GG, Pinewood Derby Car, Evelyn

Last Friday, Nico had been invited to go to Urban Air with his friends across the street. I texted their mom and she said that Rylan actually had wrestling practice that day so they weren't going to be going. But they did go on Saturday! Nico was gone when we made pizza but came home in enough time to eat some and finish watching the end of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", chosen by Guy. It was quite a funny movie, I enjoyed it. When Nico came home we told him we could switch to a different movie but he wanted to watch that one. He liked it.

That night while he was lying in bed he said, "I don't really feel like myself right now. I don't feel like myself whenever I go out in the evening." He was sad for a while.

The next day was Guy's and mine Anniversary! 13 years married on the 13th of January. Guy scraped my windows that morning 😍

Sunday was also the first day back at it with Bible Study. We are doing a study called Overcomer, about the armor of God. It looks good, it's a DVD study with a study guide and optional book.

Tuesday we visited GG in Nampa. We gave her a gift from the Grandparents Russell that had been lost under the tree and we didn't find until after GG had left.

Nico spent some time putting together a puzzle with Aunt Pat. Melody came over for a visit while we were there, too (Aunt Pat's daughter).

GG sent us home with a handful of oranges.

That evening, Guy and Nico went to Cub Scouts to drop off Nico's pinewood derby car. Guy and Nico have been spending a lot of time working on it, getting the weight just right and painting it lime green (Nico's favorite color!)

It wasn't an official Cub Scouts meeting, they just dropped the car off, Nico played tag for a little bit, and they came home. No uniform required. The race is tomorrow evening!

Tonight Evelyn came over for dinner. We aren't doing every Thursday with her like we used to, we've slowed down to about once a month. Before dinner, Nico was insistent that he wanted to read his book and wanted Evelyn to read a book too but he didn't want her sitting next to him. She chose to read on the bed like this. (And hey check out our new cabinet!)

Nico had checked out a new book from the library today - Tom Gates: Everything's Amazing (sort of) and he was very anxious to read it. He was not in a playful mood. They ended up playing a bit after dinner.

Chicken nuggets. Yummmm

And now some random pictures!

Nico said, "take a picture!" so I did.

Nico has had a lot of math homework lately, doing multiplication and division, and he was getting super frustrated until I told him he could use his numberbots to help him. He said "OH YEAH!" and he has been excited about it since. We bought him some multiplication and division wrap-ups to help him learn his times tables, and he has been enjoying that too.

I've also really been enjoying our new Instapot pressure cooker. It turned these frozen turkey legs into something tender and yummy.

Allicia and I attacked this huge pile of sock mismatches on Tuesday morning. We found a few socks that belong to us in the pile, too!

 Snow on Wednesday morning. Leaving for school early for Chess club.

Stopped in their tracks trying to solve a chess problem.

Part of Nico's homework yesterday was to log on to a typing website and spend 10 minutes learning to type. He spent about 45 minutes! (He's wearing around his neck a new medal he got in Chess!)

That's it for this week!

Library, Readathon, GG

On Saturday Nico and I met some friends at the library. Nico checked out a bunch of books to read for Readathon which started last Friday! Then we played some board games, and took a walk on the greenbelt which was right next to the library.

For several days Nico was all about the Readathon and he accrued 11 hours in 4 days! He has since stopped the effort. I tried to encourage him not to give up, about how when you're older, being able to stick to something is an important skill to have, you know, I said the most parenty thing I could think of! But I think he's done! He wanted to read the most minutes of the whole school and win the Chromebook. But on Monday he found out that someone already had 20 hours because they stayed up all night to read. I think that deflated his drive a bit. I reminded him that anything could happen and to not get discouraged, but I think he wants to be done with it. 

Here he is in bed at night with his timer and his book.

Sunday we had Bible Study in the evening and one women brought her son with her (10 or 11 years old maybe?). Nico brought the State game and wow they had a LOT of fun playing it! 

Monday was a baseball game and Tuesday we went to visit GG and Aunt Pat. We heard all about their trip up the Mississippi and saw some pictures! Afterward we went to Red Robin and picked up some food to bring home and eat. Nico has been asking to get Red Robin for a while. He says, that because he's been reading SpongeBob and about the "Crabby Patty" (a cheeseburger in the comic), that he's been hungry for a cheeseburger. 1 patty, 1 bun, 2 cheese, ketchup, 4 pickles. So that's what we ordered!

Last night Guy taught Nico some algebra using his Numberbots and Alphabots.

That's pretty much it for this week!!

Spaghetti Feed

On Monday we went to a spaghetti feed for Nico's baseball season that is starting up. It was at Timberline High School. 

