G.G., The Loop

On Saturday Guy thought he was going to have to work but they gave him the day off because he was going to start the M-F schedule the next week. It was fun to spend the morning with him! Then Nico and I left to go to the Sensory Friendly movie, we met some of Nico's friends there (and my friend, the mom) from church. Lazarus, Leona (Nico calls her Lenoa) and Matthias, the mom is Elizabeth. The movie was Minions. Very cute! Afterward we came home and spent a pleasant afternoon/evening together. Guy had organized some of the clubhouse and it was great to see it looking a little less cluttered.

On Monday we took "the loop", which is our name for a loop on the greenbelt that takes us about 45 minutes. In the summer this loop is not practical because it is exposed and way too hot in the afternoons. But it is perfect in the fall and winter. If the sun is out it warms us up.

Avery

Allicia, Ivy, and Evelyn behind

Nico and Evelyn watching kids play on the Adam's school playground. When asked if it looked like fun to Evelyn (looking ahead to her kindergarten days next year) she said "No!" She seemed a little intimidated by all the noise.

Nico and Evelyn spend a lot of time arguing over who gets to be in the front. We're trying to work on all their conflict, they are like siblings sometimes. In fact, Nico calls Evelyn his sister sometimes, but also mentions on occasion that he is going to marry her.

They got so far ahead of us that they got to the crosswalk with the button you push that turns the light red and then you can cross. Evelyn pushed the button, and Nico went into auto pilot when the light turned red and the "walk" symbol showed up. So, they crossed a busy road far ahead of us. I ran after them and told them not to do that without us again. Then I got to thinking... how old does Nico have to be before he can walk to and from school by himself? he he. 

Tuesday was a full day. We needed the car so we dropped Guy off at work. Fred Meyer, then a visit to G.G. Nico wanted to bring his Creationary game where you draw a card from the pile and then put legos together to make it look like the picture on the card. So we each took turns. G.G. made a pretty impressive sheep! Nico also got to feed Scamper a dog biscuit, he loves doing that! Then he watched a bit of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. 

After we left there, we went to a chiropractor appointment. We didn't know that Grandma Salisbury had an appointment there right before us, but we were pleasantly surprised to see her there! She was needing a ride back to Big-O Tires so it was serendipitous that we were there, and we were able to drive her back.

We went home for maybe 10 minutes, then it was time for school. I came into Nico's classroom that day to volunteer. I enjoy making copies and cutting out shapes, I did a lot of that, I also helped some kids with their classwork, and became more familiar with Ms. Lung's style of teaching and personality, which was really great. I plan to volunteer there once a month. 

After the school day was over, Nico and I both drove home. We had about an hour at home before leaving to go pick Guy up from work. We parked in the parking lot and waited for him and admired the really cool looking clouds hanging out on top of the mountains. 

We had home days on Wednesday and Thursday. 

At night Guy has been snuggling with Nico in his bed after reading books and all that, and Nico has been asking Guy questions about when Guy was little. Guy tells him a story, and then Nico tells a story sometimes about himself, but then asks again for Guy to tell him a story about when Guy was young or a baby. Last night Nico asked Guy to tell him about when Nico was a baby and used to poop in his diaper. 

At 6 PM every night we do homework. This includes reading sentences and words, and also saying words that the speech therapist gave us at the parent teacher conference. We are working on combination L sounds, like "flash" which is super hard for him because not only is there an L in the word (he just learned how to do these), the L is the 2nd letter in the word, which requires some tricks. And not only that, it has an SH at the end, which is also something he just learned how to do and doesn't always do it consistently. All those things he has to remember in this one word.

Homework takes us literally like 2-3 minutes. It's just a quick thing every day, to keep his skills up.

I think that's it for this week. Enjoy the Halloween video! There's a theme to the music, tell me if you can figure it out... Guy didn't figure it out, but then I didn't tell him there was a theme to it before he watched it. 

Strider Video!

BBQ on Sunday up at the cabin! I stayed home because of a sinus infection, fever, etc. But the boys had lots of fun! There was a game my mom put together that started with a clue, so the kids could find a hidden butterfly. Guy was the one who found it. At the end of the game everyone split up the prize which was a bunch of coins they got to take turns choosing, so Nico came home with a bag full of quarters to add to his piggy bank. He also came home with a tractor hat that my Mom got for him while they were in Ohio!

