Happy Thanksgiving!

I left my camera at the cabin today so we'll be going without most pictures today. Whoops! You'll get to see them all next week :)

On Saturday I headed over to G.G.'s house for a fun time of baking. Missy (Guy's cousin) was the one who organized the whole thing and it was so much fun. We watched White Christmas and made rice krispie treats, pumpkin bread, and then I brought stuff to make a gluten free cranberry orange shortbread bar. It was very good! And Guy attests that the rice krispie treats were good. We also had baked potatoes with a bunch of toppings for dinner. What a fun time!

On Sunday we had our last Bible Study meeting for the year. It was a potluck. We brought a holiday salad and some candied walnuts and clementines. It was a lot of fun and we tried Choffy for the very first time. Choffy is ground cocoa beans brewed just like coffee. It was very tasty. Guy still prefers coffee :) To me it tasted like hot chocolate! No flavors or sweeteners added but it was still very good.

Nico played games with his friends and our friends let us take home one of their board games because Nico loved it and wanted to borrow it. And speaking of board games.. we are playing them like crazy over here. Nico even beat me at a game of Settlers of Catan the other day. He doesn't understand yet a lot of the strategy behind games, but he understands the rules and the processes and he is very very good even without strategy yet.

Nico has had this whole week off because of Thanksgiving. We've done a lot of relaxing and hanging out. On Wednesday we heard that there was snow accumulating at the cabin, so Guy asked that we sit down and pray that we would still be able to go to Thanksgiving. He had been looking forward to going and I'll tell you what.. when he asks to pray about something, it's SERIOUS business! 

And good news, we made it up there today! Chains required. And Guy was overjoyed. He enjoyed himself so much he almost burst at the seems several times during the day. He was giddy. There were several reasons why... being at the cabin, him not being tired, getting to spend time with just us (me, Guy and Nico) with just Ma and Pa (we went up early), and last but not least.. the MST3K Turkey Day marathon. We got up there early so we could make stuffing. That was fun. Guy helped chop onions and wore a cheetah print apron. Nico and Papa played board games. I took some pictures (to come next week) and then Jonny and Alanna, Alanna's mom Wanda, and Lexie came. Thanksgiving dinner was so yummy, there were lots of good food and everyone loved the stuffing. I gave the recipe to Wanda.

We celebrated Christmas, sang songs, had the lego challenge, won prizes, the kids (Lexie and Nico) had a treasure hunt and it was generally just a great relaxed time. Guy being able to spend that much awake time with family was very nice for him and for us. I look forward to being able to do more of these kinds of family things with an awake Guy in the future. Looking forward to the Grandparents Russell visit in December!

Thanks to Grandparents Salisbury for the wonderful Thanksgiving and all the yummy leftovers!!

Guy has tomorrow off and it will be a wonderful weekend. Be prepared for picture overload next week, plus our yearly Winter Garden Aglow picture (which we will get done this Saturday)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Board games, Book fair, first snow

The main house was empty this past weekend, as Jeff & Allicia and crew had gone out of town for a few days. On Saturday I headed up to the cabin again while the boys stayed home. I had a great time, and so did the boys!

Nico has been enjoying playing board games lately, so we have been playing a lot of Forbidden Island and Creationary. Guy and Nico do that together a lot, too. For "You and Me Time" Nico usually picks playing with cars, or aliens/Batman (toy figurines), because those are the thing that I usually wouldn't play with him at any other time. You and Me Time is special because he gets to choose what we do. hehe... Guy seems to favor playing games over playing cars and batman, too.

On Monday night, Guy and I played Forbidden Island with Jeff & Allicia. That is probably the 3rd "date night" we've all had together after the kids have gone to bed. You'd think for how long we've been living here (more than a year now!) we would have found more time than just 3 evenings to hang out and play board games. We're going to try to do that more often.

Tuesday morning we took another loop around the greenbelt. Before we even got started, Nico bumped his Strider bike into Evelyn's bike and Evelyn turned around and said: "Nico, if you do that again, then I am not going on this bike ride." After we were about 200 yards from the house, Nico bumped into the back of her again and Evelyn turned around and rode home. Nico came up to me and told me he wanted Evelyn to be there, so we went back to the house so Nico could apologize and ask Evelyn to join us. Nico told me it was an accident that he did it, so I told him to tell her that. But, Evelyn still did not want to come back. So, Evelyn stayed home.

