Spaghetti Feed

On Monday we went to a spaghetti feed for Nico's baseball season that is starting up. It was at Timberline High School. 

They also had a huge table full of treats and wouldn't you know it they had gluten free stuff as well! Nico picked out a vanilla cupcake. When he discovered that it was vanilla he told the lady it was his favorite flavor like "HOW DID YOU KNOW?!??" He didn't eat much of his spaghetti, but he certainly ate his cupcake.

After eating, Nico and I wandered around trying to find the table for the Pirates, which is the name of his team. We found them and we were able to meet the coach and his wife and their son who is also on the team. Then we were ushered into the auditorium where they talked to us about the upcoming season. The season lasts 6 weeks and Nico's team will have 12 games total. 2 per week, plus one practice per week. We are gearing up for a busy April. His first practice isn't until the 4th.

Tonight (Thursday), we usually watch Evelyn and she eats dinner with us, but tonight we had everyone over! Jeff and Allicia were under a time crunch to get the countertop installed today in the suite before their guests arrived, so I offered to feed everyone. I was planning to make a ton of dinner anyway, so it's nice I had enough!! Nico only ate a few forkfuls and said his tummy hurt :( He went to bed with a sore tummy, I'm hoping he feels better in the morning. Tomorrow he has his St Patrick's Day program at school. He has been singing the songs from this program for a few months now. If you read this Thursday night, say a prayer for him that his tummy ache goes away!

The time change means Nico has been sleeping in a bit more than usual, even after I turn the light on. But at least I got this cute picture of him snuggling Guy.

Reading Donald Duck in the morning. He also checked out a Garfield comic from the library that he has been reading.

Nico took this picture of our Bible Study group. Missing 3 people. Guy usually isn't the only male! While we do Bible Study, the kiddos watch a movie in the living room.

Walking to school for early morning chess.

 That's it for this week!

Grandparents Russell!

Grandma camp finished up with success. They were planning a water fight when the parents got there to pick them up, but Grandma was notified of a water shortage Friday night, so they canceled it. Two wells had run dry and on Sunday they were notified that there was no more water. She was without water until Tuesday! And now they are on a boil order. This means that before drinking the water, you need to boil it. Here's the pictures from Grandma Camp: Movie Marathon!

Nico is reading his book "Stinky" to everyone

On Saturday GG came to visit me at my henna booth, she brought me green beans from her garden and sat and talked for a while. I even gave her a henna tattoo! 

This week Nico and Evelyn and Aadam and Avery have all gone to VBS. Avery is 3 years old now and was able to join the bigger kids. This has been the most fun VBS so far.  Nico says he wants to go to this one ALL the time.

On Tuesday Grandpa and Grandma Russell came into town! We weren't expecting to get to see them that evening, but they got in early enough to head over. Wahoo!

On Wednesday they brought GG with them, and we all went to the Discovery Center. Their new display is called ZAP, lots of things to do with electricity.

Nico also opened some presents.

Grandma and Nico working hard to put all Nico's quarters in his collection folder. 

Reading a book before bed

Today was the last day of VBS. I showed up a bit early to pick them up and they were starting a prayer line so anyone who wanted to pray out loud on stage could get in line. Nico did it! Unfortunately I couldn't hear what he said and the video I took, the background noise was very loud and you can't hear. He told me he forgot what he said when I asked him about it later.

Then we saw Grandma and Grandpa again this afternoon. I put some henna on Grandma Russell! (I'll have to take a picture of this to post next week). Grandma and Grandpa took Nico to the library and they came home with some great books.

Tonight I am putting Nico's presents on the table so that when he wakes up he will see them. He has spent a bit of time this week searching for where I hid them. Heehee. I'm excited for him to open them. 

Here's the video from Jeff and Avery's birthday party. I put it together with them in mind, so it's not really a "Nico" video, but I put it here anyway if you'd like to watch, Nico is in it too. You can see him light the birthday candles, and hit a piñata, and throw water balloons :)

G.G., Nora

Saturday was a fun family day, we went to the Dollar Store and Fred Meyer.

On Sunday we went to church, and the Pastor asked Guy if he would like to lead the small group Bible study that would be meeting at his house on Sunday nights. Guy asked him what made Pastor think of him and Pastor said he was praying about it and his name came to mind. Awesome! I had just heard from someone the previous week that they had really enjoyed when Guy led the Bible Study for a few weeks last year. So, Guy agreed to lead! The book we'll be reading is called Broken Escalators: Funny and Frightful Lessons About Moth Eating and Moving to the Next Level. Bible study starts up this Sunday!

