Kids Discovery Expo, and Winter Jam!

Last Friday night, all of us met over at the Salisbury house to talk about Thanksgiving. My brother Jonny and sister-in-law Alanna were also there, with Lexie! We split up the Thanksgiving food tasks and then left Nico to stay overnight along with Lexie.

On Saturday I had a henna booth at the Kids Discovery Expo, in the afternoon Grandma Salisbury and 4 cousins including Nico came to the Expo to enjoy the kids activities. They stayed for a few hours, I gave them all henna, then they helped me pack up my car.

Inside an ambulance

Virtual reality.

Thanks for the pictures Mom!

For Saturday pizza nights we have been enjoying watching Charlie Brown shows and then one time we rented the new Peanuts movie from Amazon. We've watched them so much we have parts memorized and Nico acts them out during the day, particularly the one where Rerun wants a dog for Christmas. He has the tone just right when he says "But Mommm!"

On Tuesday we went to visit G.G. after school. Nico has been filling out a Thankful journal that he got from church, he has to write down 3 things that he's thankful for every day. When it was G.G.'s birthday LAST Tuesday, he saw it on the calendar and wrote down that he was thankful for G.G. In church on Sunday they wrote down some of the things they were thankful for onto hand cutouts, and then glued them together. He wrote G.G. on one of the hands, so I brought her the hand chain so she could have it. While we were there Nico played a little bit on the keyboard and G.G. gave me the Steptoe Butte quilt that she designed herself and created. She had already given me the thing that hangs it on the wall, so now I have the complete set. I am curious about someday visiting Steptoe Butte to see it in person! It's a beautiful quilt!

Last night (Thursday night), Nico and I went to a concert called Winter Jam, it's a collection of Christian artists that come together for one night. It was at the Taco Bell Arena which is right next to the BSU Stadium. I completely spaced the fact that they would only accept cash for parking, entrance, and food, and didn't have any on hand. As I was turning around to leave the parking lot to get to the bank, I realized I still had an envelope of cash in my purse from the Kids Discovery Expo that I had conveniently forgotten to deposit on Monday, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Score! So we were able to go right in. As soon as we got into the building I purchased a water and then we chose our seats. 2nd floor, off to the left. As we were sitting there Nico looked up to the 3rd floor balcony and said "I want to go up there!" so I said OK and I followed him to where he wanted to sit. He chose a nice corner spot that hardly had anyone sitting there. (When the concert got into full swing it did fill up pretty full though!)

 Our firsts chosen spot

Our second chosen spot

Video below with the view from both spots!

The "Pre-Jam" started about 6:15, and we were there until about 9PM. We heard several songs that Nico recognized, including "Chainsaw" by Family Force Five (one of his favorites) and "You Can't Stop Me" by Andy Mineo. I don't suggest you listen to the Andy Mineo song unless you like screaming. 

After Andy Mineo left the stage, I asked Nico if he wanted to stay or go home, and he said go home. He was so tired!! So we missed about 3 of the artists but I saw the one I really wanted to see and I was tired too! 

While walking through the halls we passed the candied nut stand and Nico asked what they were. So I bought him some! He chose almonds. He wasn't sure what almonds were so I told him that almond butter is what I put on his pancakes. So we walked back to our car along the greenbelt at 9PM (I know, Mom!)

He went right to bed after we got home.

Trying out a new natural dye called jagua, dyes blue instead of red/brown! This is the tattoo Nico chose.

A squirrel eating our pumpkin outside.

Nico is enjoying finding Waldo in Guy's all-inclusive Waldo book, and he's also been enjoying the National Geographic KIDS magazines. And sometimes instead of reading at night he chooses to do math problems and other school-type work in the 2nd grade workbook we got him from Costco. 

I think that's all this week!

Until the next!

Turn down the volume, video may be loud!

Table Rock, Cupcakes

Last weekend I got to spend Saturday with Nico! It was nice to spend a Saturday with him after all the henna I've been doing on weekends. Guy had the day off to go look for interesting things at garage sales and thrift stores that he can "flip". He found a Game Cube and games and controllers for a good price which he will try to sell on eBay. Until then.. we have been enjoying playing Mario Kart! Instead of the boys playing Minecraft they now spend their game time playing Mario Kart. Evelyn usually joins them.

Nico is still super excited about chess and checked out another chess book at the library at school today, so now he has two checked out. At night he's been reading them, and setting up our chess board with certain setups, and showing us how to capture the king in only a few steps.

Anyway, I got distracted, back to last Saturday! After chores in the morning, Nico and I went through a large portion of his toys. Not all, but some, and ended up with a laundry basket full of things to donate. So then we went out. At Whole Foods we picked up a Stevia soda "Zevia", which Nico really liked, he chose ginger root beer. It actually tasted like root beer! He wanted me to take a picture of it and send the picture to Daddy.

Then we went to Costco, where Nico spent his own money to buy the next book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. In the afternoon we decided to go for a hike, and we successfully made it up to the top of Table Rock. 

We took several breaks along the way.

We saw a guy controlling a drone while we were on top. Nico stopped for a while to watch the drone flying around.

When we got home we noticed the squirrel had been in the bird feeder again.

