Christmas Visit!

What a fun filled week! On Friday was Nico's Christmas Party at school. It was Miss T's last day (she was the student teacher). The kids had each written her a page in a book saying their favorite thing about her and drawing her a picture. Miss T went through the book and as each child's page came up, they had the opportunity to go up front and read what they had written about her. Miss Lung said to the children that if they were too shy they didn't have to come up front, and most of the class did not. Nico did! He went right up there and told everyone what he had written. After he said it, Miss Lung came up and pointed him toward the audience and whispered to him to speak in a loud voice and repeat what he had said.

"My favorite thing about Miss T is that she plays with me."

The kids were able to decorate cookies, decorate an ornament, pin the heart on the Grinch, and play Bingo. I was at the bingo station with the Grandma of one of Nico's classmates. Nico decorated a cookie and gave it to Miss Lung.

Here he is making an ornament.

Nico brought home a gift for me and Guy, it was to "Mom and bad" ha ha ha! It was a beautiful ornament that he had made at school.

On Saturday Grandpa and Grandma Russell came into town!! Nico spent the whole morning asking when they were going to come. When they were on their way, Nico went outside with his umbrella and waited for them.

Nico opened a few of his presents on Saturday, coming in a video soon, will it be tonight when I upload it? We will see! You will know by the time you reach the end of this entry whether or not there is a video at the end of it ;) (p.s. no video tonight, will work on it this week and try to have it next week!)

Nico got a beautiful new quilt from Grandma Russell - it has a winter side and a summer side, and fits perfectly on our bed. I'm sure Nico won't mind us using it, and hey he sleeps in our bed sometimes anyway right? :) He also got a stuffed animal that used to belong to Guy, along with the book, "Beady Bear". Nico was so excited about that! He slept with Beady that night (and has been sleeping with him every night since then). But that first night, he got up in the middle of the night to crawl into bed with us and as he was crawling over Guy he yelled, "MOMMY! I can't find Beady Bear!" I told him we could look for him in the morning and that seemed to appease him.

Quilt on the Winter Side

On Sunday G.G. came with the Grandparents Russell and we all went to church, it was the Madrigal play they put on every year. The content is always different but it always takes place in Medieval times. They fed us food and the play was good. 

I should have snapped a picture of the stage. It was cool to see our friends in the play. Lots of great costumes. Last year we didn't know many people at the church yet, and Guy wasn't with us last year. But Guy was with us this year!! Wahoo!!

We came home afterward and opened the rest of the gifts. It was a lot of fun. Nico claimed that his nose was hurting so we gave him an ice bunny we have in our freezer (a tiny ice pack surrounded by a soft bunny), he would put it on his nose and it helped.

He spent some time putting together his new lego from G.G. that afternoon.

Monday was a relaxed day. Talking, hanging. Gma Russell and I and Nico went grocery shopping in the morning and Nico claimed tummy ache and was feeling sick for a large part of the day, even after a nap that afternoon. He had a slight fever after waking up. (100.3) Then he spoke up all of a sudden and said "I want a hamburger!" all he wanted was the meat. After he ate 3 small hamburger patties he was fine. The fever was due to the cold he caught. Guy started feeling the cold coming on him Tuesday morning. I might be fighting it at the moment too, kind of a scratchy throat. 

Tuesday we were able to see Gpa & Gma briefly before they had to be at the airport. Nico and Grandpa played a bit of one of our new board games - Ticket to Ride. They also did a lot of color by numbers together.

Some more pictures from the weekend..

Snuggle City!

Watching the iPad

Activity Book

Putting together a wood tractor

Overall it was a great visit!

Nico has been enjoying doing advent candles every night. We let him light them and strike the match himself. Tonight was the last night for it, Christmas eve! Also tonight we had dinner with Jeff & Allicia and family. Turkey sandwiches. Then Guy was excited to bring out the pumpkin rolls he received from Gma Russell. Then for the third year in a row we put a candle in an orange and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus! Nico led us in prayer for the dinner and Evelyn led us in the Birthday song for Jesus. Then after the kids went to bed we congregated in the living room. Guy is currently playing Ticket to Ride with Jeff and Allicia and their friend Justin, and I am happily plucking away at the computer. Living here has been a blessing and I'm enjoying the times like this that wouldn't happen if we didn't live here.