They also had a huge table full of treats and wouldn't you know it they had gluten free stuff as well! Nico picked out a vanilla cupcake. When he discovered that it was vanilla he told the lady it was his favorite flavor like "HOW DID YOU KNOW?!??" He didn't eat much of his spaghetti, but he certainly ate his cupcake.

After eating, Nico and I wandered around trying to find the table for the Pirates, which is the name of his team. We found them and we were able to meet the coach and his wife and their son who is also on the team. Then we were ushered into the auditorium where they talked to us about the upcoming season. The season lasts 6 weeks and Nico's team will have 12 games total. 2 per week, plus one practice per week. We are gearing up for a busy April. His first practice isn't until the 4th.

Tonight (Thursday), we usually watch Evelyn and she eats dinner with us, but tonight we had everyone over! Jeff and Allicia were under a time crunch to get the countertop installed today in the suite before their guests arrived, so I offered to feed everyone. I was planning to make a ton of dinner anyway, so it's nice I had enough!! Nico only ate a few forkfuls and said his tummy hurt :( He went to bed with a sore tummy, I'm hoping he feels better in the morning. Tomorrow he has his St Patrick's Day program at school. He has been singing the songs from this program for a few months now. If you read this Thursday night, say a prayer for him that his tummy ache goes away!

The time change means Nico has been sleeping in a bit more than usual, even after I turn the light on. But at least I got this cute picture of him snuggling Guy.

Reading Donald Duck in the morning. He also checked out a Garfield comic from the library that he has been reading.

Nico took this picture of our Bible Study group. Missing 3 people. Guy usually isn't the only male! While we do Bible Study, the kiddos watch a movie in the living room.

Walking to school for early morning chess.

 That's it for this week!

Day in the Life video!

It turns out that the book Nico checked out from the library last week, The Capture, was one that he chose because their class' library time was over and he hadn't picked a book out yet, so he just grabbed one off the shelf. It turns out the reading is a little too advanced for him. Perhaps he will read it when he's older! It comes highly recommended by Grandma Russell, so I ended up reading it and am excited to read the rest of the series :) I love a good book!

On Saturday while we ate pizza we watched An American Tail.

On Sunday we started up our small group study again. Guy chose the book "Free of Me" by Sharon Hodde Miller. It is a great book and I can't wait to dig into it again.

Here is Nico's 2017 year in review.
My best memory: Thanksgiving
My best idea: is make chess school evere day.
I always say: good moning.
I am proud of: Happynis
I like to spend my time: Doing reading
My friends are: Nick
My favorite animal: lion
My favorite book: Magic Treehouse
My favorite color: Brick Red
Favorite food: sushi
My favorite song: You can't stop me!!!!
Next year I want to learn to: be nice
go see: adult jumpropeing

Doing a workbook at bedtime, he was asked to write a friendly letter and this is what he chose to write:

I have something special for you guys this week, on Tuesday we did a Day-in-the-Life video. It will take you through a typical day for us. I hope you guys enjoy! 

Mario Kart, and not much else!

We spent a lot of last weekend playing Mario Kart, Jeff & Allicia were out of town so we spread out a bit and hung out downstairs a lot! Nico is getting so good at Mario Kart he is starting to beat me at it!

Hm... Looks like that's the only picture I took of him last week! Bummer! It was kind of a normal week, not much happened. 

Guy did have a sinus headache and a slight fever on Sunday but was all better on Monday.  His boss told him to work from home on Tuesday because he had some programming to hyper-focus on. He works much faster away from the distractions at work. He gets to do that same thing tomorrow!

Nico has had a slight cough but nothing else. I thought I might be catching it but whatever it was went away fast! We've been doing elderberry syrup a lot!

We tried a new recipe that was a success. Eggs, bread, sausage, all baked together. Egg casserole. It's not often that new recipes are a hit with both Guy and Nico! 

I guess that's it! Oh, we did have our last Small Group meeting on Sunday, a potluck, Guy wasn't able to come because of his headache, but Nico and I went. We won't meet again until the new year. Guy is the small group coordinator at our church so he is looking into what book or Bible study we're going to do next.

Until next time!

Chess, Dentist

Last weekend I had another henna booth on Saturday and Sunday, my last one for a while. Guy and Nico went to the coffee shop and to a garage sale. Nico found a chess set and a game called Mastermind that he bought with his own money.

On Sunday, Guy and Nico went to the Grandparents Salisbury house to pick up milk and eggs. Nico brought his chess set and played a few games with Papa. That night we had our Bible Study group at the Pastor's house. Nico's friends Leona and Lazarus were there, and they huddled into this little corner so that Leona could plug in her Nintendo Switch. Nico brought the Mastermind game with him but I don't think they played it. 

He started reading Dogman #2 again, and chose this character, Flappy, for me to give him a henna tattoo of. Flappy is a fish.

