Nico and Guy had Saturday to spend together while I was at a festival doing henna. They went to the library, and the mall. We are not doing pizza on Saturdays for a few weeks while our oven is being fixed, so they didn't do pizza. Sunday they both went to church together while I finished up at the festival.
Monday was a day at home and Tuesday was an errand day. It's been fun to have the buddy at home for the week because of Thanksgiving.
On Tuesday we got a Thanksgiving box from the Grandparents Russell. Treats, and some art supplies, we've been playing with those the last few days. It was great timing to get some new supplies during his week off. Thank you Grandpa and Grandma!
He used his new art supplies to design a henna tattoo. He was very proud of it when he showed me. I asked him if he wanted to try doing it in henna and he said yes, here's the result!
Allicia and the kids were out of town earlier this week so we had the house to use during the day. We used their oven on Wednesday to make our pumpkin pie and stuffing, and then again today to heat up our turkey and bake our green bean casserole. We bought a cooked turkey breast from Costco that we just sliced up and heated.
We ate:
turkey
green bean casserole
cranberry sauce
sweet potatoes
stuffing
pumpkin pie
We pulled our table out from the wall so we could all sit at it. It was very nice. I made the stuffing with sourdough bread, Guy said it was good but I didn't prefer it. It was a nice experiment!
After we were done eating we played UNO
We FaceTimed with the Grandparents Russell tonight, Nico seems a little more on board with FaceTime now that he's a bit older. It was fun to see them!
We will get to see the Grandparents Salisbury tomorrow!
Last Friday was the Piggie and Gerald show in the evening. We couldn't take pictures during the show but I snapped a few before hand.
Gerald was played by a man in gray clothes, and Piggie was played by a blond haired woman in a pink dress and pig ears. They sang and danced and even acted out parts of their books. There were 3 Squirrels (pronounced Squir-ELLS) It was really fun to watch but very late for Nico. In the middle of their first song Nico asked "When are they going to stop singing?" After that he understood that it was a mix of singing and dancing and acting and he got in the groove. Then about 20 minutes before the show ended, he got very tired and asked every few minutes when it was going to be over. I felt bad keeping him out so late!
Saturday morning Nico and I went to GG's house for a visit! Nico always watches TV for the last half hour we are there, he watched My Little Pony this time. GG gave us a bag full of goodies from her pantry and have been using them up. Thanks GG :)
Then Guy took Nico to the skate park so he could ride his bike. He fell off his bike and got his leg scraped up. Guy says he got back on his bike after this. But eventually it hurt too much so they came home and I bandaged him up so they could go back out and go to the library. They've been going to the library on Saturdays to pick out a video for us to watch while we eat pizza. But Nico chose to check out the Magic Tree House books on tape so we could listen to them while we ate pizza instead of watching something.
Saturday afternoon while we were making pizza I noticed that Nico felt very hot, he had a temp of 101.5 and he ate only 2 bites of pizza. On Sunday he wasn't hungry at all and said he had a tummy ache, but nothing came of it and the only outward symptom was the fever.
Grandma and Papa stopped by on Sunday to drop off eggs and they brought Nico a huge book to help him pass the time while he was sick. It is about things underneath the soil and things underneath the water. You start at one end of the book and flip the pages to learn about what's under the soil, until you get to the molten lava center of the earth, then you flip the book over and go backwards back up to the surface but this time through water. Or you can start with the water and then flip it for the soil. Very fun. We spent a long time reading that.
Monday he said he felt better but still had a temp of 99.5 ish so I kept him home from school.
Tuesday morning Nico and I both had a doctor's appointment. They checked him for some food sensitivities and they say he can eat corn and yogurt and a few other things he couldn't eat before. We tried out eggs this morning for the first time in 8 months and the morning didn't actually go very well after that. On the way to school he told me he didn't want to go and kept pulling me to come back home. He said he was tired and wanted to stay home to sleep. We got to the school but he still insisted and wouldn't let me walk away. I wasn't sure what to do so I took him into his classroom to talk to his teacher before the bell rang. She kept him in there and I left. We communicated throughout the day through email, she told me he went out in the hallway with a parent volunteer to read for a while, and then stayed inside with with her during first recess. He slowly recovered and after lunch he was fine.
