We got a new game - Apples to Apples Jr. We invited Evelyn over to play it last Friday.
It's a 4+ player game, but we play with 3 people since sometimes that's all we have! It's a fun game.
Parry Gripp is creating a video for his new song: Star Cat. He asked for kids to illustrate the song and then he puts all the illustrations into a video on YouTube. This was Nico's submission.
Tuesday morning Allicia and I made ocarinas out of clay. The kiddos love to watch me play the video game Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Usually every Friday morning, Avery and Ivy and I are playing Zelda downstairs right after the big kids go to school. Ocarinas are like flutes. It took me a few tries to actually form it well enough for it to make a tone. I had to move the mouthpiece once. It finally worked! Testing our ocarinas out while the clay was still wet gave us white lips!
The placement and size of the holes was somewhat random, so the sounds it makes aren't scale-worthy, but it DOES make sound!
Tuesday evening was Nico's Cub Scouts crossover ceremony at Kathryn Albertson Park. It was the last time he'll wear his blue shirt and scarf, so I took a picture.
After arriving, the scouts gathered on the lawn for a few announcements.
The Bear Den giving their monthly report of what they did.
We walked along the path to different stations. At each station, an older scout or two would do a reading. I wasn't able to hear what they were saying, but I think it was regarding the character of scouts (honesty, loyalty, etc). At each station they got another colored ribbon to make a tassel for the bookmark they received earlier.
Along the path we eventually came to a bridge. All the parents crossed first, and then each den "crossed over" and graduated to the next rank. Nico moved up from Bear to Webelos (We'll be loyal Scouts). They ceremoniously removed his blue kerchief and replaced it with the Webelos plaid kerchief.
Nico received all the rest of his badges.
He received another "Baloo the Builder" badge accidentally, so he has two now.
His next uniform will be a tan shirt, green pants and a different kerchief clasp. We'll pick those up from the Scout shop in a few weeks.
Wednesday night my cousin Jamie graduated from High School. She was valedictorian and gave the speech. We were all very proud of her! She did a great job. Nico and Guy came straight from swimming lessons, so Nico didn't have his glasses, and he had to wear his water shoes. Oops! Should have thought ahead.
We sat next to my parents and my Aunt Ellen, and Jamie's family. There were a lot of people there!
Today was Field Day. Nico asked Guy if he would volunteer today and Guy was able to! I emailed his teacher to let her know and she wrote back and said "Yay! Thank him for me, please!" He was at the parachute station. Here's a few pictures he took of Nico being pulled under the parachute by some "sharks".
Merek was in his Field Day group (Group A) and so Nico and him were able to do all the different stations together, even though Merek is a grade ahead of him. Guy allowed them to both be "sharks" at the same time under the parachute.
Guy told me he ran into the librarian. She recognized him from when he read to Nico's class, she said "I don't know your name, but I know you're Nico's dad! You can come back any time to read to the kids, you were the best!" Guy says next year he'd like to volunteer more at the school.
This afternoon Allicia and I went to Boise Fry Company for our birthdays. Her birthday is today, and mine is coming in a few weeks, so we traded and bought each other lunch! After lunch I took Avery with me to give Allicia the afternoon off. We ran to Whole Foods and then to the library for a little before we went to pick up Ivy from preschool on her last day.
After school, Guy and Nico came home together, then we gathered in the main house to hold baby chicks. 2 days old, just arrived yesterday from a farm in Caldwell. The more you hold them, the less they are afraid of people. They gave their older chickens away before receiving these chicks. They have 10 of them though they ordered 6. If any of them end up being roosters they will have to get rid of them. Cock-a-doodle-doo!
This is Sapphire.
Guy holding 4 at once.
You guys, we leave for Arlington in 2 DAYS!!! Nico's last day of school is tomorrow, then we are OFF TO WASHINGTON! Stay tuned for a mega fun update next week!
Here's a video to end this week, snippets from our various adventures!
