Birthday and a Boo Bash!

Friday after school Nico and I went on an hour long bike ride on the greenbelt. Nico brought home an activity calendar from school and you can color in a star every time you spend 30 minutes exercising. If you fill in all the stars you get a free pass to Wahooz.

For dinner that night we made "Crabby Patties", Spongebob style. Nico even put onion and tomato on his burger because that's how you actually make one on the Spongebob show! Eating Crabby Patties while watching Spongebob, we thought it was appropriate :)

While we were over at Grandma and Papa's house last Tuesday, while Nico was home from school sick, he discovered a drawing book in their living room that Rory must have left there. He practiced drawing from it, and when we got home that afternoon he gave me cash so that I could purchase him a similar drawing book from Amazon. It arrived on Friday! Here he is drawing.

Saturday was Guy's birthday! We went to Touch-A-Truck in the morning. Nico got to sit in a lot of different kinds of trucks.

After that we went for a little walk on the greenbelt, we hit the post office and the library.

Nico wanted to catch a leaf that was falling from a tree. We found some trees that were dropping lots of leaves, and he caught one!

That evening we made pizza and watched Matilda downstairs in the basement because Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos were out of town. Then we cut Guy's birthday cake and ate a few pieces of that! If you remember, we were trying to get to the bottom of Nico's tummy aches. We went a few days without one, we pulled all sugar out of his diet. On Saturday night we let him have a piece of Guy's cake, and the tummy ache came back! So we know sugar is involved somehow!

On Tuesday we went to visit GG and Aunt Pat. Melody was there and Nico brought out the US map that he had brought with him and they looked at that together for a while.

After leaving GG's house, we stopped at the Farmstead. We met Guy there, and Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos. First stop was the huge inflatable monster maze. 

Then tonight was the Boo Bash at Nico's school. He is going to be a ninja again this year for Halloween. Yes this is the THIRD year Nico is wearing his ninja costume! That was quite a good investment! Not that it cost much.. he he.  Here he is walking with Ivy.

Nico won the cake walk on his first time. Apparently Evelyn won the cake walk on her first time, too. It was a strange coincidence. Nico picked out these purple spider web gluten free cupcakes. Evelyn picked out a spider cake! Evelyn was standing on #1, Nico was standing on #2. Not at the same time, they had to be in different rooms because the 3rd - 6th graders were separate.

It's tradition... eat some of the cake you won at the cake walk this very night!

That's it for this week!

Pinewood Derby

On Saturday mornings we have been getting together with Jeff and Allicia and playing games while the kiddos play. In the past we've done games in the evening after bedtime but we are always tired, so doing it on Saturday morning means we're awake and the kids get some play time too! We usually play cribbage. We introduced them to QWIXX as well.

Saturday afternoon was the pinewood derby race! We got to the church and his car weighed in .1 oz more than it should, so they shaved some weight off of it and then it was good to go.

Nico's car is the second from the left.

Nico and his church friend Liam.

Most of the participants were adults! When Nico saw all the cool cars he wanted to make his look cooler. We are new to the pinewood derby and didn't realize that making the car look awesome was part of the fun. I'm not saying that his car didn't look awesome, I mean, it does have a spare tire on it!

He won just a few races. See the video at the end for a taste of the excitement!

I now make the communion bread for the church, since it needs to be gluten free and I am the girl for that! The first communion I provided bread for was fine, but then the leftovers were frozen and thawed for the next communion the following month. Something in that process really changed the flavor. I was almost embarrassed when I chewed my communion bread during the service and realized everyone was also tasting the same thing. It tasted like it was spiced. Someone asked me if I had added cumin to it. Ick! I love cumin, but not in communion bread! I told them to toss the rest and I would experiment and make a fresh batch for next time.

On communion Sundays, the kiddos stay in the main service during worship and communion, then they head back to the kids room. Nico usually chooses to draw while waiting for the service to start.

He's been coming home from school with random drawings he's done in his backpack. Like this one.

Reading Donald Duck comics at night

Tonight Evelyn came over for dinner again, they were wrestling and rough housing right after dinner and Evelyn kisses Nico's head a few times. Nico says "EVELYN KISSED ME!" I said "I kiss you all the time!" And then he asked Evelyn, "Do you love me? Like, do you love me and want to marry me?" and Evelyn said "No!" and then it was back to rough housing.

They spent a few minutes playing a balloon game on the iPad.

Now on to the videos! The first one is a video of Nico getting his trophy from his last Tournament. I forgot to include it in last week's blog!

And then the Pinewood Derby one!

Table Rock, Cupcakes

Last weekend I got to spend Saturday with Nico! It was nice to spend a Saturday with him after all the henna I've been doing on weekends. Guy had the day off to go look for interesting things at garage sales and thrift stores that he can "flip". He found a Game Cube and games and controllers for a good price which he will try to sell on eBay. Until then.. we have been enjoying playing Mario Kart! Instead of the boys playing Minecraft they now spend their game time playing Mario Kart. Evelyn usually joins them.

Nico is still super excited about chess and checked out another chess book at the library at school today, so now he has two checked out. At night he's been reading them, and setting up our chess board with certain setups, and showing us how to capture the king in only a few steps.

Anyway, I got distracted, back to last Saturday! After chores in the morning, Nico and I went through a large portion of his toys. Not all, but some, and ended up with a laundry basket full of things to donate. So then we went out. At Whole Foods we picked up a Stevia soda "Zevia", which Nico really liked, he chose ginger root beer. It actually tasted like root beer! He wanted me to take a picture of it and send the picture to Daddy.

Then we went to Costco, where Nico spent his own money to buy the next book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. In the afternoon we decided to go for a hike, and we successfully made it up to the top of Table Rock. 

We took several breaks along the way.

