could experience them, and for dinner that night we made PIZZA and watched "I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown". We brought a computer monitor upstairs so we could watch the movie in the suite while we ate our pizza.

Sunday morning, Guy had to be at the church at 6:45AM for play practice. Nico and I had to be there at 8AM. Practice went well, and the bell choir opened the play at 10:30.

GG was able to join us at church that morning, and after church we came back home and ate Jimmy Johns for lunch, then exchanged gifts with GG.

Presents from GG

Cup Stacking!

Monday the boys hung out with the Grandparents Russell while I worked for a few hours on Audio Pile stuff at my parents' house. I was able to give them their gift and say Merry Christmas!

Guy, Nico, and the Grandparents Russell went to Barnes & Noble that day and spent a gift certificate we had. Guy brought home for me a Nano Blocks lego (my favorite!) and some Fuji water (my favorite!). Nico got a few things too (wish I could remember what!)

Monday night was the Christmas Eve service at church. Guy and I had to be there at 3:45 PM. Guy was running sound and I had a piano solo. It went well! That night after coming home and putting Nico to bed, it was time to finish wrapping the rest of the gifts. We pulled out Nico's big gift from the garage and wrapped that up, and Guy had to carefully get the stockings down that were hanging above Nico's bed. Guy filled his stocking and then carefully hung it back above Nico's bed.

Christmas morning Nico was up about 6AM and he opened his stocking. I also let him open the gift that Jeff & Allicia had left for us outside our door. It was a lego that he put together right then. We ate breakfast then - cinnamon rolls, bacon, and eggs. After that, we opened presents!

Robot shirts from Pa and Grandma Salisbury!

Grandma took Nico to the park that afternoon to try out his new scooter.

We had a chicken dinner that night with rice and broccoli, and brought the computer monitor upstairs again to watch some Christmas shorts that Guy had grown up watching. We had poppers that we popped before our dinner so we could put our paper hats on. Looks like I didn't catch any pictures of that. Each popper also had a small toy plus a Christmas joke in it.

That evening we went to the Winter Garden Aglow.

We went into the gift shop while we were there, and Nico got a pair of glasses that turns all the lights into reindeers. We each took turns looking at the Cross through the glasses. It turns the Cross into a huge reindeer face.

We said goodbye to the Grandparents Russell the next morning, they had an early flight back. The time just flew by, we really enjoyed their visit.

I worked on Wednesday and Guy took Nico for a several-hour trip to the library. They had a pretend ice-cream stand set up and Nico "worked" there for almost 3 hours. Guy had plenty to do, too, they apparently had a sticker poster on one of the tables that Guy worked on.

Thursday morning we realized that the internet wasn't working. Apparently Centurylink had a nationwide outage and a lot of people were without internet. This morning, we're back in business! Yay!

I've separated the videos into two different ones, since it was easier that way. The first one is a compilation of videos that Grandma Russell took, the second one is made up of videos that I took, plus one thrown in there that Grandpa Russell took. 

Christmas Time!

Friday, Nico really wanted to decorate for Christmas but I wanted to wait until after his chores were done on Saturday so we could decorate on a clean slate. If he wanted to decorate on Friday he'd have to do his chores Friday. So, he did! After he finished, we opened up our Christmas box and unloaded everything except the tree ornaments, which we saved for Saturday when we got our tree.

Here's our tree advent calendar. Nico wanted to replace the batteries so that the lights would work. We didn't have replacements, so Nico and I walked over to M&W in the dark to buy some.

Then Saturday was Christmas Tree time! When we rearranged the Clubhouse a few months ago we inadvertently got rid of the spot where we usually put the Christmas tree. We thought for a while that we wouldn't be able to get one, but then we decided we could just not use the back door during this season, and we put the tree next to our bed near the back door.

We stopped by Flying M on the way home and got some coffee and an Italian Soda for Nico. He is going through all the flavors, and this time he chose English Toffee.

That night it was Guy's turn to choose the movie, and he chose to watch Labyrinth. Nico stayed enthralled for the whole movie, which he rarely does.

Sunday evening we went to the Botanical Garden's Winter Garden Aglow with Jeff and Allicia and kiddos.

