Illness, Joy, Books

This past week was a week of illness but there were some bright spots in it too! Here's the good and the bad.

On Friday Allicia texted me asking me if I could watch the kids while she took Ivy to the doctor. No problem. We all walked Nico to school. Allicia called and told me they were heading to the ER so Ivy could get some blood tests and an IV. Allicia's mother in law came to take the kids to Jump Time for the morning, and I met them back at the house at noon. In the mean time I went to see Allicia at the hospital and brought her some supplies.

Got Avery down for a nap and Evelyn off to Kindergarten. But then received a phone call that Nico had a potty accident at the school and that I needed to come get him. Avery was napping so I called Tiffanie and had her come over and sit while I walked over to get Nico. By the time we got home, Allicia and Ivy were back.

Nico had a virus (we think), and he felt good and bad over the weekend. Since things were moving quickly through him at first, he was very hungry Saturday morning, so 3 waffles it is! Then he started feeling sick and late that night he threw up. Sunday he was munching on stuff and felt good enough to request pizza that night and we let him eat what he wanted, which was almost his entire personal pizza. On a good day he eats the whole thing and is stuffed. Guy and I regret that we didn't stop him from eating so much. He had stomach pain all the next day and couldn't get up off the couch. Tuesday morning was much better and he popped out of bed and wanted to go to school. He asked me if I had bought more waffles. He didn't get a waffle that day, in fact he barely ate any breakfast and I was worried about him at school. He looked so tired after walking to school. But he made it, and was happy. We are pretty much back to normal now.

The bad stuff is over! That was quick. The rest is good stuff.

This evening while Nico was getting dressed for bed we were talking about feelings, and he stood and thought for a minute and said. I am feeling... happy, and JOY! God puts bottles of joy inside of me and then he pours them out. I asked him questions about it and while he was bubbling with... joy.. he told me again. God fills up bottles with joy while God's inside his heart. Then God peeks out of his heart ("like this" and then he pretended he was peeking out) and dumps all the joy from the bottles into Nico. Then it just comes out and Nico said "I feel it right now!" Then we sat down on the couch and read through the Life and Work of Rube Goldberg. We flipped to all the pictures of his inventions. For example,

Nico in fact came up with his own invention. While Nico was sick, Guy ran to the library and brought us each back a book. He brought me Tale of Sand and brought back the Rube Goldberg book for him and Nico to look through. They sat on the couch and read through invention after invention, and then Nico came up with his own.  He still needs to draw a picture for it, but here it is..

Mouse (A) sees convincingly real wooden cheese (B) and comes out for a bite.  Biting cheese causes the mouse's teeth to fall in bucket (C). Grabber (D) takes teeth from bucket and into

blender (E) which blends them up into teeth juice, which is poured into glass (F).

Man (G) drinks juice, making him sick and throws up in bowl (H).  He throws

vomit out window (I) and into soil (J), which causes monster teeth plant to grow.

I would show you the picture of the monster plant that Nico wanted in the story but it is very scary. Not one that he drew but one that he found on the internet after Guy searched "monster plant". In fact, if you want to see it, you can search google for "monster plant" and click on the "Images" link and it's the first one.

We also discovered a drawing contest advertised in the scholastic book order form. If you win, then Eric Litwin (the original author of Pete the Cat books) will come to your school. You have to draw a picture of your favorite animal singing a song. Nico got right on it. I provided no ideas, he did it all on his own.

I just showed this picture to Guy and he told me where Nico got this from!! Apparently an episode of StoryBots has a Tiger Song that they had shown me a few weeks ago and I had forgotten. Anyway, watch the video... you will see where the Tiger goes rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr. Hilarious! Nico cracks up crazily at this video, it is so fun to see him laugh so hard.

We sent the drawing off to New York, NY yesterday. We printed out a US map so we could see how far away New York was.

Monday night was Financial Peace University. Guy stayed home with Nico and I went. They had a CAKE for us! The special thing about this cake is that it had a great big ZERO candle on it, signifying that we were OUT OF DEBT!

