Birthday, Count Arthur Strong, Jan Brett, Baby Pushups

Last Friday it was dark in the early morning when the kiddos had to leave for chess. So I think from now on I'll try to walk with them on Fridays. Nico said he didn't like walking in the dark because he was afraid of monsters?

Friday after school I drove Nico over to the Grandparents Salisbury house for a sleepover! He had fun there and they went to one of Lexie's soccer games the next day, then went to Jimmy John's for lunch before he came back home around 1pm.

Friday was Guy's birthday. He had a late work meeting. After he got home we watched some Netflix while eating dinner and then he had a piece of Nico's leftover birthday cake from the freezer. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner and he said "potato salad". I convinced him to let me also make him some sausage to go along with it. I bought him a large container of Meat Magic for his birthday (a seasoning that we love on our pizza crust!)

Saturday we had pizza and then I took out a few more pieces of Nico's leftover cake, and put a candle in one of them. We sang Happy Birthday to Guy and watched cartoons.

Sunday was a pretty fuzzy day for me, I had started getting a cold on Saturday and had a fever and aches all day on Sunday. Guy took Nico to church, then out in the afternoon to garage sales, and then out again in the evening for Bible Study. The in between times they were downstairs on the computer or the Wii to give me a chance to rest.

My fever lasted until the very end of Wednesday when it started going down. I've been spending part of the nights downstairs on the couch because I've been coughing.

Guy has been SO HAPPY listing all his things for sale on eBay and Craigslist and then selling them, packaging them up and shipping them off. He's been stopping off at the Thrift Store on his way home from work several times this week to check the stuff out. He passes my 2 different thrift stores on his way home. Yesterday he came home with a very large bag full of stuff. He is storing it all downstairs. Nico has been tagging along on a lot of his purchase quests.

Whenever Guy and Nico go somewhere in the Ford Escape they listen to Count Arthur Strong through bluetooth. Nico is QUITE the fan. They came home yesterday after an outing and Nico had me and him re-enact a Count Arthur scene. He told me what to say, and this is how it went:

Me: Hi Arthur Strong
Nico: You forgot the Count
Me: 1, 2, 3, Arthur Strong
Nico: Thats's not right!

Then Nico stormed off, muttering about how people always get his name wrong.

There was another one he told me about but I have forgotten!

Nevermind, Guy reminded me: Why did the lemon stop running in the race? Because he ran out of juice.

Grandma Russell sent me a text with a picture that I just have to share. If you are familiar with Jan Brett (thanks to Grandma Russell for introducing me), there is a book called The Hat written by her, about a hedgehog that gets stuck with a sock on his head that had fallen from a clothesline. Before I share Grandma Russell's picture, you first have to see the clothesline from the book:

And here is the picture Grandma Russell sent me

I just thought that was so great!! I showed it to Nico, I had to remind him of the book (it's been a while since we've read it!) 

A sunny 74 degrees today, probably the last time we'll be eating outside this year! Tomorrow we are due for cold and rain.

Yep, the table is a mess, when you're sick it just happens (and sometimes when you're not sick😅 ) Nico is doing math problems while eating his breakfast.

"Baby pushups"

Compared to 7 years ago

Guy says that if he does it every few days, he'll get super strong as Nico gets older. They've been committed to it for a few weeks now!

Next Thursday is the Boo Bash at Nico's school. I'm not sure if I'll have time that night to update, but if not, then expect the next update that Friday instead!!

Family, School, Friends, Jan Brett

The Grandparents Salisbury invited us up to the cabin on Monday, it was nice to see them after missing Thanksgiving! We also celebrated Chrtistmas! Nico got a Fireman costume and legos which he loves. We also had wonderful food, all gluten free, and very very tasty. Nico ate a ton of sausage and meatballs. Thank you Pa and Ma!

Guy and Nico put legos together while we were there and then more when we got home, then the next day Nico decided to put the legos together himself. He followed the directions and put together an excavator all by himself. He brought it up to me with it hidden behind his back and then he said "Surprise!" and showed it to me. I was so proud of him!!

Lately Nico has been fond of Color-by-Numbers. I print free ones from a website. He has done about 4 of them so far and is on his fifth one.

Next up: A slew of pictures from school. I think these are from his field trip to BSU where they did Special Olympics. Nico said they got to let their balloons go in the air after they were all done. Cool!

His whole class. Miss Erica (teacher), Miss Joanne (Assistant), and Miss Karen (Speech Language Pathologist). Nico can name some of the kids.

The next picture is Nico and his class dancing along to the DINO STOMP. Nico had us search for this on YouTube. I wasn't sure what he was saying at first but he insisted it was called "Dino Stomp" so that is what I searched for. He saw the video and pointed to it. voila! And then later that week I get this picture and see all his class dancing to it.

We decorated Christmas last night with Jeff and Allicia and kids. We used our own ornaments and decorated the silver tree. They are not putting up their HUGE tree this year, too big, nowhere to put it, and it takes a lot of time. I totally understand! So we did the silver tree.

Nico keeps coming home with surprises from school, a slinky yesterday and today some cool star sunglasses. He says he got the sunglasses out of the treasure box. And the slinky he says he got because he made it "all the way to the top."

Today we went to the library to see Jan Brett! She is a children's author that Mom Russell introduced to me/us many years ago. We got there at 9:30 (it started at 10) and were lucky enough to find a parking spot in the library parking lot. Yay! See the video below for our adventure. We sat very close to the front and Jan's husband needed help carrying the box that the LIVE bunny was in, so he asked me. So yes, I had a conversation with Jan Brett's husband as we walked the big box back to the TOUR BUS which I got into. We talked about Boise and bunnies and hedgehogs. Apparently Jan's husband really likes bunnies and the particular one they brought with them he calls "Spoo" and it hangs out with him in a cage in his office while he works. They used to have hedgehogs, four of them, but he said they are too wild and are hard to take care of, so they stopped. But they do keep chickens. He was also very worried about the amount of people stuffed into the library room, he told the bus driver that they were breaking a lot of fire codes. hehe. It was super crowded in there. The video shot of the crowd was taken about 15 minutes before it started, and by the time it did start, there were many more people.

I bought a copy of her new book Animal's Santa, and they had signed name plates to put in the book if we didn't want to stand in line to have her sign one for us. We did have to leave early to get back in time for lunch and school, so we didn't stand in line for an autograph, but Allicia took our book and stood in line for us and had it signed. They were apparently 3rd in line and were out of there pretty darn quick!

Now the video! Plus another video about our first day of December with Nico enjoying his two advent calendars.