Hot cocoa and hot fire

We visited Santa right off the bat. Nico brought his Christmas List with him. Watch the video at the end of the blog to see that. After he was done, Santa told him to hang the list up where Santa could find it and he asked Nico if it was ok with him if he visited on Christmas Eve to deliver presents. Nico whispered to me afterward, "Is Santa really going to come over Christmas Eve?"

Hollow log lit up with lights.

There was a new attraction there this year, a huge "Tree" of lights, like a teepee, that was controlled by a bunch of aparatuses (aparatii?) inside the teepee. You can catch a glimpse of it in the video below. At first we didn't think that all of the neat tools had any effect on the lights, but after playing with them for a while we were blown away with what each of them did. The rain stick, when used, made the lights on the teepee look like they were raining. The metal wheels you could turn made certain colors of lights go around the teepee, up or down the teepee, or get bigger. There was also a TNT pump and some gongs. It was pretty incredible. That was my favorite part of the night.

We came home frozen, and ate dinner. I heated up some coconut milk from a can (leftovers from a meal I made), and added some maple syrup and vanilla flavoring and put a little bit in a cup for Nico and I to drink. It tastes like hot ice cream. It has quickly become a favorite of ours. Better than hot cocoa I think.

On Monday after school, Nico and I walked our bikes to George's Cycles down on 3rd street. We walked them there because Nico had a flat. I had accidentally poked his tire the week before with a screwdriver while trying to push the intertube back into the metal frame. Oooooops. Nico was very agreeable to the endeavor, because he still needed a few hours of exercise to finish up his Exercise sheet. We made it there and back in about an hour and a half.

Tuesday was Guy's work Christmas Party. They held it at the Botanical Garden, so Guy and I got to go back! They had a tent setup with food being served. We ran into someone I knew from Toastmasters. Her husband works at Photronics, too! We sat across from each other and it was great to talk to them and get to know her better. We had fun. After the dinner, Guy and I walked through the garden, up to the top and then back down. It was a rainy night, so there was hardly anyone there!! It wasn't raining while we were walking, which was nice, and it just started to sprinkle as we were getting into our car.

Tonight, Nico was invited out to help them decorate their tree.

They gave us tea. And that ends the night, and the blog! Enjoy the video!

Winter Garden Aglow, Advent Calendars, Birds!

Last Friday we went to the Botanical Garden to see the Winter Garden Aglow! You know how we typically get our picture taken there, but for the past 2 years there has been no photographer there like there used to be. So our family picture this year is coming from a different source (stay tuned for that!)

We went straight to Santa to avoid the lines. Nico asked for Alphabots and Numberbots (toys from a catalog that he looked through last week)

Nico knows that Santa does not actually exist, but he still enjoys playing along.

Then we walked up the mountainside a bit and found this view. You can see downtown Boise in the background, and the Key Bank building with the Christmas tree on top.

We visited the trains as usual.

You can see Nico's red eye in this picture.

Like the doctor said, the red spot is disappearing slowly. Nico told me that a few days ago two girls were running around screaming on the playground because of his red eye. And that his classmates asked him to look to the right so they could see the red part, because it's creepy. I asked him how he felt when they said that and he shrugged "fine" and then kept right on talking about something else. Pretty sure it hasn't fazed him!

Saturday was a FULL day. We first went to the church to help them set up for Christmas. We helped decorate the Christmas tree. Afterward we headed straight to the MK Nature Center. There was a birdseed sale going on plus other activities and a bird presentation where you could meet the birds. They had a peregrine falcon, an owl (can't remember what kind) and an American Kestrel. We learned all kinds of things, like how they swoop to get their food.

Kestrel

 The falcon

The falcon had part of his wing missing but twice he tried to fly away and started hanging from his string, flapping. The handler said "Oh stop, that's so undignified" and everyone laughed. He/she (they're not sure) kept looking around the room up in the rafters like he was looking for a place to fly up to. 

Nico laughed whenever it would poop on the floor (they put protective papers on the floor for the occasion).

The owl (Nico remembers that it was a burrowing owl)

After this we went home and had lunch, then went out again to get our Christmas tree!

