Flying Kites, Friends, and a Video!

On Saturday morning I drove out to Nampa to an Art Jury for the Nampa Public Market. My henna tattoos were approved for a booth at the market for this summer! I plan to be there about 10 of the Saturdays this summer.

That evening we made pizza again and watched Three Stooges.

I'm having a difficult time remembering what else we did this week! We had some incredible wind on Monday. Allicia took all her kids PLUS Nico to the park to fly kites.

We went to the Discovery Center 

Bed of nails

On the way in to the Discovery Center, Allicia said "Ok everyone hold hands!" Nico and Evelyn held hands and then he kissed her hand.

We sat outside yesterday morning to count birds.

He's been playing almost nonstop with his friends outside. They ride scooters, bikes, or play in their front yard. We "lock" them in their front yard (they have a fence) so they can play freely. They play with cars and other things. One of the friends goes to his school, Aiden, in 2nd grade, and Nico likes to wait for him when I pick him up from school so we can all walk together. They walk next to each other in front of me and Nico asks "Would you like to play with me?" and then the next day Aiden will ask Nico "Do you want to play with me?" Nico comes home and eats a snack first and then rushes outside. Aiden brings out all his cool toys, cars or Star Wars action figures and they sit at the little kids table in their yard. Adam and Sam join them as well. I go out to check on them throughout the afternoon, and Nico typically comes inside when Guy comes home. Guy "picks him up" from over there and brings him inside. Sometimes I go over and talk with Adam and Sam's mom, Tiffanie, and we sit at the "grown up" outdoor table in their yard. Sometimes Adam and Sam come over here for a play date, and they play inside while I make dinner and then I walk them home when Guy gets home. We've done that twice. Sam laments that instead of coming over to our house he wants to go to Evelyn's house. Hehe. Sometimes Evelyn plays with them too.

Nico and Evelyn have been getting along really well lately. They also enjoy playing outside, in the backyard, and there are days where that is all that Nico prefers. I think it was Sunday they were playing really well together outside and Jeff had to pull Evelyn away because he was taking the kids on a hike, and Evelyn was inconsolable because she wanted to continue playing with Nico, so they invited Nico along on the hike.

I taught another henna class on Tuesday.

And I finally got the April Snippets video put together! Enjoy!

 

First lost tooth, tadpoles, pizza!

Last Friday was Nico's Snack & Share at school. He got to bring the snack for the day, and then also something to show the class. He brought his batman car to show everyone.

It goes on its own and sends flying discs up into the air.

Saturday was a fun day. We ran errands in the morning, then we went for a walk to find a home for the tadpoles. We did some research about the tadpoles and how to keep them and we figured out we just had too many to take care of, we would need a much larger area for them to live, so we went with the intent of finding another home for all of them but one. But when the time came, it was impossible to just keep one because we couldn't access the water to refill our jar, it was a situation where Guy had to reach through the sticks to dump them out. So, we said goodbye to all of them. 

Evelyn came with us.

Nico put his arm around Evelyn for a short while as we were walking home. 

Pizza Saturday night! We have restarted the tradition! We made Nico his own personal pizza and he ate the whole thing!!! I think Guy's sauce is winning him over. This is Guy's pizza they're building. Guy put some pesto underneath his own sauce. Nico didn't want pesto on his.

While we were sitting on the couch watching Three Stooges and eating pizza..

Nico chomped hard and lost his very first loose tooth! Milestone! 

The tooth fairy gave him $5 for his first tooth and a riddle he had to solve to find a red clown nose somewhere in the clubhouse. The red clown nose was what I bought ($1 at Walgreens) so that I could get the $5 cash back to put under his pillow that night.

On Sunday we were able to see Papa and Grandma Salisbury, and we gave Grandma her birthday presents since her birthday was on Monday. Nico made her a rose with a stem out of modeling clay (I helped a bit, and showed him how). I apparently didn't take a picture of it, just video! But unfortunately iMovie has been crashing so I wasn't able to put together the snippet video! The video will have to come later. So I took a screen shot from the video so you could see.  After the clay dried he painted it, green and red like a rose. We put a few drops of lavender essential oil on the flower so it kind of smelled good. 

