Arlington!

Friday we started our trip to Arlington! Well, Yakima. We decided to split the trip up into two days. We didn't give Nico his headphones with music right away, decided to wait until Baker City (2 hour drive) where we stopped to have lunch. We were barely passing Nampa when Nico said his first "Are we there yet?" It was hilarious. I know he doesn't really have any context for how long the trip takes, he was a few years younger the last time we made the trip. He asked a lot of questions on the trip, mainly, stuff like "What time is it?" and "Are we in Yakima yet?" Guy kept track of  how many times Nico asked "Are we there yet?" (14 times) and how many times he asked a question that wasn't exactly that, but was in the spirit of it, like "When are going to be in Yakima?" (26 times)

When we gave him his headphones with music, he was very very excited, and bip bopped along with the music he was listening to.

When we got to Yakima, we checked in, and then drove to Miner Burger. Guy always breaks his gluten rule for Miner Burger.

Then we went to Jimmy John’s to pick up some grub for Nico. 30 minutes after eating, we went to the pool! Watching Nico walk down the stairs with flippers on was funny. The two people behind the front desk got a real kick out of his getup.

He started shivering and turning blue after about 30 minutes. We stayed for a little bit longer and then trucked it upstairs so he could take a warm shower.

Saturday morning it was time to drive to Arlington!

We arrived around 10 AM. Lots of hugs all around! When Nico "met" Uncle Tom again, he said to him "You used to hold me up when I was baby". He was referring to a picture we have on our fridge where Tom is holding up Nico.

We hung out for a few hours until it was time to eat Pizza! A puzzle, cars, and some toys from when Guy was little.

Mom showed me her Microgreens!

Then we went to the beach cottage on Camano Island. Wow!! It was quite a retreat. It was so peaceful. Don't worry, there is a video below showing you guys the walkthrough. It was beautifully decorated and had everything we needed. It had two rooms, one for the bed and one for the tv. After Nico went to bed every night, Guy and I would watch a movie. And the beach you could see out the front door. It was a short walk away....

We taught Nico how to throw rocks over his head into the ocean or at things on the beach. He practiced a lot, it was sometimes scary to be near him while he did it. Sometimes the rocks went straight up into the sky.

DUCK, GUY!

Then they started a band. It was pretty good. Mom did the shuffle on the gravel for some added sound.

(Mom provided some of these pictures. Thank you!!!)

That night we went to the Chatterbox for dinner, which is a restaurant in Stanwood that serves Thai, Indian, American food (and more maybe?). They were happy to make Nico fried rice with no eggs and no onions, so it was basically rice and beef. If you didn't know already, one of Nico's favorite dishes is rice and ground beef. So this was perfect.

Sunday we went to church at Marysville Church of the Nazarene, which is where we used to go when we lived there. We saw a lot of people we hadn't seen in a while, it was really great. Nico even remembered to tell his Sunday School teacher that he was gluten free and he said No to a cookie!

After church we drove by our old house. They had painted it yellow and it didn't look the same.

Sunday we ate roast chicken and a bunch of yummy sides for lunch. That afternoon we went to the Kangaroo farm and fed kangaroos and other animals.

I asked Guy if he wanted to own a kangaroo farm and he said No. Good to know. It was really cool to see all the animals they had there.

Some other Sunday moments.

Nico and Tom raced to put their nesting dolls together. Nico spent several occasions playing with these nesting dolls on this trip.

Guy took a short trip to the beach that night

On Monday we took a trip to the beach right before heading over to the Grandparents Russell.

Other pictures from that day...

At the river

Looking for birds through his new binoculars (thanks Grandma & Grandpa!!)

Coloring eggs

 Helping Grandpa barbecue our lunch

We left Guy there that night and we took Grandma with us to the beach cottage! Nico read Grandma two comic books before bed, and then me and her watched a girl movie!! 27 Dresses, it was very cute. 

Tuesday morning we snuggled him up with blankets in front of the tv to watch a movie while eating his breakfast muffin. Nico definitely took advantage of their wide range of movie titles on our trip. We usually had time for an entire movie in the mornings before we would leave to head to Arlington.

