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!!

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.