Happy Birthday Mom/Grandma!!! We love you! 

On Monday was Nico's next doctor's appointment to check on progress. Everything is going well in that regard. Since stopping his allergic foods he hasn't had many tummy aches and when he did it was easy to tell what caused them. He's had just 2 since his first appointment. Of course, when he goes to bed he sometimes will stay in there for a minute before coming out with a smirk on his face telling me his tummy hurts. I ask him when his tummy ache started and it's always the same: "When I got into bed". I haven't been counting those as tummy aches. He has them only on the nights when he is having a hard time winding down and seems to just not want to be in bed. I hope I'm making the right call on not calling them tummy aches! I usually rub some oils on his feet and he goes back to bed just fine.

In a few weeks we are doing a stool test on him. This will check for inflammation and bad bacteria and a host of other things. Then we'll start him on probiotics...

On Tuesday I taught an essential oils class in the evening. 

Some random pictures..

We went to a playdate at Quarry View on Wednesday morning and one of Nico's school friends, Wendy, was there. We walked her to school that day. They ate watermelon on the way.

We tried out his new adjustable crayons. He drew a sun.

Sorry for lack of video this week, we will hope for next!!

Sun Shade, GG, and hugs

Last Friday Guy worked late, but it worked out just fine because Nico fell asleep around 4:30 PM and woke up at 6:30, right before Guy got home. (6:30 is the usual bedtime around here). So after eating dinner we decided to go to the park since it's rare that Nico naps. We rode our bikes.

We got home around 8:30 and started bedtime. Didn't work, really. He was awake until I went to bed at 10:30, when he crawled into bed with me. He didn't stop tossing and turning until 11:30. 

On Saturday we met outside with Jeff & Allicia and crew so we could put up our new sun shade! They purchased us our very own sun shade, they had initially intended to put it up for us while we were gone on vacation so we would come home to it, but thought instead that they would wait so we could have input into the process. 

Cutting back branches

The main work crew

The helper crews

Nico's stick and rock collection. Arranged by him. We thought of you, Grandpa Russell! :) Guy said: LOOK! Take a picture of that!

Avery "helping" sort screws

 Aaaaaand... DONE! 2 hours later!

We ate lunch and I took a nap while Guy and Nico went out to the library and to get coffee. That afternoon we met up with the crew again in the backyard where they had stacked a bunch of compost on a tarp, on its way to the garden. Nico thought to bring out the digger.

Balancing on a board

Then when they were nice and dirty, they turned the sprinklers on!

That was a full day!

Sunday was a risk-filled day as our car was developing problems with starting. It would take longer and longer every time we tried to start it. We ran errands after church (leaving the car running at our last stop so I could run in without having to turn off the car), and then drove the car home and parked it. We borrowed Jeff & Allicia's car Sunday night to make it to Bible Study, we wanted to save as many starts as we could so that Guy could start the car Monday morning and drive it straight to the shop to get it fixed. But alas, Guy could not start the car Monday morning, and the engine started smoking. I am so grateful for USAA's Roadside Assistance! We have used it several times now to tow our car. The tow truck came and took it and Guy to the shop. The shop of course drove Guy to work. I didn't have to think about it at all, because the car was fixed that day and Guy drove home with it good as new! It was the starter. Makes sense.

On Tuesday we drove Guy to work so we could have the car to visit GG! Nico brought his iPad with him to show her his current favorite iPad game which is called Around the World in 80 Days, it's a hidden objects game. You can click on the objects you find and it gives you points and removes them from the page so you can move on to the next item. We got it when it was free a few weeks ago. The first time we went "Around the World" it took us a while (several days), but now he pretty much has all the object placements memorized. Him and GG played it for a good 30 minutes during our visit!