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!

Winter Garden Aglow, Christmas Tree

On Saturday Nico and I went to the Sensory Friendly Movie in the morning, they were playing Inside Out. Nico had already seen most of it at church, but we both enjoyed seeing it in the theater. It is a very cute movie!

Sunday we got our Christmas tree after church. We went to a tree lot we had never been to before. The trees were very fresh. Nico said he wanted to get one that was as tall as him, and then next year get one that was as tall as him, etc. But we couldn't find one short enough this time. The tree we picked out had a nice flat side which was perfect for our use, since we stuck it right up next to the fridge.

That evening we went to Winter Garden Aglow. 50 degree weather! It was perfect. They switched photographers this year, so instead of getting the traditional picture we got several others in several different spots around the garden. 

Then we watched the trains for as long as Nico wanted to, which was about 20 minutes. 

Then we went and saw Santa! Nico has never visited a Santa before, so when he asked Nico what he wanted for Christmas he was shocked and said "What do I want for Christmas? Umm.. ummm.. ummm... ummm.." So I stepped in and mentioned Legos and Nico said "Yeah, Legos!!" We didn't pay for a Santa picture, but we were able to take our own pictures. Then we saw a reindeer and got to pet her.

Two Christmas activities in one day! It was a great day.

The rest of the week has been normal. We did "the loop" with Allicia and kids. It seems Nico and Evelyn are getting tired of it, so we might need to think of another thing to do every week. Neither of them wanted to go this time. This is the second time we've gone and it's been raining hard, so perhaps that's it :) Although Nico doesn't mind walking/riding in the rain. We have walked to school several times this week with a downpour. He has his BAT umbrella that makes it all worth it.

Evelyn and Nico played really nicely on Wednesday. That was a hit.

Nico is getting very creative in the stories he is telling Guy before bed. Guy started out telling Nico stories while they snuggled in bed, but then Guy started asking "and then what?" or asking Nico to come up with a name or come up with details. Nico started taking over, though, which I think was Guy's goal. He told a very thorough story last night (I wasn't here, but Guy relayed it to me) about aliens going to different planets. He went to Uranus and got dizzy because Uranus rotates on its side, and then went to Pluto and bumped into something! It was.... a bump! Because Pluto has bumps everywhere.

Here is Nico after doing homework on Monday, he wanted to continue writing, while watching iPad.

Thursday I taught an essential oil class and got home really late, hence the late update! So there you go, that was our week, we should have another good one coming up :)

Late Post

The entry for tonight is going to be posted Friday in the morning or the afternoon, stay tuned!

Thanksgiving Pictures, and Dentist

As promised last week... Thanksgiving pictures!

Papa and Nico playing games

This was Guy's set up for most of the morning until the rest of the crew came. MST3K Turkey Day marathon on his iPad while playing on his computer.

Preparing to chop onions

Nico and Lexie stuffed themselves with olives shortly before turkey was served. 

Nico and Lexie playing a game

Other pictures from last week...

Playing in the snow

Well deserved hot cocoa after coming back inside (cacao powder, maple syrup, water)

Now on to THIS week!

We were planning to go to Winter Garden Aglow on Saturday, but the temp that day only got up to 22, and it was super super cold. Not to mention Guy and Nico were getting over colds (well, Guy was just starting to get one...) So we stayed inside! It was a nice 4 day weekend. 

On Monday Nico had a dentist appointment, and they took X-rays for the first time and he had *ahem* 8 cavities. None of his front teeth are touching, but the molars in the back are all touching, and right at the spot where each of them touch the other, that is where the cavities are. So 4 on each side, two on the top and two on the bottom. That will likely tell you how much we FLOSS his teeth. They also said he had a lot of plaque, and recommended buying him a spinning toothbrush. 

