On Friday Nico and I went to see G.G. at the hospital. He had the day off from school so it worked out really well. While we were there she wowed us with how well she was getting around even after being cooped up in a bed for a few days!! She was released later that day. Yay! We will see her this Saturday again!
Last Saturday was the Sensory Friendly Movie. We went with Tiffanie, Aadam and Sammy and we met friends from church there as well. The movie was Kubo and the Two Strings. It was kind of scary. Near the end of the movie Nico said he wanted to go home and I asked him why and he said he was tired. The last few times we've been to a movie he has started getting antsy about 30 minutes before the movie is over. He always asks me "How much longer?" I'm not sure we'll go to the movie next time.
Sunday after church we went to a Piggie and Gerald party at the library. Not the library downtown but a different one over on Overland. Tiffanie and kids followed us there, and then we met Grandma Salisbury and Lexie there too. They had reader's theater, which Nico and friends participated in, and coloring and painting and decorating cookies. There was a drawing for free tickets to the LIVE Piggie and Gerald show at the Morrison Center this Friday. Each family could put one raffle ticket into the fishbowl, and so we did. When the drawing took place an hour later, there were only a handful of us still there, so we all waited eagerly to see if we would win. They had a lot of tickets to give away. Name after name after name after name... most weren't in the room so they moved on to the next one. Then, Lexie won!! They gave her 3 tickets so her whole family could go. Then name after name after name... Tiffanie won! 3 tickets to her. More names were called and I could see we were getting to the very last of them and he still had tickets available. Finally, the very last ticket which he struggled getting out of the fishbowl because it was stuck - OURS! That's right. 3 tickets to the Piggie and Gerald Show - TOMORROW! We are going. We might be a little late, but we're going!
Reading "Let's Go for a Drive!"
Reading "My New Friend Is So Fun!"
I can't remember which book this was! (That's Lexie in the middle) They did a great job!
Reading "Today I will Fly!"
On Monday it was G.G.'s birthday. Happy Birthday G.G.!! We will have your present for you on Saturday (you already know what it is!)
That night we had our last night of Financial Peace University. Everyone graduated and we all got a certificate. Nico fell asleep while we were there, with Guy holding him. He had to put Nico down on some of the chairs to take this picture with us.
Guy and Nico bought a few games at Fred Meyer. Life, and Uno. Here's Nico playing Life with 3 of his stuffed animals. He woke up early that day and spent about an hour before breakfast doing this.
This past week was a week of illness but there were some bright spots in it too! Here's the good and the bad.
On Friday Allicia texted me asking me if I could watch the kids while she took Ivy to the doctor. No problem. We all walked Nico to school. Allicia called and told me they were heading to the ER so Ivy could get some blood tests and an IV. Allicia's mother in law came to take the kids to Jump Time for the morning, and I met them back at the house at noon. In the mean time I went to see Allicia at the hospital and brought her some supplies.
Got Avery down for a nap and Evelyn off to Kindergarten. But then received a phone call that Nico had a potty accident at the school and that I needed to come get him. Avery was napping so I called Tiffanie and had her come over and sit while I walked over to get Nico. By the time we got home, Allicia and Ivy were back.
Nico had a virus (we think), and he felt good and bad over the weekend. Since things were moving quickly through him at first, he was very hungry Saturday morning, so 3 waffles it is! Then he started feeling sick and late that night he threw up. Sunday he was munching on stuff and felt good enough to request pizza that night and we let him eat what he wanted, which was almost his entire personal pizza. On a good day he eats the whole thing and is stuffed. Guy and I regret that we didn't stop him from eating so much. He had stomach pain all the next day and couldn't get up off the couch. Tuesday morning was much better and he popped out of bed and wanted to go to school. He asked me if I had bought more waffles. He didn't get a waffle that day, in fact he barely ate any breakfast and I was worried about him at school. He looked so tired after walking to school. But he made it, and was happy. We are pretty much back to normal now.
The bad stuff is over! That was quick. The rest is good stuff.
