Grandma Caaaaaamp!

I had another henna booth on Saturday, then we made pizza that night, watched 2 episodes of Three Stooges. Sunday was Father's Day! Nico had made something for Guy in school and we had saved it until Sunday to give to Guy. It was a little card with buttons glued onto it. 

On Monday we went to the playground at Adams Elementary with the WHOLE crew. For the past 2 weeks, Tiffanie and Aadam and Sam have joined Allicia and I in our play dates. This week we took the kids to the school playground. Allicia wants Evelyn to become familiar and comfortable with the playground since she will be going to Kindergarten next year. Aadam is also going to Kindergarten, and they will be in the same class. We are hoping that all the kids have recess together, but I'm not sure if they will.

Sunday through Wednesday I was struggling with a cold and a fever that kind of put me out for the count on Sunday afternoon and then again at various times during the next few days. Tiffanie said she would keep an eye on Nico outside for me on Tuesday morning while the kids played. I was super grateful for that. Then Allicia let Nico and Evelyn play in the main house Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday afternoon she took Nico to the Discovery Center with them. Oh what blessing to be surrounded by good friends! 

This is how you multitask without an iPad - Nico is listening to his Curious George book on CD while reading a comic book. He was keeping up with the Curious George page turns just fine. 

Yesterday Nico and I went down to the cellar to pull out the gallon of Zinc Oxide I have down there so I can make some more sunscreen for him. Nico is already super tan! We don't use much sunscreen unless he's in direct sunlight for extended periods. In Tiffanie's yard (where he spends a lot of time) he gets filtered sunlight through the trees. ANYWAY, we found an old binder of Guy's with pockets to hold cards. I think Guy used it for Magic cards back in the day, but it was completely empty. I asked Guy what he wold think about letting Nico fill it with Pokemon cards and Guy said he couldn't think of a better use for it. Nico put his Pokemon cards in there, slightly more than 300 of them!

Wednesday afternoon I picked Nico up from the Discovery Center and drove him up to the cabin for the very first Grandma Camp! There are 4 Grandma Camps this summer, each starting on a Wednesday night and going through Saturday morning. There are themes to each one and this first one is called Grandma Camp: Hiker. All the cousins except Karli were able to make it. All the kids need to be dropped off Wednesday night between 5 and 7 PM. We were the first to arrive and Grandma Salisbury had everything in place. Each grandkid had their own bin with a t-shirt, fanny pack with water bottle, and an emergency whistle to hang around their necks. What goes in the other end of the whistle? Bubble gum. They went for a hike this morning (Thursday) and they will also be hiking tomorrow morning.

Kai, Leah, Bruce, Lily, Lexie, Rory, Nico

Rory

Grandma told me that Nico insisted on being in the front because he knew the way to go. Everyone was happy to oblige!

Today was a relaxing and different day for Guy and I. I woke up without a fever, yay! I think this is because of the concoction Grandma Salisbury gave me last night when I dropped Nico off. Thanks Mom! I was so out of sorts this morning without Nico around that I forgot to make Guy's lunch! Unfortunately, I wasn't in the clubhouse when he left for work, so when he discovered that there was no lunch in the fridge, he grabbed a handful of vegetables to take with him. That's it! I felt so bad. So for dinner I picked up food from a restaurant we had a gift certificate for and got him a cheeseburger! 

I think I may have promised you guys a video this week, but, I've got an "I was sick" excuse, so it'll have to be some other week! Sorry guys!

Picka Park

On Friday we went to visit G.G. in Nampa again. Always have a fun time there!

Saturday we went to visit Lizzie and Bruce and Rory.

For Father's Day I made some peppermint patties that Guy really enjoyed. I used this recipe. That evening we went to a park we hadn't been to in a very long time. We asked Nico to pick a park, and he started saying "guhba guhba". Turns out he was saying "pick a park", thinking that Picka was an actual Park. That was quite endearing. So we chose to go to a park that we hadn't been to in a while (a VERY long while). It's now called Picka Park, the actual name of it is Baggley, which sounds very similar to guhba guhba. See video for the Picka Park/guhba guhba dilemma.

While there, Nico started playing with a little girl a little older than him (4 or 5 maybe?) This girl adapted really quickly to Nico's lack of words. She heard his "dah dah" and started communicating back to Nico by saying "dah dah" just like he was. They had a lot of fun. When she would want to go to a new area of the park, she'd point and say "dah dah". Nico would do the same. She would also talk to him, and seemed to understand and act on his yeses and nos. It was so much fun to watch Nico interact with her. Guy and I are excited for this fall when Nico will get to be around a lot more children every day in preschool!

Today we went to the Botanical Garden with Allicia and Evie. We saw a lot of the garden this time and stayed for about an hour. Nico kept cracking up when Allicia would use her silly voice to say "Uh oh!"

This afternoon Nico had another speech therapy appointment. Last week Marcia and I were talking about activities that I can do with Nico to help strengthen the language part of his brain. One of the things is to play pattie-cake type hand clap games which require Nico to cross his left arm to the right and his right arm to the left. Also when we dance to music, to hold his hands and cross them. When I put a diaper on him, to cross his legs back and forth for him (he wears a diaper at night and at nap still). This apparently helps the left brain talk to the right brain. So I started incorporating movements like this into our play.

Last week Nico and I sat down at the table and put together some speech tools. We are working on B, M, N and P. The letter goes in the middle of the page and each vowel sound goes around the letter in a circle. We practice saying the letter with each of the vowels following it, and we put a small pink gem on each vowel after he says it. We also covered each page with stickers of words that start with that letter, and we practice saying each of the words. He puts a gem on each sticker as he says them. He can't say the whole word, so we work on the letter with the vowel sound following. For example, for "monkey" I have him say "muh". For "bat" I have him say "bah". He's been doing really well and knows the routine now. We only do two letters a day so as not to get them jumbled up too much in his head.

And yesterday, our walk in the rain. The sun came out right after I took this picture but Nico walked the whole way with the umbrella open and over his head :)

Video time..

p.s. As seen in video: New bike seat (new to us) is from Grandma Salisbury. Tried it out once, will have to update more about it later!

Father's Day

Today we went up to the cabin for a few hours. Happy Father's Day! Here is Papa buckling Nico into a booster seat so he could sit at the table with us.

We think that Nico may have started to feel carsick near the end of our ride up to the cabin (whining, and burping), and he was acting not himself and quite clingy after arriving. We decided to flip his carseat to forward facing for the ride home, and it seemed to help. The whole ride home he was smiling away, he was really enjoying his new view.