Wednesday Nico came home with a Book Fair wishlist. Him and his two "study buddies" (from higher grades, not sure which), went to the book fair and Nico picked out 3 books he wanted and they wrote them down for him. I had already decided I was going to buy him 1 book, so today we left early for school and stopped in at the Book Fair. Nico's choices were all thick books about legos and star wars and ninjas, each with their own lego figurine. He chose the Ninja one.

A peak at the content

First snow happened this week! Not much, but, it was something.

Nico asks me every morning if it's going to be cold that day so that he knows what kind of clothes to wear. I always say "Yes" and he's started getting frustrated about it. I told him it's going to be cold for a long time and will probably get even colder than it is now!

We booked a cottage rental on the beach on Camano Island for our trip to Arlington next March. Take a look! https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/8488890

It's "cozy" but we are used to that! :) I am excited about Nico getting to be on the beach!

VIDEO!

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. 

Halloween and Green Chef

Halloweeeeen! Saturday was so much fun. At about 4 PM we hung out with Allicia and Jeff and kids and we all ate dinner together in the "main house". They had invited some of their family over too, so it was a fun party and we ate spaghetti and eye balls (meatballs with melted cheese and a green olive on top). Here is Guy's plate (which I made and saved for later since he did not get home until 5:30-ish)...

After eating, the kids got into their costumes.  Nico initially wore his Fireman costume, then switched to Ninja Turtles, then switched back. His final choice was Fireman. I think the mask for the Ninja Turtle costume got a little old after a while. After Guy came home from work, he ate quickly and we were off! We met Jeff & Allicia at Roosevelt Market over by where we used to live. We went back to our old neighborhood to see if anyone was around giving out candy, nope! Just one that had a bowl on their front door step.

Nico and Evelyn had fun going door to door,  just like last year.  I got a video of it all but my iMovie has been crashing and I haven't been able to use it, but be assured when I figure it out, I'll be posting the video :) We spent most of our time in the East Boise neighborhood, love love LOVE those streets! We took a brief detour onto Warm Springs so that we could visit the Castle like we did last year, and that's actually the only picture I have of trick or treating! (The rest is video). And look, it's not even a good picture because you can only see a blur of green dinosaur Evelyn on the left, and no Nico. You can see Allicia holding pink bunny Ivy, though.

And a picture of our house with our carved pumpkin on the ground with two battery powered tea lights in it. Nico and I had carved it earlier that day.

We had a wonderful time. When we got home, Nico dumped his candy out on the floor and we traded it straight across for a whole bag of Nico-safe lollipops. The next day we did end up going through all his candy piece by piece and Guy looked each one up online to see if it was gluten & corn free. There were a few! Hershey's bars are OK, Heath bars are OK (not Nico's favorite), and then of course the Yummy Earth lollipops. Oh and Kirkland brand peanut butter cups.

So after we got home from trick-or-treating I ran to the PO Box because I got notice that day that we had some mail. I had been waiting to hear back about the big Aromatherapy exam I took a few weeks back, and I had heard from my classmates that some of them had received their exam scores in the mail that very day. So off I went, and found out that indeed I had passed the exam! I'm officially a Registered Aromatherapist! 

Sunday was a good day. Guy facilitated the Bible Study Sunday night since the leader had family in town and couldn't make it. He did a good job. Just like old times!

Tuesday morning we watched Ivy while Allicia and the other kids went out.

Nico asked to hold her so of course I let him.

We put another quilt on our bed because it's been chilly. Nico enjoys using the lines on the quilt as roads for his cars.

Lately Nico has been putting down his iPad of his own accord and playing with his toys. Sometimes I see bursts of development from him and it is fun to experience. He has been snuggly and loving and I've really been enjoying that.

I think Guy has pretty much adapted to the day-life. He is switching to a Monday-Friday schedule starting next week. 8-5, except on some days he'll go in late and come home at 8 PM so he can stay and train the guy that's training.