This evening while Nico was getting dressed for bed we were talking about feelings, and he stood and thought for a minute and said. I am feeling... happy, and JOY! God puts bottles of joy inside of me and then he pours them out. I asked him questions about it and while he was bubbling with... joy.. he told me again. God fills up bottles with joy while God's inside his heart. Then God peeks out of his heart ("like this" and then he pretended he was peeking out) and dumps all the joy from the bottles into Nico. Then it just comes out and Nico said "I feel it right now!" Then we sat down on the couch and read through the Life and Work of Rube Goldberg. We flipped to all the pictures of his inventions. For example,
Nico in fact came up with his own invention. While Nico was sick, Guy ran to the library and brought us each back a book. He brought me Tale of Sand and brought back the Rube Goldberg book for him and Nico to look through. They sat on the couch and read through invention after invention, and then Nico came up with his own. He still needs to draw a picture for it, but here it is..
Mouse (A) sees convincingly real wooden cheese (B) and comes out for a bite. Biting cheese causes the mouse's teeth to fall in bucket (C). Grabber (D) takes teeth from bucket and into
blender (E) which blends them up into teeth juice, which is poured into glass (F).
Man (G) drinks juice, making him sick and throws up in bowl (H). He throws
vomit out window (I) and into soil (J), which causes monster teeth plant to grow.
I would show you the picture of the monster plant that Nico wanted in the story but it is very scary. Not one that he drew but one that he found on the internet after Guy searched "monster plant". In fact, if you want to see it, you can search google for "monster plant" and click on the "Images" link and it's the first one.
We also discovered a drawing contest advertised in the scholastic book order form. If you win, then Eric Litwin (the original author of Pete the Cat books) will come to your school. You have to draw a picture of your favorite animal singing a song. Nico got right on it. I provided no ideas, he did it all on his own.
I just showed this picture to Guy and he told me where Nico got this from!! Apparently an episode of StoryBots has a Tiger Song that they had shown me a few weeks ago and I had forgotten. Anyway, watch the video... you will see where the Tiger goes rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr. Hilarious! Nico cracks up crazily at this video, it is so fun to see him laugh so hard.
We sent the drawing off to New York, NY yesterday. We printed out a US map so we could see how far away New York was.
Monday night was Financial Peace University. Guy stayed home with Nico and I went. They had a CAKE for us! The special thing about this cake is that it had a great big ZERO candle on it, signifying that we were OUT OF DEBT!
Allicia told me that she was so excited to hear the news about us paying off debt that she submitted our story through Dave Ramsey's website. It wasn't the fanfare she expected, but a message saying "We receive a lot of these, so listen to Dave's radio show to see if we mention yours!" Dave's radio show is 3 hours long every day, so I'm not sure that's practical, but if you happen to be listening, you might hear our story!
Monday night when I got home, Guy was reading "George's Marvelous Medicine" to Nico. This is a chapter book, and Nico was very interested. On Tuesday at school Nico chose a chapter book from the school library, one of the Magic Treehouse books. We've been kind of slow in reading that one, but the world of chapter books MIGHT be opening up to us. I'm not sure quite yet, but it certainly is exciting!
This week turned out to be a pretty good one despite the weekend illness. Here's to another great week! Love to you all!
Monday was our very first meeting for Financial Peace University (FPU). We went around the room telling the others why we were there. There were several other couples there and a few people from our church. The class was at our church. When it came to us, Guy told everyone who we were and that we had gone through FPU 8 years ago and have been on Baby Step #2 since that time (Baby Step #2 is to pay off all your debt). And that we were very close to paying off debt and it's been so long we're not sure what to do after we're done.
That was a good way to put it! We weren't sure what Baby Step #3 entails and we could also use a good group of motivated like-minded people to keep us moving in the right direction. We are literally six days away from paying off our debt. And to the week it has been 2 years since we moved in here!
Baby Step #3 is to save up for a "fully funded" emergency fund. In Baby Step #1 we just saved up for $1000 emergency fund, to get us through until our debt was paid off. So a fully funded emergency fund will hold 3-6 months of our expenses, so that if something were to happen to our income we would be able to exist for 3-6 months before needing new income. We plan to do this but we have other things on our plate first, one of which is to find a new place to live (we're about 6 months out from this). This new place will hold us for a while as we get through Baby Step #3, because this baby step has another part to it, #3b, which is to save up for a down payment on a house.
We understand that things can change, but this is our vision of the future for now!
And so, wait, you came here to hear about Nico? Oh right. He came with us to the meeting on Monday.