Today and tomorrow are teacher inservice days, so Nico doesn't have school. Today he had a cavity-filling appointment at the dentist. Nico loves that his smile is crooked after he gets the novocaine shot.

He got a voucher for a free Mini-Fig from Bricks and Minifigs nextdoor so we went over there afterward to cash it in. Our dentist told us the story behind them opening that store - The guy who owns it is the CFO of Scentsy, and him and his wife have a 20 year old son with autism. They wanted him to be able to work, so they started Bricks and Minifigs so that he would be able to work there. He is talking on phones and interacting with people like he never has before. Very cool! 

After that, we ran some errands and then came home for lunch. This afternoon Nico played Mario Kart with Evelyn and her cousin Jade. After that we went to the Discovery Center but they were closed because they were switching the exhibits. It must be a big one because it's not open again until October 21st! So we ended up at the Library. We checked out a comic that Nico hadn't read in a while.

And we played a game called Sum Swamp at the library, a good exercise in adding and subtracting. It was a fun game and Nico beat me both times.

Side note. The pumpkin flavored RX Bars.... YUMMY!!!

And I guess that's it for this week!!

Lost tooth, Bible Study, Valentine's Day

Nico lost his other front tooth Sunday after church! He is toothless. For a few days before this he was having me cut up his sandwiches into strips because biting them hurt.

We had our first Sunday night Bible Study group that night. Guy is leading the study at the Pastor's house and we had a good group of people there. Nico had Sammy and Aadam to play with since Tiffanie was there. I brought some train tracks and car tracks for them to play with. They have a dog, Lucy, that Nico enjoyed petting.

Nico rode his scooter to school every day this week, and has no school tomorrow or Monday. Just today it started raining and the wind started blowing, but the rest of the week has been mostly sunny.

Tuesday was Valentine's Day, Nico was so excited to bring all his cards to school to give his friends. I came to pick him up after school and I was 5 minutes early and saw they were having their party, so I went in. Nico saw me and ran to me and hugged me and said "Mommy you're LATE! You missed most of the party!" Hehe. They were finishing up Bingo.

Nico got a booster pack of Pokemon cards for Valentine's Day and he put them in his Pokemon binder.

Building monsters with the Creature Clash card game

We hooked Alexa up to some speakers, but she's sitting right next to them, so when there's music on she can't hear us. Often times you can hear Nico yelling: "Alexa, Stop! ALEXA, STOP!!!!" We still use her to set alarms and play music and to find out what time it is. "Alexa, what time is it? ALEXA! ALEXA! WHAT TIME IS IT?!?" We should probably move her away from the speakers! She is an integral party of every day. We often listen to music in the morning. Nico has been favoring the "Happy" song, and "What Does the Fox Say?"

He is reading...
Captain Underpants books

He is watching...
Home season 2
A new Pokemon series

We are playing...
Match a Pair of Birds (the official name of the bird matching game)
Creature Clash
New games on the iPad - jet skis, programming, running/jumping games

G.G., Nora

Saturday was a fun family day, we went to the Dollar Store and Fred Meyer.

On Sunday we went to church, and the Pastor asked Guy if he would like to lead the small group Bible study that would be meeting at his house on Sunday nights. Guy asked him what made Pastor think of him and Pastor said he was praying about it and his name came to mind. Awesome! I had just heard from someone the previous week that they had really enjoyed when Guy led the Bible Study for a few weeks last year. So, Guy agreed to lead! The book we'll be reading is called Broken Escalators: Funny and Frightful Lessons About Moth Eating and Moving to the Next Level. Bible study starts up this Sunday!

Monday morning we went to The Discovery Center again. Nico made a rock from clay and pressure. We also built an arch several times and then made it crash. We were able to stay a little longer this time because Nico had no school Monday.

Tuesday morning we went to visit G.G. At the last minute Nico asked if Evelyn could come with us and I said SURE! So we all piled into the truck (we are using Papa's truck for a little while!) and off we drove to Nampa. On the way there Evelyn told Nico about how she only has two friends at school and how the other ones forgot they liked her so they stopped talking to her, and Nico was very empathetic and said "Awwww.. that's too bad. You only have two friends." This was a good thing to see coming from him. He also said "Will you only have two friends forever?"

G.G. is always well set up with things to entertain little ones, so Evelyn went right to work doing what she loves best - art! She colored two coloring pages and G.G. provided envelopes for her to put them in so she could give one to her mom and one to her dad.

G.G. showed me her new Kindle and we loaded a game on it for Nico to play.

We also loaded Netflix onto her kindle, just because :) G.G. let both Nico and Evelyn feed Scamper a snack, and we watched the tail end of a cartoon before we left. Thanks for the fun, G.G.!