Tuesday was a slow picture day. I took a trip to Safeway to walk around while the crew went to the creek for a walk. Thanks Mom for taking pictures! I love that he got a piggy back ride from both Guy and Uncle Tom!

Tuesday afternoon Guy and I and Nico went to visit Rusty and Ellen. They were our mentors when we were living in Arlington, so we really like to stay connected with them. They had a Thomas the Train set that Nico played with while we were there.

Tuesday evening was a yummy pot roast with potatoes and parsnips and carrots. It was very tasty. Then we said our goodbyes and drove out to the beach house for one last night before heading home. 

Our trip home on Wednesday took 10 1/2 hours! I think we agree that next time we will break up our trip in both directions, and perhaps stay over in Pendleton on our way back to Boise. The traffic in Seattle area was very bad, we hopped over to the express toll lane thinking we could do that with 3 people in the car, but I think we'll be getting a bill for that, I think you need to have a flex-pass to be able to do that. Totally worth it, though! It would have added at least another 45 minutes to our trip if we would have been stuck in that traffic. We listened to my phone and even took a short cut through Alderwood Mall Parkway to get on 405. It saved us 7 minutes. :)

We were very tired when we got home that night. Nico's friends were outside when we pulled up, and he jumped right on his scooter and started playing. Nico needed that outdoor running around time. Then dinner, showers, a quick trip to Flying M, and then bed time! While we were gone, Jeff cleaned our shower tiles, it looked like a completely new shower. It was an awesome thing to come home to!!

Today we did some reorganizing in here and ran some errands. I can't believe it's already past Nico's bed time and it feels like the day has just started. Wow! Time is just fleeing!

We had so much fun in Arlington and are looking forward to doing it again next year! Thank you Grandpa and Grandma Russell for all the food and all the gifts and the hospitality and fun and adventure. We had a blast and can't wait to see you guys again in July for Nico's birthday!

Now time for the video!

G.G. Visit and Trip Preparations!

This will be a quick update, since we are getting ready for our trip tomorrow! We are going to ARLINGTON!!! With a night stay-over in Yakima first. Tomorrow we leave at 9 AM.

Tuesday we went to see G.G.!

Nico brought the Creationary game, plus two of his favorite comic books. He can read them! Most of the books he has memorized, but if he says it wrong he can look at the words and correct himself. I was excited while at the doctor's office last week he started reading Hop on Pop and was able to read the first few pages all by himself without help from me.

Anyway, video below shows Nico reading these books to her. We were sorry to hear that G.G.'s beloved dog, Scamper, passed away last week. :( He was dealing with some health issues that just kept going downhill. He will be very much missed. We love you G.G.!

The rest of the week has been us getting ready for our trip. I purchased some stuff from the dollar store for Nico's swim night tomorrow at the hotel. Goggles, a foam sitting board, a foam noodle, and an inflatable "tire". He has been talking about this trip non stop, and is looking very much forward to seeing the Grandparents Russell!! We will see them on Saturday!

The beach cottage we're renting on Camano Island had a run in with the ocean due to a tremendous storm, but all is better now, though they told me it smells musty. They asked what kind of treat we want waiting for us at the cottage and I told them some local raw honey might be a nice treat. They enthusiastically told me that it would be there waiting for us. They said the beach was in a bit of disrepair but I'm thinking there might be some interesting things washed up that might make our beach adventures more exciting. We'll see! I bought a bucket and shovel from the dollar store too. AND a pair of sunglasses.

The other thing we did for Nico for this trip was to setup my iPhone for him to use. I downloaded all his favorite songs. I also downloaded 7 audio books from the library and loaded all his VBS songs onto the iPhone as well. Plus Tom T. Hall. We bought him a pair of Spiderman earphones for him to use. We don't want him playing on his iPad on the trip because it makes him sick, so we thought listening to stuff would be the answer. Tomorrow morning when he gets in the car he will see his new pair of sunglasses and all the swimming stuff I bought him. Then when we stop for lunch in Baker City, we will give him the headphones and the iPhone. 

"I'm strong! Take a picture!"

That's it for now... video time!

