Whiffle Ball, Day of Learning, Zoo

On Saturday we went to a garage sale down the street from us. Nico found a whiffle bat and ball for 50 cents that he bought. Then we went to both of the Saturday markets in downtown Boise to scope out spots for me to do henna. Oh, and to enjoy ourselves. Nico got a balloon animal and we watched a magician do magic tricks. Guy bought coffee from a local roaster and Nico got a free bunch of radishes just for being a kid. We came home and ate radishes.

Then I dropped the boys off at Memorial Park with the whiffle bat and I ran to the Co-op, then came and picked them up.  

Then we visited Brianna for the last time. While we were there, Nico asked her if she wanted to join us for pizza and she said no she had a lot of packing and dishes to do. So Nico said: "How about Daddy and I can help pack and you and Mommy can wash dishes?" And that's what we did! She still wasn't able to join us for pizza because her parents came into town that night.

We said goodbye to Brianna, then went to the Library. After that we came home and ate lunch. We had pizza that night and I then I left the boys at home to go see Allicia at her roller derby game. My voice was hoarse afterward from all the cheering. She is really good.

On Tuesday Nico brought his Day of Learning project to school. He carried it in front of him, the trifold Open so that everyone who walked by would see it. And it worked. Someone said as she was passing, "Cool project!"

That night there was an open house at the school so everyone could view the projects. There was only one other 1st grader that had participated, but lots from other grades. Guy and Nico went.

When Nico started out to work on his project, this is how it went down:

"I'm not going to fill up all the space"

As he's writing info about the Purple Martin in his lab notebook: "I think I'm just going to do 5 birds."

As he's writing info about the Purple Martin on the project board: "Actually, I think I'm just going to do one bird."

I was very proud of him! He got to present his project to his class, too.

Today was the Father's Day zoo trip. Guy met Nico's class at the zoo.

 Kookaburras! How did we miss these last time? Guy told me that Nico sat and stared at them for 5 minutes.

Nico has been coming home with all sorts of things from school, folders, notebooks, books that his teacher was giving away, summer reading packets... it's getting to be about that time. One more week and it's done!

Grandparents Russell, Tea, Bird Bingo

On Friday Nico's class had a Mother's Day Tea that I attended. They had the classroom all set up and I sat across from Nico at his desk. He pulled out his journal and we read through the entire thing while we waited for the other mothers to arrive.  I can't wait to share some of his journal entries with you all when the journal comes home at the end of the year.

When everyone was there, Mrs. Smith went around the room and each child got to introduce their guest and tell the others why they're special. When it got to Nico, he said "My Mom is special because I love her so much!" And while he was saying "I love her so much" he pretended to faint and laid down on the floor.

After everyone went around, it was time to serve the food. Nico asked me what I wanted and then he went and told Mrs. Smith and she handed Nico my order. I ordered one fruit kabob. After all the moms got their orders, the kids got theirs. Nico ordered a fruit kabob as well and also went and got each of us a glass of apple juice.

After eating, we got to open our gifts. Nico made me a cut out of his hand with clay, signing "I love you" with a rose between his fingers.

It came in a sweet bag.

He said to me this week: "Mommy, when you die... and then when I die, and in heaven, I will come find you because I love you sooooo much!"

Later on Friday we got to see the Grandparents Russell because they came into town!! They came over and hung out until Nico's bedtime. It was so sweet to see Nico snuggling with them! They brought Nico a Bird Bingo game and we played it that night, too!

Saturday morning we drove over to GG's house to visit her. It was the first time Nico and Guy had seen her new place living with her sister Pat. They have a pasture that lines their backyard and they often see horses back there close to the fence. We didn't see any this time, I am sure we'll catch them on one of our visits. The Grandparents met us at GG's house and we played another round of Bird Bingo with everyone, then headed home for lunch. After lunch we headed off to the Aquarium! 

We spent about 45 minutes there and then drove over to where the Grandparents were staying so we could take a dip in their hotel pool. Here's Nico and his sweet new spiderman towel!

Then we ventured back home with everyone and made pizza for all of us. 

It was a VERY fun and full day and I'm so glad we were able to spend that time with them! We will see them again in June when we *FLY* out there!

On Sunday at church I applied henna to someone on stage during the sermon. The tattoo illustrates the sermon, which was about clothing yourself with inner beauty instead of with fancy clothes. 

After church we went over to the Grandparents Salisbury house armed with our Bird Bingo game, and played a blackout round with everyone. Uncle Jonny, Aunt Alanna, and Lexie were also there! Oh fun was had!

On Tuesday, Brianna came over for dinner for the last time before she moves away. She will be visiting every few months so we will get to see her, but not as often as we have been.

