Pinewood Derby!

Last Friday was the Pinewood Derby. Out of 30+ cars, Nico came in 18th. He was very excited. Each car races 4 times and then the scores are tallied up to determine the winners. Since him and Guy had spent so much time working on the car, I think Nico was expecting a bit more winning. His very first of 4 races he came in last place against 3 other cars. The look on his face was sad (checkout video at end of blog), but then in the next race he got 3rd place out of 4 cars and he was SUPER excited! At the end, each person was given an award, Nico got the Lean Green Racing Machine Award. He was very happy about that.

When we first got there, it was imperative to have a little play time first. The other kids were crawling through the chairs and Nico joined right in.

The MC was joking at first about how we'd be there until midnight because Pinewood Derby races take a long time, especially with a whole bunch of kids. But, she explained the rules and the kids generally followed through. We were done in about an hour and a half. When it's time to pay attention, you put two fingers up in the air.

 3rd place in one of the races

 Afterward. Digging the baby interaction in the background.

On Saturday we tackled the huge task of cleaning out under Nico's bed and organizing his toys.

Organization central. We got rid of a trash bag full of stuff.

Afterward.

For pizza that night, Guy chose The Fuller Brush Man to watch, prompted in his desire by a nostalgic text from Grandma Russell about the movie. "Wanna buy a brush?" It's a black and white comedy/murder mystery, and Nico and I both really enjoyed it! I am delighted the way that Nico has been interested in a variety of movies. We were able to watch the movie downstairs, as Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos were out of town for the weekend.

Nico loves the vest that GG got him for Christmas. He wears it almost every day and he says it's his "Lucky Vest" because GG got it for him. He wore it to church on Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon, Nico went over to "the boys' house", and soon came back over with 2 of the boys. Since Jeff and Allicia were out of town, Guy and I retreated to the basement so they could play in the Clubhouse as loud as they wanted. 

On Monday, Nico didn't have school, so he came with me to my parents' house where my mom and I were going to do some work together. After lunch Papa took Nico to the park. They batted for a little bit and then Nico played on the playground. It was windy! Papa said they both stopped for a minute to listen to the wind in the trees.

Nico's been on a kick with taking things apart. He has been searching for things to take apart and then put back together. He took apart his remote control car and the remote, some of his game and some of his cars. When Rylan came over on Wednesday, he helped Nico with one of them. Then they went outside with Guy to try to fix the turn signal on the car, as part of the "taking things apart" campaign.

Wednesday morning we had Nico's yearly IEP meeting for speech (Individualized Education Program). In a few weeks we are having his 3 year review. They re-evaluate his need for speech services every 3 years, so he is going to be going through some testing in the next few weeks to determine needs. I love talking about Nico with other adults that know him. We had to list strengths, Guy and I came up with a list, but then hearing a list of strengths from his teacher was very nice. Nico's strengths:

He is very outgoing, makes friends easily, is not scared to be the center of attention when speaking in front of the class, is funny, gentle, interested in a lot of things, loves organizing things and loves science and understanding how things works. 

Nico is reading the next Tom Gates book, and is enjoying Press Start books, he checked out three of those from the library today.

That's is for this week, enjoy the video!

GG, Pinewood Derby Car, Evelyn

Last Friday, Nico had been invited to go to Urban Air with his friends across the street. I texted their mom and she said that Rylan actually had wrestling practice that day so they weren't going to be going. But they did go on Saturday! Nico was gone when we made pizza but came home in enough time to eat some and finish watching the end of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", chosen by Guy. It was quite a funny movie, I enjoyed it. When Nico came home we told him we could switch to a different movie but he wanted to watch that one. He liked it.

That night while he was lying in bed he said, "I don't really feel like myself right now. I don't feel like myself whenever I go out in the evening." He was sad for a while.

The next day was Guy's and mine Anniversary! 13 years married on the 13th of January. Guy scraped my windows that morning 😍

Sunday was also the first day back at it with Bible Study. We are doing a study called Overcomer, about the armor of God. It looks good, it's a DVD study with a study guide and optional book.

Tuesday we visited GG in Nampa. We gave her a gift from the Grandparents Russell that had been lost under the tree and we didn't find until after GG had left.

Nico spent some time putting together a puzzle with Aunt Pat. Melody came over for a visit while we were there, too (Aunt Pat's daughter).

GG sent us home with a handful of oranges.

That evening, Guy and Nico went to Cub Scouts to drop off Nico's pinewood derby car. Guy and Nico have been spending a lot of time working on it, getting the weight just right and painting it lime green (Nico's favorite color!)