That's the first time he hasn't wanted to go to school. I hope he's okay about going to school tomorrow!
On Friday Nico and I went to see G.G. at the hospital. He had the day off from school so it worked out really well. While we were there she wowed us with how well she was getting around even after being cooped up in a bed for a few days!! She was released later that day. Yay! We will see her this Saturday again!
Last Saturday was the Sensory Friendly Movie. We went with Tiffanie, Aadam and Sammy and we met friends from church there as well. The movie was Kubo and the Two Strings. It was kind of scary. Near the end of the movie Nico said he wanted to go home and I asked him why and he said he was tired. The last few times we've been to a movie he has started getting antsy about 30 minutes before the movie is over. He always asks me "How much longer?" I'm not sure we'll go to the movie next time.
Sunday after church we went to a Piggie and Gerald party at the library. Not the library downtown but a different one over on Overland. Tiffanie and kids followed us there, and then we met Grandma Salisbury and Lexie there too. They had reader's theater, which Nico and friends participated in, and coloring and painting and decorating cookies. There was a drawing for free tickets to the LIVE Piggie and Gerald show at the Morrison Center this Friday. Each family could put one raffle ticket into the fishbowl, and so we did. When the drawing took place an hour later, there were only a handful of us still there, so we all waited eagerly to see if we would win. They had a lot of tickets to give away. Name after name after name after name... most weren't in the room so they moved on to the next one. Then, Lexie won!! They gave her 3 tickets so her whole family could go. Then name after name after name... Tiffanie won! 3 tickets to her. More names were called and I could see we were getting to the very last of them and he still had tickets available. Finally, the very last ticket which he struggled getting out of the fishbowl because it was stuck - OURS! That's right. 3 tickets to the Piggie and Gerald Show - TOMORROW! We are going. We might be a little late, but we're going!
Reading "Let's Go for a Drive!"
Reading "My New Friend Is So Fun!"
I can't remember which book this was! (That's Lexie in the middle) They did a great job!
Reading "Today I will Fly!"
On Monday it was G.G.'s birthday. Happy Birthday G.G.!! We will have your present for you on Saturday (you already know what it is!)
That night we had our last night of Financial Peace University. Everyone graduated and we all got a certificate. Nico fell asleep while we were there, with Guy holding him. He had to put Nico down on some of the chairs to take this picture with us.
Guy and Nico bought a few games at Fred Meyer. Life, and Uno. Here's Nico playing Life with 3 of his stuffed animals. He woke up early that day and spent about an hour before breakfast doing this.
Saturday all of us drove up to the cabin for a Lumberjack Party! We were the first ones there and got to have Grandma and Papa all to ourselves for a few hours! It was perfect. My mom served chili and turkey meatballs and sides. Everyone was supposed to bring a dessert and on Friday Nico and I made Sunbutter Chocolate Pumpkin Cups to bring with us. They were tasty!
I put some Halloween Jamberry nails on Lexie, just like the ones I put on Nico.
They matched up their fingers with matching nails
Showing everyone their matching nails
Nico not smiling at the camera when I told him to smile. hehe
There was a contest to guess the weight of a HUGE pumpkin, and also games to guess how many candies were in a jar, and how many M&Ms were in a bottle. Nico asked if his two imaginary friends Bico and Dico could also place guesses, and Bico ended up winning the pumpkin! I forgot to take a picture of it but it's sitting right outside (68 pounds!) I think Allicia and I are going to try to cook it up and freeze it so we have pumpkin puree throughout the year! Then, Nico won the jar of candy. The jar is a beautiful clear glass pumpkin with candies in it and a removable lid.