Nico was very proud of it and he has been wearing it a lot (whenever we remember!) Thank you Ma & Pa!

On Monday morning I was feeling so much better so I took Nico to the Strider Park with the camera mounted on his bike. I didn't check to make sure there weren't any smudges on the lens before starting, and I also didn't check to make sure I had it on the highest HD setting, but one of these days I will remember both of those things! The video still turned out incredible though, and I am very happy with it. (See video at bottom of entry) We went on the trail twice, and Nico had so so so soooo much fun, going so very fast over the ups and downs, he kept saying that he was going as fast as a race car. It really seemed like it at times. I had to run to keep up with him. It was great exercise for both of us. Then we "relaxed" by playing on the playground.

We had enough time on Wednesday afternoon to take another trip to the park to do another circuit.

So, my Mom also got me something from Ohio - pure maple syrup! She came over last night and we split a banana pancake (1 egg + 1/2 banana, a little salt) with butter and maple syrup on it, just to try it out. Incredible syrup! Guy and I and Nico all had it this morning on our pancakes. (Did you know that we eat pancakes almost every morning?) 

Today we had pizza for dinner. This was the first time Nico has ever had pizza. He made his own:

After he put all the cheese and toppings into one big pile in the middle of the pizza, I helped him spread them around a bit. He said that he really liked the pizza, but he barely ate any of it. Maybe it was the big sandwich he had for lunch. 2 big pieces of bread, turkey, cheese, mayo, mustard. He really liked that.

So here's the Strider video. Be sure to switch the HD on because it looks much better that way. (After the video starts playing, click the gear symbol on the bottom right of the video and choose the highest setting)

Adventure!

Saturday we went to the Saturday Market where we discovered the Sprouts Kids Club. Every week they have an activity for the kids. This week the activity was coloring a plate with whatever foods the child wanted. They also give every kid 2 tokens each week. Each token is worth $1 at the market and they can go buy any fresh food item (fruit, veggie, meat, cheese) at the market. They just can't buy from the food trucks. And if they want something that's more than $2, they can save up! So we decided on 2 roma tomatoes and ended up spending just one of his tokens, so we are keeping his 2nd one for next week. Nico drew his two tomatoes onto his plate. We also ran into his teacher at the market, whose daughter was also participating in the Sprouts Club. We often see her there, so much so that Nico mentions her every time we go to the market, even if we don't see her.

On Sunday, all of us went over to some friends' house for a potluck and game night. We ate hamburgers and played Munchkin while the kids entertained themselves with the Wii. It was a lot of fun.

Monday we went to visit G.G. I was talking about maybe taking Nico for a go-cart ride for his birthday, but that he had to be 40 inches tall in order to be a passenger. So G.G. pulled out the yard stick and we measured him. He looked to be right at 40 or maybe even taller (a yardstick ends at 36 inches so we weren't 100% sure). When I got home I verified it. Looks like we'll be doing the go-carts! He was about 40.5 inches. I plan to take him for a Mommy-Son birthday date where we'll also play miniature golf and then go out for lunch afterward. This summer will be a hoot!

On Tuesday I taught another class and the boys hung out at home. Wednesday I woke up with a bad runny and stuffy nose which I am still fighting.

Today, oh today! We went on an adventure. It happened like this:
After lunch was over and the dishes were done, I came into the living room and said "Hey Nico! Do you want to go on an ADVENTURE?!? I hear there is a Strider Bike Park near by, do you want to go try to find it??" He was excitedly up for it, so we packed ourselves into the car and took off.

I had heard about this park from someone who was in one of the classes I taught. He told me it was downtown, turning on a specific street and going up close to the foothills. I knew the street he was talking about so we went down there and turned onto the road, followed it up and up and up. We couldn't find the park. We took several detours on connecting roads, but just had no luck. So I told Nico that we would go home and I would do some quick internet research and if I found anything that then we could head back out. He was all for that, so we did. After about 5 minutes of internet searching, I found it!