It wasn't an official Cub Scouts meeting, they just dropped the car off, Nico played tag for a little bit, and they came home. No uniform required. The race is tomorrow evening!

Tonight Evelyn came over for dinner. We aren't doing every Thursday with her like we used to, we've slowed down to about once a month. Before dinner, Nico was insistent that he wanted to read his book and wanted Evelyn to read a book too but he didn't want her sitting next to him. She chose to read on the bed like this. (And hey check out our new cabinet!)

Nico had checked out a new book from the library today - Tom Gates: Everything's Amazing (sort of) and he was very anxious to read it. He was not in a playful mood. They ended up playing a bit after dinner.

Chicken nuggets. Yummmm

And now some random pictures!

Nico said, "take a picture!" so I did.

Nico has had a lot of math homework lately, doing multiplication and division, and he was getting super frustrated until I told him he could use his numberbots to help him. He said "OH YEAH!" and he has been excited about it since. We bought him some multiplication and division wrap-ups to help him learn his times tables, and he has been enjoying that too.

I've also really been enjoying our new Instapot pressure cooker. It turned these frozen turkey legs into something tender and yummy.

Allicia and I attacked this huge pile of sock mismatches on Tuesday morning. We found a few socks that belong to us in the pile, too!

 Snow on Wednesday morning. Leaving for school early for Chess club.

Stopped in their tracks trying to solve a chess problem.

Part of Nico's homework yesterday was to log on to a typing website and spend 10 minutes learning to type. He spent about 45 minutes! (He's wearing around his neck a new medal he got in Chess!)

That's it for this week!

Pocket Knife, and New Friends

Nico saw that I was starting the blog and he wanted to tell everyone a story about something that happened today:

Mr. Bunn, my music teacher was looking around the room to see if anybody could get switched. (What does it mean to get switched?) Like switch places with someone else. (Why would someone get switched?) Some people like to chat while we're in music class. They talk too much and so they get switched so they don't talk to that person. Mr. Bunn told us to stand up so he can look around and see if anyone could get switched. And while he was looking around, I picked up my hand, and started picking my nose.

Then he demonstrated.

Last Friday I picked Nico up from the Grandparents Salisbury house, it was the last day of Grandma Camp and the Grandparents had dinner for all the kids and parents that night before we took our kids home. They ordered Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets, and Grandma made a pasta dish for a side. She made special gluten free chicken nuggets for Nico.

Nico showed me the race track they had set up that day, with a glow in the dark track.

After dinner, we headed home.

Once home, Nico opened a package from Grandpa Russell - a pocket knife for Cub Scouts! He opened up each of the things on the knife, and when he came to the bottle opener he said "I can open Izze Pops with this!"

We were able to test that out on Saturday night. Izze Pops come with a screw-top lid, so after much trying and no success, we decided to just twist the top off.

Nico chose Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul for the movie that night. We all enjoyed that one. 

Earlier in the day we had assembled our cabinet that had been waiting in the garage for us until after Christmas. We needed to wait until after we put Christmas away before we could put it together, because it was to sit right where we had our Christmas tree. Nico had a lot of opportunities to practice using his pocket knife while putting the cabinet together. He keeps it in its case and carefully opens it every time it's needed. 

Guy and Nico also got a lot of work done on Nico's Pinewood Derby car on Saturday morning. They added weights and sanded it. They just need to paint it and then it will be ready to go! The race is next Tuesday, the 15th.

Nico has been hanging out with some new neighbor boys that moved in on the corner. They have 6 kids? 4 boys, 2 girls. I think. The boy he is closest to is in 5th grade. The first time he hung out with them was when it had snowed a while ago, one of the boys invited him over to his yard to build a snow fort. Then a few weeks ago Nico asked if he could go knock on their door and see if they wanted to play. So Guy went over with him, introduced himself to the mom, and Nico hung out there playing board games (Risk) with 3 of the boys. Both Guy and I went over there to pick him up, and then I was able to meet the mom, too. They are a super nice family, "down to earth".  He's been over there several times since. Yesterday, after he was done with his homework, he went and knocked on their door. I told him to be home at 5:30. He came home about 5:20 with the 5th grade boy (Rylan) and Nico asked me if he could stay for dinner. I said... Yes! 

He was very polite.

After dinner, Nico pulled out his microscope for them to look at. They hooked up a webcam and took pictures through the microscope.

They invited Nico to go to Urban Air after school tomorrow. I said... Yes! Everyone at school received a free Urban Air pass from the library. 

