Thanksgiving!

Last Saturday Guy took Nico to get a hair cut. He took him to the same place he goes to get his hair and beard cut, the Beardsmith. Nico got a cut called "The Good Boy", which he really really likes. Guy also picked him up some pomade. The part in his hair is a "hard part" which means they actually shaved a small strip of his hair where the part is, so the part is easy to find. This really has made it easier to part his hair.

This is what he looked like when he came home. He didn't want to pose for a picture so I caught him while he was playing with his legos (see the fire truck go zoooooooom on the floor).

That evening we had pizza with Jeff and Allicia and crew. Allicia has been gluten free for a while now so we made her crust for her, and they made Guy's crust for him since he can eat gluten. They had a whole bunch of personal pan pizza crusts they had baked up, so Guy was able to eat several different ones with different toppings and he said it was awesome to be able to do that. We had so many more toppings than usual. I stuck with a cheese pizza and Nico prefers just meat on his. Pepperoni and sausage. But we have noticed a trend, that Nico doesn't eat much when there's exciting things going on.

After pizza, Guy gave Jeff and Allicia each half a pumpkin roll that Grandma Russell had made and sent to us. They were so happy about that! Then we descended to the basement to watch part of an episode of Charlie Brown. 

On Tuesday we spent the day at the Salisbury house. Bruce and Rory were there for Nico to play with, and Grandma Salisbury and I cooked a turkey and made a few of the salads for Thanksgiving. In the afternoon when Papa was done working, we started watching Star Wars: A New Hope and Nico was interested for about 15 minutes before he went into the other room. He loves the Star Wars characters but he has never seen the movies, someday he will!

Getting ready to watch Star Wars

Playing legos with Bruce

It was a full and fun day. Guy joined us after work for dinner and then we headed home.

Wednesday was a day full of cooking for me. I made the stuffing, 2 pies, and deviled eggs. Guy wasn't here to taste test the stuffing so I sent him a picture of it and asked for a virtual taste test. He responded "😋  I can run home real quick. It's basically and emergency." Hehe. He didn't run home, and the stuffing turned out fine!

Thursday we headed over to the Salisbury house early. I started the sauerkraut and pork in the crock pot right away, and then we spent the morning slowly getting everything ready for the meal at 2pm. Guy turned on the MST3K Turkey Day Marathon for everyone in the living room. That was a hit!

When it was time to eat, Pa gave a short devotional about being thankful, then we each went around the table saying something we were thankful for. Most everyone said they were thankful for family. Guy said he was thankful for family, and for his job and his boss. Nico said he was thankful for his mommy 😍. 

After the meal was over, Grandma sent everyone out of the room except for the parents (me and Guy plus all my brothers and their wives) so that we could do the Lego Challenge. Grandma and Pa and Wanda (Alanna's mom) and the grandkids were going to go clean up the kitchen. Grandma gave each of us a lego that could be built into 3 different legos. After we built one of them, we had to take a picture of it, then take it apart and build the next one, etc. Guy and I won 1st place! Our prize was a light you can shine on your house that displays swirling snowflakes.

Here we are with the last lego we put together, a flying robot.

Left to right: Jeremy, Bambi, Guy, Joanna, David, Jill, Alanna, Jonny

Rory, Lily, Lexie, Nico

Rory and Nico

Playing baseball in the backyard with cousins and Papa

After the Lego challenge, we gathered in the living room to play games. 1 - Ornament exchange 2 - Treasure hunt 3 - Unwrap challenge.  The unwrap challenge required everyone to take turns wearing gloves and spending 15 seconds trying to unwrap this huge present. Whoever got to the middle first won the present. Inside that huge box was an iTunes Gift Card and Bambi won it! Watch the video at the end to see Guy and Nico both take turns trying to open it!

After games, we ate dessert, then we all started packing up leftovers and heading home. The grandkids all stayed overnight last night and will stay overnight again tonight, so we said goodbye to Nico and headed home! When we got home, we showed our snowflake light to Jeff and Allicia, and Ivy who was still up. Ivy rolled around in the lights for a good while while we chatted.

Nico has been having tummy aches, presumably from all the sugar we recently introduced into his life? They are not "sick" tummy aches, they are "pain" tummy aches. I am hoping to get a handle on them. He seems to be much better when he doesn't eat sugar. He doesn't eat a lot of the stuff anyway, but I think his body is just not used to it! 

Here's the video of the unwrap challenge!

Kids Discovery Expo, and Winter Jam!

Last Friday night, all of us met over at the Salisbury house to talk about Thanksgiving. My brother Jonny and sister-in-law Alanna were also there, with Lexie! We split up the Thanksgiving food tasks and then left Nico to stay overnight along with Lexie.

