Christmas and Grandparents Russell!

Late last Thursday night, after I was done updating the blog, I noticed I had a fever! It looked like I had caught whatever Guy and/or Nico had! I laid low the next few days. Friday morning Guy sent Nico off to school and then we welcomed the Grandparents Russell into town! Nico had an early release and Grandma Russell went to meet him. Nico opened a few presents that day, and I slept into the afternoon while the boys went up to the suite where Grandpa and Grandma were staying. They went to Fresh Healthy Cafe for dinner and brought me home a juice. It was yummy!

Guy putting together his hurdy gurdy.

Nico opening his Little Passports: World Edition from the Grandparents Russell.

Hanging out upstairs playing Life with Grandma

Saturday I was feeling mostly better. Guy made pancakes for everyone and we started our day. We had originally planned to see a movie on Saturday but we decided against it. We made Crabby Patties for lunch so the grandparents could experience them, and for dinner that night we made PIZZA and watched "I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown". We brought a computer monitor upstairs so we could watch the movie in the suite while we ate our pizza.

Sunday morning, Guy had to be at the church at 6:45AM for play practice. Nico and I had to be there at 8AM. Practice went well, and the bell choir opened the play at 10:30.

GG was able to join us at church that morning, and after church we came back home and ate Jimmy Johns for lunch, then exchanged gifts with GG.

Presents from GG

Cup Stacking!

Monday the boys hung out with the Grandparents Russell while I worked for a few hours on Audio Pile stuff at my parents' house. I was able to give them their gift and say Merry Christmas!

Guy, Nico, and the Grandparents Russell went to Barnes & Noble that day and spent a gift certificate we had. Guy brought home for me a Nano Blocks lego (my favorite!) and some Fuji water (my favorite!). Nico got a few things too (wish I could remember what!)

Monday night was the Christmas Eve service at church. Guy and I had to be there at 3:45 PM. Guy was running sound and I had a piano solo. It went well! That night after coming home and putting Nico to bed, it was time to finish wrapping the rest of the gifts. We pulled out Nico's big gift from the garage and wrapped that up, and Guy had to carefully get the stockings down that were hanging above Nico's bed. Guy filled his stocking and then carefully hung it back above Nico's bed.

Christmas morning Nico was up about 6AM and he opened his stocking. I also let him open the gift that Jeff & Allicia had left for us outside our door. It was a lego that he put together right then. We ate breakfast then - cinnamon rolls, bacon, and eggs. After that, we opened presents!

Robot shirts from Pa and Grandma Salisbury!

Grandma took Nico to the park that afternoon to try out his new scooter.

We had a chicken dinner that night with rice and broccoli, and brought the computer monitor upstairs again to watch some Christmas shorts that Guy had grown up watching. We had poppers that we popped before our dinner so we could put our paper hats on. Looks like I didn't catch any pictures of that. Each popper also had a small toy plus a Christmas joke in it.

That evening we went to the Winter Garden Aglow.

We went into the gift shop while we were there, and Nico got a pair of glasses that turns all the lights into reindeers. We each took turns looking at the Cross through the glasses. It turns the Cross into a huge reindeer face.

We said goodbye to the Grandparents Russell the next morning, they had an early flight back. The time just flew by, we really enjoyed their visit.

I worked on Wednesday and Guy took Nico for a several-hour trip to the library. They had a pretend ice-cream stand set up and Nico "worked" there for almost 3 hours. Guy had plenty to do, too, they apparently had a sticker poster on one of the tables that Guy worked on.

Thursday morning we realized that the internet wasn't working. Apparently Centurylink had a nationwide outage and a lot of people were without internet. This morning, we're back in business! Yay!

I've separated the videos into two different ones, since it was easier that way. The first one is a compilation of videos that Grandma Russell took, the second one is made up of videos that I took, plus one thrown in there that Grandpa Russell took. 

Scrambled States of America, Swim Lessons, G.G.

On Saturday we went out with some new friends! About a month ago we were going to garage sales and came across one where the stuff they were selling looked like stuff we own or have owned in the past. Guy was even able to purchase a box set of MST3K from them. So, we went out to pizza with them! They are very nice, but they are moving to Ohio in July!

But before pizza on Saturday we had a fun morning of garage sales and going to the library. We played some board games while we were there, and ran into some church friends (the same ones we hiked to Table Rock with a few weeks ago!) they stopped and played a game with us. We found a fun game called Scrambled States of America. Nico has been really interested in states and capitals lately so this game was seriously perfect. So perfect, in fact, that we went home that day and Nico spent his own money to buy it on Amazon!

This is Nico playing a counting game, until I looked over and GASPED, finding the states game on the shelf. We quickly switched games.

Sunday was Father's Day. Nico picked out a funny card for Guy and Nico picked out some tropical flavored Swedish Fish for him. It was a nice day at home!