Then Guy arrived home and we started pizza. Guy started cleaning the Game Cube he bought, taking pictures of the games and getting everything ready to sell. He also picked up a free CRT tv, which makes it a little easier to play some of the games we have. As luck would have it, Jeff and Allicia's TV broke and so we put the CRT downstairs and everyone has been playing games on it. The games had to be tested to make sure they worked, you know, and so did the Game Cube.

Guy cleaning the games.

Nico's drawing of a monster with eyes like Laser Moose

A sweet story... I went to pick Nico up at school for a doctor's appointment and I went into his class to get him, and as he was leaving everyone said "Goodbye Nico!" and his friend Grace said "By Nico, I'll miss you for the rest of the day!"

They celebrate birthdays at school, and Ms Lung brings in 2 gluten free cupcakes every time, so that Nico and another boy, Eli, can share in the fun. The first time this happened, Nico came home and cried to me, saying that Ms Lung made him a special cupcake and that he couldn't eat it because it had sugar in it and he was allergic to sugar, and that everyone else got to eat a cupcake. I wrote Ms Lung and told her that Nico misunderstood why we weren't giving him sugar, that he wasn't allergic, and that the next time that happens he can have the cupcake. So the next day, she brought in that same cupcake that he didn't eat the first time, and he carried it home gently, beaming, and then ate it all up. He was so happy.

Lego Landmarks, GG, Squirrels, Swimming

On Friday Nico got to spend some time with the Grandparents Salisbury in the afternoon! I had a henna booth to do so he hung out with them until Guy got off work and picked him up.

Nico has declared that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays are Minecraft days, so on Saturday, Guy and Nico play Minecraft while I'm at the market. Nico is getting pretty proficient in building things in that game. He loves it.

On Sunday, Nico woke up with a slight fever. I didn't know about it until breakfast was ready and Nico said he wasn't hungry for his pancakes. NOT hungry for pancakes? Yikes! His fever was only 99.1-ish, and he ate his pancakes shortly after, but we did miss church that day.

On Monday we ran errands in the morning, and at the end we stopped by the Mall. They were displaying large US Landmarks made out of legos. We saw Mt Rushmore, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, Capitol Building, and then various other fun lego assemblies.

I got a kick out of this next one. You can see that several letters from the mall's name have been removed, they were lying on the floor of the lego display like they had fallen off.

The middle of the mall held miniature lego displays of the larger lego monuments that were in our mall. Clever!

Then on the other side you see the mall sign in-tact, but you can see Darth Maul preparing to cut some of the letters off. heehee.

On Tuesday we stopped to see GG in the afternoon. We get a double bonus when we visit her because we also get to see Aunt Pat! GG Showed us their new patio furniture and we sat outside for a while in the lovely weather. Not too hot that day! GG also gave Nico her old laptop, and he right away found a place to plug it in and start it up, we downloaded Minecraft onto it right there and then realized we needed a login so had to close it up until we could get Guy involved.

It was a really lovely visit!

The squirrels have found our bird feeder. This one has removed all the bird seed from the bird feeder and snacked only on the sunflower seeds. At least he left the rest of the birdseed, though it's scattered everywhere now! hehe

On Wednesday we went grocery shopping. This is usually what I have Nico bring inside. He likes to pile it high.

Swimming lessons are going well for him. He has learned how to hum underwater. I may have said that last week, but he is getting better at it. He LOVES his goggles, I'm so glad we got some for him! They are blue, and whenever he takes them off he tells me everything looks red. We've run into several of his classmates at the pool also getting swimming lessons, including Linus and his sister, and Eli. We also heard back from Nico's friend Olivia, her mom let me know that Olivia would be coming to Nico's birthday party. Next week I plan to send out invitations to family, but if you aren't already aware, his party is happening July 29th at 1 PM at Pojo's! Anyway, in swimming class, tomorrow they will get to go down the Hydrotube all by themselves!

GG, Park, Squirrel

On Saturday we visited GG. Missy (Guy's cousin) was there helping GG pack because she is moving soon, in with her sister Pat. The next time we go visit GG we will be seeing her at her new place! GG gave Nico the cars that he plays with whenever he comes over, the one that Grandpa Russell made and I think one that Guy's Uncle Larry made, plus some tiny cars that you pull back first and then they go. I also found out that Uncle Larry is an ornithologist! If I already knew this then I must have forgotten! Guy knew, of course. It was great to see GG and to see her house one last time before the move.

Nico has been taking pictures of animals that he finds, here's his latest.

And some flowers.

The weather has been so nice that he has had lots of time to play outside with his friends. We even went to Quarry View park for the first time this year! We had to go to setup my henna canopy to install a wire onto it, and while we set up the canopy Nico played on the playground. It felt like the whole neighborhood was there!

We went another time but with Nico's friends.

They also had a "Spring picnic" out front last Friday, because it was so sunny and warm!

We bought bird seed and squirrel food for our feeders, we hope to hang them on Saturday. They are sitting outside now and while we haven't had any birds interested in the feeder while it's on the ground, we DID get a curious squirrel that came over and went to town on the sunflower seeds.

This squirrel is one that lives in Tiffanie's yard. We are very excited to be moving the feeder into her yard so they will have much easier access to it.

That's it for this week!