Nico worked on his "Day of Learning" project today. It's an optional research and presentation project that anyone at the school can participate in. Nico put together a tri-fold poster presentation about the Purple Martin (bird). He is proud of it, and will take it to school to set up next Tuesday. We are checking out a bird book from the library this Saturday that may inspire him to add more to his poster, but he says he's happy with it the way it is. Fine with me!

Ok that's it for this week! See you guys next time!

Zoo, Brianna, Chipotle, Evelyn

Friday morning was Nico's first chess meeting. He loved it and is excited to go back tomorrow morning.

On Saturday I had a birthday lunch with just the girls to celebrate Grandma Salisbury. We went to a local eatery called Locavore. They have very good food with gluten free options! Happy Birthday Mom!

Afterwards me and the boys went to the library to see if they had any more comics for Free Comic Book Day, but they were out. That's ok, because Nico picked up a few comics to check out as well as some chapter books. He has lost steam on the Treehouse books and has stalled on #14.

Sunday was a fun day. We went to the Zoo with Brianna, who is moving in a few weeks and had never been to the zoo. It was also the first time Nico has been to the zoo in a very long time and it was fun to watch him as he saw the animals. We saw everything, I think, and then drove over to Chipotle for dinner. It was a very good day.

Nico helping Evelyn fold socks.

Nico has been spending more time with Evelyn ever since Aadam and Sam moved away. They've easily gotten back into the rhythm of hanging out.

They randomly wore the same shirt today, not planned.

Picking up Evelyn from school on Tuesday, Nico walks right up to her and puts his arm around her.

Our Monday night date, playing the intense game of Agricola. It took an hour, or more.

We will be seeing the Grandparents Russell tomorrow and Saturday! They are going to be in town for a short visit. Can't wait to see them! Hoping for sun tomorrow so we can venture to the Nature Center after school.

See you all next week!

Kids Fun Fest, Date Night, table manners

Saturday was a fun day, it was Kids Fun Fest at the fairgrounds. I had a henna booth there, so Guy brought Nico and they spent at least an hour wandering around the exhibits and enjoying the bouncy house and surf board. Somehow he came home with 3 new water bottles!

After giving Ivy a henna tattoo. She wanted a ladybug.

Grandma Salisbury helped me at my booth that day. Thanks Ma! It was a fun time!

On Sunday Nico and I went to visit the Grandparents Salisbury to pick up some milk and eggs. It is so nice having them in town so close by, we stayed for a bit and chatted. 

On Sunday at church Nico came up to me after his Sunday school and told me he had invited Miss Kayla (his teacher) and her family over for dinner on Thursday. I apologized to Miss Kayla and told her we would love to have her over once we move. Nico said that he heard Miss Kayla say that she loves turkey burgers, which is what we have every Thursday night. What a sweet boy!

On Monday night Guy and I have instituted Date Night, which is not much more than doing something special and unordinary after Nico goes to bed, like play a new game or watch a movie. On Monday night Nico asked if he could stay up later and I said "Not tonight, I have a date with Daddy!" and Nico's response was "Oh, so you can have another baby?" 

Jaw drop.

I asked him how he associated date night with babies and he said "I just guessed." ????

Tuesday Brianna came over for dinner, we had sweet potato crusted quiche, it was very yummy. We are starting to teach Nico table manners, which I think we should have done a long time ago. I guess it was difficult to see the need before, but with having Brianna over it's become evident that he doesn't quite know what to do. So we had a "training" dinner on Monday night. And surprisingly, he does know just how to behave. Little stinker. He knew just what he should and shouldn't do. So every night is training night now. Table manners are a thing now. Don't test us quite yet ;) 

We are in negotiations for purchasing the car that we are borrowing from friends. We will need one more car and then we can save up for moving out! 

Nico expressed an interest in joining the Chess Club at school, so we signed him up for it and his first meeting is tomorrow. They meet once a week on Fridays at 8AM, before school. This session is just for 3 weeks. He also came home with information about the Children's Race on June 3rd. It's for kids age 6-12, and it starts at the train depot and runs down to the Capitol building, it's just 1 mile. So we signed him up for that, too. He will get a t-shirt and a medal for participating.

It's been quiet without Aadam and Sammy around, but he is playing with Evelyn more now, which is fun! Today was 85+ degrees outside and him and Evelyn played outside after school.

That's it for this week!

Fuzzy, Lost tooth, Sore tummy

We went to Fred Meyer last Friday and Nico bought a little fox that he named Fuzzy. Fuzzy came with a blue bag (purse?) that he sits in, Nico calls it his bed. He brought Fuzzy and his bed to Bible Study on Sunday, and has been sleeping with Fuzzy right next to him in his blue purse bed.