On Saturday I had a henna booth at the Kids Discovery Expo, in the afternoon Grandma Salisbury and 4 cousins including Nico came to the Expo to enjoy the kids activities. They stayed for a few hours, I gave them all henna, then they helped me pack up my car.

Inside an ambulance

Virtual reality.

Thanks for the pictures Mom!

For Saturday pizza nights we have been enjoying watching Charlie Brown shows and then one time we rented the new Peanuts movie from Amazon. We've watched them so much we have parts memorized and Nico acts them out during the day, particularly the one where Rerun wants a dog for Christmas. He has the tone just right when he says "But Mommm!"

On Tuesday we went to visit G.G. after school. Nico has been filling out a Thankful journal that he got from church, he has to write down 3 things that he's thankful for every day. When it was G.G.'s birthday LAST Tuesday, he saw it on the calendar and wrote down that he was thankful for G.G. In church on Sunday they wrote down some of the things they were thankful for onto hand cutouts, and then glued them together. He wrote G.G. on one of the hands, so I brought her the hand chain so she could have it. While we were there Nico played a little bit on the keyboard and G.G. gave me the Steptoe Butte quilt that she designed herself and created. She had already given me the thing that hangs it on the wall, so now I have the complete set. I am curious about someday visiting Steptoe Butte to see it in person! It's a beautiful quilt!

Last night (Thursday night), Nico and I went to a concert called Winter Jam, it's a collection of Christian artists that come together for one night. It was at the Taco Bell Arena which is right next to the BSU Stadium. I completely spaced the fact that they would only accept cash for parking, entrance, and food, and didn't have any on hand. As I was turning around to leave the parking lot to get to the bank, I realized I still had an envelope of cash in my purse from the Kids Discovery Expo that I had conveniently forgotten to deposit on Monday, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Score! So we were able to go right in. As soon as we got into the building I purchased a water and then we chose our seats. 2nd floor, off to the left. As we were sitting there Nico looked up to the 3rd floor balcony and said "I want to go up there!" so I said OK and I followed him to where he wanted to sit. He chose a nice corner spot that hardly had anyone sitting there. (When the concert got into full swing it did fill up pretty full though!)

 Our firsts chosen spot

Our second chosen spot

Video below with the view from both spots!

The "Pre-Jam" started about 6:15, and we were there until about 9PM. We heard several songs that Nico recognized, including "Chainsaw" by Family Force Five (one of his favorites) and "You Can't Stop Me" by Andy Mineo. I don't suggest you listen to the Andy Mineo song unless you like screaming. 

After Andy Mineo left the stage, I asked Nico if he wanted to stay or go home, and he said go home. He was so tired!! So we missed about 3 of the artists but I saw the one I really wanted to see and I was tired too! 

While walking through the halls we passed the candied nut stand and Nico asked what they were. So I bought him some! He chose almonds. He wasn't sure what almonds were so I told him that almond butter is what I put on his pancakes. So we walked back to our car along the greenbelt at 9PM (I know, Mom!)

He went right to bed after we got home.

Trying out a new natural dye called jagua, dyes blue instead of red/brown! This is the tattoo Nico chose.

A squirrel eating our pumpkin outside.

Nico is enjoying finding Waldo in Guy's all-inclusive Waldo book, and he's also been enjoying the National Geographic KIDS magazines. And sometimes instead of reading at night he chooses to do math problems and other school-type work in the 2nd grade workbook we got him from Costco. 

I think that's all this week!

Until the next!

Turn down the volume, video may be loud!

Update coming!

Nico and I were out late last night at a concert, update coming mid-morning!

Mario Kart, and not much else!

We spent a lot of last weekend playing Mario Kart, Jeff & Allicia were out of town so we spread out a bit and hung out downstairs a lot! Nico is getting so good at Mario Kart he is starting to beat me at it!

Hm... Looks like that's the only picture I took of him last week! Bummer! It was kind of a normal week, not much happened. 

Guy did have a sinus headache and a slight fever on Sunday but was all better on Monday.  His boss told him to work from home on Tuesday because he had some programming to hyper-focus on. He works much faster away from the distractions at work. He gets to do that same thing tomorrow!

Nico has had a slight cough but nothing else. I thought I might be catching it but whatever it was went away fast! We've been doing elderberry syrup a lot!

We tried a new recipe that was a success. Eggs, bread, sausage, all baked together. Egg casserole. It's not often that new recipes are a hit with both Guy and Nico! 

I guess that's it! Oh, we did have our last Small Group meeting on Sunday, a potluck, Guy wasn't able to come because of his headache, but Nico and I went. We won't meet again until the new year. Guy is the small group coordinator at our church so he is looking into what book or Bible study we're going to do next.

