We had a great Easter weekend! It started off Saturday with a library trip. Guy and Nico went together while I did some work. There was a robot there they could play with, and they were able to check one out from the library! There's an app you can download to interact with it. Nico played with it nonstop after they got home. Over the next few days it was one of the only things he did when he had free time. We told him it didn't count as iPad time, since he was "programming". There are some video snippets at the end of the blog!
Saturday afternoon we went to my brother Jonny's house for an Easter BBQ. There was yummy food, and an Easter egg hunt for the kids.
Ready...Set...
Go!
Nico made a new friend while we were there, and as we were leaving, his friend said, "I'm going to miss you. We really had a fun time." It was very sweet. Some video from the BBQ at the end of the blog!
Sunday we were at church early. Guy was running sound, Nico had practice with the kids group because they were going to be on stage for one of the songs, and I had practice for a piano/flute duet I was doing with another gal.
On the way to the church Nico said that he didn't want to do the thing on stage anymore, because he was nervous. I told him I was nervous about my thing, too, and that it's ok to be nervous and it shouldn't keep us from doing the thing. After I finished talking, a Parry Gripp song started playing, his songs are so silly, this one says "there's a young girl talking about herself. You can't stop her." And Nico said "Mommy, this song makes me feel better, because it's about a young girl talking about herself, and she's not nervous about talking about herself."
Engage Boise live streams all their services, so I snuck some screen shots off the video to capture these. Nico was in charge of waving the flag during the song.
And we played "Fairest Lord Jesus" during the offering.
Sunday afternoon, Guy was able to take a good long nap. Afterward, we decided to ride bikes. We biked on the greenbelt and we went far. Nico wanted to keep going but we told him we needed to turn around. It's a good thing we did, because the wind was actually helping us on our way out, and against us on the way back. We stopped every few minutes on our way back to check my map to see how much further. Nico's legs were aching and he was having a hard time riding against the wind. Guy rode in front of us on the way back to help block the wind for us. We were gone about an hour and a half.
Swimming on Monday.
Nico eating nachos, reading Peanuts. He is careful to delineate which of the two Peanuts books is his and which is Daddy's. It's important to keep track.
Nico excavating something from an Egyptian pyramid, from his Little Passports monthly subscription.
On Wednesday Nico passed Swimming Level 2!! It's the end of the swimming session and time to sign up for new classes, so Level 3 for him will start next week! I am very proud of him.
Wednesday morning after Nico left for school, I travelled up to Pullman, WA for a business trip. Since there's family in the area it's always a mix of business and family! My mom was already in Pullman when I arrived, along with my Aunt Mary Anne! My Aunt Liz came today, and I was also able to see my cousins and my Uncle Jerry.
It has been SO fun to be surrounded by family even while being here for business! I travelled to Farmington today for work and will drive there tomorrow as well, returning Saturday to Boise.
We had a nicely full day on Saturday. Nico and I went to Grandma and Papa's house so that Grandma could explain the Printer Mystery to Nico. Nico had told us about the printer randomly printing pages during Grandma Camp, so Nico texted Grandma on Friday to ask her if she had figured it out yet, he seemed a bit worried about it, so she decided to spill the beans! When we visited them on Satuday, Grandma told him to check the printer. He checked it and found a paper that had been printed on! They read it and then she sent him back to the printer to see if there was anything else. YES there was another paper! (Which Papa had secretly snuck in there). Grandma and Papa worked together like this until about 10 papers had been revealed, each one telling a piece of the Printer Mystery story. View the video at the end of this entry to read through the papers and discover the mystery!
From there, we drove to Timberline High School, where our church was putting on a Glow-in-the-Dark Easter Egg Hunt. Guy was working the sound, and I was set to work at the Face Painting table. We helped set up and then people slowly started to arrive. I realized after a time that between me and Guy, there was no one to watch Nico. It wasn't a big deal when it was just our church there setting up, he could run around the huge field and everyone knew him. But as thousands of people started arriving, I realized I may need to figure this out. The line for face painting was long and I had no visual of the field. Nico would run over every once in a while for water, which made me happy. I told him to keep checking in and then prayed that God would take care of him. The next time he checked in, he had Lexie with him! The next time after that he told me he was going to be with Jonny and Alanna and Lexie. I looked up and Jonny was waving at me. HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF. The crowd was really packed now. I didn't know they were going to be there, but I am so grateful they were!
