First Snowfall, and Advent Calendars!

Last Friday I had Ivy and Avery over for lunch. Avery looked at my calendar and said "how many more years until you play Zelda again?" he pointed to November 11th and said "That's when you're going to play again, ok?" They love to watch me play Zelda, and I had played right before lunch.

After school on Friday, Nico was excited to hear the news that Grandma Russell purchased him the online advent calendar again this year. He couldn't do much with it on Friday but he did play the games available as we waited for December 1st to arrive.

Saturday morning, Guy took Nico to a sensory friendly movie, Small Foot. I had some work to get done that day so Guy took Nico out for a bit. I'm pretty sure Nico got another Italian Soda that afternoon, too!

Saturday night it was my turn to choose the movie, Incredibles 2! And then later that night as Nico was reading in bed, we heard a knock on our front door. Avery was outside, frantic to ask Nico to come out and play in the snow. It was wet snow, and after a snow ball fight, Nico arrived home looking soaked to the bone. He had his first chance to play with our new neighbors across the street. They have 3 boys. One of them threw a snowball at Nico and it got him on his right ear.

Sunday morning, Nico was invited to the field behind the school with Jeff & Allicia and the kids, to play in the 4 inches of snow that fell overnight. I picked him up for church and he was making snow angels.

Sunday night, he was invited to build a snow fort in the front yard of the boys' house across the street. He was over there for at least an hour before we called him in as it was getting dark.

Advent calendar, reading important things about Scotland.

Two Saturdays ago, when we watched the Labyrinth (which Nico now claims is his favorite movie), we encountered some "impossible shapes" near the end. Ever since he played the Monument games on his iPad, he has been interested in impossible shapes. At the library he picked up a book of optical illusions.

Playing Life. Nico is getting more and more interested in board games, he asks to play them a lot. He got this new game called "Dos", similar to Uno but with different rules. It is really fun. We play that a lot. Whenever there's a free moment, he asks if we can play a game.

That's about it for this week! Here's a 4 second clip of Nico making a snow angel.

Wreath, Pine Cones, Snow!

Last Friday Guy had the day off from work, but he was unfortunately sick with a cold and wasn't able to really enjoy the day. He was bed-bound for almost 5 days total, taking him through Sunday, and he was back to work on Monday. Thankfully he also has THIS Friday off and ALL of next week off! So hopefully he'll get to make up for it.

On Saturday Nico and I made a Christmas wreath from stuff we bought from the Dollar Store and Joann Fabrics. I made the wreath part and then let him choose where to put all the decorative stuff. He put "Jesus" (a bundle of pine-looking things with a present and red decorative stuff on it) on the bottom of the wreath surrounded by jingle bells, and the candy canes were all the disciples bowing down to Jesus.

The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back.

On Monday after school, Allicia invited us all for a Christmas craft - making pine cone bird feeders. You cover pine cones with peanut butter and then roll them in bird seed. You tie them up and hang them somewhere outside so that birds have something to munch on during the winter. Grandma Salisbury had a large box of pine cones that she gave to Allicia for the occasion. They worked perfectly!

We had our first SNOW on.. Tuesday? And then today it poured snow all day, the kids played outside in it after school and we are wondering if school will be closed tomorrow. We celebrated the snow tonight by making snow ice cream out in the main house. We mixed milk and maple syrup and vanilla in with the snow.

Board games, Book fair, first snow

The main house was empty this past weekend, as Jeff & Allicia and crew had gone out of town for a few days. On Saturday I headed up to the cabin again while the boys stayed home. I had a great time, and so did the boys!

Nico has been enjoying playing board games lately, so we have been playing a lot of Forbidden Island and Creationary. Guy and Nico do that together a lot, too. For "You and Me Time" Nico usually picks playing with cars, or aliens/Batman (toy figurines), because those are the thing that I usually wouldn't play with him at any other time. You and Me Time is special because he gets to choose what we do. hehe... Guy seems to favor playing games over playing cars and batman, too.

On Monday night, Guy and I played Forbidden Island with Jeff & Allicia. That is probably the 3rd "date night" we've all had together after the kids have gone to bed. You'd think for how long we've been living here (more than a year now!) we would have found more time than just 3 evenings to hang out and play board games. We're going to try to do that more often.

Tuesday morning we took another loop around the greenbelt. Before we even got started, Nico bumped his Strider bike into Evelyn's bike and Evelyn turned around and said: "Nico, if you do that again, then I am not going on this bike ride." After we were about 200 yards from the house, Nico bumped into the back of her again and Evelyn turned around and rode home. Nico came up to me and told me he wanted Evelyn to be there, so we went back to the house so Nico could apologize and ask Evelyn to join us. Nico told me it was an accident that he did it, so I told him to tell her that. But, Evelyn still did not want to come back. So, Evelyn stayed home.

Wednesday Nico came home with a Book Fair wishlist. Him and his two "study buddies" (from higher grades, not sure which), went to the book fair and Nico picked out 3 books he wanted and they wrote them down for him. I had already decided I was going to buy him 1 book, so today we left early for school and stopped in at the Book Fair. Nico's choices were all thick books about legos and star wars and ninjas, each with their own lego figurine. He chose the Ninja one.

A peak at the content

First snow happened this week! Not much, but, it was something.

Nico asks me every morning if it's going to be cold that day so that he knows what kind of clothes to wear. I always say "Yes" and he's started getting frustrated about it. I told him it's going to be cold for a long time and will probably get even colder than it is now!

We booked a cottage rental on the beach on Camano Island for our trip to Arlington next March. Take a look! https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/8488890

It's "cozy" but we are used to that! :) I am excited about Nico getting to be on the beach!

VIDEO!