Boo Bash, Flippingn Sticks

Nico caught my cold over the weekend and it lasted for him maybe 1 day before he was better! That kid can bounce back! I held onto my fever up and down for about 10 days, my doctor said it was my immune system revving up again. But because of it, I wasn't able to go to my conference on Saturday and ended up staying up and having pizza with my boys. I don't like missing pizza nights, so that was a blessing in disguise.

We did have to miss church on Sunday. Back at school on Monday!

Nico flipping the flipping sticks (video at end of post!) He doesn't have it quite down yet but he enjoys practicing.

Playing Mario Kart with Avery. Nico is getting really good. Avery is getting really good, too!! Even though Nico wins, Avery says "I won, Nico, look!!!"

Ivy and I snuggling on the couch while Avery and Nico play Mario Kart.

Last night was the Boo Bash at Nico's school. Nico's doing his ninja pose.

We went first to the Cake Walk, but after about 20 minutes he wanted to move on, so we went to see all the rooms and the activities in them. We went back to the Cake Walk later and he won on his first try. We went to the "allergy friendly" treat table and there were several gluten free cakes and he chose one and brought it home.

The yearly polaroid. This time without me and Guy, and just with Evelyn.

When we got home he ate his dinner (he wasn't hungry before the Boo Bash, too excited!) and then he had some cake!

And here's the video I mentioned!

Birthday, Count Arthur Strong, Jan Brett, Baby Pushups

Last Friday it was dark in the early morning when the kiddos had to leave for chess. So I think from now on I'll try to walk with them on Fridays. Nico said he didn't like walking in the dark because he was afraid of monsters?

Friday after school I drove Nico over to the Grandparents Salisbury house for a sleepover! He had fun there and they went to one of Lexie's soccer games the next day, then went to Jimmy John's for lunch before he came back home around 1pm.

Friday was Guy's birthday. He had a late work meeting. After he got home we watched some Netflix while eating dinner and then he had a piece of Nico's leftover birthday cake from the freezer. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner and he said "potato salad". I convinced him to let me also make him some sausage to go along with it. I bought him a large container of Meat Magic for his birthday (a seasoning that we love on our pizza crust!)

Saturday we had pizza and then I took out a few more pieces of Nico's leftover cake, and put a candle in one of them. We sang Happy Birthday to Guy and watched cartoons.

Sunday was a pretty fuzzy day for me, I had started getting a cold on Saturday and had a fever and aches all day on Sunday. Guy took Nico to church, then out in the afternoon to garage sales, and then out again in the evening for Bible Study. The in between times they were downstairs on the computer or the Wii to give me a chance to rest.

My fever lasted until the very end of Wednesday when it started going down. I've been spending part of the nights downstairs on the couch because I've been coughing.

Guy has been SO HAPPY listing all his things for sale on eBay and Craigslist and then selling them, packaging them up and shipping them off. He's been stopping off at the Thrift Store on his way home from work several times this week to check the stuff out. He passes my 2 different thrift stores on his way home. Yesterday he came home with a very large bag full of stuff. He is storing it all downstairs. Nico has been tagging along on a lot of his purchase quests.

Whenever Guy and Nico go somewhere in the Ford Escape they listen to Count Arthur Strong through bluetooth. Nico is QUITE the fan. They came home yesterday after an outing and Nico had me and him re-enact a Count Arthur scene. He told me what to say, and this is how it went:

Me: Hi Arthur Strong
Nico: You forgot the Count
Me: 1, 2, 3, Arthur Strong
Nico: Thats's not right!

Then Nico stormed off, muttering about how people always get his name wrong.

There was another one he told me about but I have forgotten!

Nevermind, Guy reminded me: Why did the lemon stop running in the race? Because he ran out of juice.

Grandma Russell sent me a text with a picture that I just have to share. If you are familiar with Jan Brett (thanks to Grandma Russell for introducing me), there is a book called The Hat written by her, about a hedgehog that gets stuck with a sock on his head that had fallen from a clothesline. Before I share Grandma Russell's picture, you first have to see the clothesline from the book:

And here is the picture Grandma Russell sent me

I just thought that was so great!! I showed it to Nico, I had to remind him of the book (it's been a while since we've read it!) 

A sunny 74 degrees today, probably the last time we'll be eating outside this year! Tomorrow we are due for cold and rain.

Yep, the table is a mess, when you're sick it just happens (and sometimes when you're not sick😅 ) Nico is doing math problems while eating his breakfast.

"Baby pushups"

Compared to 7 years ago

Guy says that if he does it every few days, he'll get super strong as Nico gets older. They've been committed to it for a few weeks now!

Next Thursday is the Boo Bash at Nico's school. I'm not sure if I'll have time that night to update, but if not, then expect the next update that Friday instead!!

