Gluten Week! And Thanksgiving!

On Friday Nico woke up with a sore throat. He wanted to stay home from school but I sent him to school anyway. An hour later, the nurse called me and told me Nico had been to see her twice, she said, "You know how determined he is when he wants to go home, do you just want to come pick him up? Or do you want to talk to him?" I said I would come pick him up. I couldn't help laughing and giggling when I went to meet him at the school. It cracked me up. He was fine. We ran to Whole Foods to return an Amazon package and pick up some strawberries, and then visited Allicia and Avery and Ivy that afternoon to play video games.

He had the sniffles over the weekend but nothing much came of it.

Saturday started Gluten Week. We told him he could choose one meal and one dessert a day with gluten. We didn't want to overwhelm his system with 3 meals a day. Saturday he chose Pizza Hut. It was also Odd Saturday at Jeff & Allicia's that Guy and Nico attended. They came home in time for Swiss Family Robinson (my choice) and Pizza Hut! Nico loved it. And he didn't appear to have any negative reaction to the gluten. 

Sunday he chose to eat a cheese quesadilla from Taco Bell where I dropped him off after church so he could eat with cousins and the Grandparents Salisbury. Afterward, they went roller skating.

Monday I took him to Blue Sky Bagels for breakfast. The place smelled sooo good. And he was soooo excited. After his first bite he said, "Why does this taste so good?" He chose a cinnamon and sugar bagel with berry cream cheese. He said next time he would get the same kind of bagel but different cream cheese. He couldn't finish it so we wrapped up the rest for later. He ate the leftovers as his chosen "dessert" for Monday.

Monday afternoon and evening was Grandma Camp. Guy picked up dinner for me and him from Thai Basil and we watched a few episodes of Dr Who while we ate.

Tuesday's chosen meal was Jimmy John's. He got a sandwich with cheese and guacamole on it (that's it). I also got him a Jimmy John's cookie and a bag of their salt & vinegar chips (which also have gluten so he hasn't been able to eat them.)

We were going to meet Guy there, but Guy wasn't able to get out of his meeting in time, so we took Guy his sandwich after we were done.

Wednesday we had Evelyn, Ivy, and Avery over for a few hours in the morning. Then in the afternoon, Nico went over to their house for a few hours. A good way to spend a day off. They took turns playing Mario Kart on our Wii.

Nico's chosen meal for Wednesday was Papa John's pizza. He loved it. He couldn't tell a difference between Pizza Hut and Papa John's, he says he loves them both. He had some snickerdoodles for his dessert.

And then today.. Thanksgiving! Nico could eat anything he wanted. He loved the rolls. He ate chocolate cream pie for dessert.

After the food, we had the lego challenge. Grandma Salisbury planned this one well! It was a family challenge so we all worked together to put together our car. Bruce, Rory, and David won that challenge. The next challenge was to see whose car could go the farthest and the fastest. Each car could be pulled back and released. Lexie won both of those challenges; way to go!

Ornament exchange.

Unwrapping the box! This box Nico is working on is covered in duct tape. An entire roll. It took the kiddos quite a while to unravel it. Each kid had about 15 seconds to get what they could from it. The initial box was a large box, and this smaller one was just one box inside of bigger and bigger boxes.

After the box, it was time for dessert. Pie pie pie pie!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I have a video with Thanksgiving snippets and some snippets of gluten week which I will post next week.

Chili, Youth Group, and Friendsgiving

Saturday night was Guy's choice for movie. We started watching the new Dark Crystal tv series, but it turned out being a little too scary for Nico, so Guy switched over to Perry Mason. Nico said, "YES! I love Perry Mason!"

Sunday after church, the Grandparents Salisbury invited us over for lunch. There was a craft to do after lunch that the girls did first, and then we handed it over to the boys. Painting stones. It was fun!

Family picture taken by Grandma.

Thanks for the yummy food and the fun time!

Nico has been creating new video game levels using a game he has on his Switch called Super Mario Maker 2. He then uploads them so that other people can play them too. He also loves playing other people's levels. So this is a normal Monday night for us.

On Tuesday we went to visit GG and picked up Jimmu John's on the way home.

On Wednesday, Pa took the kiddos to Cabella's before he took them to Youth Group, and there was a Santa there!

Guy and I were invited to dinner by an older couple at our church, so we had dinner with them on Wednesday while Nico was at Youth Group. The couple lives over near the church where the Youth Group is at, so we picked up Nico from Youth Group on our way home. It was cool to see where it all takes place and to meet the youth leader and his wife. You can see Nico in his blue jacket here.

Today they celebrated "Friendsgiving" in Nico's class. Nico was able to eat some gluten free pumpkin pie thanks to the mom of another boy in his class who always makes gluten free treats for celebrations. Yay! Nico had two slices. He told us he drank wine, too. He he. Can't fool us!

That's it for this week!

Castle Rock

On Saturday Nico and I climbed up to Castle Rock, it's a much shorter hike than Table Rock and not as much exertion is required. I can see Castle Rock outside our front window and often see people up at the top looking down. So I wanted to try it. Check out the video at the end!

 

After we got home from Castle Rock, Guy helped Nico create a board game for a Cub Scouts project.

FLASHBACK

Nico wanted to recreate the picture.

Guy received his MST3K coffee table book in the mail on Tuesday. I brought it with me when we went on our coffee date to Caffe Capri and we looked through it. Really cool!

Today I met Allicia and Ivy at a new Zero-waste store in Garden City called Roots. They have tea, and muffins (made with cricket flour).

Ivy wore her flower dress because she knew she was having a "date" with me.

Enjoy the video!

Bazaar and Birds

On Saturday Nico and I went to a Bazaar at Jeff & Allicia's church where Evelyn was doing face painting. She gave me a few hearts on my cheek. Nico brought his own money with him and bought two pictures of birds from a photographer there. He was flipping through the ones available and he remarked, "That's a Western Tanager!"  They look up at him, surprised, "Yes! You're right!" He bought that one plus another one of a bald eagle catching a fish. It apparently won a blue ribbon at the fair. The one he got was a smaller print of it.

Playing in the kids room at the Bazaar. This was his old preschool room he used to go to when he was 4 years old!

On the way home, Nico told me he wanted to take pictures of birds, too. We talked about National Geographic and college. He asked me if he could study two different things in college. I told him yes, so he said he wanted to study birds and photography.

After we got home, he hung his photos on the wall.

That afternoon, William and Grace came over to play. They had a heyday on the keyboard.

Sunday after church we went over to the Grandparents Salisbury's house to have lunch and plan Thanksgiving. The lunch my mom made was almost like a Thanksgiving feast itself, it was amazing. We left with leftovers. Yum! Thanks Mom!

That night, we had a get together at the church to celebrate the last Bible Study of the year. Nico and I left early because he was feeling sick. He said he had a headache and a stomach ache, I think it may have been a migraine. He crawled right into bed when we got home without changing his clothes. I gave him a foot rub, and he fell asleep until morning.

He was confused on Monday morning why he felt so good after he felt so bad the night before.

Nico had an orthodontist consult on Wednesday. I picked him up early from school. I saw him at the end of the hall as soon as he turned the corner. His nose was in a book and he didn't once look up at me as he walked toward me. When he got right in front of me, he said HI without even looking at me. How did he know it was me? He walked to the car without looking once at what was in front of him. He read the book in the car, and then in the orthodontist's waiting room.

The orthodontist said his teeth look good so far, and that the only thing that might be an issue later is his overbite, like the dentist had said. He said we'll keep an eye on it each year, and wait until most of his adult teeth have grown in before we do anything. We made our next appointment for November of next year.

That's it for this week!