The face painting line went to ZERO as soon as Pastor Tim got on the mic and started preparing everyone for the countdown. We started cleaning up and I was able to catch a video of the countdown and field rush. (check out video at end of entry)
Thank you to Alanna for taking these pictures!! They estimated 4,000-6,500 people showed up!
Sunday was a relaxing day. We decided to have pizza that night since we weren't able to on Saturday. It was Nico's turn to choose the show, and he chose Garfield.
Monday came along and it was back to school for Nico!
Tuesday was an interesting day! In the morning Nico lifted his shirt up and asked me why there was a painful lump on his stomach right above his belly button. It was about the size of peanut and painful to the touch. I calmly said we would go to a doctor that day to figure it out. I called the office at the stroke of 8, and got Nico in at 9:30. The doc said it wasn't a hernia, but was definitely a lump, she could move it around with her finger (ouch!). The next step would be an ultrasound to determine whether it was "vascular" or just an easily removable cyst. I didn't know what vascular meant, when I asked her she said that if it was vascular it meant that the lump had blood vessels involved with it and it would be harder to remove and could possibly continue growing. The outcome we should hope for would be the cyst. They could them remove it right in their office instead of doing surgery at the hospital. She told me the imaging center would call soon to schedule the ultrasound.
I dropped Nico off at school and then called up my prayer team. My mom and Guy's mom, then texted Aunt Mary and Ellen Gray. I did this from the school parking lot. When I was done, I started driving home. As I was turning onto our street my phone rang. I thought it was the ultrasound place to schedule the appointment but instead it was the doctor's office. She said she consulted with Dr Eck (the main doctor at the office) and he said it sounded like a "liquefied hematoma", which is much less scary and much more common (especially in active children). I don't know much about it, but I understand it to be like an internal bruise where blood is collected in a spot and can produce a lump. The fact that it was very painful was a good sign. She told me to watch it over the next few days and if it became less painful and the slight bruising started turning yellow, that means it's healing and it's not a cyst or other kind of lump. PHEW.
I gave all my prayer team the update. Apparently they're goooood at what they do! I didn't even have time to worry about it before it was resolved. I went back to Nico's school to tell him the news. The doctor had told him all about ultrasounds and said "It might hurt because they'll have to press the spot, BUT, there won't be any needles!" So I'm sure he was relieved at the news.
On Wednesday morning he woke up and I asked him how it felt. Still painful but not as bad... and look it's starting to turn yellow!
I learned that my cousin Rick (Aunt Mary's son) and my Uncle Jerry both had similar lumps like this when they were younger, and they both went away! Not sure if they were the same thing, but it was still reassuring to hear stories of disappearing lumps :)
Wednesday was Nico's first baseball practice. The doc had given us the OK to continue normal physical activity, since it wasn't a hernia. Nico got to wear his new cleats and made sure that I brought the towel that Dick's Sporting Goods gave him, "in case I sweat!" Hehe.
We found the practice field, and once practice started his team huddled up. The coach talked about the 3 things to remember about baseball:
1 - Have Fun
2 - Work Hard
3 - ?
Hmmm.... Oh well.
The coach showed them how to hold the ball, and they practiced the "creeper stance", while you're in the outfield waiting for the batter to hit the ball.
Video down below with more baseball stuff!
Tonight we had Evelyn over for dinner even though her family was home. Avery felt a little bad about it, I'll have to figure out a way to make it up to him. We had mandarin chicken and fried rice. I don't think I could ever make those two dishes again at the same time. If Guy wouldn't have been home early tonight I would have ruined both dishes!! It requires two people and a few more burners, and a few more dishes.