Off we went! It was on the one street that we didn't venture down! We found it easily now that we had directions.

This trail was apparently just built last November. It is for kids age 12 and under, for Strider bikes and any other kind of bike. It makes a .6 mile circuit, with ups and downs and curves. There was no shade and starting to get hot, so we only went a short distance before turning around. We will come back some early morning after summer vacation starts so we can beat the heat and make the full circuit.

Right next to it was a playground with a spongy floor and lots of neat new toys. It has a small climbing wall and twisty turny poles and bars and climby parts. It was a lot of fun. It had no shade, either, so we will need to come back soon to play longer.

Nico's last day of school is June 4th. They invited all the parents on May 30th to watch the kids as they have their music class. Cookies afterward and certificates. I am looking forward to seeing what they've been doing in music class.

That's all the news this week!

Watch-a a [th]is!

Nico has started asking us to watch him when he does stuff. He doesn't say the "th" in "this" so it sounds like "Hey Mommy Hey Mommy, watch-a a is Mommy!" You'll see an example of this in the video. He has also picked up on the prayer before eating. I asked him to pray twice and he did, saying exactly what I do before every meal.

Saturday Market on Saturday, got some cinnamon bread but Nico wasn't too fond of it this time. We went for a lot of strider rides this week, too. Once he even rode his scooter around the block for the first time ever! He prefers the Strider, though.

Tuesday was my first ever Community Ed class, teaching about cleaning your home with essential oils. It was a lot of fun. Jeff and Evie came over that evening while I was gone and then all of them went back to Jeff & Allicia's house via walking/strider/biking/roller blades. Then I picked my boys up over there after my class.

That's really all that happened this week, so, enjoy the video!
p.s. one of the titles on the video didn't go through, you'll see it. Whoops!

Spring has Sprung!

The Mini Joys came to Nico's school on Friday. Miniature horses! Nico didn't say much about them after school but did agree that he got to see them that day. Grandma Salisbury was here on Friday and got to help get Nico from the bus. Nico was very excited! Grandma got us some sushi (Nico got some skewered chicken) and we ate lunch together.

This past week both Nico and I caught a cold, sore throat and such. We fought it off and have been successful at keeping it under the radar. We did have to miss out on Lexie's birthday party on Saturday because of it, and we skipped church on Sunday. But I did teach Nico how to play Slap-Jack and we played on his drum quite a bit, went through a lot of songs. He knows how to ask for which Tom T. Hall song for me to sing by calling out the song number. "Singa numba one, mommy!" He must practice drumming at school because he beats on the drum pretty well while we sing the ABCs.

Nico had a dentist appointment on Monday. He let them get further than ever before and actually let them polish two of his teeth. A few weeks ago in school they were talking about dentists and I wonder if that had something to do with how comfortable he seemed. He was even quite interested in touching and handling the tools that the dental assistant used. She always asks him if he wants to hold it and touch it and play with it before she uses it on him. He squirted much water onto the carpet and even let her squirt water into his mouth and suck it up with the sucker at the same time! His teeth look fine and she told me to start flossing between his back molars since they're touching.

Tuesday was another essential oils class. Allicia and Avery came to this one, it was a lot of fun. Guy and Nico went out again and had a blast. Guy called right before the class started to tell me that Nico sprained his ankle going down the twisty slide at Old Park. I was telling this to Allicia and she agreed that that particular slide is like a blender, and I think that's what we'll call it from now on. After they went to the park they went to the Co-op and then to the bookstore again to play with the train. I'm so glad they're getting some time together like this, Nico loves it!!

They came home that night and Nico was limping. He is still limping a bit, and we are going to the chiropractor on Monday to make sure everything is straightened out.

This week I forgot to take pictures until today. So all the pictures are from today, but you will see all the different kinds of fun we have in one day. So many exciting little things happen all the time.

Strider ride. Got up the hill and Nico wanted to turn around and go back home so he could "fix" his Strider bike. We got the pump out and the Leatherman, and he pumped up the tires and used the pliers to "turn" the knobs on the wheels. After he was done we went back out to finish our ride.

