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.

Butterflies, Rockets, and Potty Training Revisited

Friday was the zoo. Nico let me hold him as we passed by the "Mommy and baby" triceratops so we could get to see the penguins. I told him nothing would happen to him and that the Mommy triceratops was with her baby just like I was with him. He was afraid when we had to pass them again to leave the penguin area, but we got through. We went to see the butterflies, they had just got a large shipment of butterflies there and they were everywhere! Flying all over the place and landing on everyone and everything. Nico had several land on him throughout our time there, including one on his thumb.

He also sat on the dinosaur again. I think he's fine with this one because it doesn't move!

On Saturday he didn't want to go to the market, and I didn't have to, so we skipped it and just went to Trader Joe's, then to Old Park to shoot off foam rockets. I bought this to do at his birthday party so we were trying it out. Good thing, too, because it turns out I needed to tape it together because it very easily falls apart. 

 Setting the rocket to shoot sideways

Every time he'd shoot a rocket off, he wouldn't look up, he would stare straight ahead and wait for the rocket to fall, hear it, then look in that direction to find it on the ground. So I told him I was going to shoot the rocket off and that instead of looking at it being shot off, he should look into the sky and wait for it to come into his view. He did this and when he saw the rocket he was so very excited. This was his expression when he saw it.

Then we went home and I set up the rocket launcher in his room so he could shoot the ceiling, the window, down the hall, which he did happily.

On Sunday my parents had another family get together. Guy had to work overtime that night and really needed sleep, so he slept in while Nico and I went up there. It turned out to be a great thing, because Guy was able to FaceTime with his parents, grandma, and brother. He was Facetiming for a few hours. I was so happy to hear that!

Rory, Nico, Lexie, watching Curious George

Nico took Papa's iPad to the very corner of the porch. A nice quiet spot to sit.

 On the way home I had to pull over to find Nico's water bottle and I asked him if he'd like to see the lake, he said YES, so, we got out of the car and took a gander. The mountains are so green this time of year, it was very beautiful.

On Tuesday we went to visit Evie, twice! Once in the morning to play, and once in the afternoon to watch Evie and Avery while Allicia ran errands. When we arrived, Evie was weeding their container garden. Nico was so excited about the plants! 

Nico harvesting chicken eggs. We got to take home all of the ones he gathered, and he chose the two of them he wanted scrambled for lunch. 

Working together to fill up Evie's tricycle container with rocks.

Nico was very sweet with Avery while we were watching them in the afternoon. I suggested that Nico show Avery the book he was looking at, so he kept saying "Look Avery" (Ay-vuh-E), and telling him about the octopus and all the other things in the book. Then he said to Evie "Story time, Evie, come on the couch. Story time Evie!"

Nico has been having some potty accidents in the last few weeks, #2. He doesn't seem to like to sit on the toilet. We were going through 10 pairs of underwear every day. We weren't sure what to do so we had started giving him timeouts whenever he'd do it. This didn't work so we turned to rewards. We went to Fred Meyer this morning and picked out 4 Hot Wheels cars and one large monster truck in a box the size of a loaf of bread. We came home and I drew him a chart. After one successful bathroom trip, he got one car. After two more, he got another. After a total of 15 times, he gets the monster truck. We also bought stickers to fill in the boxes.

So, there's a few things to note here:

1.) He went to the bathroom successfully today SEVEN TIMES. Not a whole lot each time, but he was persistent, going to the bathroom every 15-30 minutes for the entire day. He wants that monster truck so bad, he cried off and on the entire evening because he wanted it so badly and there was nothing more he could do until he had to poop again. I have realized how much he's not used to delayed gratification! He did really enjoy getting THREE Hot Wheels cars though!

2.) The boxes for the stickers are BIG because I bought a sticker sheet with BIG stickers on it. But he is choosing the tiny traffic signs and traffic cones, putting them right in the middle of the boxes. The one big sticker you see on the page was one that I picked.

After I hung up the chart, he stood in front of it for 5 minutes, repeating what I had told him about it. "Poop one, then a car. Poop one, two, then a car." He spent time counting all the boxes, counting all the cars on the chart, counting the numbers on the chart, and saying "monster truck" a lot. He says "monter".

I found out some sad news this week! We are not allowed to shoot off rockets in the parks, so Nico's rocket-launching party is not going to be what we thought it would be. I already reserved the spot, so we will still have the party and shoot off foam rockets and eat cupcakes. Unfortunately we had already purchased the rockets, too. I will need to find out where we can go to shoot those off.