Saturday morning, I made pancakes per usual, and Nico sat at the table and said it was hard for him to eat because his tooth was loose. He said he was going to pull it out and I thought that maybe he might succeed in a few days, but Nico sat at the table, determined, for about 10 minutes, pulling at his tooth until it came out. He wanted to enjoy his pancakes (it's his favorite day because of the pancakes in the morning) and pulled his tooth out so he could do just that. We forgot about the tooth fairy and in fact I'm not sure where the tooth ended up.. hmm. It's in a baggie somewhere.

On Tuesday, Brianna came over for dinner. We ate tuna pasta salad on a bed of lettuce and roasted veggies on the side.

Wednesday morning, Nico woke up with a sore tummy. He had a slight fever so I wrote his teacher that he wouldn't be coming to school. He laid on the couch and said "I don't think I want to eat fudgesicles ever again." He had eaten an entire fudgesicle the night before, right before going to bed. At about 10 am his fever went up to 101.3, he had a headache, took a nap, and felt a lot better after waking. He never threw up, but drank milk and ate banana bread all day long. He slept well last night and woke up this morning, stood up and said "Hey! I don't feel sick anymore! And when I walk my head doesn't hurt!"

I still kept him back from school for one more day. He has been watching iPad a lot today, lounging. He will go back to school tomorrow!

That's really all we did this week, short and sweet!

Garage sale, Kestrel

One night before bed, Nico asked Alexa to play his favorite lullaby which is called Australian Lullaby. We started talking about playing the song on the piano and I asked him if he wanted to learn how to play the piano and he said Yes so I started talking about it and after I was done I hear this almost silent whine come from Nico. I look over at him in his bed and he has this sad look on his face and I ask him what's wrong. He says, "I don't WANT to learn how to play the piano."

Wow! The first thing Nico has declared he doesn't want to do. And I am A-ok with that! I really just want to give him opportunities to pursue the things he wants to pursue. If it's not piano, then OK!

Last Friday, the entire new season of MST3K was released on Netflix and Guy took the day off to watch them. I watched some with him, but some of the day was spent getting ready for the yard sale which we had on Saturday!

We had everything priced in boxes, so Saturday morning we moved boxes and tables and then just unloaded all the boxes onto the tables. This was actually a bit more work than I was expecting, but we had it pretty much unloaded by the time 9AM rolled around. Papa came that morning to drop off some moving boxes to give away at the yard sale, and to help haul boxes. Thank you Papa!

Nico and Evelyn went up and down the aisle and picked out things to buy. Evelyn was purchasing stuff for her Grandma's cabin. Nico chose to buy Papa's old wallet, a cherry pitter, and an empty tin.

Relaxing in the afternoon after a hard morning of selling his toys

Nico sold a lot of his toys and was a very eager salesman. He asked people outright if they wanted to buy some of his stuff, and when one lady paused to look at his toy table he said to her: "I think your dog would like this gorilla. Do you want to buy it?" When someone tried to haggle with him and lower his price on his train set, he said "No. $10." She laughed and said he drove a hard bargain and bought it from him. He made $32 total! 

And it turns out, about an hour before the end of the garage sale, he grabbed his gorilla and said "I think I want to keep this." so he brought it inside.

We ended at 3PM. A lot of stuff sold but we still had a lot of stuff leftover, so we loaded up our car and Jeff and Allicia's van and Guy and Jeff drove a load to the Youth Ranch to donate it. On the way home they picked up Chipotle for dinner and some Izze Pops from Whole Foods. We ate our dinner on the front lawn, picnic style. We were beat!

The day was sunny but it started out very cold! We were thankful for the sun.

That evening, though we were beat, Guy took Nico to the glow-in-the-dark Easter egg hunt that our church was putting on. Because it was glow-in-the-dark, it had to start late. The mini-sermon started at 8:00 and the hunt wasn't until 8:45. The church was expecting about 100 people but they had about 500. The hunt itself lasted maybe 3 minutes and some kids didn't get any eggs. Nico grabbed 3 eggs and then they sped to the car to get out of the parking lot before the rush. Nico came home and was asleep instantly.

Sunday was Easter, it was a good sermon. Then we went to pick up the eggs and milk from Papa. Grandma Salisbury was out of town visiting her mom in Moscow. Papa told us how to make egg nog with the milk and eggs, so we tried it that night. Guy liked it so he put some in his coffee! 

Since we weren't able to do pizza on Saturday night, we did it on Sunday. We started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. Nico actually enjoyed it! Guy told us that he used to watch this with the fam while eating pizza on Saturday nights. I remember watching it with my brothers all the time and it will be a fun tradition to continue.