BUT, it was REALLY tasty and everyone loved it. In the future I could probably make the rice ahead of time so I won't be doing both dishes at once.
Afterwards they did some rough housing. One of their favorite things to do.
One night before bed, Nico asked Alexa to play his favorite lullaby which is called Australian Lullaby. We started talking about playing the song on the piano and I asked him if he wanted to learn how to play the piano and he said Yes so I started talking about it and after I was done I hear this almost silent whine come from Nico. I look over at him in his bed and he has this sad look on his face and I ask him what's wrong. He says, "I don't WANT to learn how to play the piano."
Wow! The first thing Nico has declared he doesn't want to do. And I am A-ok with that! I really just want to give him opportunities to pursue the things he wants to pursue. If it's not piano, then OK!
Last Friday, the entire new season of MST3K was released on Netflix and Guy took the day off to watch them. I watched some with him, but some of the day was spent getting ready for the yard sale which we had on Saturday!
We had everything priced in boxes, so Saturday morning we moved boxes and tables and then just unloaded all the boxes onto the tables. This was actually a bit more work than I was expecting, but we had it pretty much unloaded by the time 9AM rolled around. Papa came that morning to drop off some moving boxes to give away at the yard sale, and to help haul boxes. Thank you Papa!
Nico and Evelyn went up and down the aisle and picked out things to buy. Evelyn was purchasing stuff for her Grandma's cabin. Nico chose to buy Papa's old wallet, a cherry pitter, and an empty tin.
Relaxing in the afternoon after a hard morning of selling his toys
Nico sold a lot of his toys and was a very eager salesman. He asked people outright if they wanted to buy some of his stuff, and when one lady paused to look at his toy table he said to her: "I think your dog would like this gorilla. Do you want to buy it?" When someone tried to haggle with him and lower his price on his train set, he said "No. $10." She laughed and said he drove a hard bargain and bought it from him. He made $32 total!
And it turns out, about an hour before the end of the garage sale, he grabbed his gorilla and said "I think I want to keep this." so he brought it inside.
We ended at 3PM. A lot of stuff sold but we still had a lot of stuff leftover, so we loaded up our car and Jeff and Allicia's van and Guy and Jeff drove a load to the Youth Ranch to donate it. On the way home they picked up Chipotle for dinner and some Izze Pops from Whole Foods. We ate our dinner on the front lawn, picnic style. We were beat!
The day was sunny but it started out very cold! We were thankful for the sun.
That evening, though we were beat, Guy took Nico to the glow-in-the-dark Easter egg hunt that our church was putting on. Because it was glow-in-the-dark, it had to start late. The mini-sermon started at 8:00 and the hunt wasn't until 8:45. The church was expecting about 100 people but they had about 500. The hunt itself lasted maybe 3 minutes and some kids didn't get any eggs. Nico grabbed 3 eggs and then they sped to the car to get out of the parking lot before the rush. Nico came home and was asleep instantly.
Sunday was Easter, it was a good sermon. Then we went to pick up the eggs and milk from Papa. Grandma Salisbury was out of town visiting her mom in Moscow. Papa told us how to make egg nog with the milk and eggs, so we tried it that night. Guy liked it so he put some in his coffee!
Since we weren't able to do pizza on Saturday night, we did it on Sunday. We started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. Nico actually enjoyed it! Guy told us that he used to watch this with the fam while eating pizza on Saturday nights. I remember watching it with my brothers all the time and it will be a fun tradition to continue.
We played a game Easter night that we learned last time we were in Arlington. Grandma Russell sent us what we needed, a list of nursery rhymes, which we cut up and put into all the eggs we could locate which was just 4. You go around and pick an egg, and then sing/say the nursery rhyme. Then it's the next person's turn. Video link here if you'd like to see the round we did: https://goo.gl/photos/cVRu4d1ZtwjPPLVS7
Thanks Grandma Russell! :)
Yesterday was a sunny day, so I picked Nico up from school on my bike. He had his scooter, and we rode to the MK Nature Center (aka Fish Park). I wanted Nico to see the American Kestrel they have there. The greenbelt path was closed due to risk of deterioration because of the height of the river, though everyone was still using it. We rode it to the Nature Center but used a different route home. It will be hard to get around this summer on our bikes because all the paths are closed. They don't think they will get around to assessing danger until August.