It's so fun to see him so excited to show her his favorite things! GG gave us a foldable table to put under our sun shade. Thank you GG! We set it up outside yesterday and we ate dinner on it. Guy pulled it back inside when it started raining. It looks like a big suitcase, but you unfold it and it's a table with 4 chairs! Incredible!

We ran into one of Nico's school friends on the way to school on Tuesday. Her name is Brody and she yelled from down the street: "NICO!!!!" Nico turned around and yelled "BRODY!!!!" and they ran to each other and gave each other a hug. Nico patted her back afterward and then took her hand to walk to school with her. Brody's little sister joined in and took Brody's other hand, and I was holding Nico's other hand, so we had quite a line. Brody's great grandmother was walking her to school so we were able to chat.

This reminded me that last Thursday on the playground (I had volunteered in the classroom Thursday so I was able to see it, Nico's teacher pointed it out to me), him and an older girl (1st grade maybe?) were hugging on the playground. Then they would stand with their arms around each other. Then another girl came over and all three of them hugged as a big group. He is a hugger! 

On the way to school yesterday Nico asked me "Where's Brody?" and I told him I didn't know. I said "Brody's really nice, I like her." and Nico said "Yeah, Brody's really nice to me. She's cute too." hehe

Do I need to be worried? :)

I think that's it for this week. I captured some video but didn't have time to put it together for this week, so maybe I'll do a snippet video next week? 

Ta ta!

Cabin and Doctor

On Saturday we had the sensory friendly movie, they played Kung Fu Panda 3. It was a good movie with a good message. I loved it! We met some friends from the church there.

Saturday afternoon, Papa picked Nico up, they met up with Lexie and Grandma Salisbury and all drove up to the cabin for an overnight visit! When we were at the cabin on Easter, Jonny and Alanna had brought a game called PieFace:

Nico kept asking to play it and we kept saying "later, after the egg hunt..." But when the egg hunt was over, it was time to head home! So this sealed the deal for him coming over on Saturday, because the game would be there. And here he is on Saturday...

Papa and Grandma also took Nico and Lexie to Elk Pond where Grandma had heard a bunch of frogs croaking earlier. The frogs were still in full force when they arrived (see video below for the volume of frog sounds they heard!), and they even found some pollywogs to bring home. The pollywogs were in the egg sack and are still currently there, growing tails, in a jar on our windowsill. 

Here they are today. When Nico brought them home, they were just dots. Now they have some tails growing.

Apparently Grandma returned to the pond yesterday and there was no sign of any frogs or pollywogs! Did a raccoon get them??

Nico also got to eat coconut milk ice cream, and chocolate chips! He returned to us Sunday morning right before church. Thank you so much Papa and Grandma for the fun time Nico had!!!

While Nico was gone on Saturday, Guy and I attempted a hike. But, it was 2 in the afternoon in full sun and we wilted very quickly. Hehe. We need to build up some endurance! We then decided to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens! We have been wanting to see this movie for a very long time, and we wanted to see it together. And, we finally did! We used some movie tickets that Allicia had given to us a few months ago.

And did you know... that this movie is the very first movie Guy and I have seen together by ourselves in a theater? There was one time where we went to a movie with a group of people. But this was the first time we have been by ourselves. Pretty exciting! So we had to take a picture, though there is no indication that this is a movie theater we are standing in front of. We couldn't fit everything into the picture :)

On Tuesday Nico had a nutritionist appointment, to help us figure out what Nico could eat based on his allergy testing. She said we should take him off dairy completely for 6 months, though an occasional cheese is ok. So, no cream cheese or sour cream. She gave me ideas for how to replace those, and I diligently went and bought some cashew cheese to spread on his sandwiches, and then dutifully attempted to make vegan mayonnaise. The cashew cheese made Nico feel really sick, so that's a no go. He went to school on Wednesday with a tummy ache. And the mayonnaise didn't emulsify so it's just a cup of liquid. But, we're learning :)

A few more random pictures...

That's it! Enjoy the sound of frogs in the video! :)