He is getting two of his cavities filled on Dec 16th. The other 6 we are letting sit. The dentist agreed to allow me try some stuff to see if we could get them looking better (always an experimenter...) if we come back in 3 months for additional X-rays to see his progress. The two we are getting fixed on the 16th are two that the dentist didn't feel comfortable waiting on. Fine with me, that gives me 6 others to play with :) I'm trying some essential oils and other things... more bone broth too which I'm conveniently making more of this very night. More flossing of course, and a spinny brush that has Mario on it. I went to WinCo Wednesday morning and texted back a picture of the spin brushes they had there so that Guy could show Nico (they were both at home), and Nico chose Mario. We started his new brushing routine last night with some tooth oil and flossing. And I taught him how to spit. Swish swish spit. 

Nico requested pancakes in the shape of letters. We just finished H the other day, but here is the E one. 

This morning he told me to do a number instead, so I did 100. Oh our routines, they are fun, and Nico reminds me if I forget. I'm trying to get him to not tell me I forgot something in a whiny voice. "Mommmmmyyyyyyyyy, you forgot my waaaater!!! Mommmmyyyyyy where's my fish oil??!?! WE FORGOT TO PRAY!!!"

OH, you may not remember, but Nico used to say six as "sickie". He was randomly counting the other day and absentmindedly said sickie instead of six. It was funny, I mentioned it to him and he laughed. It was strange to hear it again, makes me remember that at one point all he knew was signs and couldn't say many words at all! Here's a flashback for you..

On Tuesday I volunteered in Nico's class. For some of the time I was pulling kids out of the class to practice letters. They have a list of letters and they have to say them as fast as they can. They are tested formally on this specific thing every quarter I think. So they practice a lot. And also so they can get used to the test format. They have one minute and I used a timer.

We received an advent wreath with candles for Christmas from the Grandparents Salisbury, so we have been lighting the candle every night since Sunday (except Monday when Guy wasn't here and I forgot). Nico can light the match himself and then the candle. He likes "accidentally" blowing the candle out. (He's been playing with the idea of "accidentally" doing all sorts of things this week!  As his hand is scraping across my keyboard "Oh look, I accidentally typed some letters. It was an accident!" So we've had to talk about calling things accidents when they were actually done on purpose.) 

We've also started our Christmas Tree advent calendar, and the computer one that Grandma Russell buys us every year! We put it on his iPad this year, and left to himself for a while on it he says "Mommy, 3 isn't working"... that's because it's not the 3rd yet. It's a good thing it prevents you from going ahead, or else he'd be all done with it already! It's fun to have something new to do every day on it. Here's one of the snowflakes he made.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I left my camera at the cabin today so we'll be going without most pictures today. Whoops! You'll get to see them all next week :)

On Saturday I headed over to G.G.'s house for a fun time of baking. Missy (Guy's cousin) was the one who organized the whole thing and it was so much fun. We watched White Christmas and made rice krispie treats, pumpkin bread, and then I brought stuff to make a gluten free cranberry orange shortbread bar. It was very good! And Guy attests that the rice krispie treats were good. We also had baked potatoes with a bunch of toppings for dinner. What a fun time!

On Sunday we had our last Bible Study meeting for the year. It was a potluck. We brought a holiday salad and some candied walnuts and clementines. It was a lot of fun and we tried Choffy for the very first time. Choffy is ground cocoa beans brewed just like coffee. It was very tasty. Guy still prefers coffee :) To me it tasted like hot chocolate! No flavors or sweeteners added but it was still very good.

Nico played games with his friends and our friends let us take home one of their board games because Nico loved it and wanted to borrow it. And speaking of board games.. we are playing them like crazy over here. Nico even beat me at a game of Settlers of Catan the other day. He doesn't understand yet a lot of the strategy behind games, but he understands the rules and the processes and he is very very good even without strategy yet.

Nico has had this whole week off because of Thanksgiving. We've done a lot of relaxing and hanging out. On Wednesday we heard that there was snow accumulating at the cabin, so Guy asked that we sit down and pray that we would still be able to go to Thanksgiving. He had been looking forward to going and I'll tell you what.. when he asks to pray about something, it's SERIOUS business! 