Spilled water required a change of pants. I come into the living room after telling him to go pick out some new pants, and he is crouching over a glittery shamrock he had decorated at school, with my hat on. He stood up and showed me his hands that were covered in green glitter.

A tasty food that we rediscovered today: olives. I put one on his finger and showed him how to bite it off. He asked for 10 olives in a bowl and he put one on each finger.

Showing Daddy his olives.

Today was also class picture day at his school. We endeavored to let him pick out his own shirt. We said: "Today is picture day at school, what shirt would you like to wear?" He just happened to be playing with dinosaurs, so he instantly chose to wear his yellow dinosaur shirt. Ok! And he woke up this morning with his entire head as a fluff ball of hair. I had never seen it that ratty before. I combed through it with lots of water and it calmed down a bit.

And tonight Nico had hot chocolate for the first time. I made it with coconut milk, cocoa powder, maple syrup, and water. It was very good!

Well, until we meet again!

Papa, Spending Money, and Strider Games

On Friday morning, Nico woke up asking to go to Papa's house. I told him I would see if we could go visit them on Saturday. When he climbed onto the bus that morning, he told the bus driver "a Papa!" The attendant turned to me and asked, "Papa?" And I told her that we might be going to see Papa and that Nico was really excited about it.

So on Saturday morning we took a trip up to the cabin to see Gma and Papa. We had a great time! Nico kept asking to fly an airplane when he found out that Papa was going to be flying an airplane that day. We told him that in 3 years he can go up in the plane with Papa. He kept saying "fly in a airplane a 3 years!"

On Sunday Nico pulled out his piggy bank and wanted to go buy legos with the money. So we told him that on Tuesday we could take him to Fred Meyer to buy some legos. We counted up all his money and he had $36! Guy took him on Tuesday night, and they came home with a toy motorcycle and a "car wash" toy with a car that changes colors when you put it in cold water. Nico had changed his mind! He didn't seem interested in legos when confronted with all the other toy possibilities.

Nico playing with his color-changing car while Guy assembles the "car wash".

On Monday we went to visit Allicia, Evie, and Avery. We always have fun over there!

And warm weather means more Strider rides! I got quite a jog in with this last one. He had just been playing with his new toy motorcycle, so while riding the Strider he all of a sudden said "motorcycle!" and zoomed off fast. He sustained the speed for quite some time.

We've been practicing "STOP!" while on the Strider. I say "STOP!" and he stops immediately. It's a game, so it's fun :) We practice that a lot. Then I also have been showing him where to stop when he gets up to a crosswalk ahead of me and I'm not there yet. Still working on that one. He is precise like me, so he puts his front wheel right on the VERY EDGE where the sidewalk stops and the road starts. I'm trying to teach him to stop a little further back.

He climbed up onto the chair while wearing Guy's shoes.

A common occurrence after lunch: iPad and cashew butter/molasses ("cah-oo appa buttah")

Foods

On Monday we went over to see Allicia and Evie and Avery. We hung out in their garage (heated!) Nico got to ride on Evie's tricycle and there was also a sand box to play in.

Evie loading up the tricycle so Nico can ride it.

Monday was also mine and Guy's anniversary. It was actually Facebook that reminded me of it! And even after that, I forgot to mention it to Guy, who also forgot. I didn't wish him a Happy Anniversary until the next morning. Whoops! :) No biggie, though, we are buddies and we understand that life is busy. It has been 8 years!! 

Tuesday, while Nico was at school, I went with Allicia and Evie and Avery to a "Mothering Connections" meeting. A group of moms gets together and talks about all the things related to mothering. To offer support and to receive support if needed. It was very cool.

We had some warmer days this past week. Enough to go for a looong Strider ride, a trip to the Fish Park, and then a walk around the block. Not all on the same day:) Nico has been talking a lot about playing outside. "Play outside. Go Strider ride." We've already come up with a list of things to do this summer. Well, a two item list: Fly a kite (we have one sitting in our closet that we've never used) and shoot off a rocket. We'll expand the list as we think of things. We do have a long term list of things we want to do but not necessarily this summer: go for a train ride, go to the beach and build a sand castle, fly in a plane.