I think that's it for this week! I have a nagging feeling I forgot something, but I'm not going to stress it. Until next time! 

(I remembered what I had forgotten - Guy's FaceTime! Just added it to the entry.)

Dinosaurs and Tigers

Went to the Zoo on Friday. Nico was ok with one of the dinosaur exhibits: the one with two small dinosaurs.

All the other ones we needed to stay away from. He would yell "MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY NO!" whenever I'd try to go near another one. Our zoo circuit was reduced a bit and we stuck around the giraffe slide and the prairie dog tunnel. Not sure how visiting the zoo in the future will go, I'm hoping he'll be interested in trying to get through his fear, but he had no interest in it on Friday. Perhaps I don't have quite the same touch as Grandma! :)

Prairie dog tunnel

On Saturday we went to the market. Nico was intent on getting a balloon in the shape of a yellow train. The young girl that usually does our balloons wasn't there that day but we found another few that were making them. The only vehicle they could do was a motorcycle, and Nico picked orange. He was very happy with it. It was very well done!

Saturday night Guy took Nico to Movie Under the Stars in Julia Davis Park. They were showing Despicable Me 2, starting it at dusk, but the fun started at about 7 PM with activities for kids plus music. Guy and Nico met Jeff and Evie there. Guy said the music was very loud and Nico looked a little shell shocked at first, but after a while he wanted to go up front with the other kids and dance, so they did that. Then after Evie arrived, they ate snacks, sat on the blanket, and waited for the movie. Sunset was at 9:30, dusk was at 10 PM. Nico asked to go home at 9:30, so they left, and they started the movie about 10. 

They had fun, but I think they'll skip the rest of the movies this summer. They'll choose another type of outing to enjoy some bonding time. I think they'd both prefer to go to Red Robin or something!

On Tuesday morning we went to see G.G. She pulled out her piggy bank and Nico had fun putting all her spare coins into it. I think we emptied her purse completely of any change! She gave him a "credit card" (a used Applebees gift card) which he held onto the entire way home until he fell asleep and dropped it. He woke up briefly and said "Oh no my credit card" and then went right back to sleep.

Tuesday night I taught my last essential oils class for the summer. Nico's speech therapist from school, Miss Susie, came to the class with her daughter-in-law. Guy and Nico went out for a while but stayed long enough to see Miss Susie. Apparently Nico kept asking to go back home to see her again! He was very excited about it and I know he just wanted to talk to her and tell her all about everything, he just stood in front of her saying "Miss Susie" again and again, like he was working up to saying something important for her to hear, but I think in his excitement he just couldn't come up with anything more important than just repeating her name. He was very pleased with it. Guy and Nico did come home early enough to see Miss Susie again, which Nico was very excited about. She left soon after and said "see you when school starts!"

Wednesday morning we went up to the cabin. Me and my Mom made a double batch of Cowboy Casseroles so we could put some in our freezer, and so she could show me how she makes it. We finished in record time and spent the rest of the morning just hanging out. Nico wanted to join us in the kitchen with an apron so we let him choose which one he wanted. He wanted the LEOPARD one!

And then later we pulled out the old TIGER costume after we remembered that they existed and that Mom probably still had one. When we were younger, my Mom made me and my brothers tiger costumes. I think there were 4 originally, and this is the one that is left. Just Nico's size! After putting it on, we went upstairs to show Papa.

And then that night, I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk in his tiger costume and he said YES. He decided to ride his tricycle instead. All the neighbors thought he was just so cute. I could hear laughs as we walked along and one of them opened their front door so their 3 year old could look and say hi. He got too hot halfway through so we took the costume off.

Stopping to "fix the sidewalk"

Some more of this week in pictures:

Fish Park

 Beetle

 Playing hide and seek as "Double-O Nico" (Curious George is Double-O monkey)

And, all the snippets from June in a video! Extra points if you can find where I messed up writing one of the text descriptions.

Blueberries and Paddle Boats

Lots of fun this past week, scratched some things off our summer to-do list!

Saturday was the market. We stopped by the fountain briefly, but it was a bit too chilly to get wet. Nico got a balloon animal. He asked for a yellow dinosaur.

We also went into the game store on 8th St. briefly and saw some things that we might come back and get later. Marbles, and a train game. I am dubbing summertime: Nico's birthday summer. Instead of getting him one big gift, we are having fun doing and seeing things this summer, and little prizes like marbles and trains along the way are also factored into his birthday. We are planning a ROCKET birthday party for him on his birthday. We are going to set off rockets at Quarry View Park (Old Park). We already reserved the picnic area.

