Scoots

Nico got to spend some time at the cabin with the Grandparents Salisbury. He really enjoys chopping pine needles with Papa. Check out the video at the end of the post! Nico throws away the pine needles if they are too big (he knows from experience that they are harder to chop).

One thing he did while he was at the cabin, that he repeated here at home, was line up all of his cars around the table. When he did this at home, his basket of cars was in his bedroom and he would run back there and get a few to bring back to the table. Back and forth until he had enough.

Nico received an early birthday present this week from the Grandparents Salisbury. A scooter! We took it out for a spin. He was VERY excited. Thank you both!!

On Saturday we went to both Saturday markets. In the parking garage elevator, Nico pressed the Emergency Call button, which automatically made a call to 911. The automated voice kept repeating (very loudly): THERE IS AN EMERGENCY IN THE _______ ELEVATOR. I thought it would never stop, but when it finally did, the 911 dispatcher came over the speakers and asked if there was an actual emergency. I told her that my young son had pushed the button not knowing what it did. She said thank you for letting her know. Phew!

Both of our speech therapy appointments this week were cancelled. The first one by Marcia, the second one by us. Nico woke up this morning and as soon as we got him up, he emptied his stomach contents onto Guy's shoulder. He was fine afterward, and we had a normal day, 3 meals (although a delayed and reduced breakfast) and our normal snacks, but I cancelled anyway, just in case!

Some more pictures...

At Memorial Park - static hair

Spraying bug repellant on our garden (look at those huge broccoli leaves!)

Video courtesy of Grandma Salisbury!

p.s. Ran into a neighbor on a walk this week that remembered Nico's rain walk last week. She said it was so cute to see Nico walking around in his yellow rain jacket, head totally obscured from view by his humongous umbrella. We had walked right by their front window and they just got a kick out of it.

Picka Park

On Friday we went to visit G.G. in Nampa again. Always have a fun time there!

Saturday we went to visit Lizzie and Bruce and Rory.

For Father's Day I made some peppermint patties that Guy really enjoyed. I used this recipe. That evening we went to a park we hadn't been to in a very long time. We asked Nico to pick a park, and he started saying "guhba guhba". Turns out he was saying "pick a park", thinking that Picka was an actual Park. That was quite endearing. So we chose to go to a park that we hadn't been to in a while (a VERY long while). It's now called Picka Park, the actual name of it is Baggley, which sounds very similar to guhba guhba. See video for the Picka Park/guhba guhba dilemma.

While there, Nico started playing with a little girl a little older than him (4 or 5 maybe?) This girl adapted really quickly to Nico's lack of words. She heard his "dah dah" and started communicating back to Nico by saying "dah dah" just like he was. They had a lot of fun. When she would want to go to a new area of the park, she'd point and say "dah dah". Nico would do the same. She would also talk to him, and seemed to understand and act on his yeses and nos. It was so much fun to watch Nico interact with her. Guy and I are excited for this fall when Nico will get to be around a lot more children every day in preschool!

Today we went to the Botanical Garden with Allicia and Evie. We saw a lot of the garden this time and stayed for about an hour. Nico kept cracking up when Allicia would use her silly voice to say "Uh oh!"

This afternoon Nico had another speech therapy appointment. Last week Marcia and I were talking about activities that I can do with Nico to help strengthen the language part of his brain. One of the things is to play pattie-cake type hand clap games which require Nico to cross his left arm to the right and his right arm to the left. Also when we dance to music, to hold his hands and cross them. When I put a diaper on him, to cross his legs back and forth for him (he wears a diaper at night and at nap still). This apparently helps the left brain talk to the right brain. So I started incorporating movements like this into our play.

Last week Nico and I sat down at the table and put together some speech tools. We are working on B, M, N and P. The letter goes in the middle of the page and each vowel sound goes around the letter in a circle. We practice saying the letter with each of the vowels following it, and we put a small pink gem on each vowel after he says it. We also covered each page with stickers of words that start with that letter, and we practice saying each of the words. He puts a gem on each sticker as he says them. He can't say the whole word, so we work on the letter with the vowel sound following. For example, for "monkey" I have him say "muh". For "bat" I have him say "bah". He's been doing really well and knows the routine now. We only do two letters a day so as not to get them jumbled up too much in his head.

And yesterday, our walk in the rain. The sun came out right after I took this picture but Nico walked the whole way with the umbrella open and over his head :)

Video time..

p.s. As seen in video: New bike seat (new to us) is from Grandma Salisbury. Tried it out once, will have to update more about it later!