It was a fun and full day, we came home happy. Thanks so much for the yummy food and the fun time Papa and Grandma!
Monday was Halloween of course, and we met everyone at the Roosevelt Market and then walked home from there, trick-treating on the way. Just like last year! I left early so I could catch the Financial Peace University class that was all about real estate and mortgages.
Guy told me that Nico was very focused on trick-or-treating, and he got a lot more candy than the others. He was really committed and ended up with 125 pieces. He has been sorting them, trucking them around on the Spring Fair trucks, counting them and recording how many of each type he has (in his new red notebook that Gma Russell sent his way).
Check out the video of the Boo Bash and of Halloween at the end of the entry!
Nico had a doctor's appointment today and we will be starting a few new supplements. I am excited to see how they may help his sleep and stomach.
Today was our parent-teacher conference, and Nico is doing really well in school, has a lot of friends, and has very good handwriting. He is in the upper level reading group and the upper level math group. They said he's very humorous and they enjoy having him in the class (this was the teacher and the student teacher talking). When he stood up front during his Star Student week showing his friends his pictures, he showed everyone a picture of someone reading him a book (this would be GG or Grandma Russell) and asked everyone to make 3 guesses what the book was. No one could guess so he kept asking them to try again. No one could see the picture closely so the possibility of books was really endless. They say he's very precise, and is good at seeing patterns in math.
They showed us his journal, and I wish I could show you guys every page, but I only took a picture of one of them. He's been really into car symbols lately and so notice that on Grandma's truck he wrote "GMC" because that is what she owns.
Nico was very curious about Horseflies so we looked them up in the book that GG gave Nico. We ended up looking up a lot more than just Horseflies, and we even got out the ruler so we could see in real life how big some of these bugs get. Horseflies are HUGE!
We heard yesterday that GG is in the hospital with congestive heart failure, looks like it can be managed with the right combo of meds and we are praying for health and recovery! Love you Grandma!!
Last weekend on Friday and Saturday Guy took care of Nico as I was at the "Women Ignite Idaho" conference and trade show. I had a henna booth at the trade show and was attending the conference. It was fun!
Guy made Pad Thai for himself and Nico on Friday night, and on Saturday they made a HUGE sandwich. They had been planning this for a few days, ever since Nico read one of his new Pete the Cat books that Grandma Russell sent him (thank you Grandma!!) He got a set of 5 Pete the Cat readers. And, he can read them! In one of the books, Pete the Cat builds this HUGE sandwich with all sorts of things on it. So Nico made a list of stuff he wanted on his sandwich. Not everything that Pete had, but things that Nico could eat.
Apparently Nico ate a few things from the sandwich for lunch, came back a few hours later and ate some more, a few hours later and finished it off.
Because of my day on Saturday, we had pizza on Sunday instead. We made spider pizzas with olives!
Nico's
Guy's (his salami is under the cheese)
On Saturday, Guy took Nico to the library and Nico picked out Shaun the Sheep on DVD and that's what we watched on Sunday while eating pizza.
Tonight was the Boo Bash at Nico's school. We walked there with the whole crew.
Guy had to be at the church at 6:30 and the Boo Bash was at 6. So we got in there quick and made sure to get our polaroid before Guy had to book it.
We left the Boo Bash at 7 PM and about 40 minutes of that was spent at the Cakewalk. Last year Nico won within 2 minutes, this year took a bit longer, but he persisted! They called his number and we hustled over the gluten free table and he picked out a chocolate bar. Yum! I have already agreed to let him eat half of it tomorrow after breakfast and the other half after lunch.
This week Nico is the Star Student at school. Each kid gets a chance to be the star student and this was Nico's week. Every day this week there's something different. Monday he had to bring a show and tell item. Tuesday he brought pictures. I asked him if he wanted me to print a bigger picture of him and Uncle Tom because the one we have is so small, but he held it to his chest and said "No I love this one because I love Uncle Tom." Wednesday was another show and tell item, and today he showed everyone his poster.
