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!