And good news, we made it up there today! Chains required. And Guy was overjoyed. He enjoyed himself so much he almost burst at the seems several times during the day. He was giddy. There were several reasons why... being at the cabin, him not being tired, getting to spend time with just us (me, Guy and Nico) with just Ma and Pa (we went up early), and last but not least.. the MST3K Turkey Day marathon. We got up there early so we could make stuffing. That was fun. Guy helped chop onions and wore a cheetah print apron. Nico and Papa played board games. I took some pictures (to come next week) and then Jonny and Alanna, Alanna's mom Wanda, and Lexie came. Thanksgiving dinner was so yummy, there were lots of good food and everyone loved the stuffing. I gave the recipe to Wanda.

We celebrated Christmas, sang songs, had the lego challenge, won prizes, the kids (Lexie and Nico) had a treasure hunt and it was generally just a great relaxed time. Guy being able to spend that much awake time with family was very nice for him and for us. I look forward to being able to do more of these kinds of family things with an awake Guy in the future. Looking forward to the Grandparents Russell visit in December!

Thanks to Grandparents Salisbury for the wonderful Thanksgiving and all the yummy leftovers!!

Guy has tomorrow off and it will be a wonderful weekend. Be prepared for picture overload next week, plus our yearly Winter Garden Aglow picture (which we will get done this Saturday)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Board games, Book fair, first snow

The main house was empty this past weekend, as Jeff & Allicia and crew had gone out of town for a few days. On Saturday I headed up to the cabin again while the boys stayed home. I had a great time, and so did the boys!

Nico has been enjoying playing board games lately, so we have been playing a lot of Forbidden Island and Creationary. Guy and Nico do that together a lot, too. For "You and Me Time" Nico usually picks playing with cars, or aliens/Batman (toy figurines), because those are the thing that I usually wouldn't play with him at any other time. You and Me Time is special because he gets to choose what we do. hehe... Guy seems to favor playing games over playing cars and batman, too.

On Monday night, Guy and I played Forbidden Island with Jeff & Allicia. That is probably the 3rd "date night" we've all had together after the kids have gone to bed. You'd think for how long we've been living here (more than a year now!) we would have found more time than just 3 evenings to hang out and play board games. We're going to try to do that more often.

Tuesday morning we took another loop around the greenbelt. Before we even got started, Nico bumped his Strider bike into Evelyn's bike and Evelyn turned around and said: "Nico, if you do that again, then I am not going on this bike ride." After we were about 200 yards from the house, Nico bumped into the back of her again and Evelyn turned around and rode home. Nico came up to me and told me he wanted Evelyn to be there, so we went back to the house so Nico could apologize and ask Evelyn to join us. Nico told me it was an accident that he did it, so I told him to tell her that. But, Evelyn still did not want to come back. So, Evelyn stayed home.

Wednesday Nico came home with a Book Fair wishlist. Him and his two "study buddies" (from higher grades, not sure which), went to the book fair and Nico picked out 3 books he wanted and they wrote them down for him. I had already decided I was going to buy him 1 book, so today we left early for school and stopped in at the Book Fair. Nico's choices were all thick books about legos and star wars and ninjas, each with their own lego figurine. He chose the Ninja one.

A peak at the content

First snow happened this week! Not much, but, it was something.

Nico asks me every morning if it's going to be cold that day so that he knows what kind of clothes to wear. I always say "Yes" and he's started getting frustrated about it. I told him it's going to be cold for a long time and will probably get even colder than it is now!

We booked a cottage rental on the beach on Camano Island for our trip to Arlington next March. Take a look! https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/8488890

It's "cozy" but we are used to that! :) I am excited about Nico getting to be on the beach!

VIDEO!

G.G., The Loop

On Saturday Guy thought he was going to have to work but they gave him the day off because he was going to start the M-F schedule the next week. It was fun to spend the morning with him! Then Nico and I left to go to the Sensory Friendly movie, we met some of Nico's friends there (and my friend, the mom) from church. Lazarus, Leona (Nico calls her Lenoa) and Matthias, the mom is Elizabeth. The movie was Minions. Very cute! Afterward we came home and spent a pleasant afternoon/evening together. Guy had organized some of the clubhouse and it was great to see it looking a little less cluttered.

