Spring Break!

Nico had a bit of a cold last weekend, with a fever on Saturday. We were planning a trip to see Allicia's Roller Derby game on Saturday night but I stayed home with Nico and Guy went to the game. He had never seen a game before so we figured that would be the best arrangement! We actually had a pretty fun night ourselves, we ate dinner and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Saturday and Sunday I went over to the Grandparents Salisbury new house to help unpack. All their stuff was moved on Friday.

Grandma and Aunt Ellen laughing.

SPRING BREAK is happening this week, and Guy also has the whole week off. We've had plans to go do some fun things but haven't realized those plans yet. It has been rainy and we've been working hard to get stuff organized for our garage sale and clearing the clutter out of here. We purchased a wardrobe and switched around Nico's bed so that he is now sleeping on top of the bed. When we pulled his mattress from the floor underneath the bed we discovered mold on the bottom, so we tossed it outside and ran and bought a new mattress.

Monday - went through all our storage in the cellar, pulling stuff for the garage sale and repacking the storage boxes.

Tuesday - sorted through Nico's toys. Met Grandma Salisbury, Bruce, and Rory at Red Robin for lunch, then they took Nico for a sleepover at the Grandparents Salisbury new house. Tuesday evening I had a henna photoshoot at Quarry View Park. The photographer took pictures of the kids (Evelyn, Nico, Sammy, Aadam) with henna and also Allicia with henna. I took a few shots of Allicia myself after we came home, just to capture the moment, since I won't get the professional photos for a few more weeks :)

Wednesday - went to Pojo's with Bruce and Rory and Grandma Salisbury. He got 383 tickets and had quite a bit of fun playing games and riding bumper cars. We went to Big-Os to get the oil changed, here are Rory and Nico sitting down at Big-O Tires.

Thursday - This morning Nico opened a package from the Grandparents Russell that had some fun activities in it, we colored some bird coloring pages and we picked out where he would hang up the bird migration poster. This was also a Lego sorting day. Nico sat down with Guy and I at the table and worked on a miniature Lego panda while Guy and I sorted Legos. Rain rain and more rain, so much rain, snow too. But mostly rain, hard rain.

Here's a picture of Nico tucked into bed ready to sleep tonight. First night he has ever slept with a TOP SHEET in his own bed. I figured it was about time. We are using a quilt now that Grandma Russell made (can't remember if I helped or not?) It is beautiful, though, and so soft. And you can see the wardrobe we purchased. It has a mirror in the middle panel and Nico has been enjoying that. We find him practicing his ninja skills in front of the mirror sometimes.

It has been quite a cozy Spring Break so far.

Last trip to the cabin, Photronics

Last Friday was St. Patrick's Day. Allicia bought all the kids something green to wear to school. Nico forgot his green bowtie so I brought it to him as soon as I got home from dropping him off. He was very grateful. Here are all the kiddos after school while walking home.

On Saturday morning I went up to the cabin and Guy and Nico went to the Photronics Phun Day. There was a scavenger hunt, a tour, and he got to try on the bunny suits you have to wear into the Fab.

After they were done they met me up at the cabin because this was the last get together before the Grandparents Salisbury move to their new home. It was good to say goodbye to the place. They are officially moving tomorrow (Friday!). Here's to new adventures!

Sunday was church and Bible Study, and sitting between the two was a birthday party for Ivy, who turned 2 years old on the first day of Spring! It was a rainbow party. Yummy food, colorful streamers. They held it under the covered porch. We had to leave early to get to Bible study on time.

We are planning a garage sale to sell some things and save up for a car. We have a lot of stuff that needs to go. We plan to spend a lot of time during Spring Break decluttering. Just tonight we had delivered a wardrobe we purchased off craigslist. This will help with the clutter, it will replace our hanging closet, and it has doors to close so you don't have to see the stuff inside it. I am very pleased with it. One of the doors even has a mirror.

Picture of Nico at dinner tonight drinking his milk. Thursday is always turkey burger day! His favorite. He eats it one small teeny bite at a time so it lasts longer. He then tells Daddy - "Eat small bites so it lasts longer!"

He has been reading...

Captain Underpants
Magic Treehouse books

These are chapter books and he's been reading them outloud several times a day, he even takes them outside while he's playing and reads them to Sammy and Aadam. If he doesn't know a word he either guesses what it is and moves on, or he asks what it is. He sometimes comes into the bathroom while I'm taking a shower and sits on the toilet to read me a book.

There is a Dogman comic where the evil cat takes away all the books in the world and all the people get really dumb. Then when the books come back, they get smart again. So Nico says that he is getting smarter and smarter because he reads.

GG, Park, Squirrel

On Saturday we visited GG. Missy (Guy's cousin) was there helping GG pack because she is moving soon, in with her sister Pat. The next time we go visit GG we will be seeing her at her new place! GG gave Nico the cars that he plays with whenever he comes over, the one that Grandpa Russell made and I think one that Guy's Uncle Larry made, plus some tiny cars that you pull back first and then they go. I also found out that Uncle Larry is an ornithologist! If I already knew this then I must have forgotten! Guy knew, of course. It was great to see GG and to see her house one last time before the move.

Nico has been taking pictures of animals that he finds, here's his latest.

And some flowers.

The weather has been so nice that he has had lots of time to play outside with his friends. We even went to Quarry View park for the first time this year! We had to go to setup my henna canopy to install a wire onto it, and while we set up the canopy Nico played on the playground. It felt like the whole neighborhood was there!

We went another time but with Nico's friends.