Cop, Cough, Food Allergies

Nico came home from school last Friday with his backpack full of art projects and things he had done at school. Every Friday is like this. They had several different people from the community come in to talk about their jobs, community helpers, like nurses and cops and firemen. Then they got to write out what they want to be when they grow up and as expected, Nico said he wants to be a cop. He drew himself with a frowny face because he's angry, because there's a bad guy.

Saturday we went to the Sensory Friendly Movie, they were playing Norm of the North, a cute entertaining animated movie with no real involved plot. Nico enjoyed it, even though he kept asking "When is it going to be over?" hehe. 

We ended Monday night with a slight fever (99.8). He had been sick with a cold for a few days and I  didn't really take heed like normal, he played outside a lot that day in addition to going to school. In the evening after dinner he wanted to go back out and I said yes, then he came back in 5 minutes later and said he was done. He kind of curled up on the couch and I took his temperature. He wasn't hungry and his cough was picking up. There's nothing like a sick child to get you kicked into Mom Gear. I went to the Co-op that night after bedtime to pick up some supplies for his cough. His fever was gone the next morning and his cough is almost gone completely. And he loves his "medicine"...

We got a call from his doc on Tuesday morning letting me know results of most of his blood work except the food allergies. Vitamin D was low so we are putting him on Vitamin D drops. His white blood count was low but that may be due to his cold, or his food sensitivities wearing down his immune system. We will recheck in 3 months. Thyroid was fine, and everything else looked good. Then I got a call this morning saying that his food allergy results were in and asked if we could come in. We weren't expecting results until the end of March, so this was awesome! Went in and found out he has a lot less sensitivities than we thought. Eggs, whey, and peanuts are the only ones he has to avoid completely until we heal his gut. Then there were almonds, potatoes, and red grapes that he shouldn't eat more than every 4 days. Because he does not consume gluten or corn, those results were not accurate, but the doc said that because of mine and Guy's sensitivity, it is safe to assume that Nico should also avoid gluten almost assuredly. No problem there. 

I went shopping tonight for supplies. Nico eats pancakes with peanut butter and syrup for breakfast every morning. I have been making them in the shape of numbers. Can you believe we had gotten up to 85??!?! That was this morning's pancake. It will be his last pancake for a while. I bought some cottage cheese, fruit, sausage, and supplies to make apple muffins. I also found a gluten free bread that is free of potato and egg. It was hard to find that! Potato starch is a common gluten free starch found in bread. He has been loving sandwiches spread with cream cheese instead of mayo (oh no! No more mayo! Just thought of that!) and then with deli chicken meat on top, with mustard.

Nico had a little bit of a hard time accepting the no peanut butter thing. The doc says that after a year we can start reintroducing foods. Apparently kids bounce back from leaky gut a lot easier than adults do. We are supplementing him with L-Glutamine to help heal his gut. 

Ok enough doctor talk. Are there any more pictures? Ah yes! Today we took care of Avery while Allicia and Evelyn went to Adams Elementary for Kindergarten registration! Evelyn will be in Kindergarten next year. Miss Lung (the kindergarten teacher) went up to Allicia and asked "Is this the Evelyn that Nico is always talking about?" Miss Lung told Allicia that she hears about Evelyn at least 4 times a week from Nico, telling everyone what he does with her and when her birthday is.

So here's a picture of Nico and Avery watching the washing machine. Avery can spend literally hours watching the washing machine. Sometimes I'll walk into the bathroom and see him sitting on top of the dryer, naked, looking through the top of the washer. He's even fallen asleep while leaning on the washer. Anyway, Nico joined him for a bit, and pulled up his own stool.

Other than that, we have just been planning and looking forward to our trip to Arlington in 1 week!!!!!!!! Nico knows the exact day we are leaving and tells us almost every day about tit. He is very excited to travel and see Grandpa and Grandma. 

See you next week!

New Friends

Nico has made friends with the neighbor boys! There's a duplex a few doors down. One side of the duplex has brothers Sam and Adam, 2nd grade, and 4 years old. The other side of the duplex has Aiden, 2nd grade. They ride scooters back and forth on the sidewalk and they play hide and seek. He is able to "go out to play" and I just tell him not to cross the street and to stay close to the house. I go out and check on him every so often, or I see them riding back and forth on their scooters from our window. 