Strider Cam

Last Saturday Guy and I went to a Christian Homeschoolers convention in Nampa, though the two classes we both wanted to go to had nothing to do with homeschooling. I went to a disaster preparedness class and Guy went to a class about reducing your grocery budget. They both occurred at the same time so we both took notes and shared them afterward. We then went to the closing ceremony, where the speaker talked about "Choosing the hard things". Parenting is hard, but it's good. People tell you all the time that your children grow up fast and you will soon be missing their littleness, and when you're in the midst of it, comments like that don't seem to mean much. But he said "believe me..", your children will grow up and you will miss them, so hold on to the hard things, because they're the best things. After the convention, we had a little time to spare so we went to Red Robin and then to get coffee. It was a great little "date". Grandma Salisbury watched Nico while we were in Nampa, and she took him to Rory's 4th birthday party. 

On Sunday after Church and nap, we all went up the cabin. We got to see the Grandparents Salisbury and Aunt Ellen. We hung out and played with essential oils. 

Pouring oils into vials

Watching Shaun the Sheep with Grandpa

Grandpa Salisbury took Nico outside and was helping him use an ax to chop some pine needles and small pieces of wood. Nico really enjoyed chopping pine needles in half with an ax!

Over the next few days, Guy gave me my birthday presents. The first one was a replacement calendar for the wall in our kitchen, since we were halfway through with 2013 and I wanted some of 2014 on the wall to look at. The second present was a bunch of GIFs of pictures taken throughout the past few years. Loved this!! Here are a few of them:

The third present was a bunch of bookmarks for my myriad of books that I am in the middle of reading. He printed pictures into strips and cut them out into bookmarks. Loved loved loved all my presents!

Today we got a box from the Grandparents Russell with a toy in it for Nico! A wooden nuts and bolts kit. Nico loves it (and so does Guy). Perhaps next week I'll post the video of him and Guy playing with it. I could post it today, but I have run out of time, because I spent most of it putting together the Strider Cam video! For now, here is a picture:

And now here it is, the official Nico Strider Cam Video.

Sprinkler

Not much happened this past week, but I'm okay with that!

For the longest time, Nico has been imitating something he saw on one of his cartoons, but we couldn't figure out which one! We would ask him if it was on Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Curious George, and he'd say "yes" to one of them randomly. But by chance, this week, we found which cartoon it came from! Guy was watching cartoons with him and it happened on a Curious George episode. The imitation is him saying "guh guh guh" and stabbing the air with his folded hand. You can see it in the video.

Today we went to see Allicia and Evie. They recently got some chicks, so we got to hold them and pet them, they were so cute.

Not much else happened this week, unless I'm not remembering very well, which is a possibility.

Pumping up his ball

Rolling himself up in the rug (as seen on Curious George)

Running through the sprinkler

So wet!

Video!

Arlingtown!

Last weekend was our trip to Arlington. It was Guy's Grandma's 90th birthday celebration, so we got to see a lot of family. I was able to meet relatives I had never met before! We also had a nice amount of downtime just hanging with Guy's parents and brother. We had an adventuresome walk/Strider ride to a local park, and we were also able to go to the River (the place Guy asked me to marry him!) Nico really enjoyed throwing rocks in the river, which he started to do after he saw Uncle Tom (Guy's brother) skipping rocks. Walking through the wooded area to get to the river was fun and damp, a little muddy, but beautifully green.

We were able to go to our old church on Sunday, which was nice. We saw old friends, and Nico actually did just fine in the nursery, and didn't want to leave!

Guy decided to switch to a day schedule on this trip so he could have more time with family (he's a night worker, so normally has a night schedule). He drank a lot of coffee, and was very tired, but he did it! He's still trying to get back into the swing of working nights after being back a few days.

We learned a lot of valuable lessons about traveling with a toddler. Keep everything simple! Don't put too much into the back seat so you don't have to go through more than one bag trying to look for something. Don't bring too many toys from home, they take up space and don't hold their attention. Bring several NEW toys for them to play with. Don't be afraid to use the iPad! And always keep the toddler fed so that low blood sugar doesn't cause breakdowns. That last one applies to everyone! :)

Without further ado - pictures!

Both boys sleeping on the drive over.

Right after arriving, Nico started playing with Grandpa's wooden toolbox

A room full of family

At the river

With Great Grandma Gohl - I love that her and Nico are exchanging looks.

Watching trains on the iPad with Grandpa

Our trip home - stopping at Miner Burger in Yakima - a ritual!

Beautiful day to eat outside

A video!