They also had a "Spring picnic" out front last Friday, because it was so sunny and warm!

We bought bird seed and squirrel food for our feeders, we hope to hang them on Saturday. They are sitting outside now and while we haven't had any birds interested in the feeder while it's on the ground, we DID get a curious squirrel that came over and went to town on the sunflower seeds.

This squirrel is one that lives in Tiffanie's yard. We are very excited to be moving the feeder into her yard so they will have much easier access to it.

That's it for this week!

Birds birds and more birds and some other animals

We spent all of Saturday morning working to rebuild our Eiffel Tower lego, and in the afternoon we went to an engagement party at the church. We were planning to leave Nico here for Jeff and Allicia to watch but the kiddos in the main house caught a stomach bug, so we took him with us, which turned out to be the BEST thing we could have done. It was a family-friendly event at the church, there were games for kids and he had several church friends there with him. It was announced that whoever found the most toy rings won a prize at the end, so Nico searched everywhere for rings throughout the whole event. There were games that Nico and I participated in too. Then a "jeopardy" type game with questions about the couple getting married. Whoever raised their hands first got to answer first, and Nico raised his hand almost every time. He answered enough questions right to win 2nd place and picked out a BIRD FEEDER for his prize!! When he brought it over to me I was so excited, it was beautifully hand crafted by the father of the bride. Everyone was cracking up that Nico was answering all the questions right. He stole the show.

Then the couple opened presents and Nico brought them all their gifts. He had so much fun.

Then everyone counted up how many rings they had found and Nico had 13, which means he tied for 1st place! He chose a Squirrel Feeder for his prize and with all that we came home with I am just exceedingly grateful. We are SET for watching birds and squirrels and we can't wait to hang them. We are going to let Tiffanie use our squirrel feeder until we move since she has 2 lively squirrels living in her tree and we all get a kick out of them. Check out these little stools for the squirrels to sit on!

I'm so glad that it worked out that Nico came with us!

He says he wants to study animals and birds when he grows up, and wants to be an ornithologist (we had to look up what a bird scientist was called. I didn't know. Guy probably did but he was at work). We spent a few minutes looking online for what it would take to be an ornithologist and he said he wanted to go to college in Seattle near Grandma and Grandpa Russell. We signed him up for a nature camp this summer that's just a week long over at the Botanical Garden, it's called Bugs, Birds, Bats, and Botany. The description reads: This week focuses on winged wonders and the plants they call food and home. Use nets to capture insects, hold a wild bird’s nest, and learn how living things fly."

He's been taking pictures of animals with our phones. Not just real animals but pictures of animals in comic books or wherever else he sees them. He also snaps pictures of birds with my phone on the way to school.

I understand there's room for him to change his mind about what he wants to do when he grows up, but it is awesome to see him so passionate about something and it makes me want to give him everything he wants that is bird related. 

Coloring some mandalas

Guy let me put henna on his foot, which we washed off right after.

Sorting lego bins.

He's been playing over at Aadam and Sammy's a lot after school.

He's been reading...

Heidi Hecklebeck books

Bird and Squirrel comics

Dogman

Late Post

Late henna night last night, update is coming this morning!

IEP, Spring Break Plans

I forgot a few pictures last week! On the Friday that Nico had off, Guy came home from work early and we attempted to hike the Table Rock trail but when we arrived there there were signs saying the trail was closed due to mud. Nico was very sad about it, he was looking forward to hiking and spying out birds with our binoculars. He had packed his fanny pack with a Lara bar, sunflower seeds, and pistachios.

Guy looking up the trail report after we saw the signs

We got back in the car and drove instead to the library where we played two board games. One of them was called "Secret Code 13+4" where you are trying to pass through lasers to get to the end of the game, and each laser has a number. You roll 6 dice and try in some way to get that number by adding, multiplying, subtracting, whatever it takes. We all enjoyed that one.

Ok now on to this past week!

Whenever I see birds, I take a picture, even if it's a goose, so that I can show Nico and ask him "What kind of bird is this?"

We sold our car on Saturday. We posted it on craigslist and 30 minutes later had a call about it. Then he came over and bought it right then. It was so rushed we didn't have much time to think and plan about what we needed to do to actually sign the title over to him. We signed the title over right but forgot two things - to remove the license plates and to detach the release of liability from the title so we could mail it in. We were very anxious over the next few days as we tried to get it all sorted out. But, it is all sorted out now.. phew!

On Tuesday was Nico's yearly IEP meeting. Guy and I arrived a bit early so we sat on chairs in the hallway that just happened to have a straight shot to where Nico was sitting in his class. He never saw us so I had to take a picture.

The IEP meeting went well, Nico will continue to receive speech therapy in 2nd grade. His speech therapist said that Nico has come a long way since starting in Kindergarten, and even in this last year. He is very polite, has a sense of humor, and is always looking out for his friends and helping them. It was nice to hear all the good things they had to say about him. 

I tried a new recipe this week, a quiche with sweet potato crust. Nico liked it. That is a great thing. Honestly, a lot of the recipes I try are flops!

We made the hard decision to cancel our trip to Arlington over Spring Break. Due to our car situation we think it's best. We will really miss being able to hang with the Grandparents Russell at their house and also just being in Arlington. We may try to take a trip in June, we will see how things go!

Over Spring break we plan instead to find some places around Boise to visit. We are thinking Birds of Prey and perhaps the Bruneau Sand Dunes. 

Nico was reading "Heidi Heckelbeck Makes a Wish" to Sammy and Aadam today, Tiffanie took a picture for me. They were laughing and laughing.

That's it for this week!