Last Friday was another day that we watched the kids after school. We played games downstairs. While we were down there, two of Nico's neighbor friends came over to see if Nico could play. Rylan's brother Merek, and his sister Madilyn. So they joined us downstairs for a little while, and then they went upstairs with Nico to play. Jeff got home at 5:45, so we said goodbye to the main house and I started dinner. Merek and Madilyn stayed for dinner, we had rice and ground beef, and cheese and cut veggies. They devoured the veggies, I was very impressed with that! And everyone loved the rice and ground beef.
They stayed over until about 7pm, when I sent them home. As soon as they were gone, I started shivering, and quickly realized that my fever was back and that I needed to lie down. I got into bed around 7:30 and didn't get out until the following morning at about 10AM. Except for bathroom breaks, which were very difficult, I could barely lift my body off the bed. Nico was just about asleep around 9:30pm when I asked him if he could get up and get me my water bottle, which he did instantly and then told me that he could be my servant and whatever I needed I could just tell him. What a boy!
Guy took care of everything the next day and I mostly stayed in bed. I loved lying down in the bed and hearing them have fun playing games.
They went and got pizza supplies so I wouldn't have to make crust, and Guy made the best pizza ever. I chose an animated movie called Epic to watch, which we enjoyed.
I stayed home from church on Sunday, it was another slow day. We played Robot Wars on the bed. Guy won.
Monday came and went, Nico didn't have school that day and I don't think we left the house.
Tuesday was the Blue and Gold banquet at Cub Scouts. This is a banquet that the Bear Den plans and implements. They decided on a cowboy theme. Guy had signed up to bring chili, so he made a huge pot of chili and brought it with him with some toppings.
Apparently it was a big hit. He was going to make a double batch but he didn't think it would all fit in our crockpot, so he made half the batch for Tuesday night, and half the batch on Wednesday! (more on that later)
Wednesday we woke up to snow - walking to school early for Chess.
Wednesday was also the day that we had Nico's IEP meeting.
All the testing has been completed and this was the results and eligibility meeting to see if he met criteria to continue receiving speech services. Since his teachers brought up the issue of his struggle with inattention, he was also tested for attention issues to see if he needed services for that. Receiving services for that requires an educational diagnosis (vs medical diagnosis) of attention issues by the school psychologist, which she did not give him based on results. Inconsistent results is what showed up based on testing and questionnaires filled out by us and his teacher.
They also did an IQ test, but did we really question his smartness? He showed up in the 97th percentile for IQ (which qualifies him for GATE program in the future if we're interested). The piece he did the best on, 99th percentile, was the Visual Spatial portion. "High scores in this area indicate a well-developed capacity to apply spatial reasoning and analyze visual details."
One of the points that was made is that the inattention piece, though not "diagnosed", is getting in the way of Nico being able to use his smartness. The school psychologist recommended a book, which I've ordered and should arrive tomorrow, called "Smart but Scattered", and then the possibility of a vibrating watch that vibrates every 5 minutes or however long we want, to remind him to take an inventory of where his attention is. Was he paying attention? Was he making clicking noises? Was he humming? Just to help him stay aware of what he's doing. What they don't want is for him to always be on the receiving end of, "Nico, stop that.", so they're wanting to help him become more aware of what he's doing so he can understand himself and control impulses better on his own. His teacher has already given him a few measures to help with his need to move - a special cushion that allows him to move around, and a "band", I'm not sure what that is but she said that the combination of the two seem to really help him. The Audiologist also gave the input that taking breaks with a snack seems to revive Nico's ability to focus, so we might work that into his day somehow too. Even though there's no diagnosis, they can still accommodate all these things to a reasonable degree.
Based on speech testing, Nico is still eligible for speech services.
A few other tidbits I found entertaining - Nico was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said he wanted to be a builder or a landscaper. They also did a classroom observation, and the psychologist was quietly observing him in class when Nico turned around and looked at her, never having met her before, and asked, "Do you know when Mrs. Williams [his speech therapist] is going to pick me up?"
Wednesday evening everyone gathered in the Clubhouse for some chili! Everyone loved it. Guy did a great job. He got the recipe from one of his coworkers, it took some convincing, because it was a special recipe, and Guy had to swear to never enter the chili into a competition before he would hand it over. Hehe.. it's a kid-friendly one with no beans and small vegetables and not too hot.
Allicia made cornbread for everyone.