My birthday is: July 29th 2010
5 words to describe me: really fast, funny, nice, sharing, smart
My eye color: blue
My favorite foods: pizza, rice and ground beef, pancakes
My favorite color: blue
Donald Duck Trick or Treat... is the best book I've read
Here's what bugs me: Flies
Sports and Hobbies: Soccer, basketball, read books
My one wish is: to be Darth Vader
A self portrait
About my Pets: I don't have a pet
In my future I see... seeing Darth Vader in a movie
My favorite movies: Star Wars (he hasn't seen this), Masha's Spooky Stories
My favorite movie star: Darth Maul
One question for my teacher: Do you have any pets?
My favorite TV show or computer game: The Incredible Machines
I collect: Grosseries
Things I'm good at: riding bikes
My best school subjects: reading
My fingerprint
Tomorrow the teacher will be reading a letter that Guy and I wrote to Nico. I'm sure she'll be giving him the letter afterward, then I can post a picture or something. Some mushy stuff about his name meaning "Victory", etc etc. ;)
Drawing the Spring Fair with henna.
Nico taking a picture.
That's it for this week! Short and sweet. It's been a busy one!
Friday we invited Sammy and Aadam over to play inside the main house! Jeff and Allicia and crew were out of town so we used their living room for a play date. They colored and wrote books and had a grand time. It was nice to have the space available to invite them inside!
That afternoon they played out front on our table.
On Saturday morning we went to see GG. Guy was able to come with us because we did it on a Saturday, and it was great! As always really fun to see her and talk about what she's been up to and what she has planned in the coming weeks. Nico brought over his Grosseries to show GG. We may have left them there, in fact! I still need to call her and ask if we left them.
On Sunday Guy helped at the sound booth again at church. I think it will become a regular thing!
Monday was Columbus Day, which we affectionally renamed Columbo's Day, a day to watch an episode of Columbo. We picked one of our favorites. Guy and I watched while Nico was in school.
Monday started Guy's VACATION week! He took the whole week off from work. While he's been home, we have sorted through stuff, taken a load to the Youth Ranch to give away, watched lots of Netflix, bought lots of snacks, eaten lots of snacks, and on Wednesday night we even had a PARTY! We bought cupcakes to celebrate Guy's birthday and went to Trader Joe's and filled our carts with all those snacky items and dips that always look so good but you never buy because, well, they can get expensive! But really, Trader Joe's is cheap, although spending $120 on snack items was really a piece of cake for us. We are enjoying blowing all our money this paycheck.
The party on Wednesday was just under the covered porch and we had Jeff & Allicia, plus Tiffanie over. The guests that are staying in the suite above us, Vanessa and her 3 year old Ansel also came to the party, they've become good friends of the family. She bought us flowers. We ate all the snackie items from Trader Joe's, then cupcakes. Finger food heaven! Sammy is also gluten free, and Tiffanie told me that at the party he was like a child in Costco eating all the samples except this time he could actually eat them (because all our food was gluten free!) We sent them home with hummus and salami and veggies for Sammy's lunch. He is growing into quite the foodie and only 8 years old.
I captured only one picture. You can't see the rest of the people/kids that were at the tables, but you CAN see a small section of the dips and chips and crackers we got.
We purchased Nico his Star Wars Lego that he has wanted for a very long time. We ordered it last week and it was delivered on Monday. We opened it up and started putting it together straight away.
Before opening the box
Just starting out
Getting close to the halfway mark...
It is not together yet, but we are close.
Random pictures. Nico is tall enough to ride his blue bike now!
Picture by Nico
It is fun having Guy home. He takes Nico to school with me and picks him up with me. Guy even got to spend some time working on a project - building a card shuffler with legos, using a lego motor to power it. Want to see how it works?