Nico practicing henna

Wednesday morning was Nico's IEP meeting and re-evaluation. Every 3 years they re-evaluate the need for services. It's been 3 years already for Nico! They changed his classification from having a Language impairment to having a Speech impairment. This is big improvement. They also think he is much improved socially, so he will no longer need the resource teacher to check up on him every week. So basically, all Nico needs now is speech therapy. Big steps forward! Guy was able to be at the meeting too. The principal has a brother named Guy, so they bonded.

On Thursday Nico had a doctor's appointment with his new doctor. The waiting list for this doctor for new patients was supposedly out to May & June, but we got a late March appointment, and then a cancellation happened and we got to slip in to see her yesterday. They are running food allergy tests and a few others. We will find out the results when we go back in late March. These allergy tests are different than the ones that his previous doctor ran, they will check for sensitivities instead of just allergies. Nico did GREAT getting his blood drawn, the nurse said that she has done a lot of blood draws but that Nico is definitely one of the best child patients she has ever had. Nico watched the whole process and didn't even flinch with the needle poke. I took him to get a smoothie afterward. Strawberry, banana, orange. He wanted to sit in the cafe for a while drinking his smoothie, so we did.

That's it for this week.

Until next time!

Henna class, late blog

Blog will be updated Friday mid-morning!

Birthday Party, New Bike, Sourdough

On Saturday, Nico had a birthday party to go to. His friend Isaac from school turned 6 years old. I asked Nico what he wanted to get for Isaac and he said a transformer, so we searched on Amazon for one and Nico picked it out. He also wanted to get him some silly putty from the dollar store, so that we did. Isaac's family lives across from Municipal Park, very close to us. It was the first "drop off" birthday party that Nico has been do, where you drop the kids off and then come back 2 hours later to pick them up. Cool! I dropped him off, gave the mom a large packaged gluten free cookie to substitute for cake, told her which drinks he could have, and then went home. Guy and I got our bikes ready and we rode to pick him up two hours later. I had the trailer bike hooked up to my bike. It was a nice day that day. Nico was playing with his friends still when we got there. Happy Nico = Happy Mommy. I told him we had the trailer bike with us for him to ride home with us and he instantly wanted to leave, he said "Bye! I have to go now!" 

On Monday we went to the Discovery Center again, spent the whole time building walls and trying to keep everyone getting along.

Nico wanted to try to ride his actual bike to school, so we got it ready but he couldn't get on by himself and I had flashbacks to last Fall as he teetered and tipped along. The bike is just too big for him. I told him we couldn't ride it that day, but that we would go shopping for a different bike for him that would fit him. The next day I figured we'd give it a shot so we went to the Youth Ranch and found the perfect fit, for only $7.99. The tires were a bit messed up and after a botched attempt to patch the intertube, Jeff patched it up for us and it was good to go. Nico can get on and off this bike all by himself, and when he stops the bike he doesn't fall right over onto the ground. Perfect! He rode the bike to school yesterday and we locked it up in the bike rack. Fun.

Practicing at the park

This past week I also made my first loaf of gluten free sourdough bread. It will become a staple, because Guy loved it. LOVED it. I also made 2 sweet treat recipes recently that he loves. My cooking is adding up points!

The dough for the first rise (12 hour rise)

In the pan for the 2nd rise (8-ish hours)

The finished loaf

Sourdough bread is basically fermenting the flour, a lot like sauerkraut is fermenting the cabbage, so vitamins and minerals are quadrupled in many cases and the proteins in the flour are broken down so are easier to digest. Even I can eat it! Nico isn't too fond of it, but I am thinking of getting a milder-tasting sourdough starter so it doesn't have that ZING to it.

That's it for this week. Short and sweet and sour.

Watching Birds, G.G., Video

This weekend was The Great Backyard Bird Count, where you count and record how many birds you see in a time frame of at least 15 minutes. You could count birds on any of the days from Feb 12th-15th. Grandma Russell told us about this and we wanted to participate. She sent Nico some information and some bird sticker books (which he completed the morning he opened the package!) It was a great way to practice saying words - he wanted to say all the names and compare them between sticker books.