On Monday we took "the loop", which is our name for a loop on the greenbelt that takes us about 45 minutes. In the summer this loop is not practical because it is exposed and way too hot in the afternoons. But it is perfect in the fall and winter. If the sun is out it warms us up.

Avery

Allicia, Ivy, and Evelyn behind

Nico and Evelyn watching kids play on the Adam's school playground. When asked if it looked like fun to Evelyn (looking ahead to her kindergarten days next year) she said "No!" She seemed a little intimidated by all the noise.

Nico and Evelyn spend a lot of time arguing over who gets to be in the front. We're trying to work on all their conflict, they are like siblings sometimes. In fact, Nico calls Evelyn his sister sometimes, but also mentions on occasion that he is going to marry her.

They got so far ahead of us that they got to the crosswalk with the button you push that turns the light red and then you can cross. Evelyn pushed the button, and Nico went into auto pilot when the light turned red and the "walk" symbol showed up. So, they crossed a busy road far ahead of us. I ran after them and told them not to do that without us again. Then I got to thinking... how old does Nico have to be before he can walk to and from school by himself? he he. 

Tuesday was a full day. We needed the car so we dropped Guy off at work. Fred Meyer, then a visit to G.G. Nico wanted to bring his Creationary game where you draw a card from the pile and then put legos together to make it look like the picture on the card. So we each took turns. G.G. made a pretty impressive sheep! Nico also got to feed Scamper a dog biscuit, he loves doing that! Then he watched a bit of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. 

After we left there, we went to a chiropractor appointment. We didn't know that Grandma Salisbury had an appointment there right before us, but we were pleasantly surprised to see her there! She was needing a ride back to Big-O Tires so it was serendipitous that we were there, and we were able to drive her back.

We went home for maybe 10 minutes, then it was time for school. I came into Nico's classroom that day to volunteer. I enjoy making copies and cutting out shapes, I did a lot of that, I also helped some kids with their classwork, and became more familiar with Ms. Lung's style of teaching and personality, which was really great. I plan to volunteer there once a month. 

After the school day was over, Nico and I both drove home. We had about an hour at home before leaving to go pick Guy up from work. We parked in the parking lot and waited for him and admired the really cool looking clouds hanging out on top of the mountains. 

We had home days on Wednesday and Thursday. 

At night Guy has been snuggling with Nico in his bed after reading books and all that, and Nico has been asking Guy questions about when Guy was little. Guy tells him a story, and then Nico tells a story sometimes about himself, but then asks again for Guy to tell him a story about when Guy was young or a baby. Last night Nico asked Guy to tell him about when Nico was a baby and used to poop in his diaper. 

At 6 PM every night we do homework. This includes reading sentences and words, and also saying words that the speech therapist gave us at the parent teacher conference. We are working on combination L sounds, like "flash" which is super hard for him because not only is there an L in the word (he just learned how to do these), the L is the 2nd letter in the word, which requires some tricks. And not only that, it has an SH at the end, which is also something he just learned how to do and doesn't always do it consistently. All those things he has to remember in this one word.

Homework takes us literally like 2-3 minutes. It's just a quick thing every day, to keep his skills up.

I think that's it for this week. Enjoy the Halloween video! There's a theme to the music, tell me if you can figure it out... Guy didn't figure it out, but then I didn't tell him there was a theme to it before he watched it. 

Halloween and Green Chef

Halloweeeeen! Saturday was so much fun. At about 4 PM we hung out with Allicia and Jeff and kids and we all ate dinner together in the "main house". They had invited some of their family over too, so it was a fun party and we ate spaghetti and eye balls (meatballs with melted cheese and a green olive on top). Here is Guy's plate (which I made and saved for later since he did not get home until 5:30-ish)...