Nico found a shady spot and asked if he could finish his lunch that he didn't finish at school.
We went into the lobby of the Nature Center and saw so many animals that had been stuffed. We saw some different birds, a crane, a heron, lots of different ducks, quail, even a bald eagle! All stuffed. Then we went out to meet the American Kestrel. Meet Fiona. American Kestrels are a bird of prey but they are surprisingly small! They have Fiona at the nature center because she is missing an eye.
Nico told me his leg was hurting from pushing on the scooter, so we figured out a way for him to stand on the lowest bar of my bike right in front of me and I swung the scooter over my handle bars. We rode that way about half of the way home. It was so nice to be outside!
Nico is on Magic Treehouse book #13
We are waiting for its arrival at the library along with #14.
Friday was Ivy's birthday party! She turned 1 year old. Allicia kind of combined it with Easter, so each child at the party had a different color of egg to find, each had 8 eggs. After Nico opened his eggs, he went up to Camden (one of Ivy's cousins)...
"Can I help you open your eggs?"
She was happy to let him help. There was also egg coloring at the party. And a cute one year old that smooshed a bunch of cake into her face.
We colored eggs ourselves on Saturday. Allicia had given us an egg coloring kit and so we used it. It came with props to decorate the eggs as animals. So, we did!
I decorated one with a henna flower and then Nico followed suit and decorated one of his that way too. I think he did a pretty good job!!
Here was mine
Then Sunday was Eeeeeeeaster! We invited Nico's neighbor friends and their mom to go to church with us for the egg hunt there and the breakfast they serve before the service. Nico was totally psyched that they got to go with him. All of them had a lot of fun and they all came home with prizes. Because Nico can't have corn syrup, they made special eggs for him and put an N on them for him to find.
After church we headed straight up to the cabin!! Yay!! I helped Mom get everything ready for the Easter meal at 4 PM, we had a wide selection of sandwich fixins plus a microgreen salad. Yummy food. And then the Easter Egg Hunt! I forgot to snap many pictures, but did get one.
Thanks so much Ma & Pa for the great time, all the goodies for the kids, and the yummy food! Happy Easter!!
On Monday I had a dental cleaning and then Nico just had a follow up with x-rays from the cavities he had before. His cavities are the same and have not gotten ANY worse! Woohoo! The dentist said we could just leave it (as long as I understand the increased risk of needing to get something done quickly to his mouth if they do start to go downhill), and we don't have to do x-rays every 3 months, he will just check cosmetically at Nico's 6 month appointments and will be able to see if any of them are degrading. He said it would be different if these weren't baby teeth, and I understood that. What we had started doing to arrest the cavity development is consistent flossing plus using an essential oil tooth blend that I put on his toothbrush instead of toothpaste.
RIGHT next to the dentist is a LEGO store buy/sell/trade (called Bricks and MiniFigs), that just opened last week. So, after we were finished at the dentist we walked over there and looked around. They have a room to have birthday parties and so I got information about that. I figured after we were done, we had time, so we drove to the OTHER lego place (called Bricknowlogy) located in Eagle to look around there, so Nico could make a good decision about which one he wanted to have his party at. He decided he wanted his party at Bricknowlogy because each of his friends would get their own lego set to put together at the party. I reminded him that if he chose that option, that he would only get to invite 5 friends, as opposed to 12 for the other place. He was okay with that. So we plan to have 2 birthday parties for him (Phew!), one for his friends at Bricknowlogy and one for family the next day.
That afternoon after school we met Allicia and Evelyn and crew at the Discovery Center. They had a BUBBLE maker!
We left from there to pick Daddy up from work. It was a full day!