Building a tower with Daddy before breakfast.

Playing outside. Digging a HOLE!

Yesterday (Wednesday), we hit a milestone in that I experienced my very first call from the school to come pick Nico up because of illness. Apparently he was lying down on the floor in the classroom and when they took his temperature it was 101.4. I came and picked him up, and as soon as we got home he crawled onto the couch and fell asleep. He woke up for about an hour and told me he felt sick. I rubbed some essential oils on his tummy, he fell back asleep for another hour and when he woke up in his bed he popped up and started asking for food. He burned off his fever last night and woke up fine this morning. I kept him home from school, but he will go back tomorrow. I'm pretty sure this episode was food related (well, supplement related). We have been introducing many new foods into his diet recently, per doctor's orders "Expand his diet!" she said :) He has enjoyed oatmeal, quinoa, cream of buckwheat, eggs, chicken, tomatoes, potatoes, brown rice, carrots, onions, and tonight: salmon! He ate more than I did at dinner. Unfortunately we are still dealing with bad flares of his rash and his emotions, but we are pushing through. But back to this fever thing. He was perfectly fine Wednesday morning until after he ate his supplements. It was almost like he was a robot that had just been turned off. You can imagine the power down sound, as he slumps his shoulders in his high chair and says "no eat", crawls onto the couch, and asks for a nap. This had been happening on several mornings, so I didn't think it was any different. But I think he reached his threshold for one of the supplements that hadn't been agreeing with him. I will be talking to the doc tomorrow to see what she wants us to do.

This week in preschool they are reading "Snowmen At Night" by Caralyn Buehner, "Snowballs" by Lois Ehlert and "That Hat" by Jan Brett. They are learning about winter clothing and animals. And tomorrow is the end of the quarter, so they have an early release!

Our first Parent Teacher Conference!

On Monday we went to see G.G. in Nampa. Great fun, as always! Got to see some of the sewing projects she is working on. Adorable little dolls with a wardrobe of clothes, so precious and special for the little girls who will be getting them! She gave me sneak peaks of some of the plans for Nico's Christmas gift. So looking forward to that :)

On Tuesday we had Nico's parent teacher conference at his preschool. We met with the speech therapist first, who told us that she thinks Nico is making HUGE progress! If we know the context of what Nico is talking about, then it is actually fairly easy to understand what he's saying. For example, when he came home from school on Tuesday, I asked him what he did in school that day. He made the sign for deer and said "Dee dee duh", and made a few other signs and started singing a song. I didn't know what he was saying until I read the Preschool weekly newsletter which mentioned that this week they'd be learning about the letter "D" using "Deedee dear". 

Back to the conference… a few months ago, testing had told us that Nico had Childhood Apraxia of Speech, but his speech therapist thinks it is actually a phonological disorder. I found a pretty good description online:

"Failure to use developmentally expected speech sounds that are appropriate for age and dialect (e.g., errors in sound production, use, representation, or organization such as, but not limited to, substitutions of one sound for another or omissions of sounds such as final consonants)."

Nico omits the final consonants on the words that he says, that is something the therapist and him are working very hard on.

Then his teacher joined us. They both said that they think Nico is very smart. Of course! ;)

They are going to test his hearing because of a problem he has with not listening/hearing. His hearing was tested and found to be perfect about 6 months ago, but more testing isn't a bad idea.  They aren't sure if he is just not hearing them when they try to get his attention, or if it's intentional on his part, or if something else is going on. It could just be a defiant phase that he is reaching later than normal (usually starting during the "terrible twos").

They are also working on teaching Nico how to respond to kids who take his toys, which happens often. Nico is a pretty laid back kid. I've noticed, though, that he has started saying "Nico's turn" whenever someone takes a toy from him. He's using his words to communicate, and it's so awesome to see him do that. 

After the conference, we stopped by Chicago Connection and got Guy a gluten free pizza. Then we went home and saw the little buddy who got to spend the evening with his Grandma Salisbury!