We saw a guy controlling a drone while we were on top. Nico stopped for a while to watch the drone flying around.

When we got home we noticed the squirrel had been in the bird feeder again.

Then Guy arrived home and we started pizza. Guy started cleaning the Game Cube he bought, taking pictures of the games and getting everything ready to sell. He also picked up a free CRT tv, which makes it a little easier to play some of the games we have. As luck would have it, Jeff and Allicia's TV broke and so we put the CRT downstairs and everyone has been playing games on it. The games had to be tested to make sure they worked, you know, and so did the Game Cube.

Guy cleaning the games.

Nico's drawing of a monster with eyes like Laser Moose

A sweet story... I went to pick Nico up at school for a doctor's appointment and I went into his class to get him, and as he was leaving everyone said "Goodbye Nico!" and his friend Grace said "By Nico, I'll miss you for the rest of the day!"

They celebrate birthdays at school, and Ms Lung brings in 2 gluten free cupcakes every time, so that Nico and another boy, Eli, can share in the fun. The first time this happened, Nico came home and cried to me, saying that Ms Lung made him a special cupcake and that he couldn't eat it because it had sugar in it and he was allergic to sugar, and that everyone else got to eat a cupcake. I wrote Ms Lung and told her that Nico misunderstood why we weren't giving him sugar, that he wasn't allergic, and that the next time that happens he can have the cupcake. So the next day, she brought in that same cupcake that he didn't eat the first time, and he carried it home gently, beaming, and then ate it all up. He was so happy.

Virtual Reality, Goodbye to Friends

On Sunday night, Allicia and Jeff had friends over who had designed a Virtual Reality game that they let everyone try. Nico and Guy both had a turn (I declined due to being a tad motion sick from watching Nico play.. hehe) Nico was a champ, and played really well (see video at end). He had a leaf blower and got to blow leaves and other things with his leaf blower. If you point it at the ground then you fly. Then he played one where there were a bunch of things you can throw.

Also on Sunday night, Guy and I and Jeff and Allicia sat downstairs to watch a part of the first release of the new MST3K movies. Since Guy supported the kick starter, he got early access to the first episode. Guy and I watched the entire episode earlier on Sunday, but that evening we shared part of it with Jeff and Allicia. 

We said goodbye to our friends Aadam and Sammy and Tiffanie on Tuesday. They moved out of state and we will miss them!

We got the pictures back from the henna photo shoot. It's nice to have those pictures of the 4 kid crew.

He entered the Adams Elementary Yearbook Cover Contest.

He drew two wolves on a cliff howling at the moon and then two bears down below with some trees.

Sittin'

Nico is on #9 of the Treehouse books. 

Here's the virtual reality video! (notice the newly painted and carpeted downstairs!!!)

See you next week!

First lost tooth, tadpoles, pizza!

Last Friday was Nico's Snack & Share at school. He got to bring the snack for the day, and then also something to show the class. He brought his batman car to show everyone.

It goes on its own and sends flying discs up into the air.

Saturday was a fun day. We ran errands in the morning, then we went for a walk to find a home for the tadpoles. We did some research about the tadpoles and how to keep them and we figured out we just had too many to take care of, we would need a much larger area for them to live, so we went with the intent of finding another home for all of them but one. But when the time came, it was impossible to just keep one because we couldn't access the water to refill our jar, it was a situation where Guy had to reach through the sticks to dump them out. So, we said goodbye to all of them. 

Evelyn came with us.

Nico put his arm around Evelyn for a short while as we were walking home. 

Pizza Saturday night! We have restarted the tradition! We made Nico his own personal pizza and he ate the whole thing!!! I think Guy's sauce is winning him over. This is Guy's pizza they're building. Guy put some pesto underneath his own sauce. Nico didn't want pesto on his.

While we were sitting on the couch watching Three Stooges and eating pizza..

Nico chomped hard and lost his very first loose tooth! Milestone! 

The tooth fairy gave him $5 for his first tooth and a riddle he had to solve to find a red clown nose somewhere in the clubhouse. The red clown nose was what I bought ($1 at Walgreens) so that I could get the $5 cash back to put under his pillow that night.

On Sunday we were able to see Papa and Grandma Salisbury, and we gave Grandma her birthday presents since her birthday was on Monday. Nico made her a rose with a stem out of modeling clay (I helped a bit, and showed him how). I apparently didn't take a picture of it, just video! But unfortunately iMovie has been crashing so I wasn't able to put together the snippet video! The video will have to come later. So I took a screen shot from the video so you could see.  After the clay dried he painted it, green and red like a rose. We put a few drops of lavender essential oil on the flower so it kind of smelled good. 

Happy Birthday Mom/Grandma!!! We love you! 

On Monday was Nico's next doctor's appointment to check on progress. Everything is going well in that regard. Since stopping his allergic foods he hasn't had many tummy aches and when he did it was easy to tell what caused them. He's had just 2 since his first appointment. Of course, when he goes to bed he sometimes will stay in there for a minute before coming out with a smirk on his face telling me his tummy hurts. I ask him when his tummy ache started and it's always the same: "When I got into bed". I haven't been counting those as tummy aches. He has them only on the nights when he is having a hard time winding down and seems to just not want to be in bed. I hope I'm making the right call on not calling them tummy aches! I usually rub some oils on his feet and he goes back to bed just fine.

In a few weeks we are doing a stool test on him. This will check for inflammation and bad bacteria and a host of other things. Then we'll start him on probiotics...

On Tuesday I taught an essential oils class in the evening. 

Some random pictures..

We went to a playdate at Quarry View on Wednesday morning and one of Nico's school friends, Wendy, was there. We walked her to school that day. They ate watermelon on the way.

We tried out his new adjustable crayons. He drew a sun.

Sorry for lack of video this week, we will hope for next!!