Monday morning we went to The Discovery Center again. Nico made a rock from clay and pressure. We also built an arch several times and then made it crash. We were able to stay a little longer this time because Nico had no school Monday.

Tuesday morning we went to visit G.G. At the last minute Nico asked if Evelyn could come with us and I said SURE! So we all piled into the truck (we are using Papa's truck for a little while!) and off we drove to Nampa. On the way there Evelyn told Nico about how she only has two friends at school and how the other ones forgot they liked her so they stopped talking to her, and Nico was very empathetic and said "Awwww.. that's too bad. You only have two friends." This was a good thing to see coming from him. He also said "Will you only have two friends forever?"

G.G. is always well set up with things to entertain little ones, so Evelyn went right to work doing what she loves best - art! She colored two coloring pages and G.G. provided envelopes for her to put them in so she could give one to her mom and one to her dad.

G.G. showed me her new Kindle and we loaded a game on it for Nico to play.

We also loaded Netflix onto her kindle, just because :) G.G. let both Nico and Evelyn feed Scamper a snack, and we watched the tail end of a cartoon before we left. Thanks for the fun, G.G.!

A new Ladies Bible Study has started up and Pastor Debbie is not only teaching on Tuesday mornings but also Wednesday evenings! This means I am going! We are going through a study by Priscilla Shirer called The Armor of God, which focuses on the armor of God and prayer. Our first session was last night and we watched The War Room movie. It has Priscilla Shirer in it and is also about prayer. It was a good way to get the session started.

Then today we had a toddler friend from church over, Nora. We played with her all day today. She is almost 3 years old and fit in perfectly with the crowd. Evelyn and Avery also hung out in the clubhouse for a while and they all took turns playing Endless Alphabet on the iPad, and then other games later.

She ate lunch with us and then helped me walk Nico to school. Nora and her family are moving away at the end of January, and we will miss them. Nora has two older siblings and her parents have been coming to our Bible Study on Sunday nights. Nora's mom, Rhema (her name means Spoken Word), needed some time to pack so we took Nora for the day.

Nico has been learning about 2D and 3D shapes in school.

Nico is naturally a very snuggly boy. We do lots of cheek kisses in our house and lots and lots of hugs. He is mirroring me when he says: "Awww I love you so much." and gives me a hug. He likes to say "Awwww" a lot, again mirroring me when we hug. There was one time when I dropped him off at school that one of the girls in his class came right up to him and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He thought nothing of it and hugged her again and gave HER a kiss on the cheek. It made me wonder if Nico one day gave her a kiss on the cheek (he does this sometimes to people, we do it a lot at our house so I wonder if he may think that's how you greet people sometimes??!) and then she could have felt comfortable giving one to him straight away after seeing him. I didn't think anything of it at the time but then I wondered... do they allow that kind of thing in a kindergarten? Should I have told them not to do that anymore? Well, they haven't done it again after that day.

On Tuesday Nico came home from school with a  rice krispsy treat on a stick and dipped in frosting. We left that one for daddy and then made our own rice krispy treats with stuff that Nico could eat. It was a fun experiment, a few things will change next time, since I had to make the marshmallow from scratch and the treats were more like marshmallows filled with crispy rice instead of the traditional rice krispy treats. Oh well. Adding raspberry frosting to them made them more palatable for Nico. He doesn't appear to like marshmallows all that much!

It was a great week!

Block Blast

On Saturday we picked up the 110 pounds of nuts that we bought through a local "group buy". We got free shipping because over 1000 pounds were ordered. They should last us a whole year until next year's group buy. We got 60 pounds of almonds and 50 pounds of cashews. Nico helped me put them into freezer bags so we can store most of them in the freezer. 

Nico checking with me before he eats a cashew. Don't muzzle the ox!

I mad our first batch of homemade almond butter, and almond milk. Success!! Nico couldn't get enough of the almond milk, and he eats the almond butter with breakfast every morning.

On Sunday we went up to the cabin in the afternoon for dinner and fun! My Mom had invited all of us plus Jeff and Allicia and crew. We caravanned. The mountain road was covered in snow and we didn't make it up all the way. Jeff and Allicia made it up just fine, though! We had to stop and put chains on before we could continue, as we got stuck on the side of the road after pulling over to try to turn around. Nico got very upset when we pulled over, he thought we were turning around permanently and kept saying "Papa!" and pointing up the road.

We had a great time. Thank you to Pa and Ma for hosting, wonderful food and lots of fun!

Evie and Nico really enjoyed playing with all the wind up toys.

