BIrthday Party, Chess Tournament, Nachos!

Saturday was a fun and full day. We celebrated Grandma Salisbury's birthday at Smokey Mountain Pizza. Our private gathering room has its own door to the parking lot, so I took a video of the kids after they ran out to greet Grandma and Papa when they arrived. Watch the video and beware when Nico starts running back toward me, WHACK! Yeouch!! The video is at the bottom of the blog post!

Happy Birthday (today!) To Grandma Salisbury!

Straight from the party, Guy drove Nico over to JUMP (Jack's Urban Meeting Place) for a Chess tournament/party. They went a little early because JUMP has a slide from the 5th floor of the parking garage that goes all the way down to the ground and Nico wanted to try it. But it was closed! Instead, they climbed on the jungle gym until the party started.

This afternoon I received this email from his chess coach:

We already signed him up for next year chess.

Saturday night we rented Mary Poppins Returns from RedBox, it was my choice. We all loved it. After the movie was over, Nico asked, "I want to watch ALL the Mary Poppins movies, are there any more?" Nope, shucks!

There was one evening this week (I think Sunday night) when Nico was very sad. We had said no to something he wanted. So here is Guy snuggling him on the couch. Guy sang to him the song he used to sing to him several years ago when we lived on Krall st. "The sun is sinking in the west...." Nico remembered the song and started crying. It was a very sweet moment. I'm surprised Nico remembered the song! When Guy put him into bed, he whimpered in his bed and started crying again and said "Daddy I want to spend more time with you." So Guy got up into Nico's bed and they hung out for a while.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, swimming nights, if we get to the Y a little early, Nico is able to play in the kiddie pool. Here's a shot of those shenanigans.

I love the Y swimming lessons. There are 4 life guards on duty. And, the air is very warm, not just the water, which means Nico doesn't get cold and shivery! He's able to make it through the entire 30 minute lesson. I am hooked and will probably never go back to lessons at the Natatorium. 

Tuesday night at Cub Scouts, the Birds of Prey were there!

Cub Scouts snack.

Nico has been on a nacho kick lately. He made these by himself.

Nico's friends across the street are moving in June, and I chatted with their mom about it and asked if she'd be willing to share their landlord's phone number with us so we could potentially move in after they move out. If across the street doesn't work out, we plan to move somewhere else THIS SUMMER! The time has come! We would love to stay in this area so we are hoping for the house across the street. We are super excited and being very dreamy about it. We are working hard to make it work!

This week was Nico's first standardized testing day for 3rd grade. It was a math test today. 1-2 hour tests, about 7 tests total in the next few weeks. We ordered him a vibrating wrist band that vibrates every 5 minutes to help keep him on task. I am looking forward to hearing from his teacher how it works for him at school. It will arrive on Saturday!

Enjoy the video!

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!

First Baseball Game

Last Friday I got an email from Nico's chess teacher.

Subject: Nico is Epic

Hi there,

Nico did a very nice job on his Chess FunWork. Please give him a high-five for me! 

Happy Checkmates,

Coach Vellotti

Nico was excited.

On Friday after school Nico and I went to the see Papa and Grandma Salisbury. Nico needed time to plan how he was going to reveal the "printer mystery" to his cousins the following day. He planned it on Friday while we were there, and then we ate dinner with them. Grandma made Nico some rice & ground beef. He devoured two helpings, pausing long enough to tell us that Grandma makes better rice and ground beef than I do!

Guy worked late that night so we met him at home later.

On Saturday we played board games in the morning with Jeff and Allicia. We played a game called Splendor. Nico and Evelyn played chess and then did some iPad.

Nico had practice soon after, Guy took him while I stayed home and made a chocolate cake! After practice, I took Nico over to my parents' house and dropped him off there. He stayed the night Saturday night and I picked him up Sunday before church.

Nico explaining the printer mystery.

Grandma made porridge for everyone, they loved it! Don't tell Nico that porridge is OATMEAL, ok?

While Nico was gone, Guy and I made pizza for just the two of us, and since Jeff & Allicia were going out that night and wouldn't be around, we decided to watch a movie downstairs! It was my turn to choose so I chose to watch Valerian. It was a good movie!

On Sunday after church, we met Grandma and Papa and the cousins and Jonny and Alanna at Smoky Mountain Pizza to celebrate Grandma's birthday! I brought the cake I had made and Alanna brought some fudge she had made, Aunt Mimi's fudge! It's the best. She cut up some of the pieces and I put them on top of the cake. Then we ordered some yummy food, sang Happy Birthday, and Grandma opened her gift. Unfortunately I COMPLETELY forgot to take even one picture of our time there, so it will just have to live on in our memories. Happy Birthday Mom!

Sunday night we had Bible Study as usual, and then on into Monday...