Garden

I forgot it was blog day until just a few hours ago! I have been busy preparing for our trip. We leave on Saturday for Washington! I've been prepping meals and making lists and shopping and planning and thinking. But I will take a break right now and recall our past week.

Last Friday we went to Nampa to visit G.G. Loved seeing her again, she sent Nico home with a little wooden box that he plays with every day now. It's a different one than is shown in the picture. He especially loves to put his micro machines in the box, since they fit perfectly.

Playing at G.G.'s house.

On Sunday my Dad (aka Papa) dropped off a garden box that he built for me (us). 4' x 4', with posts that go into the ground. He also brought us some plants and some organic dirt!! So Monday afternoon we all went outside and finished digging the post holes (well, Guy did that). It was too hot for much else. Nico and I went back out there Monday night (when the box was shaded) and filled the box with dirt after laying down weed cloth. Then on Tuesday we planted. Tomatoes, cauliflower and broccoli. I picked up some more seeds from the Co-op and we'll be planting those soon.

Nico striking a pose, wearing my gloves.

Watering the plants.

We are so excited to be growing vegetables! Thank you so much Papa!!

On Sunday night we headed over to Bible Study but when we got there, no one else was there. Nico was so incredibly sad about this and kept saying "Bubby" (Bible) over and over again and pointing to the house, whining and carrying on. We apologized to Nico and told him he could choose where we would go instead. He chose Camel's Back Park. So, we went! We stopped off at Red Robin beforehand and spent the rest of a gift certificate there to get Guy a milkshake. Then at Camel's Back, instead of going for the park, Nico chose to walk over to the foothill that is right next to the park. He intended to climb it, and climb he did! Guy was right behind him the whole way while I stayed behind. They made it all the way to the top and then came back down. As soon as they came back down, Nico turned right around and said he wanted to climb it again. Wow, the energy! But it was time for home and bath and snack and bed, so we trucked home.

Cell phone picture of the boys almost back at the bottom.

Wednesday was a busy day for us. Nico had another speech therapy appointment. New words this week: icky, potato (day-doh), coffee (kah-pee), and apple (ah-buh). Icky, potato and coffee were totally random and not prompted, he just said them out of the blue. Guy and I were just flabbergasted when we both heard him say Coffee for the first time. Apple was prompted by the speech therapist. He said icky in reference to his wet underwear, without being prompted. Oh - one I forgot about was knife "ffff", which he said unprompted because I didn't understand what he wanted when he was pointing to the silverware drawer. He wanted his knife so he could "cut" his steak like I always do. 

Shortly after speech therapy on Wednesady, my Mom arrived to watch Nico while I went to my appointment with the school district regarding Nico's preschool this fall. I was so incredibly impressed with everyone there. I was blown away by how nice and joyful everyone was. Nico's teacher was the sweetest lady. She has a daughter with a lot of the same food allergies that Nico has, and so I felt a little more at ease knowing that she is tuned in to that kind of thing. I'll just be providing Nico's snack instead of the school providing it. Nico will be going to school in the mornings, bussed to and from school only after the first few weeks of me driving him. I am very excited for him!

Today (Thursday), we had the vent cleaners come back out to clean the vents, after having our ductwork fixed on Tuesday. He said that the vents were incredibly dirty. I'm glad we got them cleaned!

Our car had trouble starting today. It tried and tried but wouldn't turn over.  When I pumped the gas it finally started. We made an appointment with the car fixer tomorrow. We don't want anything going wrong on our trip, so we're getting the problem diagnosed and fixed if needed.

Me and my buddy, before going on a long walk, followed by a Strider ride.

That's it for this week! Stay tuned next week for pictures from our trip!

Strider Strides

It turns out that it's a hit and miss with dried apples at one or the other market. They switch back and forth! We were out of luck in choosing the right market last Saturday, but thankfully there was another vendor selling dried apples that we were able to buy from. Nico also got a balloon snake made for him. And then we actually ended up going to BOTH markets since we were able to easily find a parking spot for the other one. We bought some bok choy and radishes.

Stopping at some benches to eat some dried apples before walking back to our car.

Lots of parks this week. We've discovered which ones are best as morning parks and which are best as afternoon parks. The best of the best afternoon park is Memorial Park.

At Memorial Park

In the afternoon the entire park is covered in shade! So if it's a hot day, this is the only acceptable park to go to in the afternoon. The Fish Park would be 2nd, but a lot of it is still in the sun. At Memorial Park last week, we started a new thing - Nico gives me a high five on the way down the slide. He enjoyed this so much that the other kid at the park wanted to do it, too. So for a while, Nico and this little girl went up and down the slide, each giving me a high five as they passed. And when I say they went UP the slide, I mean it literally! They would both give me high fives on the way up, too.

