Grandparents Russell Visit, Birthday, Grandma Camp, Zoo

The Grandparents Russell arrived just in time on Friday for Grandma to come with me to pick Nico up from his Birds, Bugs & Botany camp. He was excited to see her!

I had a henna booth that night, but Guy was home from work early and made the crew a batch of Pad Thai for dinner.

Saturday morning was pancakes, of course! Nico also opened his presents from Mommy and Daddy. Rock Tumbler!

Then we hung out until it was time for Nico's birthday party. The Grandparents Russell drove to Nampa to pick up GG, and me and the boys went to pick up Nico's birthday cakes. We ordered a gluten free one, and a gluten one, so we went to both places (WinCo, and Amaru).

The party at Pojo's was epic! Nico had two friends from school who were there, Linus and Olivia. Nico really likes Olivia *wink wink*. We had also invited Linus' sister, so she was there too. Then we had all the grandparents, GG, most of the cousins, plus some of my own cousins who adore Nico, and my Aunt Ellen, in addition to Jeff & Allicia and kids. The kiddos played games, ate cake, Nico opened presents, we had a huge birthday picture taken, and Nico had some time in the Grabber booth, where he had two minutes to grab as many pieces of paper as he could. The pieces of paper symbolized a certain number of tickets. Nico ended up with 450+ tickets from the grabber booth. Then we hung out while we used up the rest of our tokens, and we weren't out of there until after 4pm, still leaving behind some cousins and my Aunt.

Ok so now let's catch up with the pictures!

They couldn't quite fit us all into the picture!

Nico said he wanted Red Robin for his birthday dinner, so we met there that night with both sets of grandparents plus GG.

Sunday we headed for church and then the boys spent the afternoon hanging out while Grandma Russell and I went shopping. We made pizza that night and rented the Lego Movie to watch. It is a good movie, with a good message!

A few more pictures from the visit...

Putting his Technic Lego together Sunday morning.

Since the Grandparents were staying up in the suite, Nico was able to take baths. He doesn't get to do this very often, so he took a bath every night that they were here!

Reading Dogman before bed.

I have a few videos I will put together of this trip, but they aren't ready for tonight's update, so hopefully they will be on next week's!

We said goodbye to them Monday morning, and will see them again at Christmas!

Nico spent the next few days at the Grandparents Salisbury's house with some of his cousins. Grandma took all of the kids school supply shopping. School starts in 3 short weeks!  Nico brought Ticket to Ride to play.

Then today we were able to meet up with one of my cousins that is visiting from California. She has two young sons that I have never met before, one is Nico's age and the other is a few years younger. We met her (Jessica) and her husband (Monty), and their two kids (Oliver and Matthew) at the Zoo this morning!

Nico brought $20 of his birthday money with him so that after the zoo we could go to the bookstore and buy Dogman #3 comic but he instead decided to buy something from the Zoo gift shop. He chose a turquoise penguin which he named Bluey, and later changed his name to Flappy.

Nico brought Lion Cub with him to the Zoo. Lion Cub participated in everything with Nico that morning. He went down the giraffe slide (by himself), looked at most of the animals, and enjoyed a few rides in my purse, too.

I did get a video uploaded of Nico swimming while at the hotel pool up in Moscow when they took that trip a few weeks ago. Nico says of this swimming experience: "I thought I was dead!" 

See you guys next time!

Late Night Walk, and Bath

It was 8:30 PM before I realized we hadn't gone for a walk at ALL today! So I took Nico outside really quick and we walked down the street and back. We could hear the crickets and Nico seemed really excited that it was getting darker and he was very talkative and excited the whole time. He tried to say "dark" when I said it. And he says crickets like "Kih-Kuh" or sometimes "Guh  Guh".

Then we came home and I gave him a bath. He played with his new wind up toy frog from Grandma Salisbury. It kicks in the water!

Oh and I should mention last night. Nico had a very late night last night and had trouble falling asleep. He asked for milk and so I gave him some, but he wanted to keep the bottle in his crib with him like he does with his water bottle. I put the milk bottle right next to him, tucked him in, then silently grabbed the milk bottle on my way out. Just after closing the door he starts crying. I go back in and he asks for milk again. I get him milk and after 5 more minutes of snuggles I put him back into the crib. This time he holds onto the milk, propped up on his elbows, until I leave the room and close the door.

About 15 minutes later I went back in there and took it from his crib to put back in the fridge. He was asleep by then.

Before Bath

Nico right before we went off to bath time! Nico doesn't get a bath every night, but we may need to start. His whole body can get incredibly sticky after an entire day of playing!

Outdoors

Grandma Salisbury relayed this story: She had been giving Nico baths in the kitchen sink. So today before Nico's nap time, Grandma turned her back for a second and Nico climbed up onto the stool in front of the sink and then climbed into the kitchen sink. He was just about to turn the water on when Grandma caught him.

He is having a blast, and was introduced to gluten accidentally. Lots of glutens! Lots of little animal crackers, he ate them up post haste and really loved them. Gas and some mushy poop later, but other than that he was fine.

This picture is from yesterday. Nico really enjoyed going out onto the porch a lot!