I should have taken a picture of the tree in our car and Nico smooshed by branches. We didn't think about putting it on top of our car. Maybe next year? Inside the car Guy started getting a bit of a headache. In the past he has struggled with headaches and Christmas trees, but it hasn't happened for a few years. He had a headache that day and the next day but hasn't had trouble since then. The smell from the tree has died down a bit, so that may be why. We enjoyed putting the ornaments on the tree! It is a little squishy in here now, we chose too WIDE of a tree this time. We had no thought to whether we would have room to get around it! Heehee. Then we made pizza and watched a movie.

At church on Sunday Nico got a prize for finishing his weekly Gratitude Journal. For the month of November he had to write down 3 things every day that he was thankful for. Here's the list starting from the beginning. Long list, but fun to record for later. All punctuation is true to what he wrote. Parenthesis are my comments.

Trading candy.
pizza.
Fall.
Good pancakes.
My mom.
Halloween.
My G.G.
God.
Heaven.
Going to Washington.
My dad.
The world.
Having Mario Kart.
School.
United States of America.
To learn chess at school.
Going to Grama and Papa's house.
Going to Kids Discovery Expo with Grama and my cousins.
Grama and papa.
Winter.
A house.
My Grama and Grampa .
Books.
Clocks.
G.G.'s birthday.
Alexa.
Frinds. (friends)
Water.
Animals.
The sun.
paper.
My cousins.
farmers.
Thanksgiving.
car
Bed
Christmas
Backpack
Clothes
Bunnies
Money
games
flowres
stuffed animals
pencils
Homework
Grama and papa moveing.
Flashlights.
popcorn
chips
Lexie
Rory
Bruce
Lily
Kia (Kai)
Foth of July.
doors
meldls (medals from advancing in his Chess class)
smiles
soap
light
droors (drawers - because then everything would just be sitting on top of the counter)
graveyard
Oils
Henna
TVs
Christmas Trees
stickers
Bookshelves
Pictures
Glasses
Legos
Cups
Songs
A heart
tape
a diary
an Addvint calider (advent calendar)
cafe drops (cough drops)
rugs
me
angels
tissues
ornaments

It was a really good exercise, it got Nico thinking. I'd like to do the same thing next year if the church doesn't happen to do it. 

Sunday afternoon Nico and I went to the Grandparents Salisbury house and hung out for a few hours!

Reading a devotional in the morning. We've decided not to style his hair with pomade in the winter, because it prevents him from wanting to put on a hat or a hood, rightly so, because it really messes it up. This is the fuzz-ball look. You just need a little water on a comb and it calms right down.

We have started our Advent calendars. Our traditional Christmas tree one and then the online one Grama Russell gets us each year. Here's a few screen shots from that one.

This is what it looks like at night. In the day time (starting at 6am) it is light outside.

Snowflakes designed by Nico

We've also started doing our Advent candles. Nico has been enjoying lighting matches and blowing out flames every night. He has even learned how to extinguish a flame by pinching the wick with wet fingers. We have a little book we read from every night.

Nico has had a cold this week, some coughing and phlegm going on, but no fever.

And that's about it I think..

See you next week!

GG, Winter Garden Aglow

Last Friday night was our church's Ladies Christmas Party. Tiffanie, Allicia and myself all went together. We have a fuzzy cell phone picture of all of us in our Christmas hats.

On Saturday we visited GG. Guy came with us! Nico brought a chalkboard Tic Tac Toe game that him and GG played.

We are looking forward to seeing her on Christmas Eve!

On Sunday we went to the Winter Garden Aglow in the evening with Brianna. Tiffanie and Allicia and family also went, we met them there. We discovered that there is no photographer there this year, so we had to improvise our family picture. Brianna snapped a shot for us. 

We also went to see Santa. Nico had me write down on a sticky note the three things that he wanted to ask Santa for. Watch the video at the end to hear him read his list. (1) A box of 50 hot wheels (2) A chessboard (3) A checkerboard. On Sunday afternoon Guy had taken Nico to Dawson Taylor Coffee House with him and they sat at the chess table and played chess for a while, so that's where those two requests came from. We are going to pull out our marble chess board and pieces for Christmas so that Nico can play with those. My brother Jonny brought them back for me from an overseas military assignment he had a long time ago. I am very excited to bring them out again.

Guy has this entire week off from work! On Monday we both had eye appointments. Both our eyes got dilated and we came home afterward and could barely see but we set up some Netflix to watch while eating lunch and it was a cozy afternoon. Another Netflix afternoon on Tuesday and Wednesday.