Our first bird counting took place last Friday, the 12th, at 6 PM, we went out on the front porch to count. We couldn't identify any species (except geese) because most of the birds we saw were far away and flying in the air. We counted 97 in 15 minutes! Nico kept track using tic marks on a sticky note.

In the last 30 seconds or so, we counted 33 geese flying in a flock. That was pretty cool.

We went to the cabin on Saturday. Lily, Lexie, and Kai were there visiting (Nico's cousins) and so Nico got to play with them (and with Grandma Salisbury!) He also wanted to count birds, so we went outside for about 12 minutes before Nico gave up - we didn't see any birds! We heard a bird squawking in the distance but never saw it. But, it was fun counting, there was snow and our weight often pushed us through the top layer of crusty snow all of a sudden, so we would "fall" into the snow a lot.

We had a great time hanging out at the cabin! Guy didn't come with us, he was trying to meet up with his friend Josh who is visiting from Korea. It didn't work out on Saturday for him to see Josh, he saw him later in the week though. Thanks for the yummy chicken and rice and hot cocoa Grandparents Salisbury!

For the rest of the weekend and even into the week, Nico asked to go count birds outside. A few minutes here, a few minutes there, he has several post-it notes with tic marks on them for all the times he went outside to count.

So after the cabin on Saturday, our church was having a Parents' Night Out, where you drop your kids off at the church and they watch them for 4 hours while you go out on a date. So, we dropped Nico off! And Guy and I, we had NO idea what to do, we really should have planned ahead a bit. We went to Whole Foods and then picked up the mail, went through a car wash, and then walked around downtown for a little while. We went into a bookstore and Guy found a graphic novel of the book The Graveyard Book (I think Gma Russell has read this?) He really wanted it but we didn't buy it (more about that later...)

Then we sat in the Co-op parking lot and talked while Guy sipped on his cold-brew coffee. We picked Nico up a little after 8 PM and there were no other kids there! He had been the only kid there, with 5 adults/older kid helpers there hanging out with him, they were watching movies. Nico had piled up the large bin of stuffed animals into the middle of the floor and was lying in it while watching a movie.

Sunday night, Guy wasn't feeling well and had a fever, so I picked him up some Pho and his desired graphic novels as a surprise from downtown, and then Nico and I went to Bible Study that night without him. Guy was delighted about the comic books (ahem... graphic novels), I had the store wrap them up as a gift. Guy was all better Monday morning, good thing because he was meeting Josh for breakfast. He was also able to see Josh & some other of the NNU crew in Nampa on Tuesday night, they met to play games. Allicia watched Nico that night and put him to bed since I had tap class. Allicia actually put all 4 kids to bed herself!

Tuesday morning we went to see G.G. in Nampa. Nico likes to bring games with him sometimes, so he brought Doodle Dice (G.G. won!), and then also a book called Hug Time.

Here Nico is, explaining something about the book.

On Wednesday we went to the library to pick up some comic books. The "comic books" I bought for Daddy on Sunday, Nico wanted some of his own, so Library. In the comic book we bought Nico for Christmas, Stinky, there are other comics listed in the back, so we looked some of them up on the website and wrote down their call numbers, then went and found them on the shelf. Guy and Nico have been reading through The Graveyard Book graphic novels at night, too. I think comics are going to be a big push for him learning how to read.

On Thursday we went to the Discovery Center. We didn't go on Monday this time because Monday was President's Day and Jeff had the day off, so their family spent the day together and we postponed our playdate. Nico played with two other kids there, working together to build a HUGE wall of cardboard boxes that they then crashed into.

Nico building an arc with one of the volunteers

This is my favorite face, after pulling one of the blocks from the arc and watching it topple.

I think that's about it......................

Now a video! Some of the things I mentioned in this post are in it. Huzzah!

Valentines, Singing, About Me Book

Looks like the update I did last night was saved as a "draft" and was never posted. Never fear! Everything is A-OK here, I had a late night teaching a henna class and didn't have time to update. Last night's update was just to tell you that the blog would be updated mid-morning on this very day (Friday!)