We are trying out GreenChef.com. They are an ingredient-delivery service. 3 meals per week, they send you the recipes and ALL the ingredients. Organic, grass fed, grain free (there are several types of meal plans you can choose from). I signed up for it because we got our first week FREE, which is worth about $100. We got the box yesterday and it was packed well and very cold. Beautiful recipe print outs and everything is separated in baggies for you. All you have to do is... chop veggies, and then add ingredients at the proper times. All spices are in little bags and you just dump them in.  Wet ingredients are in cute little jars. Everything is labeled.

Tonight was the first night we did a recipe: Mole Chili. It may have been a fail, we think because the amount of cocoa powder and espresso powder added to it was a little much. Guy says if we try to reproduce the recipe and use LESS of those two things, and use a better espresso powder, it would make a difference. It was very bitter because of the espresso, and it really wasn't appetizing to any of us. The "corn bread" muffins (no corn, made with coconut flour) were very tasty. We added honey on top of them. Making the recipe was a breeze and was so easy. I liked that part.

We have 2 more meals this week, a lebanese fish dish and a chicken egg roll bowl.  Looking forward to those. We are also getting a delivery next Wednesday as well. Two weeks for the price of one :) I am hoping that some of these recipes are good enough for me to repeat on my own!! I needed some new recipe ideas!

Until next week!

p.s. forgot to add that Nico, when going door to door at Halloween, the person would give him some candy and a few times Nico would take the candy, look it over, then hand it back to them and say "I already have this one!" hee hee

Halloween Party and Climbing Trees

Guy has been on days for a few weeks now, he is having trouble sleeping at night but for the most part things are good. He is able to hang out with us more, though some of our normal activities have gotten lost in the shuffle. Nico, for example, used to wake up at the crack of dawn to run downstairs and play games with Guy on his computer. But that hasn't happened since the switch. In fact, Nico is now sleeping in most mornings. This morning he got out of bed at 5 AM and passed our bed and headed for the door, but then turned and came back, crawled over me and planted himself between me and Guy and fell asleep for another hour and a half. Nico sleeps much better when Guy is there. But Guy sleeps terribly when Nico is there. Nico goes through fits and starts in the middle of the night during certain times. You can hear his teeth grinding together and he is kicking and bouncing his head around knocking into me and Guy. Nico always starts off in his own bed, but transfers to our bed at some point during the night, nestling in between us. We know he's there when he starts kicking us in his sleep.

The other previously normal activity that hasn't occurred since the day switch is me and Guy watching Netflix together.

Sunday was fun again to have Guy at church.

On Monday I went up to the cabin by myself to help my mom with computer stuff. Of course we took advantage of it and went for a hike and ate a wonderful lunch that day too. When I told Nico that he got to hang out with Daddy that day he said "Awwww I LOVE staying at home with Daddy!" He was very excited about it, even though he knew I was going to the C-A-B-I-N.

The view was beautiful up there, I don't ever remember it being that beautiful. Thanks for the wonderful day, Mom!

On Tuesday was Nico's Halloween Party at school! I brought some Nico safe treats with me in case they handed out candy. Gluten free peanut butter cups to the rescue! He decorated a cupcake but didn't eat it, and ate his peanut butter cup instead. Guy and I were BOTH able to go! The kids played musical chairs (Nico was the first one out and he started to whimper and cry when he had to sit by himself. Pretty soon everyone but 1 person was sitting with him, though, so he got over it fast). Then they played Bingo (everyone won something!).

Today was a fun day. Guy has had to go into work late (11 AM) so that he could stay late (8 PM) so he can train someone. This morning was our parent teacher conference and Guy was able to come!! Nico is a smarty pants, as we all know, and Ms. Lung is finding that she has to challenge him in Math. He is exceeding expectations there. He struggles a bit with social stuff but we are working on that. 

Two things the teacher gave us, is Nico's Blood Ghost, who apparently ate too much red blood, and then an About Me page where he was supposed to sound out the words he wanted to write and fill in the blanks. In Kindergarten they're not concerned with spelling, and as you can see Nico's favorite food is aplpi - a perfect phonetic reproduction of his beloved Apple Pie (which he's never actually eaten before).