Nico has today and tomorrow off from school because of parent teacher conferences, so this morning we went to see Allicia, Evie, and Avery. We took Evie home with us for lunch. Evie told me "This is very good. Can I have some more broccoli?" Then they each got a "cookie" after lunch (I mix garbanzo bean flour with apple butter and a little salt, and bake them). Going into Nico's room after we had taken Evie home, I think they had pulled out every toy! Nico sure has fun with Evie over.

We've had nice weather in the afternoons, perfect for Strider rides in the warm sun! Crunching over leaves and shedding our coats halfway through. Nico likes to go up the hill from our house because there is a little asphalt curb that he likes to ride on.

On the cement curb after the asphalt curb.

Naps for Nico have been a hit and miss. Preschool seems to rev him up a bit and he has trouble sleeping after getting home. This puts his bedtime at about 7:30 or earlier (and up in the morning around 6 AM). When he does take a nap, his bedtime usually hits past 9 PM, pushing 10, he doesn't sleep as well, and gets up earlier.

Tonight was Halloween and we stuck around here to pass out candy. We had two trick-or-treaters, one of them was Evie in her warm dinosaur costume, riding her Strider. How cute was that! The rest of the Snickers will go to Guy. He will certainly not mind!

Sprinkler

Jumping right into pictures here..

We harvested from our garden for the first time - broccoli!

Playing

 At the Aquarium

He read his tractor books and decided to attach some floss to the hitch on the back of his tractors. You can kind of see the floss at the bottom of the picture.

Nico wasn't feeling well on Saturday, woke up with some stomach problems. But we have finally reached the milestone of Nico knowing when he is going to throw up! He asked for his bucket several times, and hung his head in there to wait for it. I don't think it was viral, as he made up for missing breakfast and more after his nap. I think we're dealing with some food intolerances.

We skipped church on Sunday to make sure he was fully recovered.

Nico seems to be a lot more interested in repeating sounds and words this week without being asked. I've stopped recording individual words that he says, because he now repeats too many things to keep track.

Short and sweet today. Leaving you with a sprinkler shot!

Strider Cam

Last Saturday Guy and I went to a Christian Homeschoolers convention in Nampa, though the two classes we both wanted to go to had nothing to do with homeschooling. I went to a disaster preparedness class and Guy went to a class about reducing your grocery budget. They both occurred at the same time so we both took notes and shared them afterward. We then went to the closing ceremony, where the speaker talked about "Choosing the hard things". Parenting is hard, but it's good. People tell you all the time that your children grow up fast and you will soon be missing their littleness, and when you're in the midst of it, comments like that don't seem to mean much. But he said "believe me..", your children will grow up and you will miss them, so hold on to the hard things, because they're the best things. After the convention, we had a little time to spare so we went to Red Robin and then to get coffee. It was a great little "date". Grandma Salisbury watched Nico while we were in Nampa, and she took him to Rory's 4th birthday party. 

On Sunday after Church and nap, we all went up the cabin. We got to see the Grandparents Salisbury and Aunt Ellen. We hung out and played with essential oils. 

Pouring oils into vials

Watching Shaun the Sheep with Grandpa

Grandpa Salisbury took Nico outside and was helping him use an ax to chop some pine needles and small pieces of wood. Nico really enjoyed chopping pine needles in half with an ax!

Over the next few days, Guy gave me my birthday presents. The first one was a replacement calendar for the wall in our kitchen, since we were halfway through with 2013 and I wanted some of 2014 on the wall to look at. The second present was a bunch of GIFs of pictures taken throughout the past few years. Loved this!! Here are a few of them:

The third present was a bunch of bookmarks for my myriad of books that I am in the middle of reading. He printed pictures into strips and cut them out into bookmarks. Loved loved loved all my presents!

Today we got a box from the Grandparents Russell with a toy in it for Nico! A wooden nuts and bolts kit. Nico loves it (and so does Guy). Perhaps next week I'll post the video of him and Guy playing with it. I could post it today, but I have run out of time, because I spent most of it putting together the Strider Cam video! For now, here is a picture:

And now here it is, the official Nico Strider Cam Video.

Arlingtown!