Also on Saturday we went to the park to fly Nico's KITE for the first time. We got it up in the air about 3 times and Nico had a blast. It was windy and cold so I let him wear my jacket. 

There was once where the kite blew upward so hard that it yanked the string from Nico's hand. We had to chase it, and scream at the same time, and eventually we caught it. That was probably the best part of the kite flying experience.

Sunday after church, the Grandparents Salisbury took us to Smoky Mountain Pizza where Nico and I shared a gluten free pizza. WOW was it good! We had a great time with them and with Lexie, who also joined us. We took one home for Guy, too. For Father's Day Nico and I made Guy a treasure map and buried a treasure for Guy in the backyard. That was fun. Later that afternoon, Grandma and Lexie stopped by for a bit and Nico and Lexie climbed up into Nico's bed to watch Curious George.

Wednesday we went blueberry picking. We wanted to go strawberry picking, but the place we were going was all out of strawberries. It rained the whole time we were there picking, but it was still fun. Nico was worried about the rain but I told him it was okay to be out in the rain. "Remember Piggie and Gerald?" He kept asking for an umbrella but I told him that we don't always need an umbrella. He repeated what I said, as he does quite often now "don't always need an umbrella." Then there was a pause, he was looking out the car window and he said "Need an umbrella!!" The whole blueberry crop was under netting, but there were a few rogue birds in there anyway. We met a group of people there, including Allicia & Evie. Nico climbed into a blueberry bush after Evie; thankfully blueberries don't have thorns! We picked about 3 1/2 pounds. Nico preferred dumping my berries into the box instead of picking them himself. It was actually helpful to have him do that. I wanted to bring my camera, but not in the rain!

Today was a fun day, we had a long list of things to do. I told Nico we had 7 things to do and listed them for him while we were in the car. Number 7 was "home". Nico memorized the list and then would recite it, but when he'd get to 7 he'd say: "Seven… uh.. uh… library! Eight…. bookstore and find a train. Nine… Evies house! Ten… home!" It was so silly, he kept adding things to the list. The list mostly consisted of grocery stores. WinCo, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, the Co-op. Nico was a trooper. We got us both a treat at Whole Foods which held us over until lunch. After our 6 things, we dropped off the groceries at home (#7) and went right back out to do the PADDLE BOATS! 

Nico saying "FIVE BOATS!" He had counted four and wanted to see another one.

There were a lot of ducks, geese, and baby ducks. The ducks sometimes would start going under us so we'd have to stop and back up so they wouldn't get caught in the paddles. Nico had a lot of fun. He couldn't reach the paddles unless he stretched himself and barely sat on the seat. He helped steer for a little bit, and asked me several times to sing "Row row your boat" while I paddled. I decided to do the paddle boats early in the summer because they don't open until 11 AM and in July or August it would be too hot for us even at 11 AM. But today it was perfect.

Nico is mimicking us more and more. I found out that I always say "Oh my goodness, what happened?" whenever Nico has a potty accident because he has started saying that in a surprised voice whenever he has an accident: "Oh muh gaw, wha happen?" And as I'm telling him things he repeats after me voluntarily. I have intended to start doing the vocabulary games the school sent home with him, but I have not remembered. I will! 

Nico found our leftover seeds from last year's garden in our fridge and wanted to plant them. We weren't intending to plant a garden this year, but I figured, why not? So we went outside.

We had to yank some pretty big weeds from the garden bed first, but then we planted the seeds. ALL of them. There was a lot. But we had fun sprinkling the seeds onto the dirt, mixing them in haphazardly with the shovel and then watering with the watering can. We'll see what pops up!

A few more random fun things we did:

Climbing with Evie at the park

We used up all our water balloons in 3 days!

Strider Park

I had a lot of fun using my new camera. It takes really good pictures! And I'm trying to learn all about it. It turns out perfectly to have blog day once a week. I can take pictures all week, use up the battery, and then on Thursday unload all the pictures, change the battery out, and I'm good for the next week. 

Painting a bird house

 He went outside with chalk and drew a hopscotch ALL BY HIMSELF. He even wrote the numbers into the squares. He said "Mommy, a hopscotch!" and then he hopped through it for me. I'm thinking Curious George was his teacher on this one.

He was a good camera subject.

Nico fell asleep tonight at 5 PM, in bed, while he was in time out. I went in there and he had pulled the cover over himself and had zonked out. I'm forecasting a wake-up in a few hours. We will then eat some strawberries, watch some Curious George, and then he'll fall asleep in my bed.

I don't think I'm forgetting anything on this busy week. At this rate, I don't ever want summer to end!

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!