Fidget Spinner, Church Picnic, Turn up the Beet

Saturday was a full day for all of us, I had a henna booth at a festival and Nico and Guy helped with sound at a wedding for a couple in our church. In the morning they went downtown to the market and over to a bookstore that sells fidget spinners. Fidget Spinners are the new thing, apparently! He came home from school one day talking about them and asking for one. He saved up a few dollars and they went and bought one at the bookstore. Blue.

At the festival, Grandma Salisbury was at the booth with me being my helper. Thank you Mom! We had a fun day, it was the perfect temperature to be outside.

After the festival was over, the Grandparents Salisbury helped me pack up and load up and unload at home. Thank you!! Then I headed over to the wedding to pick Nico up. It was past 8 already and he was tired. He had made some friends at the park there that were selling slime. The whole ride home he talked about what he was going to sell at the park next Saturday. "Maybe cars?"

Sunday was the church picnic at Municipal Park.

They had games for the kids, and the area was all in the shade. Yay! It was fun. Then Nico and I went over to pick up the milk and eggs from the Grandparents Salisbury's house. Nico played Minecraft with Papa on the iPad. While we were pulling away from the house Nico called out of the open window, "Bye! I hope you have fun building your house in Minecraft!" 

Monday was a holiday that Guy had off. Nico and I had doctors appointments in the morning, then we stopped by Boise Juice Co. to get us each our favorite juice, "Turn up the Beet". We took note of the ingredients and decided we would try to make it at home. 1 apple, 2 carrots, 1/2 a beet, 1/2 a lemon, and 3 slices of ginger, that's what we're going to try. I got all the ingredients on Thursday and we will try this next week.

We had pizza Monday night since the weekend was too full for us to enjoy it then. 

Nico has had a full week of fun and party things at school. Wednesday was science day at Municipal Park. Thursday was Field Day, and Friday he has a half day. He came home with all of his school stuff yesterday (Thursday) including his journal! Here is a sneak peak. 

This was early in the year. They didn't put dates on anything, but it was in the first few pages.

That's about it for this week. Summer is starting!! I wonder what next week will hold!

Christmas Program, Polar Express Field Trip, Grandparents Russell!!

Last Friday was Nico's Christmas Program at school. Guy and I went to the 9:15 showing. There was Elmo and Cookie Monster puppets, and songs.

Cookie Monster learned that sharing his cookies showed the spirit of Christmas. So he ate one and gave the rest away.

On Sunday after church there was a potluck. I made a pumpkin pie and a salad. Nico told me that I make the best pumpkin pie in the world! I'm pretty sure he's never tasted a different one though ;) When we have pumpkin pie in the fridge I give some to the boys for breakfast. 

On Tuesday Nico had his Polar Express field trip. They put all the kids on a bus and took them to the downtown library! He got to wear his pajamas and he brought with him his suitcase to carry his blanket, slippers, and stuffed animal. They drank hot chocolate and the principal read them the Polar Express book. Then they watched the Polar Express movie at the library. They also got to decorate cookies and go on tours of the library.

Wednesday was a half day,

and today the Grandparents Russell came over! They came into town this morning and will stay through Monday, they are staying with GG. Jeff and Allicia and family also left today for vacation and so we have a bit more room to stretch out. We ate Jimmy Johns for lunch and made some gingerbread cookies this afternoon! They turned out pretty good.

They brought two new ornaments for Nico. The snowman is from Great Grandma Dee's collection.

I promise I'll have pictures of the actual Grandparents next week! ;) 

Merry Christmas to all our family!

See you next week!

MST3K, Splash Pad, video

Grandma Camp was a huge success. Here are some more pictures

Reading for 30 minutes after dinner

Pillow fight

 Breakfast

Hangin' with the boys

The next Grandma camp is less than a week away, the theme is Treasure Hunting. I was pleased to learn that Grandma had served chicken soup that Nico ATE! He liked it, too. I will start making it myself. He seems to be over his fear of ALL noodles, and can eat some of them now.

On Sunday after church, Tiffanie asked if Nico would like to go with them to the splash pad in Meridian. Yes! We had no sunscreen so I whipped up a batch real quick and slathered him in it.

On Tuesday was the MST3K Reunion Show. Guy and I had purchased tickets more than a month ago, so we had a DATE NIGHT! We went to the theater downtown to see it. There was supposed to be a pre-show for the 30 minutes before, with trivia and music, but the theater had started the live show an hour early (it was supposed to be an hour delayed for the Mountain & Pacific time zones) so we missed it. After the show was over the theater called all of us over to give us free movie tickets to apologize. Those that had showed up on time missed a big portion of the show :( Thankfully, we were early enough that we didn't miss any of the content. 

Then we went to Trader Joe's and bought Guy some ice cream, and came home at about 8:30 and Nico was still not asleep, he was awake reading books in his bed. I thought this might happen, since he had taken a nap earlier that afternoon! 

We implemented a summer schedule for Nico on Monday, he has "family contributions" instead of chores, and we have switched the use of the iPad around so that he gets 30 minutes of screen time every day. There is emphasis on the WHEN-->THEN of the schedule. WHEN he finishes his family contributions for the day, THEN he gets to have 30 minutes of iPad and can also then play with his friends outside. The schedule also has snack and meal times on it. We are also implementing an allowance, $3 each week with opportunities to earn more doing other jobs.

I've been promising a video, and you guys get one this week. It's not too spectacular but I had to start somewhere. I'll get the rest of the videos made soon.

Graduation, Field Day, Last Day, Oh my!