Last weekend was our trip to Arlington. It was Guy's Grandma's 90th birthday celebration, so we got to see a lot of family. I was able to meet relatives I had never met before! We also had a nice amount of downtime just hanging with Guy's parents and brother. We had an adventuresome walk/Strider ride to a local park, and we were also able to go to the River (the place Guy asked me to marry him!) Nico really enjoyed throwing rocks in the river, which he started to do after he saw Uncle Tom (Guy's brother) skipping rocks. Walking through the wooded area to get to the river was fun and damp, a little muddy, but beautifully green.

We were able to go to our old church on Sunday, which was nice. We saw old friends, and Nico actually did just fine in the nursery, and didn't want to leave!

Guy decided to switch to a day schedule on this trip so he could have more time with family (he's a night worker, so normally has a night schedule). He drank a lot of coffee, and was very tired, but he did it! He's still trying to get back into the swing of working nights after being back a few days.

We learned a lot of valuable lessons about traveling with a toddler. Keep everything simple! Don't put too much into the back seat so you don't have to go through more than one bag trying to look for something. Don't bring too many toys from home, they take up space and don't hold their attention. Bring several NEW toys for them to play with. Don't be afraid to use the iPad! And always keep the toddler fed so that low blood sugar doesn't cause breakdowns. That last one applies to everyone! :)

Without further ado - pictures!

Both boys sleeping on the drive over.

Right after arriving, Nico started playing with Grandpa's wooden toolbox

A room full of family

At the river

With Great Grandma Gohl - I love that her and Nico are exchanging looks.

Watching trains on the iPad with Grandpa

Our trip home - stopping at Miner Burger in Yakima - a ritual!

Beautiful day to eat outside

A video!

Strider Strides

It turns out that it's a hit and miss with dried apples at one or the other market. They switch back and forth! We were out of luck in choosing the right market last Saturday, but thankfully there was another vendor selling dried apples that we were able to buy from. Nico also got a balloon snake made for him. And then we actually ended up going to BOTH markets since we were able to easily find a parking spot for the other one. We bought some bok choy and radishes.

Stopping at some benches to eat some dried apples before walking back to our car.

Lots of parks this week. We've discovered which ones are best as morning parks and which are best as afternoon parks. The best of the best afternoon park is Memorial Park.

At Memorial Park

In the afternoon the entire park is covered in shade! So if it's a hot day, this is the only acceptable park to go to in the afternoon. The Fish Park would be 2nd, but a lot of it is still in the sun. At Memorial Park last week, we started a new thing - Nico gives me a high five on the way down the slide. He enjoyed this so much that the other kid at the park wanted to do it, too. So for a while, Nico and this little girl went up and down the slide, each giving me a high five as they passed. And when I say they went UP the slide, I mean it literally! They would both give me high fives on the way up, too.

Nico's fever seemed to return on Monday, so I went back to  using the essential oils and humidifier in his room. I've been running his humidifier every night since then. I figured tonight would be the last night, since he hasn't had a smidge of a temperature since Monday and his runny nose is all gone. I may have decided to run it tonight only because I preferred filling it back up with water over dismantling it and putting it away.

On Tuesday we had an appointment to get our vents cleaned out, but when the technician was down in our crawl space setting things up, he found that the top part of a section of our vent had been replaced with a strip of fiberglass insulation, and it had caved in. The picture he took showed us that the insulation had caved in and was almost blocking the entire airway. We told our landlord and he will be sending someone out to take a look at it.

We went to the aquarium on Wednesday, and met a friend and her two small sons there. Nico also had another speech therapy appointment on Wednesday. She brought a whole bunch of new toys and new strategies. She gave me a handout and left some activities for us to do during the week. She encouraged me to spend time helping him make sounds. So I added it to our morning routine. Right after chores we'll be spending some time focusing on sounds. Marcia makes it look so easy!!

A typical evening

Nico likes to "tighten" the bolts on his Strider. And hook up the pump to the fake air intake valves on his tires. I love this picture because you can see how excited he was that he got the pump hooked up. He puts his hands on the back of his hips and smiles.

Testing out the spinning wheel

And a Nico Snippets VIDEO is coming up!! It is still uploading to youtube (40 minutes left) but will be posted soon! Nico has really started to catch on to riding the Strider - you will see some of his smooth moves in the video!