Tuesday was a nothing day. Who even remembers what we did? Not me!
Today Nico's friends next door came over for about an hour. They colored and played with cars.
Nico got to do 2 Easter egg hunts on Easter! The first one was at church. Every egg he picked up he had to open first. I think he was remembering preschool egg hunt where all the eggs were empty! (Empty tomb, you see).
The second one was at the cabin that afternoon. We ate a yummy dinner and then Grandma brought the kids upstairs while all the parents hid the eggs. Grandma had Bruce read a story to the kids. When I went up to listen, Nico was sitting in the same armchair as Bruce, squished in next to him.
Then the kids were released! We told Nico that all the eggs had something in them so that he didn't have to open any of them first. When all the eggs were found, we counted them and then traded until each kid had 46 eggs. There were just 4 kids, a smaller gathering than usual. Bruce, Rory, Lexie, and Nico.
There were toys and candies in the eggs. The candies that Nico couldn't eat, he tried to give away. There were also notes in the eggs that you could redeem for $5 cash. Each time you redeemed a note you had to do whatever the banker asked you to do. We all took turns being the banker. Nico got 4 such notes so he made $20. He was asked once to jump on the trampoline as high as he could go in order to receive his $5. He really enjoyed that one.
Snuggled up outside while the grown ups finished eating
Guy talking to my brother David
Trying to find the last few eggs
Then we said our goodbyes, loaded with leftovers (Thanks Pa & Ma!).
On Monday we went to the bank and opened Nico a ShareBear savings account. We want to start giving him a small allowance so that he can save up for all the toys that he asks for. He was able to buy a lego he's been eyeing with his $20 from Easter. We had fun tonight because we finally finished putting it together. The age range for this one started at 7 years old, I think because it was one of those technics legos that requires a bit more strength and spatial orientation than a 4 year old would have. So I helped him with it, and it took us a few days of 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, before it was finished. It's a RACE CAR WITH A TOWING HOOK!
Monday was also our IEP meeting. We went over how Nico is doing and we went over the IEP goals for next year. There is one goal in relation to him being defiant, saying "No!" and sitting down in the middle of class during transition periods when they're moving from one activity to the next. Could be just exerting his independence, we've certainly been seeing that at home, too. Anyway, the goal for next year is to help him transition better between activities. A lot of times the goals just state common sense type stuff but it's good to have it in writing. To help him meet this goal, there will be someone who comes into his Kindergarten class every day for 15 minutes to help him however he needs it. If there is a certain time of day that he has the most trouble, she will come in during that time. Since the class will have more kids than he's used to, they thought this would be good, to get his some one on one time.
No goals next year for academics, he is right on target. Miss Erica says that Nico is very precise, and she points to the wall where there is art hanging and says "I could probably pick out which one is Nico's, it's the one where everything is right in its place."
The only other goals are speech related. His biggest issue right now is articulation. He will get there. He has come so far in every other area!
I talked to the SLP about the Calico Learning Center possibility this summer, and she said she wasn't too sure about the place. When someone else joined us a few minutes later, she said the same thing. Something about how most of the kids enrolled there are not native English speakers, and Nico would benefit more from being around typical peers. Miss Erica mentioned that BSU has a summer language program that enrolls Nico's age, and that might be something better to look into. So, we're looking into.
Next Monday I have the transition meeting at Adam's Elementary school so I can meet his teacher and SLP for next year.
Nico has had tummy aches two nights in a row. There was a time about a month ago that he was telling me every night that he had a tummy ache, but I was pretty sure it was just a ploy to get out of bed. This is different. He LOOKS sick. He goes to bed, asks for water, then a few minutes later will get out of bed and say "Mommy, there's something wrong with me." I ask him what's wrong and he eventually will tell me it's his tummy. I rub oils on his feet and often times that just puts him to sleep. I asked him if the foot massage felt good and he sleepily nods yes, and then ZONK, he's out. Then he sleeps the whole night and wakes up happy in the morning. I feel so bad for him. I know what those tummy aches feel like. I have a guess as to the food culprit, so I'm hoping that tomorrow is better.