On Tuesday Nico had his FIRST baseball game. Check out the video at the end to catch some glimpses from that. They play the game differently than normal rules. They play the game in a time slot, so it's not based on innings. And each player gets 5 chances to hit the ball, then they move the ball to a T so the player can hit it off that. If you go up to bat, you get to hit the ball. You can only run one base at a time, but everyone gets to run. Outs don't count against you and don't change anything, but the coach still asked the kiddos to try to get more outs. For practice.

Nico is #9

For one of the innings he was the catcher.

Today Evelyn came over for dinner. I tried a new meal, and of course made broccoli. Evelyn LOVES broccoli and it makes my heart soar to see her eat so much of it.  I tried to make Hot Pockets tonight. They dough was very crumbly and the finished pockets were a bit crunchy around the edges but generally a good success. 

Evelyn brought this jar of flowers with her for our table, she picked all these from her yard.

The recipe made 6 total, here's the first batch.

After dinner I got a knock on our back door and it was Allicia, asking us if we wanted to see their new electric car! Nico and I went outside to take a look (Guy is at band practice on Thursday nights). Jeff calculated that the cost of electricity for commuting one day to/from work would be .67, compared to $3! They are going to sell their white car, and they will park their new one in the back so they can charge it every night.

Squished into the trunk

 Now to the video!

Card tower, Chess, Read-a-thon

I had a big festival last weekend that I did henna at, so Guy and Nico got to spend Saturday together. On Friday night Nico spent the night at the Grandparents' Salisbury house. He really likes the banana pancakes and waffles that Grandma makes. For the waffles, she dips a piece of banana bread in egg and then puts it on the waffle iron. Genius!!!

Guy and Nico spent some time on Saturday building card towers. There's a video at the end!!

Playing Creationary

I know they must have played Minecraft, too!

Evelyn has joined the chess program at their school so on Friday mornings her and Nico walk to school early together.

Read-a-thon is going on, so Nico is collecting reading minutes. He checked out the kid version of "Left Behind" at school, and today he came home with a book about chess. Him and I played chess tonight before bed. I lost my queen on my second turn because I made a weird move. Nico and I decided to call it a "weird" move instead of "stupid" move because it sounded better.

Here's a pic from a few weeks ago. Guy and Nico went to Dawson Taylor to play chess.

Nico's tumbling tower

Kids Fun Fest, Date Night, table manners

Saturday was a fun day, it was Kids Fun Fest at the fairgrounds. I had a henna booth there, so Guy brought Nico and they spent at least an hour wandering around the exhibits and enjoying the bouncy house and surf board. Somehow he came home with 3 new water bottles!

After giving Ivy a henna tattoo. She wanted a ladybug.

Grandma Salisbury helped me at my booth that day. Thanks Ma! It was a fun time!

On Sunday Nico and I went to visit the Grandparents Salisbury to pick up some milk and eggs. It is so nice having them in town so close by, we stayed for a bit and chatted. 

On Sunday at church Nico came up to me after his Sunday school and told me he had invited Miss Kayla (his teacher) and her family over for dinner on Thursday. I apologized to Miss Kayla and told her we would love to have her over once we move. Nico said that he heard Miss Kayla say that she loves turkey burgers, which is what we have every Thursday night. What a sweet boy!

On Monday night Guy and I have instituted Date Night, which is not much more than doing something special and unordinary after Nico goes to bed, like play a new game or watch a movie. On Monday night Nico asked if he could stay up later and I said "Not tonight, I have a date with Daddy!" and Nico's response was "Oh, so you can have another baby?" 

Jaw drop.

I asked him how he associated date night with babies and he said "I just guessed." ????

Tuesday Brianna came over for dinner, we had sweet potato crusted quiche, it was very yummy. We are starting to teach Nico table manners, which I think we should have done a long time ago. I guess it was difficult to see the need before, but with having Brianna over it's become evident that he doesn't quite know what to do. So we had a "training" dinner on Monday night. And surprisingly, he does know just how to behave. Little stinker. He knew just what he should and shouldn't do. So every night is training night now. Table manners are a thing now. Don't test us quite yet ;) 

We are in negotiations for purchasing the car that we are borrowing from friends. We will need one more car and then we can save up for moving out! 

Nico expressed an interest in joining the Chess Club at school, so we signed him up for it and his first meeting is tomorrow. They meet once a week on Fridays at 8AM, before school. This session is just for 3 weeks. He also came home with information about the Children's Race on June 3rd. It's for kids age 6-12, and it starts at the train depot and runs down to the Capitol building, it's just 1 mile. So we signed him up for that, too. He will get a t-shirt and a medal for participating.

It's been quiet without Aadam and Sammy around, but he is playing with Evelyn more now, which is fun! Today was 85+ degrees outside and him and Evelyn played outside after school.

That's it for this week!