Allicia told me that she was so excited to hear the news about us paying off debt that she submitted our story through Dave Ramsey's website. It wasn't the fanfare she expected, but a message saying "We receive a lot of these, so listen to Dave's radio show to see if we mention yours!" Dave's radio show is 3 hours long every day, so I'm not sure that's practical, but if you happen to be listening, you might hear our story!

Monday night when I got home, Guy was reading "George's Marvelous Medicine" to Nico. This is a chapter book, and Nico was very interested. On Tuesday at school Nico chose a chapter book from the school library, one of the Magic Treehouse books. We've been kind of slow in reading that one, but the world of chapter books MIGHT be opening up to us. I'm not sure quite yet, but it certainly is exciting!

This week turned out to be a pretty good one despite the weekend illness. Here's to another great week! Love to you all!

Tonight. Bedtime for the banjos!

DEBT!

We are officially debt free! We paid our last debt payment yesterday.

Nico colored in the chart and asked "Are we going to move to a new house?" I told him that eventually we would.

Guy wasn't able to come on Monday night to Financial Peace University because of a fever. He has been struggling with colds for the past few months.

Last Friday we went to see GG! Because Nico is now in school all day, we didn't visit in the morning. Instead we drove over right after school. We scheduled our next visit for a Saturday and I think we'll try doing that from now on! This will also give Guy a chance to come with us! It was great to see her. She gave Nico one of her peaches and he loved it. She cut it up for him and he ate it while watching a show on tv. She loaded us up with pureed tomatoes and another thing of relish. We love to use those tomatoes for pizza sauce. Tomorrow I am making a roasted red pepper and tomato bisque soup and I cannot wait to see how different it will taste using her tomatoes.

Here's a picture of Nico and Aadam and Evelyn all playing together inside Aadam's room. Nico loves going inside their house.

I also wanted to take some time to record one of Nico's favorite ways to spend "You and Me Time". With me. He likes doing other things with Daddy during their You and Me Time, but with me this is his consistent choice. The Spring Fair consists of a green van, a green truck, and Thomas the train.

Thomas has a trailer that holds a sign that says "Spring Fair" on it.

The windmill and the sign are set up and then they dance while the light on the sign flashes. This is the way it always begins.

Then, while they are dancing, something happens. A helicopter will bring over an item and drop it right in front of them ...

... and then the rest of the time is spent interacting with that object. It's become a way for Nico to share things with these car characters and talk about some of his favorite things. After his birthday the helicopter brough legos. Conversations go like this: (these things are said by alternating cars)

Woah look there's a helicopter over there, it's carrying something really big. I wonder what it is?!
He's bringing it over here, watch out, he's dropping it!
WOAH! It looks like a book
Can you read, green van? Tell us what is says!
"Dot to dot book"
COOL!
Wait look the helicopter is coming back
Watch out it's dropping something!
AH!
Look it's a pencil!
I bet we use the pencil with the dot-to-dot book.
I love dot-to-dot books! Who wants to go first?

For a time the helicopter would drop a deck of cards and they'd play flap-jack or solitaire. It changes to include the latest interest that Nico has.

It's been such an interesting time where Nico gets to share something that he loves with three very excited cars that are super interested in whatever it is he drops in front of them. Friends that are excited about everything you show them are pretty sweet!

Today, the helicopter dropped a flashlight (recently acquired gift from Aadam and Sam) and when they opened up the flashlight they found it had a treasure map inside. So, they went on a treasure hunt into a dark cave.

Video of us "walking" home from school. Aadam is in front, the Evelyn, then Nico.

Financial Peace University, Bigfoot

Monday was our very first meeting for Financial Peace University (FPU). We went around the room telling the others why we were there. There were several other couples there and a few people from our church. The class was at our church. When it came to us, Guy told everyone who we were and that we had gone through FPU 8 years ago and have been on Baby Step #2 since that time (Baby Step #2 is to pay off all your debt). And that we were very close to paying off debt and it's been so long we're not sure what to do after we're done.