:)
and he was so well behaved. We plugged him into the iPad and he played games the whole 2 hours.
On Sunday we got to see the Grandparents Salisbury, plus Lexie! The Grandparents Salisbury recently returned from a trip to St Louis. They brought us back a license plate from Russell, KS that says "RUSSELL" on it! Nico and Lexie both got a Bigfoot toy that pops foam balls out of its mouth. Apparently Lexie and Nico are both very big Bigfoot fans. At Grandma Camp they would watch Finding Bigfoot together. I had no idea Nico was so interested in it! He said to Grandma "want to see what I got from the library?" and he pulled out a graphic novel about the history of Bigfoot! I had no idea he had checked that out. Lexie was so excited about it and looked through it.
Grandma asked Nico if he liked Grandma Camp and he said "Yes, no, kind of" and put his thumb in the middle instead of up or down. Grandma asked him why and he said he didn't like sleeping alone because he got scared (he was usually the first one in bed, and his bed was made up in Grandma's room). Grandma asked him what could make it better next year and he said "Maybe I could sleep in your bed and then when you go to bed you can snuggle me or something?" That was pretty sweet. But then we came up with a different plan - that he sleeps where the big kids sleep. He was happy with that. Grandma asked Lexie what she didn't like about Grandma Camp and Lexie laughed and said she didn't like getting sprayed with water from the kitchen sprayer. Apparently there were a lot of water fights with that thing! And apparently she got Grandma really good in the back one time when Grandma wasn't looking! Nico told us that story.
More bike rides with the boys.
Sorry for the lack of pictures!
We've been doing lots of dot-to-dots, color by numbers, and then this morning he pulled out the mazes. Picture day was on Wednesday. He's been wearing his suspenders to school a lot. He has been asking to go to school early, so, we do! He can't show up before 8:15 but we arrive at about 8:25, the bell rings at 8:40. I suspect he gets there early so he can have first pick of the basketballs. There are a few that are flat.
Monday was Nico's 1st grade Sneak Peek. We went and found his classroom, found his hook and his very own desk with his name on it! We put his folder and notepad in his desk and his crayons and other supplies into his very own bin. We found out which of his friends are in his class this year.
Tuesday morning was the treasure hunt!
We gathered at 9 AM right outside the clubhouse. I told them all the rules, gave them popsicles to eat and then Allicia hung out with them while I went and hid all the clues. Some of the clues were in the park so I rode my bike there. I came back and we started. They took turns grabbing the clues (youngest first - Ivy!) and Sammy was our reader. We were done a little after 10 AM and then they spent the rest of the time writing their own clues for their own treasure hunts. Sammy, Evelyn, and Nico, all made their own treasure hunts and had the others go through it. We broke at 11 AM for lunch!
Here's some pictures that Allicia took!
Check out the treasure hunt video at the end of the post!
Wednesday was the first day of school! The bell rings at 8:40, so we left at 8:25-ish. There is a line outside that those in Room #2 line up at when the bell rings, so we found that. Then he ran onto the playground and... goodbye! It was quick.
Wednesday was an early release day, so today was the first full day of school for him. He loves it. He had homework today, just reading through flash cards. We need to do this every day and then on Friday is "Flashcard Friday" where we go through our stack and any that he can read quickly "in a flash" we discard, and only keep the words in the deck that he still struggles with and needs to practice.
Guy and I decided to embark on a "No Spend-tember". We are so close to paying off debt that we are going to try to finish it off by the end of September! We are selling things and reducing our budget significantly. We still have to spend money on stuff like food and gas and rent, etc., but all other spending is cut off for September. We also decided to go through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace Univeristy (FPU) again to keep us motivated to stay out of debt. Our church is having an FPU class and we have decided to go to it! Our first night will be next Monday. After we pay off debt we are going to celebrate. Not sure exactly how yet but it will be extravagant (for us) and probably involve a lot of food.
Guy is also going to be helping out at church in the sound booth on Thursday nights and then will be running the sound sometimes on Sunday. He is there tonight for his first training session.
Enjoying pizza on Saturday using GG's tomatoes. The sauce was REALLY good!
Nico didn't want to go to bed so he moved his pillow outside his bed and fell asleep on the floor. He's asleep in this picture. I turned the light on just so I could take his picture :)