Thursday, Nico's World Edition of Little Passports arrived. He had been waiting for it. The country this time was Japan, and it came with instructions on how to fold origami plus a few sheets of origami to practice with. Nico made a balloon, and a jumping frog, and a few others. He's really enjoying it!
Nico and Evelyn decided that they aren't going to walk home together anymore. Evelyn expressed her dislike of waiting for Nico after school, and so they agreed to walk separately and they are actually both very excited about doing it. The first day they walked separately was on Wednesday. On his way home he ran into Madilyn and walked home with her. They are still walking to school together, though!
On Saturday Nico and I went over to Grandma and Papa's house in the early afternoon. We stayed for a few hours and met Jonny and Alanna. The grownups discussed Thanksgiving while Nico and Lexie played. I left Nico there and he stayed overnight!
Guy wasn't able to come with us because he had a very bad migraine :(
Nico's tummy aches started back up again, we left church early on Sunday because he was feeling too sick, and we skipped Bible Study on Sunday night because he wasn't feeling well (Guy was still able to go!) He's gone to school every day this week with a tummy ache, it seems to start shortly after eating and can last a very long time. We are still trying to get to the bottom of it.
Nico found a Geode in his stash of toys and so he broke it open.
Playing Clue on top of an unfinished puzzle. The rules of this game were as follows: You can't talk. It was quite a challenge to communicate without talking to play this game, but we did it. Well, THEY did it, because I lost the "no-talk" challenge about halfway into it. Oops!
Nico rediscovered the National Geographic Kids magazines. He told me all about "Urban Sprawl" that he learned about at school, about how people were tearing down animal habitats to build housing that no one needed. He said that if he was president he would stop it from happening.
He also seems to have an interest in traveling, to all over the world, and expressed interest in being a photographer so that he could join National Geographic Kids.
He asked us tonight that if we could move to any place OUTSIDE the US, where would we move to? Guy's answer was New Zealand, Nico's answer was London. I'd have to agree with Nico, I think that would be fun.
Tonight all of us went to band practice together, it might become more of a regular thing, as I work up to maybe playing the piano in the church band every once in a while. When we got home, we saw the new sign that Allicia got us for The Clubhouse!
Gorgeous!
Here are some pictures that are from Grandpa and Grandma Russell's visit last last week, when they went to the Botanical Garden.
They had the Scarecrow Stroll going on during their visit
Saturday was a full and fun day. Nico had a baseball game in the morning, and Papa came to cheer him on! Grandma is up in Moscow visiting Grammy for a few weeks otherwise she would have come, too!
It was a little chilly at first but once the sun came out it started warming up. I tried to get some slow-motion video of Nico hitting the ball. You can check out the video at the end. I missed his big hit because I was trying to stop/restart the video when I realized I had it portrait instead of landscape.
Afterward, Papa took all of us to Jimmy John's. Thank you Pa! Believe it or not Nico only ate one sandwich. He ate so many snacks during the game itself that he wasn't as hungry as usual. It was such a fun time hanging out with Pa for a few hours!
After lunch we headed over to some church friends' house. Elizabeth and Matthew and their three kids. The four adults played board games while the kids played. They played SO well together, there was no yelling or arguing, and the neighbors even invited them over to run through sprinklers and jump on the trampoline.
In the evening we ordered pizza and then ate cake for dessert.
Nico had baseball practice on Monday and then another game on Thursday (tonight). Papa was able to come again and was actually helping out in the outfield to help coach the kids! He came back for sips of water between innings. We started out with our chairs in the full sun, but the temp was up to 82 degrees and it was hot in the sun, so I pulled my chair back to the shade. They played a good game and Nico got several hits.
Pa helping at 3rd base
Guy has band practice on Thursday nights so he wasn't able to make it to the game.
Nico and I went to the park last Friday to practice hitting and throwing and catching. We did that for about 10 minutes before he said he wanted to play with the other kids at the park, some he knew from school. They played 4 square and then dodgeball. It was hard to drag him away!
I made enchiladas this week, I hadn't made them for several years. Grandma Russell's recipe! Yummy!
So here's the video! The slow-mo is pretty cool, enjoy!