We played a game Easter night that we learned last time we were in Arlington. Grandma Russell sent us what we needed, a list of nursery rhymes, which we cut up and put into all the eggs we could locate which was just 4. You go around and pick an egg, and then sing/say the nursery rhyme. Then it's the next person's turn. Video link here if you'd like to see the round we did: https://goo.gl/photos/cVRu4d1ZtwjPPLVS7

Thanks Grandma Russell! :)

Yesterday was a sunny day, so I picked Nico up from school on my bike. He had his scooter, and we rode to the MK Nature Center (aka Fish Park). I wanted Nico to see the American Kestrel they have there. The greenbelt path was closed due to risk of deterioration because of the height of the river, though everyone was still using it. We rode it to the Nature Center but used a different route home. It will be hard to get around this summer on our bikes because all the paths are closed. They don't think they will get around to assessing danger until August.

Nico found a shady spot and asked if he could finish his lunch that he didn't finish at school.

We went into the lobby of the Nature Center and saw so many animals that had been stuffed. We saw some different birds, a crane, a heron, lots of different ducks, quail, even a bald eagle! All stuffed. Then we went out to meet the American Kestrel. Meet Fiona. American Kestrels are a bird of prey but they are surprisingly small! They have Fiona at the nature center because she is missing an eye. 

Nico told me his leg was hurting from pushing on the scooter, so we figured out a way for him to stand on the lowest bar of my bike right in front of me and I swung the scooter over my handle bars. We rode that way about half of the way home. It was so nice to be outside!

Nico is on Magic Treehouse book #13

We are waiting for its arrival at the library along with #14.

Until next time!

Virtual Reality, Goodbye to Friends

On Sunday night, Allicia and Jeff had friends over who had designed a Virtual Reality game that they let everyone try. Nico and Guy both had a turn (I declined due to being a tad motion sick from watching Nico play.. hehe) Nico was a champ, and played really well (see video at end). He had a leaf blower and got to blow leaves and other things with his leaf blower. If you point it at the ground then you fly. Then he played one where there were a bunch of things you can throw.

Also on Sunday night, Guy and I and Jeff and Allicia sat downstairs to watch a part of the first release of the new MST3K movies. Since Guy supported the kick starter, he got early access to the first episode. Guy and I watched the entire episode earlier on Sunday, but that evening we shared part of it with Jeff and Allicia. 

We said goodbye to our friends Aadam and Sammy and Tiffanie on Tuesday. They moved out of state and we will miss them!

We got the pictures back from the henna photo shoot. It's nice to have those pictures of the 4 kid crew.

He entered the Adams Elementary Yearbook Cover Contest.

He drew two wolves on a cliff howling at the moon and then two bears down below with some trees.

Sittin'

Nico is on #9 of the Treehouse books. 

Here's the virtual reality video! (notice the newly painted and carpeted downstairs!!!)

See you next week!

Sleepover, Date Night, Magic Treehouse, GG

Last Friday morning I dropped Nico off at the Grandparents Salisbury's house, him and some of the other cousins were there for another sleepover during Spring Break!

Guy and I spent the afternoon at a coffee shop and then went for a walk in downtown Boise, before picking up some Chipotle and coming home to watch a movie. We chose Around the World in 80 Days.

Then on Saturday morning Guy went with me to hang some of my henna designs up at Awakenings Coffee House.

Guy and Nico went to Lexie's birthday party that afternoon, I stayed home to get some work done and then we had pizza that night!

Nico lined his stuffed animals up on the floor in the kitchen this morning so I could feed them all breakfast. Apparently they don't like oatmeal.

Nico was very proud of himself tonight for eating everything on his plate. It's true it's easier when it's turkey burger night! Here he is eating a tater tot that has been dipped in his strawberry milkshake, Guy showed him how to do that.

He has been reading the Magic Treehouse books in order, I think there are 55 total. At first he was picking them randomly from the library but the week before Spring Break he decided to read them in order. On Sunday (I think?) Guy took Nico out to 2 different library branches to get #3 and #4. We are on Thursday right now and he has finished up to #6. We don't have any more to read but will probably pick up more on Saturday.

We are rescheduling our trip to Arlington to happen at the end of June, and we are flying! It will be a fun trip and I am looking forward to it. Nico will get to fly for the first time and I am very excited for that.

We were scheduling our garage sale for this Saturday but the weather looks pretty bad, 50 degrees and raining with thunder, so we decided to move it to the next weekend, the 15th. We were going to visit GG that day so instead, I went to see her today while Nico was in school. It was great to see where she is living now (with her sister Pat), with her room all set up and her comfy chair and couch in the living room. I was able to meet Pat for the first time, too!

That's it for this week!