So, jumping right in!

Last Saturday was the sensory friendly movie, The Good Dinosaur. I was looking forward to seeing it but it wasn't as great as I had hoped. On the way home from the movie Nico told me "I didn't really like that movie" and I told him that I didn't really enjoy it either. I asked him why he didn't like it and he said "because of all the bad stuff in it". Yep, it wasn't the super feel-good animated movies we're used to.

Sunday was the Super Bowl, and no Bible Study that night. Monday was the Discovery Center! Got a video this week with some Discovery Center stuff in it, you can take a look at that at the bottom of the entry.

On Tuesday I volunteered in Nico's class. I really enjoy watching them do the calendar. Nico has become really good at recognizing days. If I already mentioned this, I apologize! When he tells us about things he has done in school he sometimes stops himself and says "No wait, that wasn't today, that was on the 2nd" or whatever day it was. hehe. He told the class on Tuesday that on Monday he went to the Discovery Center with Evelyn. So the kid in charge on that day (Michael) gets to drag and drop stars onto any special date on the smart board at the front of the class. So he dragged and dropped stars onto Monday because of Nico's special Discovery Center date. Wednesday morning on the way to school we encountered Evelyn in the front yard and after we said goodbye to her he said "My friend Evelyn is very nice and very pretty."

OH are you guys ready for some cute school work?

They did an experiment with soda and found out that it eats the enamel of your teeth. I explained to Nico that this doesn't refer to the soda he drinks, in case he was scared, since his soda is just carbonated water. Unless it's the carbonation that hurts the teeth? I sure hope not!

"Tell me about this picture, Nico."
Nico: "This is me and Bruce, we're eating cake"

Nico would like to travel to California. Why? Because they have many cool things there, like horses for example. And he does want to be a cop when he grows up! Just like his Uncle Jonny!

His favorite thing about himself is his heart. I asked him why and he said "Because it's sooooo biiiiiiig, because I love you sooooooo much!"

This is Nico and me on the left, and Allicia and Evelyn on the right. With a door between us. He was sorry he forgot to put arms on me and him.

On Wednesday Nico had his Valentine's Program at school, all the parents came, and they performed songs in the gym. See the video below!!

Thursday was his Valentine's Party at school. Games. Fun. The girl on the right sitting next to Nico is Cairah (pronounced like Kara) is his speech buddy. They are pulled out of class together to get speech therapy with Mrs. Williams every Monday. On Tuesday while I was helping in class, I spent some one-on-one time with Cairah helping her with her math journal, and she snuck the word "poop" into our conversation about how many hearts there were on the page. She giggled uncontrollably. I couldn't help thinking that Nico may have influenced her. Acelyn is on the left, she was in Nico's preschool with him.

To compensate for Nico not being able to eat cookies at the party, I gave him a stick of raspberry chocolate when we got home. It was a large stick. 

Nico was invited to a birthday party for one of his school friends next Saturday. Wahoo!

Ok so now some explanations for what you will see in the Snippets video. You and Me Time one morning consisted of us taking turns singing songs and recording each other doing it on the camera. You'll see some of that. Also, Nico helps me make Guy's lunch every morning. He sits up on the stool at the counter and fills up a jar with yogurt and granola. Lately he has taken to singing while doing this. He sings all the songs he knows and sometimes we take turns. Singing while we work! We make Guy's lunch while Guy takes a shower in the morning. 

Ok I think that's it. I'm hoping I didn't forget anything!

Valentine's Program

Snippets

Happy Birthday Papa, and Tap Test

Last Friday, Nico's fever came back in the afternoon (102.3) and he felt really sick that night, but fever was mostly gone by Saturday. Saturday he ate bits and pieces of food but never committed to anything. Sunday morning, right as rain! Glad he is feeling better now, I'm not sure what was going on!

Sunday after church, Guy helped Rhema's family pack up their Uhaul so they could move. It was a big crowd so it was done quickly. They fed everyone lasagna.