Tummy aches, Brianna, Fitness Challenge

Last Friday Nico had off from school. Him and I took G.G. and Aunt Pat to Red Robin in Nampa. It was fun to shake up our normal visiting routine by going out instead of staying in. It was great to sit and chat with them for a while, and Nico was so excited to have his turkey burger. I'm pretty sure he ate too much. Before Guy came home from work he was outside running around, then he came back inside and said he felt sick. He did get sick in the middle of the night that night, and had a sore tummy the next day. Whoops!

On Sunday he was fine, but then got sick in the middle of the night again, I'm pretty sure this was another fluke because of some old fish oil we gave him that night before bed. He said it tasted funny. No, what he said was, "That tastes bad." when usually he doesn't complain. It was the bottom of the bottle, kind of milky looking. Um, anyway, we kept him home from school on Monday even though he ate normally and felt 100% the next morning.

Monday was Columbus Day, so we went searching for a way to watch an episode of Columbo (our Columbus Day tradition), but it is no longer on Netflix. So we went to the library to check a DVD out. Closed. It was Columbus Day, so library and bank were closed, the very two errands we had left the house to accomplish. Guy then took Nico out to a garage sale, and I took him later to the park. Evelyn joined us after school was out.

No more illness after that, and he was back at school on Tuesday after 5 days off!!

On Wednesday an old friend of ours that had moved away came for a visit, Brianna. She came over and Nico taught her to play chess. Guy has this whole week off from work, so he joined in the fun and helped Brianna learn. Then we ate dinner and brownies and said our goodbyes until next time she visits.

Guy is doing more of his buying/selling this week, focusing mostly on selling since he has acquired a lot of stuff and he wants to lessen his inventory. He scored a box of stuff for free at a garage sale, some of the stuff in there worth $100+. He is downstairs now working on listing stuff on eBay.

I think that's it for this week. Now I have to go search and see if I took any pictures!! I hope so!!

Evelyn and Nico at the park on Monday.

They are both participating in the Axiom Fitness Challenge (Axiom is the gym I go to!). The school sent home a paper and for every 30 minutes they exercise, they get to fill in a star on the paper. If they get all the stars filled in and return the paper by December 1st, they get a free pass to Wahooz, which is a game place like Pojo's, but with more stuff, including race cars and miniature golf. They are counting 20 minutes of walking every day going to/from school. And at the park on Monday they spent a solid 20 minutes riding around on bike and scooter. They're getting there!

Late henna night!

Update is coming mid-morning, I got home too late last night to update. Stay tuned!

Chess, Dentist

Last weekend I had another henna booth on Saturday and Sunday, my last one for a while. Guy and Nico went to the coffee shop and to a garage sale. Nico found a chess set and a game called Mastermind that he bought with his own money.

On Sunday, Guy and Nico went to the Grandparents Salisbury house to pick up milk and eggs. Nico brought his chess set and played a few games with Papa. That night we had our Bible Study group at the Pastor's house. Nico's friends Leona and Lazarus were there, and they huddled into this little corner so that Leona could plug in her Nintendo Switch. Nico brought the Mastermind game with him but I don't think they played it. 

He started reading Dogman #2 again, and chose this character, Flappy, for me to give him a henna tattoo of. Flappy is a fish.

Today and tomorrow are teacher inservice days, so Nico doesn't have school. Today he had a cavity-filling appointment at the dentist. Nico loves that his smile is crooked after he gets the novocaine shot.

He got a voucher for a free Mini-Fig from Bricks and Minifigs nextdoor so we went over there afterward to cash it in. Our dentist told us the story behind them opening that store - The guy who owns it is the CFO of Scentsy, and him and his wife have a 20 year old son with autism. They wanted him to be able to work, so they started Bricks and Minifigs so that he would be able to work there. He is talking on phones and interacting with people like he never has before. Very cool! 

After that, we ran some errands and then came home for lunch. This afternoon Nico played Mario Kart with Evelyn and her cousin Jade. After that we went to the Discovery Center but they were closed because they were switching the exhibits. It must be a big one because it's not open again until October 21st! So we ended up at the Library. We checked out a comic that Nico hadn't read in a while.

And we played a game called Sum Swamp at the library, a good exercise in adding and subtracting. It was a fun game and Nico beat me both times.

Side note. The pumpkin flavored RX Bars.... YUMMY!!!

And I guess that's it for this week!!

Table Rock, Cupcakes

Last weekend I got to spend Saturday with Nico! It was nice to spend a Saturday with him after all the henna I've been doing on weekends. Guy had the day off to go look for interesting things at garage sales and thrift stores that he can "flip". He found a Game Cube and games and controllers for a good price which he will try to sell on eBay. Until then.. we have been enjoying playing Mario Kart! Instead of the boys playing Minecraft they now spend their game time playing Mario Kart. Evelyn usually joins them.