A new Ladies Bible Study has started up and Pastor Debbie is not only teaching on Tuesday mornings but also Wednesday evenings! This means I am going! We are going through a study by Priscilla Shirer called The Armor of God, which focuses on the armor of God and prayer. Our first session was last night and we watched The War Room movie. It has Priscilla Shirer in it and is also about prayer. It was a good way to get the session started.

Then today we had a toddler friend from church over, Nora. We played with her all day today. She is almost 3 years old and fit in perfectly with the crowd. Evelyn and Avery also hung out in the clubhouse for a while and they all took turns playing Endless Alphabet on the iPad, and then other games later.

She ate lunch with us and then helped me walk Nico to school. Nora and her family are moving away at the end of January, and we will miss them. Nora has two older siblings and her parents have been coming to our Bible Study on Sunday nights. Nora's mom, Rhema (her name means Spoken Word), needed some time to pack so we took Nora for the day.

Nico has been learning about 2D and 3D shapes in school.

Nico is naturally a very snuggly boy. We do lots of cheek kisses in our house and lots and lots of hugs. He is mirroring me when he says: "Awww I love you so much." and gives me a hug. He likes to say "Awwww" a lot, again mirroring me when we hug. There was one time when I dropped him off at school that one of the girls in his class came right up to him and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He thought nothing of it and hugged her again and gave HER a kiss on the cheek. It made me wonder if Nico one day gave her a kiss on the cheek (he does this sometimes to people, we do it a lot at our house so I wonder if he may think that's how you greet people sometimes??!) and then she could have felt comfortable giving one to him straight away after seeing him. I didn't think anything of it at the time but then I wondered... do they allow that kind of thing in a kindergarten? Should I have told them not to do that anymore? Well, they haven't done it again after that day.

On Tuesday Nico came home from school with a  rice krispsy treat on a stick and dipped in frosting. We left that one for daddy and then made our own rice krispy treats with stuff that Nico could eat. It was a fun experiment, a few things will change next time, since I had to make the marshmallow from scratch and the treats were more like marshmallows filled with crispy rice instead of the traditional rice krispy treats. Oh well. Adding raspberry frosting to them made them more palatable for Nico. He doesn't appear to like marshmallows all that much!

It was a great week!

Lumberjacks and Boo Bash

On Friday we went to Pojo's in the morning just to have some fun with Guy around. Guy even got some tokens for himself! Nico really enjoyed playing air hockey and we played it about 4 times.

On Saturday we ALL drove up to the cabin at 11 AM for the lumberjack party! It was so cool to have Guy with us. Grandma Salisbury served a huge microgreen salad, chili, and all the fixins! It was fabulous. We got to see family and old friends and new friends. After lunch the men went off to split some logs for the neighbor. (Guy had to work half the night on Friday night so he stayed back). The girls had a fun time while the boys were away and Guy was our commentary and made us laugh. There were guessing games (how much does the pumpkin weigh? How many M&Ms are in the jar) and Nico won a picture colored by Lexie and Rory.

Then the fun with Guy continued on Sunday when he was able to come to church with us for the first time in one year! This was the second time he has been to our church's Sunday service, and the first time he has heard the pastor preach! Then Bible Study Sunday night.

Monday & Tuesday were fun with Guy home, he went with me to pick up Nico from school on both days. Guy carried Nico home on his shoulders.

Then tonight was the Boo Bash at his school. Sooo much fun! I never remember winning cake walks when I was little, but the FIRST round-about Nico did at the cake walk, he won! There was an allergy free table so he picked out a little gluten free chocolate cake. We got a polaroid taken of all of us and visited all the rooms and got prizes. We even played with electricity in the Micron room. In the hallway near the library were boxes and boxes of books that the library was getting rid of. We were limited to picking out 3 for free so Guy picked out 3 while Nico and I went to a few of the game rooms.

You probably noticed that Nico is wearing his Fire Chief costume instead of his Ninja Turtle.. well... the ninja turtle needs a little bit of fixing with safety pins, which we had, but Nico didn't want to deal with it and just wanted his fire man costume. It's a good thing we had it on hand!

When we came home, though it was 7 PM, we let him have a small piece of his chocolate cake. He is a bit bouncy now... hehe. Guy is snuggling with him in his bed but it is not going as calmly as usual. There is lots of talking and excitement and jumping around going on in there. 

Nico and Evelyn searching for rocks at the park. SO many to choose from! Evelyn is wearing her dinosaur costume.

Nico told me to pick him up a comic book at the library on Tuesday. I picked up Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland

He was actually pretty excited about it, and it has chapters. Guy has read it to him the last 2 nights, one chapter each night, and Nico is thrilled! Glad to see it when he'e excited about reading.