Sunday afternoon we were able to give Papa his birthday present that Nico made for him. We knew we wouldn't see Papa on his actual birthday (tomorrow! Happy Birthday Papa!!!), so we gave it to him early. Scroll down to watch the video of Nico making it (well, painting it:))

Sunday night Bible Study went well. And Nico was back at school on Monday. He was excited to be going back. We skipped the Discovery Center this week and instead hung out with Evelyn and family at home. Before this, we went to Ace Hardware to buy a large wood board that I could practice tapping on. We brought the board downstairs and when the kids heard that it was a dance floor, they all hopped onto it and started dancing. Then I pulled out my tap shoes and the Nico took a turn tapping. (Video below!) The board worked really well for me when I practiced Monday, but on Wednesday it had bowed beyond repair. Whoops! We'll have to find another option.

Nico really digs dancing. For almost 45 minutes today we took turns dancing to a few of his favorite songs on Youtube. One of them is the Marching Song from his VBS experience last summer. It has the perfect rhythm to tap to...

Hmm.. not much else to report this week. Guy loves his job, his boss has given him free reign and Guy is blowing everyone's socks off. They took Dr. Who off of Netflix. Banana cookies = 1/3 cup oats, 1 small banana, a tad vanilla, mix together and bake at 350 for 14 minutes. Nico loves them. 

Cabin Fever! Wait. Cabin, and then also a Fever

On Saturday the boys went up to the cabin for a visit! I was helping a friend out that day so I stayed behind. Bruce and Rory and Lexie were also at the cabin and Nico was able to play with them. He spent a lot of time hanging out with Bruce, they played in the snow on the porch. They also went sledding down the driveway. I forgot to pack Nico's boots in the bag, so he wore his shoes most of the time. Poor wet feet! But he didn't really care.

I love that last pic of Nico sliding down the ice with Bruce racing next to him. Nico sometimes refers to Bruce as his brother. I am so happy they got to spend so much time together. It makes my heart happy!

Grandma also had a little surprise for him - a brand new dot-to-dot book! Before they had left that morning, Nico had chosen 10 color-by-numbers to print out to take with him, saying that Grandma and others might want to do some with him. So he had some to hand out and it looks like Rory is doing one of those while Nico works on his dot-to-dot book. He was very excited to show the book to me when he came home. "Guess what IIIII got.... A DOT-TO-DOT BOOK! A RED ONE!" Grandma had sent him a blue one a few weeks earlier.

Thanks for having the boys over Ma & Pa! They had a blast!

The next morning before church he got down on the floor to work on his dot-to-dot book with his special pencil.

For a few days he was watching the movie HOME over and over and over again on his iPad. It is a great movie, I don't blame him.

Sunday night was the start of the Bible Study that Guy is leading, it was a low key night, we just did introductions and talked a little about the book we'll be reading. It went really well and are happy to be a part of it. Nico came with us and they had some fun things for the kids to do in the other room. Legos for Nico.

On Monday we went to the Discovery Center again, Nico spent the whole time (we stay for 1 hour) at the engineering station building a race truck. Evelyn joined him and she built a race car. After his was built, he tried it out on the tilted race track.

We had a few ho-hum days there, then yesterday (Thursday) I woke up with Nico snuggling me and he felt a little hot. Then he coughed sporadically that morning. I thought he might be getting sick, but I kept writing off the heat I was feeling from his forehead. After Guy left for work I figured what the heck I'll check his temperature, and he was 100.7. Bunker down time! Unfortunately he had lost his iPad privileges for the day, so we couldn't zone out on the iPad. We spent most of the morning doing color-by-numbers. We snuggled on the couch at about 11 and he zonked out for a nap. He woke up feeling groggy and icky and complained of a tummy ache. Essential oils really perked him up but then he was down again a few hours later. His tummy was really bothering him. He never got sick, but we spent the evening reading books to him on the couch because he just didn't want to move. His temp stayed at about 102.5 for a while and his fever finally broke in the middle of the night sometime. Strangely, he hasn't coughed at all since yesterday morning. I figure the illness was probably just a stomach thing? He's been nibbling on food this morning like he's recovering from a stomach bug though he never threw up.

So that's the story of yesterday, and last night why I just couldn't squeeze in a blog update!