Monday was Nico's first day of swim lessons! It was overcast and a little chilly, they only did 15 minutes in the water before they needed to stop. They are working hard, Nico is a bit resistant, I coaxed him with Blue Cow Frozen Yogurt if he could get through a whole lesson without holding his nose when going under water, but "blowing bubbles" instead. He is having a difficult time relaxing in the water but I think the one-on-one lesson is helping him a lot more than the class session did last year. We went to Blue Cow after the lesson on Wednesday. He did hold his nose once but that was because he didn't have time to get a breath of air before going into the water. I figured I wouldn't dock him for that one. I prefer him doing that over sticking to the "rules" and getting a lung full of water!

Monday afternoon I had a doctor's appointment so I brought Nico over to Pa & Grandma's house. His cousins were over there too and they had a fun day.

Nico stayed overnight that night and I picked him up early the next morning so we could go visit GG. Unfortunately, I locked my keys in the car while at my parents' house and we weren't able to make it! I called GG and we rescheduled for Thursday. When Guy was available he came and bailed me out. In the meantime we went on an "adventure".  We went around the block on bikes and scooters, following the sidewalk to the left and never getting off of it. I was impressed with how well Grandma managed the kids. Watch the video at the end to get a glimpse!

We've been playing Scrambled States of America non-stop since it arrived on Tuesday.

Riding scooters on the greenbelt.

This morning we were able to finally make it to GG's house to visit her and Aunt Pat!

Video below with a few snippets. Have a great weekend everyone!

Bouncy Houses, Books, Scooter

Last Saturday was a full fun day for Nico. A baseball game started the day off and in the afternoon a 3 hour birthday party at the park. We dropped him off there at 3, picked him up at 6. They even had gluten free pizza and cupcakes!

There were two bouncy houses.

I stole a few pictures from the event page, several people uploaded their pictures to the site and I downloaded the ones with Nico in them.

Before Nico went to the party, Evelyn asked where he was going and he told her. Soon after, I got a text from Allicia saying that they were headed to the park and wanted to know if we'd like to come. I told her Nico was already there and she said "I wonder if that was why Evelyn was so insistent on going!" Heehee. When we came to pick Nico up, we saw Allicia and the kids there, and we all walked (ran) home together. It was a fun day.

Nico received a package from the Grandparents Russell this past week, with a few surprises in it! An activity book for our road trip (which he studiously started on already.. hehe), a nice zippered pouch for art supplies, and inside the pouch... a book! Captain Underpants!! I have not been up on the Captain Underpants books and didn't realize there were 12 of them!!! This was #9, as Nico told me. I had told Grandma Russell this was a good book to get Nico, thinking it was #4, hah! Well indeed it was a good choice, just not in the way I was expecting. heehee. And one thing about Nico - if he gets a new book as part of a series, he has to read or re-read all of the first books in order, before he reads the new one. He was luckily already in the middle of re-reading book #3 when this one arrived, so he finished that off and then we checked out #4 and #5 from the library for him to read.

Reading book#3 outside before bed.

We got Nico's baseball pictures back!

He is still loving baseball so much, his last game is this Saturday! He is already talking about next year. Nico's baseball practice was cancelled on Tuesday, so instead we went to the park so he could practice on his new scooter! 

We are going to pack this in our car and take it with us to Arlington when we visit in a few weeks (1 1/2 more weeks!!!) I should have taken a video of it, but to make it move forward you move your hips back and forth. Guy looked at him and said "we should give him a hula hoop!"

Jeff was out of town this week so we spent a lot of time with Allicia and the kiddos. Allicia's birthday was Wednesday, so we celebrated by making pizza and coconut milk ice cream in her new ice cream maker. We also spent a lot of time downstairs playing video games. It was a great week!

Eating ice cream

Here's a slo-mo video of Nico hitting!

Cabin, Hair Cut, Scooter

Nico got another hair cut this week, he's back to short hair now!

On Sunday Nico got to go to the cabin. The Grandparents Salisbury picked him up before church and took him to church with them, then they drove to the farm, then out to the cabin. Lexie was with them, too. Nico had a lot of fun and came home with a new lego set!!!! (Which he has already put together and taken apart about 5 times). Check out the video at the bottom of Nico reading the Bible.

Eating lunch with Lexie while watching the iPad

Nico has really been enjoying watching the movie Frozen. He has memorized a large portion of the movie and recites it throughout the day, and sings the songs. I agree that it is a pretty good movie, I like watching it too.

We went for a our first outing to the park this year. We did it in the evening and we didn't need a car! It was the first time we had entered the park from this direction since way back when we lived on Warm Springs. Nico rode his scooter and I walked.

"It's an emergency!" he said, as he ran to the fire engine

Nico is getting very agile with his scooter. I am very proud of him. He can turn and stop himself using the brakes.

On Monday after eating lunch I noticed that one of my teeth in the upper back right had a big hole in it. I figured a filling had come out, so I called the dentist and went in that afternoon. They said it wasn't a filling, but that a chunk of my tooth had broken off and I would need a crown. My very first crown! They had a cancellation the next morning and I took it. Got it over with. And I'm fine now. Phew!

His teacher also sent some pictures over.

Nico loves looking at these pictures with me.

Lately Nico is enjoying his Curious George read along book. We're kind of on an iPad hiatus the past week, so he has had to entertain himself quite a bit more than usual.

I can't think of anything else that happened this past week. We're still waiting for word from his preschool whether they'll be reducing his days or not.

Video time!