After eating, the kids got into their costumes.  Nico initially wore his Fireman costume, then switched to Ninja Turtles, then switched back. His final choice was Fireman. I think the mask for the Ninja Turtle costume got a little old after a while. After Guy came home from work, he ate quickly and we were off! We met Jeff & Allicia at Roosevelt Market over by where we used to live. We went back to our old neighborhood to see if anyone was around giving out candy, nope! Just one that had a bowl on their front door step.

Nico and Evelyn had fun going door to door,  just like last year.  I got a video of it all but my iMovie has been crashing and I haven't been able to use it, but be assured when I figure it out, I'll be posting the video :) We spent most of our time in the East Boise neighborhood, love love LOVE those streets! We took a brief detour onto Warm Springs so that we could visit the Castle like we did last year, and that's actually the only picture I have of trick or treating! (The rest is video). And look, it's not even a good picture because you can only see a blur of green dinosaur Evelyn on the left, and no Nico. You can see Allicia holding pink bunny Ivy, though.

And a picture of our house with our carved pumpkin on the ground with two battery powered tea lights in it. Nico and I had carved it earlier that day.

We had a wonderful time. When we got home, Nico dumped his candy out on the floor and we traded it straight across for a whole bag of Nico-safe lollipops. The next day we did end up going through all his candy piece by piece and Guy looked each one up online to see if it was gluten & corn free. There were a few! Hershey's bars are OK, Heath bars are OK (not Nico's favorite), and then of course the Yummy Earth lollipops. Oh and Kirkland brand peanut butter cups.

So after we got home from trick-or-treating I ran to the PO Box because I got notice that day that we had some mail. I had been waiting to hear back about the big Aromatherapy exam I took a few weeks back, and I had heard from my classmates that some of them had received their exam scores in the mail that very day. So off I went, and found out that indeed I had passed the exam! I'm officially a Registered Aromatherapist! 

Sunday was a good day. Guy facilitated the Bible Study Sunday night since the leader had family in town and couldn't make it. He did a good job. Just like old times!

Tuesday morning we watched Ivy while Allicia and the other kids went out.

Nico asked to hold her so of course I let him.

We put another quilt on our bed because it's been chilly. Nico enjoys using the lines on the quilt as roads for his cars.

Lately Nico has been putting down his iPad of his own accord and playing with his toys. Sometimes I see bursts of development from him and it is fun to experience. He has been snuggly and loving and I've really been enjoying that.

I think Guy has pretty much adapted to the day-life. He is switching to a Monday-Friday schedule starting next week. 8-5, except on some days he'll go in late and come home at 8 PM so he can stay and train the guy that's training.

We are trying out GreenChef.com. They are an ingredient-delivery service. 3 meals per week, they send you the recipes and ALL the ingredients. Organic, grass fed, grain free (there are several types of meal plans you can choose from). I signed up for it because we got our first week FREE, which is worth about $100. We got the box yesterday and it was packed well and very cold. Beautiful recipe print outs and everything is separated in baggies for you. All you have to do is... chop veggies, and then add ingredients at the proper times. All spices are in little bags and you just dump them in.  Wet ingredients are in cute little jars. Everything is labeled.

Tonight was the first night we did a recipe: Mole Chili. It may have been a fail, we think because the amount of cocoa powder and espresso powder added to it was a little much. Guy says if we try to reproduce the recipe and use LESS of those two things, and use a better espresso powder, it would make a difference. It was very bitter because of the espresso, and it really wasn't appetizing to any of us. The "corn bread" muffins (no corn, made with coconut flour) were very tasty. We added honey on top of them. Making the recipe was a breeze and was so easy. I liked that part.

We have 2 more meals this week, a lebanese fish dish and a chicken egg roll bowl.  Looking forward to those. We are also getting a delivery next Wednesday as well. Two weeks for the price of one :) I am hoping that some of these recipes are good enough for me to repeat on my own!! I needed some new recipe ideas!

Until next week!

p.s. forgot to add that Nico, when going door to door at Halloween, the person would give him some candy and a few times Nico would take the candy, look it over, then hand it back to them and say "I already have this one!" hee hee