Last night he felt so terrible, he was rolling around on my bed saying he had a tummy ache, then he'd whimper, and then he'd roll some more, and then "Mommy, mommy, there's something wrong with me." Then he'd whimper and roll over again :(
Also this past week, we received a package from the Grandparents Russell! Nico just happened to be with me when we went to the PO Box to check the mail, and he was so psyched to find a package in there with his name on it. Waiting until we came home to open it was hard, because we had a few more stops before home: The library, and the zoo. In the package he got some books, including his favorite Pigeon book that we have checked out twice from the library, and now we won't have to do that any more! Also a game and a deck of cards, from Grandma Dee's stash, plus some stickers. All good things. Thank you Gma and Gpa!
Saturday Market!!! Last Saturday was the first one of the season. Nico got a dragon balloon and a cucumber. Then we headed over to the movie theater for a sensory-friendly movie (lights stay on, volume is down, doors stay open, and you can bring your own food). Paddington Bear. Nico sat through the whole thing and it was a lot of fun. They do these movies every month. I'm looking forward to the next one!
One night this past week, Nico and Evie and I went to the park before bed, and they didn't even play on the equipment, they spent the whole time riding in circles on their bikes on the basketball court. It was pretty cute.
On Friday we went to see G.G. in Nampa. She showed me these adorable stuffed dogs that she made, I just can't believe how cute these things are!! She sent me home with the purple one for baby Ivy, who loves it!!
Nico had fun playing with the blocks, building some of the things displayed on the side of the bin. He also had fun "hiding" Scamper's dog treat under the table for him to find. Scamper had to be coaxed over to where it was lying on the floor because he didn't see it.
Then G.G. showed me the firetruck quilt. Wow!! I am so impressed by this. I love that cute little dog in the corner.
Guy had last weekend off and he took Nico out on Saturday. Nico and Guy have started going to McDonalds when they go out, so that Nico can play on the toys. Guy just buys some french fries for himself. Nico calls it "Old McDonalds". "Can we go to Old McDonalds?"
On Tuesday Guy and I put together our new 3x4 cube storage that is replacing our dresser. It takes up much less space than our dresser did so it feels like we added a whole new room to our house. That is what I'm talking about! We are trying to organize this space a bit better and we're on our way.
Wednesday was Nico's Easter Party at his new preschool (that is how we differentiate between the two preschools - old preschool and new preschool). I teared up while they were singing their song about Jesus. I'm such a sap. I just like that he's learning about Jesus taking our sins away. He often tells me out of the blue: "You can trust God", quoting one of his favorite songs. He repeats it "you can trust God, you can trust God, you can trust God." Then he'll say "Jesus lives in my heart." He'll tilt his head, look at the floor, and tap his heart with his right hand. Tonight I encouraged him to pray before bed after I prayed and his usual thing is "no you do it". But I asked him to come up with one thing to thank God for. "I don't know", so I asked him what is one thing that he loves. And he said "Mommy" So he repeated after me "Thank you for Mommy"...
Me: Is there anything else you want to thank Jesus for?
Nico: Daddy?
Me: Yep
Nico: Thank you for Daddy. Evie?
Me: Yeah
Nico: Thank you for Evie. And Allicia. And Lexie. Amen
Nico eating his Easter Party Snack and looking at a picture of himself on Teacher Melissa's phone
All of Nico's friends at his new preschool
The latest in nighttime reading traditions is letting Nico read the words "it" and "was". These are the first two words in the book "Curious George Cleans Up", so that's how he chose them. But he reads these words in every book, not just that one. When I come to one of those words, I stop and point to it, and then he reads it. I think he is excited about being able to read.
Putting together a lego with Daddy. A beautiful day to have both doors open to get a breeze! Can you perceive the extra light coming in from the open back door?
Until next time! (I'll have news next week of Nico's first Kindergarten transition meeting)