Nico is still super excited about chess and checked out another chess book at the library at school today, so now he has two checked out. At night he's been reading them, and setting up our chess board with certain setups, and showing us how to capture the king in only a few steps.

Anyway, I got distracted, back to last Saturday! After chores in the morning, Nico and I went through a large portion of his toys. Not all, but some, and ended up with a laundry basket full of things to donate. So then we went out. At Whole Foods we picked up a Stevia soda "Zevia", which Nico really liked, he chose ginger root beer. It actually tasted like root beer! He wanted me to take a picture of it and send the picture to Daddy.

Then we went to Costco, where Nico spent his own money to buy the next book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. In the afternoon we decided to go for a hike, and we successfully made it up to the top of Table Rock. 

We took several breaks along the way.

We saw a guy controlling a drone while we were on top. Nico stopped for a while to watch the drone flying around.

When we got home we noticed the squirrel had been in the bird feeder again.

Then Guy arrived home and we started pizza. Guy started cleaning the Game Cube he bought, taking pictures of the games and getting everything ready to sell. He also picked up a free CRT tv, which makes it a little easier to play some of the games we have. As luck would have it, Jeff and Allicia's TV broke and so we put the CRT downstairs and everyone has been playing games on it. The games had to be tested to make sure they worked, you know, and so did the Game Cube.

Guy cleaning the games.

Nico's drawing of a monster with eyes like Laser Moose

A sweet story... I went to pick Nico up at school for a doctor's appointment and I went into his class to get him, and as he was leaving everyone said "Goodbye Nico!" and his friend Grace said "By Nico, I'll miss you for the rest of the day!"

They celebrate birthdays at school, and Ms Lung brings in 2 gluten free cupcakes every time, so that Nico and another boy, Eli, can share in the fun. The first time this happened, Nico came home and cried to me, saying that Ms Lung made him a special cupcake and that he couldn't eat it because it had sugar in it and he was allergic to sugar, and that everyone else got to eat a cupcake. I wrote Ms Lung and told her that Nico misunderstood why we weren't giving him sugar, that he wasn't allergic, and that the next time that happens he can have the cupcake. So the next day, she brought in that same cupcake that he didn't eat the first time, and he carried it home gently, beaming, and then ate it all up. He was so happy.

Card tower, Chess, Read-a-thon

I had a big festival last weekend that I did henna at, so Guy and Nico got to spend Saturday together. On Friday night Nico spent the night at the Grandparents' Salisbury house. He really likes the banana pancakes and waffles that Grandma makes. For the waffles, she dips a piece of banana bread in egg and then puts it on the waffle iron. Genius!!!

Guy and Nico spent some time on Saturday building card towers. There's a video at the end!!

Playing Creationary

I know they must have played Minecraft, too!

Evelyn has joined the chess program at their school so on Friday mornings her and Nico walk to school early together.

Read-a-thon is going on, so Nico is collecting reading minutes. He checked out the kid version of "Left Behind" at school, and today he came home with a book about chess. Him and I played chess tonight before bed. I lost my queen on my second turn because I made a weird move. Nico and I decided to call it a "weird" move instead of "stupid" move because it sounded better.

Here's a pic from a few weeks ago. Guy and Nico went to Dawson Taylor to play chess.

Nico's tumbling tower

GG, Guy's business trip, a pair of parakeets

Last Friday we visited GG and Aunt Pat in Nampa, they had brought out the keyboard for Nico to play on and he enjoyed that! We also talked cake decorating and watched a bit of cartoons. Next time we visit we are taking them out to lunch!

On Sunday we dropped Guy off at the airport after church, he left for a business trip to Monterey, CA, and is coming home tonight! He sent us lots of pictures from his trip. He went to the Aquarium today and sent us tons of bird pictures!

Inside the aquarium

Semi palmated plover

Bird rescue area

A treat for Nico

I watched these kiddos today for a few hours, we had a snack "In the Clubhouse" which is like, unheard of! They were both so excited!

We had some special guests overnight, two parakeets! Nico didn't know what kind of birds these were, I guess we haven't studied the domesticated ones very much! The people we were watching them for actually offered to let us keep them. If we had a little more space then that would have bene a YES! Perhaps some day!

Nico helping me put labels on my henna kits. While Guy was out of town I was super busy pretty much non stop preparing for my 3-day henna booth this weekend. Hyde Park Street Fair. Hope to sell a lot of henna kits!

Nico has been using Guy's pillow.

Oh! We Facetimed with Guy last night. He was eating some yummy restaurant food and left the table for a minute to Facetime with us and the restaurant was right next to the water and he showed us the water and a seagull.