Nico's fever seemed to return on Monday, so I went back to  using the essential oils and humidifier in his room. I've been running his humidifier every night since then. I figured tonight would be the last night, since he hasn't had a smidge of a temperature since Monday and his runny nose is all gone. I may have decided to run it tonight only because I preferred filling it back up with water over dismantling it and putting it away.

On Tuesday we had an appointment to get our vents cleaned out, but when the technician was down in our crawl space setting things up, he found that the top part of a section of our vent had been replaced with a strip of fiberglass insulation, and it had caved in. The picture he took showed us that the insulation had caved in and was almost blocking the entire airway. We told our landlord and he will be sending someone out to take a look at it.

We went to the aquarium on Wednesday, and met a friend and her two small sons there. Nico also had another speech therapy appointment on Wednesday. She brought a whole bunch of new toys and new strategies. She gave me a handout and left some activities for us to do during the week. She encouraged me to spend time helping him make sounds. So I added it to our morning routine. Right after chores we'll be spending some time focusing on sounds. Marcia makes it look so easy!!

A typical evening

Nico likes to "tighten" the bolts on his Strider. And hook up the pump to the fake air intake valves on his tires. I love this picture because you can see how excited he was that he got the pump hooked up. He puts his hands on the back of his hips and smiles.

Testing out the spinning wheel

And a Nico Snippets VIDEO is coming up!! It is still uploading to youtube (40 minutes left) but will be posted soon! Nico has really started to catch on to riding the Strider - you will see some of his smooth moves in the video!

Cousins, Sniffles and Storms

On Saturday morning, Nico and I met Lizzie and Bruce and Rory at Municipal Park to plaaay! It was great to see all of them. Bruce is so attentive to Nico and loves to help him do things and make sure that he is being safe on the playground. He also really likes to make Nico laugh. What a great cousin!

On Sundays we are continuing to go to a Bible Study hosted by people from our church. They are very welcoming of us and of Nico. We bring cars for Nico to play with and they also have a bag of cars for him to play with. He lies on the floor and plays with the cars, or gets up and walks around showing the cars to the people. About halfway through he'll wander over to where we are to get a snack. I bring him a banana or a baggie full of cut up dried apricots and nuts. It has been very nice to be a part of the group. There are about 6 regular attenders other than us, all of them older, and they refer to themselves as "grandparents" to Nico. 

Sunday morning Nico had started randomly sneezing, and Monday morning he woke up with a slight fever and a case of the sniffles. Grandma Salisbury came over for a visit and brought with her some essential oils since I had run out of Melaleuca (the one I use to ward off ear infections). It was great to have her for a visit!

The next day, Nico was really itching to get outside. Even though he still had a bit of a heightened temp, we went out to go for a walk. WHO can resist the mild temperatures and the sun and the birds singing and the fresh air?? I was pretty sure it would be good for us! When we got outside, Nico literally RAN around the block with me. Then we walked a second time around. He had a lot of built up energy!

We have had mild weather days, but we've also had a few storms. We had thunder so loud Monday night that I about jumped through the roof. Guy also mentioned that it was the loudest thunder he had ever heard. It shook the whole house and continued shaking it and rumbling for about 15 seconds. Nico wasn't fazed by it at all. We also had quite a wind storm last night that was pretty incredible. When I went to bed in the evening there were leaves all over our bed that had flown in through the window.

On Wednesday both Guy and I woke up with sore throats. Looks like the cold has become a family affair! I had to reschedule our monthly visit to G.G. for next Friday instead of tomorrow. I don't want to spread it around!

I got a call from the school district today and we set up our next meeting to talk about preschool. It looks like Nico is officially set to go to preschool in the fall - August 28th is the first day of school, a mere month after he turns 3 years old. At the meeting we will talk about logistics and I will likely know at that time which part of the day he will be going, and how many days per week. The meeting is Wednesday May 22nd, so a few weeks away. I am looking forward to it!

The nightly ritual of playing on our bed

Running some errands - Nico has his harmonica

Running up the stairs at the library

No speech therapy this week, but Nico has added a few words to his vocabulary. Grandma is "nama", Banana is "nana", iPad is "O-bah". We've been trying to remember to enforce all of them! Guy remarked that he has noticed Nico has been babbling a lot more and trying out a lot of new sounds.

Trip to the Fish Park