Last Friday was Nico's graduation. They sang songs and received certificates and talked into a microphone about what they learned in Kindergarten. I don't even remember what Nico said, though I have it on video. I will post a video next week since I didn't have time this week! What I do remember is that he said something that I didn't understand. I'll have to watch it again to see if I can discern it.

Nico and his teacher Miss Lung

I brought a little potted flower for Nico to give to Miss Lung. And then for HIM I brought a bag of his favorite mint chocolates from Trader Joe's

Brodie, Nico, Olivia

On Sunday we went to church and after church there was a potluck with a water slide. We brought tuna pasta salad. Guy tried out the blow-darts and then told me I should try it out, so I did. It takes a LOT of lung power to propel those things! I couldn't even get my dart to the first target. Guy got his to the furthest target, I was impressed!

Our neighbors, Tiffanie, Sam and Adam

Tiffanie and Sam

Adam

Sunday afternoon was fun. Nico and I got some snuggle time in while Guy took a nap and then Guy mowed Jonny & Alanna's lawn. 

Here's a good shot of the cul-de-sac across the street from Jonny & Alanna's house. On Monday Nico was able to introduce himself to the kids and play with them for a few hours until lunch time. They even let him ride on some of their fun  toys. Here is Nico riding on Lexie's EzyRoller while Guy mowed the front lawn.

Playing with the Panorama option on my phone. This is the view from their backyard!

Dot-to-dots on the couch

 Being silly eating "hockey pucks"

No school on Monday, and Tuesday was Olympic Field Day. Guy was able to take that morning off to take Nico!! He took lots of pictures.

Tuesday was also our last day at Jonny & Alanna's house! It was such a fun experience being there. I will miss their dishwasher!! 

Tuesday night Nico came in from playing with his friends with a 102.2 fever and a really bad headache. We thought it might have ben heat exhaustion, but weren't sure. It went up to 103.2 in the night, and the next day it was hovering around 101 all day, going to bed with it right at 100, and then this morning he was all better. With the fever, at least. He woke up this morning whining that his stomach hurt :( He got sick once so we couch-bound him and them had him take a nap, he woke up feeling fine and so off to school he went for his LAST DAY!!!! I'm so glad he was able to make it to his last day. 

He did make an observation this morning after he got sick. He was pretty matter of fact. "I had throw up in my tummy, and then it just came up. That's what was wrong, it came up, like this *re-enactment* and then I was fine!" I thought it was great, it seems like he doesn't have any fear of it. His tummy ache reappeared shortly and he asked me "Mommy, why didn't my tummy ache go away?" I told him that last time (a few weeks ago, remember that?) he felt better after sleeping, so that's where the nap came in. 

This is all stuff I'm writing down to tell to his doctor next Tuesday when we have a follow up appointment. This doesn't bode well for our gut-healing attempts, but I'm confident we'll get to the bottom of it.

That's it for this week! Expect a video next time :)

Church Picnic and Holding Ivy

Forgot again! I finally added Thursday night blog updating to my calendar, so I will remember next week :)

Last Friday was the last Friday of my henna booth.  Nico got to spend the night at the cabin again! And I went to pick him up on Saturday. Lily was there along with Jeremy. We had good food and a good time, again!! Thanks Pa & Ma!

On Sunday was the church picnic! I told Nico about it just the morning of, and that there was going to be a Bounce House Water Slide! He said "Oh my goodness, I love one of those!" he was very excited (side note about water slides. On his first day of school, we were halfway out the door when he turned around and said "MOMMY! Don't forget my swimsuit, where's my swimsuit?" He thought that he got to go to the waterslide behind his school as a matter of course during the school day. Oh woe is Nico! I should have seen this coming, remember his Preschool graduation? "What is the thing you're most excited about school next year?" His answer was "The water slide behind my school!")

We brought potato salad. It was a very pleasant afternoon. Nico got soaked from head to toe in his clothes. Then we changed him into his swim trunks because they were the only dry thing we had. That was only after he was done on the water slide. They had free Ben and Jerries Ice Cream there, so I told Nico we could stop by the Co-op on the way home and get him some ice cream and some cones.

Check out video below of water slide plus "Big Bubble" fun!

Sunday night we watched Ivy for a few hours. Nico loves to do "This little piggy" on her, either her toes or her fingers. I didn't catch it quick enough to include in the video at the end.

On Tuesday we went to Big-O Tires to get our car checked out, looks like we needed new tires. So we got them. Also an oil change. I am going out of town next week to Salt Lake City for the doTERRA convention so we wanted to make sure the car was good. My mom will be staying in the suite upstairs to watch Nico while I am gone.

Thursday was picture day at school. Nico picked out his shirt, it was a new football shirt that he had picked out from Kohl's a few weeks ago. Thursday night was parents orientation. We got to hear the principal speak and then we all separated and went to our child's classrooms to hear their teachers speak. I love the principal and I am so happy that Nico is at Adam's!!! His teacher is great too! She told us what they do every day, what they work on through the school year, and she also told us her pet peeve - constantly changing how your child is picked up from school. That is, whether he'll be on the bus or picked up in person. Thankfully Nico will never take the bus so we don't have to worry about it :)

Read-a-thon is going on at Nico's school soon! It's a fundraiser. You can pledge an amount of money you'll donate per minute Nico reads a book (this would be me or Guy reading to him), up to a certain amount, or you can just do a lump sum donation. If you'd like to participate and pledge an amount per minute (the Read-a-thon lasts for 2 weeks so this will be the total minutes read over a two week period), then let me know and I'll write it on the form! Payments aren't collected until the end of September, after it's over and we know how many minutes he's read. His goal is 210 minutes which is 15 minutes per day.

Video time!