He comes in late tonight and a coworker is going to drive him home!

See ya'll next week!

Nico tells a joke at school

Last weekend was the first weekend in a long time that I didn't have any henna to do! Pretty soon that will be the status quo. I've got 3 more big events in September, then I'm off for a few months.

On Sunday after church I took Nico over to Grandma and Papa's house for an overnight stay with some of the other cousins.

That night, Guy and I roasted a chicken (Nico can't have chicken, and I've been craving it, so we took advantage of the opportunity!) and we watched Dune. A while ago I had asked Guy what his favorite book was, and I endeavored to read it. It was Dune, so I read through it (took me a while) and on Sunday night we watched the movie. We were both very excited to see it. On Monday we went to the Greenbelt and I rollerbladed while Guy rode his bike. This was shortly before the valley was overcome by smoke. We've been in the Red "Unhealthy" range for a few days. It even dipped into the "Very Unhealthy" range a bit yesterday. We've tried not to use our swamp cooler much, so that the inside doesn't smell like smoke. Thankfully right near our house it doesn't smell much like smoke.

Yesterday Nico got a fun comic book in the mail from the Grandparents Russell. It's called "Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy". He laughed while he read the title, and reread the title about 4 times, laughing each time. It's been an entertaining read. Thanks Grampa and Gramma!

Last week Allicia went to the school to eat lunch with Evelyn, and they had an open mic outside during the recess afterward. Nico apparently got up and told a joke, and Allicia caught it on video!! Nico has been really interested in jokes lately and is starting to catch on a liiiiittle better on why jokes are funny. He's working on it :) His principal has a daily joke the kids can come ask him every day what the joke is when they see him. The night before Allicia took this video, Nico was lying in bed at night coming up with jokes. He told us several of his made up jokes that night, and in this video he tells his class one of the jokes he came up with.

SPOILERS...

....

...

The punch line of the joke is "A warrior", not "A worrier". 

School, Legos, Minecraft,

School is in full swing, and not much else happened this past week! 

Nico has been putting together Legos and wanting to keep them set up, so we've cleared some space to put them. He has also adapted his outlook on Legos, so if he doesn't have a piece he needs according to the instructions, he is OK finding a similar piece. One of his favorite movies is The Lego Movie, which has "Master Builders" in it, the heroes, and they make Legos without instructions. Nico was missing a piece for a set once and all Guy had to say was "Oh, you can just be a Master Builder, and pick a different piece to go there." and Nico was all over that! This is a big deal, because Nico is typically a by-the-books kind of guy.

The other change, perhaps thanks to The Lego Movie, is that he's spending a lot of time playing with the Legos after they are built, instead of just building them and stopping after that.

Tonight was back to school night at the school, the parents met in the gym first to meet the new Principal and to hear from the PTO, then we went to the classrooms. I got to sit in Nico's desk, and his teacher told us all about what they do on a daily basis. His teacher is a recent empty-nester, so she said she really enjoys coming to school and being able to still kind of be a mother. They changed the way they grade - there are no more "E"s for "Exceeds Expectations".

I took a picture of this picture Nico drew of himself.

When I came home from the school, Nico was in bed and he had chosen to write in bed instead of read, and he was writing a story. When he was done, this is what he had:

Nico and Evelyn have started walking to school together by themselves! I'm so grateful he has a walking buddy!

For his birthday we got him a Minecraft account, so now him and Guy can play Minecraft in the same world at the same time. This has been super fun for Nico. Minecraft days are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, where they go downstairs and play together at Guy's desk. Nico uses the laptop that G.G. gave to him. When Nico has iPad time he usually spends it watching Minecraft videos of people doing cool stuff in Minecraft, and then he tries out these cool things when he plays himself. 

Yesterday Nico had a dentist appointment to fill a cavity. It was set to be at 3:30 but Nico was complaining that his tooth was hurting yesterday morning, so I called and had it moved to 11:30. He did such a great job! I think I was more nervous than him. hehe.. They gave him a card to redeem at Bricks and MiniFigs nextdoor for a free Lego MiniFig. He begged to stay home from school for the rest of the day with his numb cheek, and I said yes, so he got some extra time to play Minecraft yesterday afternoon. Last night he asked me, "You said I didn't have to go to school tomorrow, right?" hehe. He sometimes complains that school takes too long. 

After the first few days of school Nico told me to put more stuff in his lunch. He asked specifically for "chips, fruit punch, and red pepper" in addition to his sandwich. So, that's what I've been sending. Last year he very specifically just wanted a sandwich (but I always put some red pepper or other vegetable in his lunch anyway.)

That's all the tidbits I can think of right now! 

Until next week!