On Monday Nico had a stuffy nose and I decided to cancel our trip to G.G.'s because of it. I really didn't want to spread any sickness to her, so we rescheduled for 2 weeks out.

Stuffy nose seemed to stay as a stuffy/runny nose the past few days. He's been going to school, and hasn't had a fever.

On Wednesday his school had "Block Blast" and the parents were invited. So I showed up for it, and got to play with Nico as he went from station to station to play with different kinds of blocks in the gym. There were hollow blocks, big foam blocks, cars and a car mat, and pattern blocks. He got a kick out of the car and car mat, as well as the pattern blocks. He built a turtle following a pattern. Miss Candace (his teacher) and I talked about how Nico is meticulous and the pattern blocks seemed to suit him really well (I thought this might make a good Christmas present for him! Good thing I haven't chosen yet what to get him, I keep changing my mind.) We had a lot of fun. Miss Candace gave me a handout with suggestions on how to play with blocks with Nico to encourage learning of different concepts.

Today, I volunteered at the school but went in early so I could observe his speech therapy. The audiologist was there testing hearing, so that actually took up the speech therapy time. Though I did get to watch him get his hearing tested. She taught him how to hold a block up to his ear while he was wearing headphones, and when he hears the beep he is supposed to put the block in a bucket. He did one or two but then he defaulted to looking up at her when he heard the beep, in order to get an "OK" to put the block in the bucket. Apparently, visually asking for confirmation like that is common for 3 year olds. They tend to want to check with you first before putting the block down. But, that was confirmation enough that he was hearing just fine.

I will volunteer one more time, in two weeks, and I will go in early again to try to sit in on his speech therapy. 

This past week I started asking Nico to help set the table, which he is thoroughly enjoying. I have him fold paper towels into napkins and then put a fork on each one. He says "Mommy, Daddy, Nico" when he puts the napkin or the fork down on each of our places.

Setting the table.

Blowing bubbles while waiting for the bus. Rainy day, Nico was sure to remind me that we needed to use the umbrella while walking to the bus.

Snuggling inside Daddy's coat this morning right after waking up.

We got Nico's school picture back!

Croup

No school since I last wrote, Nico caught a pretty bad chest cold that turned into several days of croup. It started with a raspy voice and a slightly raised temperature. I thought it was just another mild cold, so when his temp dipped to normal on Sunday morning, we ended up going to church. He seemed fine the first few days of it. But Monday night it hit him, he woke up with that barking sound that he's only had one other time. No phlegm to speak of and it sounded like the coughing hurt. Guy took him into the bathroom for some steam treatment several times, and I put essential oils on his chest to help him breathe (Eucalyptus!) Waking up in the mornings has been the hardest part of the days.

The BEST part of the days is the snuggling. OOOooo the snuggling! I love sitting on the couch with Nico, covered in a blanket, and watching Curious George. Yesterday he took an early nap and then fell asleep again at 3:30 and he was out for the night. We got him up this morning at 7:15 to see if he wanted to eat breakfast with us as usual since he hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before. He did eat a little bit. Then this afternoon after a nap, he ate some rice and ground beef and he has felt MUCH better. He perked up a bit and we actually got off the couch for a while.

Back to last week - we went to Fred Meyer on Friday morning to get another fuzzy poster to do over the weekend and Guy and I also agreed that we should get him another car. I told him that our trip to Fred Meyer was a "Yes Car" and a "Yes Poster" day. And Nico repeated. He's been saying "picky car" quite often since then, which is him telling me that he wants to go pick out another car. 

At Freddy's he chose a hummer pickup, after changing his mind twice mid-store. I think he just needed to test them out before committing. He chose the ambulance first, a few minutes of walking around and then he wanted the tow truck, a few minutes of walking around, and then the hummer. We got home and he put the head lamp on and played with his hummer pickup at the table. You can tell he was serious because he still has his coat on from going to Freddy's. No time to stop to take it off.

Guy teaching Nico how to play Pokemon.

Another funny tidbit - Papa brings him a little hot wheels car every time he comes over. Nico has started saying "Papa" whenever he sees something that he wants. We've been getting a lot of toy magazines in the mail, and when he looks through them he sees toys he wants and says "Papa" and points outside.

Not sure yet if Nico will be going to school tomorrow. He had an early nap today and another early night (6:30). I'm thinking it's likely he'll stay home one more day. Then we have a week of school and then a week off for Thanksgiving! Can't believe Thanksgiving is almost here!