Today we're just hanging out. iPad is back.

Late

Blog update coming your way tomorrow! (Friday!)

G.G., Nora

Saturday was a fun family day, we went to the Dollar Store and Fred Meyer.

On Sunday we went to church, and the Pastor asked Guy if he would like to lead the small group Bible study that would be meeting at his house on Sunday nights. Guy asked him what made Pastor think of him and Pastor said he was praying about it and his name came to mind. Awesome! I had just heard from someone the previous week that they had really enjoyed when Guy led the Bible Study for a few weeks last year. So, Guy agreed to lead! The book we'll be reading is called Broken Escalators: Funny and Frightful Lessons About Moth Eating and Moving to the Next Level. Bible study starts up this Sunday!

Monday morning we went to The Discovery Center again. Nico made a rock from clay and pressure. We also built an arch several times and then made it crash. We were able to stay a little longer this time because Nico had no school Monday.

Tuesday morning we went to visit G.G. At the last minute Nico asked if Evelyn could come with us and I said SURE! So we all piled into the truck (we are using Papa's truck for a little while!) and off we drove to Nampa. On the way there Evelyn told Nico about how she only has two friends at school and how the other ones forgot they liked her so they stopped talking to her, and Nico was very empathetic and said "Awwww.. that's too bad. You only have two friends." This was a good thing to see coming from him. He also said "Will you only have two friends forever?"

G.G. is always well set up with things to entertain little ones, so Evelyn went right to work doing what she loves best - art! She colored two coloring pages and G.G. provided envelopes for her to put them in so she could give one to her mom and one to her dad.

G.G. showed me her new Kindle and we loaded a game on it for Nico to play.

We also loaded Netflix onto her kindle, just because :) G.G. let both Nico and Evelyn feed Scamper a snack, and we watched the tail end of a cartoon before we left. Thanks for the fun, G.G.!

A new Ladies Bible Study has started up and Pastor Debbie is not only teaching on Tuesday mornings but also Wednesday evenings! This means I am going! We are going through a study by Priscilla Shirer called The Armor of God, which focuses on the armor of God and prayer. Our first session was last night and we watched The War Room movie. It has Priscilla Shirer in it and is also about prayer. It was a good way to get the session started.

Then today we had a toddler friend from church over, Nora. We played with her all day today. She is almost 3 years old and fit in perfectly with the crowd. Evelyn and Avery also hung out in the clubhouse for a while and they all took turns playing Endless Alphabet on the iPad, and then other games later.

She ate lunch with us and then helped me walk Nico to school. Nora and her family are moving away at the end of January, and we will miss them. Nora has two older siblings and her parents have been coming to our Bible Study on Sunday nights. Nora's mom, Rhema (her name means Spoken Word), needed some time to pack so we took Nora for the day.

Nico has been learning about 2D and 3D shapes in school.

Nico is naturally a very snuggly boy. We do lots of cheek kisses in our house and lots and lots of hugs. He is mirroring me when he says: "Awww I love you so much." and gives me a hug. He likes to say "Awwww" a lot, again mirroring me when we hug. There was one time when I dropped him off at school that one of the girls in his class came right up to him and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He thought nothing of it and hugged her again and gave HER a kiss on the cheek. It made me wonder if Nico one day gave her a kiss on the cheek (he does this sometimes to people, we do it a lot at our house so I wonder if he may think that's how you greet people sometimes??!) and then she could have felt comfortable giving one to him straight away after seeing him. I didn't think anything of it at the time but then I wondered... do they allow that kind of thing in a kindergarten? Should I have told them not to do that anymore? Well, they haven't done it again after that day.

On Tuesday Nico came home from school with a  rice krispsy treat on a stick and dipped in frosting. We left that one for daddy and then made our own rice krispy treats with stuff that Nico could eat. It was a fun experiment, a few things will change next time, since I had to make the marshmallow from scratch and the treats were more like marshmallows filled with crispy rice instead of the traditional rice krispy treats. Oh well. Adding raspberry frosting to them made them more palatable for Nico. He doesn't appear to like marshmallows all that much!

It was a great week!