And Nico is working on reading 600 minutes to receive a free Roaring Springs Water Park pass. He is at 450-ish minutes so far. On Monday he read 3 hours! He is reading and rereading all his Dogman books. I'd say they are definitely his favorites. Guy reads them to Nico at night and he uses a different voice for each character. It's fun to listen to. 

Now a video with some snippets!

Pinewood Derby

On Saturday mornings we have been getting together with Jeff and Allicia and playing games while the kiddos play. In the past we've done games in the evening after bedtime but we are always tired, so doing it on Saturday morning means we're awake and the kids get some play time too! We usually play cribbage. We introduced them to QWIXX as well.

Saturday afternoon was the pinewood derby race! We got to the church and his car weighed in .1 oz more than it should, so they shaved some weight off of it and then it was good to go.

Nico's car is the second from the left.

Nico and his church friend Liam.

Most of the participants were adults! When Nico saw all the cool cars he wanted to make his look cooler. We are new to the pinewood derby and didn't realize that making the car look awesome was part of the fun. I'm not saying that his car didn't look awesome, I mean, it does have a spare tire on it!

He won just a few races. See the video at the end for a taste of the excitement!

I now make the communion bread for the church, since it needs to be gluten free and I am the girl for that! The first communion I provided bread for was fine, but then the leftovers were frozen and thawed for the next communion the following month. Something in that process really changed the flavor. I was almost embarrassed when I chewed my communion bread during the service and realized everyone was also tasting the same thing. It tasted like it was spiced. Someone asked me if I had added cumin to it. Ick! I love cumin, but not in communion bread! I told them to toss the rest and I would experiment and make a fresh batch for next time.

On communion Sundays, the kiddos stay in the main service during worship and communion, then they head back to the kids room. Nico usually chooses to draw while waiting for the service to start.

He's been coming home from school with random drawings he's done in his backpack. Like this one.

Reading Donald Duck comics at night

Tonight Evelyn came over for dinner again, they were wrestling and rough housing right after dinner and Evelyn kisses Nico's head a few times. Nico says "EVELYN KISSED ME!" I said "I kiss you all the time!" And then he asked Evelyn, "Do you love me? Like, do you love me and want to marry me?" and Evelyn said "No!" and then it was back to rough housing.

They spent a few minutes playing a balloon game on the iPad.

Now on to the videos! The first one is a video of Nico getting his trophy from his last Tournament. I forgot to include it in last week's blog!

And then the Pinewood Derby one!

Preparing for the Pinewood Derby, plus friends and Legos

Last Friday I started feeling like I was coming down with a cold, so Saturday was pretty laid back for us. In the evening Nico had another chess tournament. He said he played 4 games and won 3 of them, and also 3 games of "pawn wars" and won all of those. He got a 3rd place trophy. And is indeed excited for next time!

Guy met up with his friend Moreno at Red Robin on Saturday night, and I stayed home and watched a movie! Not a typical Saturday in that we all did something different, but all of us thoroughly enjoyed the things we were doing, so it was still an A+ night.

Sunday after church we stayed after a bit so that Nico's Pinewood Derby car could be cut to his specs. The Pinewood Derby race is this coming Saturday at the church. He drew an outline of how he wanted it cut, and so it was! He wanted it to look like a convertible. Then last night Guy took Nico to the church where they were doing a test run for the cars. He got to paint it, attach the wheels, and add some lead to the bottom to weight it to the max weight allowed.

Tonight we had not just Evelyn over for dinner, but Ivy as well! I made a huge batch of rice and ground beef and a ton of broccoli (Evelyn loves it!) Then I cut up a whole tub of strawberries and they downed all of them.

NOTICE that Guy got NEW glasses!

Then they all played in the clubhouse. 

Then a few other tidbits from our week: Nico drawing. He turned around and said "NNoooooo!!" because he didn't want his picture taken.

We had some snow last week and over the weekend. And yes we still have Christmas lights up! :)

Nico and Evelyn playing Minecraft in the main house.

Nico finally spent his Christmas money and picked a lego out online. He chose a Lego Architecture set, of Berlin. He sorted out each type of piece before he put it together.

The finished product!

I am REALLY enjoying putting together the teeny tiny legos in the Pokemon set we got him for Christmas. He told me they were too hard to put together and didn't mind me doing it. There are 12 pokemon and I've gone through 2 of them so far. 

Nico has been enjoying reading Stick Dog. He finished the 1st book and checked the 2nd book out from the library today. He is reading it in bed right now.

That's all for this week!