Until next time!

Halloween and other such fun things!

Last Saturday was the first Saturday in a while that we had nothing going on! In the afternoon Nico and I went to the Discovery Center to see their new display, Mythbusters! They had several stations set up to test things that the show Mythbusters had tested. This particular one is: When you drop a piece of toast does it always land butter side down? There were several different ways you could "drop" bread. We tried all of them and used the provided Abucus beads to keep track of which way the toast landed. It was about 50 - 50. As expected.

 Build a house, and see if a gust of wind will blow it down.

How long can you hang on a ledge? This is HARD. I got about 5 seconds in before I couldn't hold on anymore. Apparently it takes strong muscles in your fingers. I thought it would be more of an arm thing. Nico did better than me.

Other cool exhibits: Try to remove the tablecloth from a table with stuff on it. I was able to try it and succeeded! And do you get more rain on you when you walk, or run? They had two corridors where you could either walk or run through rain. Then you go check yourself under black lights to see how wet you got. Apparently the test on the show showed that with simulated rain, you get more wet when running. With actual rain, you get more wet when walking.

Nico discovered his book of paper airplanes that was tucked away in the desk, and has spent a lot of time the past few days putting planes together.

He also started asking if he could wear two shirts, one over the other. He did that for several days this week.

Then of course, trick or treating! There is a video at the end of the post of that. Nico has become more aware of candy, and the fact that we've been keeping him from most of it for most of his life. So we're becoming more lenient. Nico ate M&Ms for the first time on Halloween while we were trick-or-treating. When I was pregnant with Nico I would buy the huge bags of M&Ms. I remember leaving a church service once at Marysville Naz while I was pregnant and sitting out in the lobby, just so I could reach into my purse and shove M&Ms in my mouth for a few minutes. Nico loves M&Ms and has declared them his favorite candy. On Halloween he also ate a Crunch bar and a piece of gum. That next day he had Nerds and an Airhead for the first time. Then he ate a Dum Dum! This is big news. We figure it's only once a year, right? But then while trick-or-treating he started asking people at their door if they had M&Ms, and he would spend time flipping through their baskets trying to find something he could eat. At one house he refused to take the glowstick they were offering. We talked with him about that. After we talked to him we told him he had to do 3 things every time someone answered the door: 1 - Say "Trick or Treat!" 2 - Take what they give you and 3 - Say "Thank you!" He did great after that!

 Nico the Ninja. Ivy the Bumble-bee. Avery the dinosaur. Evelyn the witch.

On Wednesday night, Guy & I, and Jeff & Allicia took turns watching the kids so we could all go to our parent/teacher conferences. Ours was first, so we walked to the school and sat down with Ms Lung to talk about Nico. He is doing really well in reading and in math. We are so proud of him! She showed us his first short story. He wrote the story by hand, it was edited, and then he typed the whole thing into the computer. 

Ms Lung said he insisted on doing chapters.

Then his first poem. Nico was adamant on not using their format when writing his poem. Ms Lung said he could do what he wanted as long as he included some of the stuff they were learning about (the 5 senses)

On Wednesday we also got a new Laser Moose book in the mail from the Grandparents Russell! Thank you! He brought it to the dentist with him this morning and read it while we were in the waiting room. As we were leaving the office after his appointment, the lady who was in the waiting room with us at the beginning was just getting into her car, and she stopped us to ask us what the Laser Moose was. I told her it was a comic book where a moose can shoot lasers from his eyes. She said she used to live in Alaska and that she has never seen a Laser Moose before. He he.

The Laser Moose book has a ton of disco balls in it. They get knocked off a cliff and come raining down on the forest and smashing into the ground. After Nico had his cavity filled at the dentist, he went to the treat drawer and found a disco ball keychain! The timing was impeccable.

Then of course we went over to Bricks & Mini-Figs next door and Nico made a new Mini-Fig. He made this one to look like Emmet from the Lego Movie.

Then we ran some errands, went to Target where Nico spent his own money to buy a Minecraft backpack. He is very excited about that. Then we met Grandma Salisbury at Costco! We had fun wandering around. I don't know how it happened but we ended up with a HUGE bag of M&Ms and a new car toy (Thanks Grandma S!) ;)

Brats and sprouts for lunch.

Nico has today and tomorrow off for parent/teacher conferences. This afternoon Guy called to tell me he locked his keys in the car at the dentist. So Nico and I drove to the dentist before realizing that the Ford has a keypad he could have used to get back into the car. Whooooops. Well, neither of us could remember the code anyway! Hah. I'll have to look it up.

Now the video!

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!!