That was a good way to put it! We weren't sure what Baby Step #3 entails and we could also use a good group of motivated like-minded people to keep us moving in the right direction. We are literally six days away from paying off our debt. And to the week it has been 2 years since we moved in here!

Baby Step #3 is to save up for a "fully funded" emergency fund. In Baby Step #1 we just saved up for $1000 emergency fund, to get us through until our debt was paid off. So a fully funded emergency fund will hold 3-6 months of our expenses, so that if something were to happen to our income we would be able to exist for 3-6 months before needing new income. We plan to do this but we have other things on our plate first, one of which is to find a new place to live (we're about 6 months out from this). This new place will hold us for a while as we get through Baby Step #3, because this baby step has another part to it, #3b, which is to save up for a down payment on a house.

We understand that things can change, but this is our vision of the future for now!

And so, wait, you came here to hear about Nico? Oh right. He came with us to the meeting on Monday.

:)

and he was so well behaved. We plugged him into the iPad and he played games the whole 2 hours.

On Sunday we got to see the Grandparents Salisbury, plus Lexie! The Grandparents Salisbury recently returned from a trip to St Louis. They brought us back a license plate from Russell, KS that says "RUSSELL" on it! Nico and Lexie both got a Bigfoot toy that pops foam balls out of its mouth. Apparently Lexie and Nico are both very big Bigfoot fans. At Grandma Camp they would watch Finding Bigfoot together. I had no idea Nico was so interested in it! He said to Grandma "want to see what I got from the library?" and he pulled out a graphic novel about the history of Bigfoot! I had no idea he had checked that out. Lexie was so excited about it and looked through it.

Grandma asked Nico if he liked Grandma Camp and he said "Yes, no, kind of" and put his thumb in the middle instead of up or down. Grandma asked him why and he said he didn't like sleeping alone because he got scared (he was usually the first one in bed, and his bed was made up in Grandma's room). Grandma asked him what could make it better next year and he said "Maybe I could sleep in your bed and then when you go to bed you can snuggle me or something?" That was pretty sweet. But then we came up with a different plan - that he sleeps where the big kids sleep. He was happy with that. Grandma asked Lexie what she didn't like about Grandma Camp and Lexie laughed and said she didn't like getting sprayed with water from the kitchen sprayer. Apparently there were a lot of water fights with that thing! And apparently she got Grandma really good in the back one time when Grandma wasn't looking! Nico told us that story.

More bike rides with the boys.

Sorry for the lack of pictures!

We've been doing lots of dot-to-dots, color by numbers, and then this morning he pulled out the mazes. Picture day was on Wednesday. He's been wearing his suspenders to school a lot. He has been asking to go to school early, so, we do! He can't show up before 8:15 but we arrive at about 8:25, the bell rings at 8:40. I suspect he gets there early so he can have first pick of the basketballs. There are a few that are flat.

Nico's Journal, Bike Ride, and Tornadoes

So last week I told you that at the Parent Orientation I wrote a note to Nico in his journal, well on Friday afternoon I received an email from his teacher and she had taken a picture of the note Nico wrote back to me in his journal. I assumed that she had done this for all the kids and parents, but when I talked to her this past week she told me it was just him because what he wrote was so adorable and he did such a good job writing :) Then he wrote a journal entry for Guy, too...

Guy took Friday off from work and we watched Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell on Netflix, the first of the mini series. We have both read the book and so this was very fun. We went downstairs in the basement to watch it.

This past weekend, Allicia's sister got married, so there were lots of family in town and they actually stayed at a house rental in Eagle for the weekend. It was strangely quiet around here. I didn't have any henna booths so we were able to really enjoy spending time together. Nico and I went to the Sensory friendly movie on Saturday, they played Ice Age: Collision Course. It was funny. Tiffanie and boys also went.

Tiffanie took the boys plus Nico for a bike ride on Monday, everyone had the day off! They went by the golf course.

