Dog Man, First Day of School, Pirate Party

Last Friday after lunch, Nico and I went first to Barnes and Noble so he could buy the latest DogMan novel. It had just been released that Tuesday, so there was a big display case inside the store that had a bunch of copies. 

Then we went to the mall to finish up his school shopping, and while we were standing in line at Kohl's, Guy texted me saying he was leaving work early. I called him and asked him if he wanted to meet us at the mall, and he said YES! So Nico and I waited for him arrive, then we all ventured to See's Candies first to get some treats, and then up to the food court to get lunch for Guy.

We also stopped by the game store and Nico found a used Switch game that he had been wanting, and so he bought it with his leftover birthday money.

When we got home I commissioned Nico to make a crock pot meal that he received all the ingredients for from a recent Grandma Camp. Seafood chowder! He happily dumped everything in there and turned it on. Dinner 3 hours later!

Saturday morning I did henna at the market. Allicia sent me this text while I was there. Avery needed some help with a toy and Nico was helping him.

Sunday was a fun day. Long morning at church and then I drove Nico straight to Big Al's where his cousins and Grandparents Salisbury were gathered to do some bowling. He came home that afternoon and went straight downstairs where there were kids waiting for him to play the Switch. Sunday, Jeff and Allicia had friends over for "Even Sunday", which is like "Odd Saturday" except they couldn't do it on Saturday and so they did it on Sunday. Guy ran a role-playing game for everyone. And Nico played the Switch until bedtime. This year we did not do a last-day-of-vacation treasure hunt like usual. Hmm.. oh well!

The first day of school arrived. 4th grade!

It was a half day, and after school he was invited downstairs to play some Switch, so he played until dinner time. We are still taking advantage of summer rules, not quite ready to crack down on video game playing. Nico and Allicia have been playing buddy-system on the Yoshi game, it was fun to watch them play together!

Nico has been playing Switch downstairs after school every day.

Nico's report after his first day of school was that he liked it and he liked his teacher. His teacher uses an app to communicate with parents, and she can also hand out points to students via the app and the parents can see which points she gave to their kids. Points for teamwork, participation, and good-job type stuff.

Tuesday night was the first Cub Scout Pack meeting of the season. It was a Pirate Party. Guy sent me these pictures telling me that they both got "Lucky Beard" as their pirate name.

Every morning before school Nico and I have been playing Monopoly. It's not the original version, I don't know what the version is called but instead of cash money it uses credit cards. The game goes a little faster that way. Usually we don't finish before school starts so we sometimes save the rest of the game for after school.

We have officially started looking for places to move. Today we went to see a house on Bacon street in this same neighborhood. We really liked it. We're trying to figure out if we can make it work, but we're hoping it's a GO for this one. But if not this one, we will keep on looking, it could be a while yet, it's really hard to say!

G.G., Cub Scouts

Last Friday we watched all the kiddos in the evening while Jeff and Allicia went out, they ordered pizza for us all and we ate pizza and watched shows. I went to a Ladies Christmas Party that night with our church, so Guy was on his own with all 4 kids for a while. I should have got some pictures, but I completely spaced it!

The weekend was so laid back, we had nothing to do so we just soaked in the rest. For pizza night on Saturday we watched the newer Sponge Bob movie. It's one that Nico and I had seen in the theaters several years ago. I remember being in the theater and googling on my phone, "How long is the sponge bob movie"... ha ha. This time, it didn't seem as bad.

Tuesday was packed from start to finish. After school we went to see GG. Nico asked if they had Scrabble, and so we found their Scrabble game, the Upwards version. I played with Nico and GG sat an helped him form words.

On our way home we picked up Jimmy John's. After eating quickly at home, Nico and I rushed to Cub Scouts.

A few weeks ago, Nico had asked if he could join Cub Scouts out of the blue. I didn't even know that he knew what that was! So I looked up local packs and they have one downtown. I emailed them and they got back to me on Tuesday, I talked it over with Guy and we decided to try it out that night. They meet every Tuesday. Guy worked late on Tuesday so we met him there. 

Currently the 3rd grade pack (called the Bears) is working on tool safety. They get to design something they want to build, and then build it. Nico had a chance to use a hammer and a saw. His favorite was the saw. The thing Nico designed is a periscope. They design it on paper first.

We officially signed him up! We have to go get him a uniform, then we're all set.

Today we received a special package from Grandma Russell containing some gluten free Christmas cookies and treats, Nico and I tried one right away after school. SO yummy. A cool thing she also does when she sends us packages - she sends all her saved up comics from the Sunday papers. Nico and Guy both love reading these. Thanks for the package Grandma!!! (Another one should be arriving tomorrow full of other yummy things!) And then a week from tomorrow they will be HERE in Boise!!

Nico has been enjoying reading and re-reading all of his DogMan books. He ordered the newest one from Amazon with his own money. He ordered the pre-release because it is not released until Christmas Eve. He is very excited. There is a part in one of the books that he doesn't like, and it makes him super sad and he always skips over it. It's when Cat Kid is convinced by the evil Petey to be bad and break the rules. He showed me the one scene that is the saddest. He said that the first time he read it he stared and stared and stared at it for a long time because it was just so sad. It's the panel where Cat Kid throws his trash on the floor "plop", instead of putting it in the trash can. You can see it below. I included the surrounding panels so you can see it in context. 

Also, there is a new soda we've been enjoying called Blue Sky. It's similar to Zevia in that it's zero sugar, but it's cheaper and tastes better, not as much of a Stevia taste. We tried the Cherry Vanilla this time. Very good!

That's it for this week!

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!