Sickness, and a Double Ear Infection

On Friday we went to visit Allicia and Evie at their house for a small play date with a few other moms and babies. Nico always has fun over there, he goes straight to the train table and starts playing. I tried to pick a picture where everyone else is obscured a bit :)

Later on Friday, Nico using a pen to help get his micro machine car out of a lego. He watched me do it once, so he put the car back in the stuck spot so he could try himself.

For a few days before this I had noticed that Nico was coughing every once in a while. Maybe twice a day or so. I thought it might be the season that was causing him some phlegm, but on Friday night he started coughing more. He woke up Saturday with a fever (101.6) and wasn't quite his normal self. We watched Netflix all day. He didn't have much of a runny  nose, but he was coughing and it was a very wet cough. He woke up on Sunday feeling a lot better, still coughing a lot but his fever had gone down to under 100. We skipped church.

On Sundays we always get to see Grandma and Papa Salisbury. They come by to drop off the eggs they get for us from their farm co-op in Nampa. They are the best eggs we've tried, Nico definitely prefers them to any others! Lately they've also been bringing Nico his favorite treat - a #12 unwich no mayo from Jimmy Johns! He always asks for more before he's even done eating.

Monday, I thought we were out of the woods with his cold, he ate a hearty breakfast and our day was started. But he became really whiny shortly after breakfast. Nico isn't much of a complainer, so it was strange to see him so intent on needing to be cuddled. He cried whenever I left the couch for any reason. For a time he would only stop crying if I was carrying him around the house (flashback to baby Nico!) He couldn't sleep without being held, so we spent the whole day on the couch with intermittent walks around the house. He would get worse whenever I would turn off Netflix, so I just left it on. He let me watch whatever I wanted (The Lorax, The Tale of Despereaux) without complaining. Although on occasion he did get up enough energy to sign "sheep", meaning that he wanted to watch Shaun the Sheep.

He slept in bed with me on Monday night for about half the night. Tuesday morning I was hoping he would feel better, but when I went to get him in the morning, he had a bloody right ear! I woke Guy up and we decided we better go to Urgent Care. Guy stayed home to try to sleep (yeah right! Poor Guy, he stayed awake the whole time, he was worried) and I took Nico to Urgent Care. Temp at the doctor's office was 102.6. She looked in both ears and saw that the right one had a perforated ear drum, that's where the blood had come from. She told me that in the old days, the way to heal an ear infection was to let the ear burst like that to drain the fluids, then it would heal. The problem was in the way it healed, the scar tissue could be a problem and cause problems with hearing. His other ear was just starting to get an infection, so she prescribed antibiotics to keep the other ear safe. Nico had never had antibiotics before, but we filled the prescription and started giving them to him on Tuesday night. We got a compounded prescription, where they just mix the active ingredients with water and a suspension agent, so that we wouldn't also be giving him unnecessary additives, preservatives, flavorings and sweeteners that are in commercial antibiotics for kids. We are mixing the liquid with a bit of warmed honey before giving it to him, and he is taking it without any problems.

I kept him with me in bed on Tuesday night for a few hours, just because I was nervous after giving him the antibiotic. But he did fine. The doctor said that it would take 48 hours before the antibiotic would build up to a level in his body to be able to fight the infection, but he woke up Wednesday morning with a temp of 98.9! Much improved. It did go back up to 99.7 for most of the day, but that's still pretty good. He ate an egg for breakfast, which is substantial compared to the few days before that. Also on Wednesday I gave him his first dose of the probiotic I purchased for him. The antibiotics will be killing off even the good guys in his gut, so we are going to replenish them. I started with half a capsule by opening up the capsule and putting the powder on a spoon and then just asking him to open his mouth. Nico loved it! He asked for more so I figured I'd give him the whole capsule. The entire capsule is one child sized dose anyway, I was just trying to start slow. But if he asked for more, I figured why not!

And today, Thursday, he has had no fever, but is still coughing and snotting. Guy and I have caught the dreaded cold/flu as well. It doesn't appear to be as dire as Nico's version, though.

Well, that's it for this week. (That's enough!)

Snuggles

Nico has lately been taking his blanket out of his crib and crawling up onto the couch and lying down with it. It's been a daily thing for about the past week.

Snuggles

Nico loves to go into our bedroom in the evenings and sit on our bed, eat cheese, and watch his shows. Tonight is no different!

Daddy Snuggles

Early morning snuggles with Daddy

Grandma Snuggles

Today Grandma Salisbury came over for a quick visit, but Nico wanted her to stay longer, so she did. He laid his head on her shoulder and held on for quite a while.