Nico is always excited to go to school in the mornings. This past week he has had to wear certain colors to school so he searched for the right shirt every morning. He's been struggling to eat all of his lunch so this morning he told me to just pack him half a sandwich. It doesn't seem like enough food, just half a sandwich and some veggies, but he did eat it all.

He likes to chatter while we walk to school and tell me things and ask me questions. I love it.

No Spendtember is going swimmingly. Would you believe it if I told you we only have $850 left of our debt?!??!?!??!? I can't believe it! The blog update in 2 weeks might have some super good news about debt payoff... Nico is excited about the huge Star Wars lego we are going to buy when we pay off debt.

Not much else happened this past week!

Oh but I have a funny story. A few nights ago Nico crawled into bed with us and seemed a little restless. Then I heard "Mommy?" and I said "What?" and then he asked me if there were any tomatoes in Idaho. Tomatoes? Yes, there are tomatoes.

N: There are tomatoes in Idaho?

M: Yes

N: A boy at school told me there were no tomatoes in Idaho

M: Oh, well, Jeff and Allicia grow tomatoes in their garden and we've eaten them!

N: But there are no tornadoes?

M: OH, tornadoes? Yes there are tornadoes in Idaho but they are small and don't last long

N: I don't want to live where there are tornadoes

M: Oh but you know what? If there is ever a tornado in Idaho we are in luck because Mommy knows exactly what to do when a tornado happens and we will be fine.

N: I don't want to live in Idaho

I assured him that tornadoes in Idaho are rare and small. They get confused around mountains. Then he fell back to sleep. A few weeks before this, we had been watching tornado videos on YouTube because Nico didn't know what a tornado was, and then I told him I had to turn it off because it was making me nervous because I didn't like tornadoes. Whoops. I'll have to work on that.

School school

On Saturday our neighborhood had a block party at the end of our street. I set up a little henna booth there just like last year, but this time the people who organized it said I should charge, so I did! There was a bouncy house just like last year, and just like last year Nico jumped so much he started feeling sick. Guy took him home to bed and he was soon feeling better.

Sunday was Aadam's birthday. He didn't have an official party but he did come over with his brother Sammy and the boys played out front at our table for a while, eating watermelon and playing. Aadam had treat bags for all the kids, it had some sweet treats in it that Nico could eat and a hotwheels car and a Minions cup.

Then another week of school started! Nico has been doing well. We figured out that library day is Tuesday. Our routine after he gets home from school is--> homework-->snack & iPad. It's been good so far. For a few days he wasn't eating his sandwich in his lunch but just eating his crackers and carrots. I told him to focus on eating his sandwich first and ever since then he's been eating his sandwich too.

Last night (Thursday night) was the Parents Orientation. We heard a speech from the principal (very good), and then we went to the classrooms and met our child's teacher. Nico now sits in the very front row. I sat at his desk and Mrs. Smith told us we could look through our child's stuff, so I did. I pulled out all the stuff he had in his desk and looked through it. Oh fun! She explained how homework works and the kinds of things they're doing in the class. "Walk to Read" and "March to Math" are both daily/weekly things that they do with the other 1st grade class. They are put into groups dependent on their skill. At the end she asked us all to write something to our child in their journals. That was very cool. He is at school right now and has probably already read it!

She also talked about "Mindset", about teaching kids that doing hard things grows your brain and making mistakes is how we learn. She said that a good question to ask our kids every day is "What hard thing did you do today, how did you grow your brain?" I did notice that he started saying something new just the other day, he was saying it to himself while trying to put on his suspenders without luck "I can do this, I can do this, I CAN do this." Way to go teacher!!

Thursday was a late night for me so that's why I'm updating this morning! Guy has today off and we are hoping to watch some Netflix together today while Nico is at school. It is a long weekend so Guy also has Monday off!

I perfected the gluten free tortilla! It can fold!!

15 minutes before bed: Can I have some henna? Nico told me where to put every part. "Put a vine here, and here, and here and here"