After the parent teacher conference we came home and put on spooky scary nail wraps on Evelyn and Nico. I bought some MONSTER nail wraps and so for Halloween Evelyn and Nico are wearing them.

Here they are showing off their Zombie/Vampire/Mummy/Monster/Spider Web fingernails. 

This afternoon we went to Quarry View. Nico asked me if there was going to be friends there. He didn't mean friends that he knew, but kids in general. When he is on the playground with a group of kids he always says "Look at all my friends!!"

Evelyn showed up to the playground with her cousin and Aunt, and Nico joined in as they played soccer and climbed trees. Evelyn wore her dinosaur costume all day today. And Nico called out to her from the playground when he saw her: "Evelyn! Do you want to play with me with all my friends?" There was a large group of children on the playground and I was thankful for that. Nico has so much more fun when there are other kids around. He has no trouble asking other kids to play and always asks them what their names are. 

And then a random picture of Nico ironing. It was his idea and I had him use a cold iron.

Did you know Nico can read a bit? I'll have to video it. Ms. Lung sends home homework and it includes sentences. The first time I asked him to read a sentence I didn't expect much. But, yep, looks like he can read. And he has got his Ls down. He says "like" just fine! I am proud of him.

What a life! I am loving it!

Lumberjacks and Boo Bash

On Friday we went to Pojo's in the morning just to have some fun with Guy around. Guy even got some tokens for himself! Nico really enjoyed playing air hockey and we played it about 4 times.

On Saturday we ALL drove up to the cabin at 11 AM for the lumberjack party! It was so cool to have Guy with us. Grandma Salisbury served a huge microgreen salad, chili, and all the fixins! It was fabulous. We got to see family and old friends and new friends. After lunch the men went off to split some logs for the neighbor. (Guy had to work half the night on Friday night so he stayed back). The girls had a fun time while the boys were away and Guy was our commentary and made us laugh. There were guessing games (how much does the pumpkin weigh? How many M&Ms are in the jar) and Nico won a picture colored by Lexie and Rory.

Then the fun with Guy continued on Sunday when he was able to come to church with us for the first time in one year! This was the second time he has been to our church's Sunday service, and the first time he has heard the pastor preach! Then Bible Study Sunday night.

Monday & Tuesday were fun with Guy home, he went with me to pick up Nico from school on both days. Guy carried Nico home on his shoulders.

Then tonight was the Boo Bash at his school. Sooo much fun! I never remember winning cake walks when I was little, but the FIRST round-about Nico did at the cake walk, he won! There was an allergy free table so he picked out a little gluten free chocolate cake. We got a polaroid taken of all of us and visited all the rooms and got prizes. We even played with electricity in the Micron room. In the hallway near the library were boxes and boxes of books that the library was getting rid of. We were limited to picking out 3 for free so Guy picked out 3 while Nico and I went to a few of the game rooms.

You probably noticed that Nico is wearing his Fire Chief costume instead of his Ninja Turtle.. well... the ninja turtle needs a little bit of fixing with safety pins, which we had, but Nico didn't want to deal with it and just wanted his fire man costume. It's a good thing we had it on hand!

When we came home, though it was 7 PM, we let him have a small piece of his chocolate cake. He is a bit bouncy now... hehe. Guy is snuggling with him in his bed but it is not going as calmly as usual. There is lots of talking and excitement and jumping around going on in there. 

Nico and Evelyn searching for rocks at the park. SO many to choose from! Evelyn is wearing her dinosaur costume.

Nico told me to pick him up a comic book at the library on Tuesday. I picked up Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland

He was actually pretty excited about it, and it has chapters. Guy has read it to him the last 2 nights, one chapter each night, and Nico is thrilled! Glad to see it when he'e excited about reading.

Birthday and the Transition to Days

On Saturday I had a henna booth so I dropped Nico off with Papa for the day. They had a lot of fun up at the cabin playing. I appreciated that so much! Thank you Papa!

Then started Guy's birthday week and the planning and implementation of "Columbo's Day". We have been talking about doing this for years, and this is the first year we implemented it. Guy had come up with the idea of watching episodes of Columbo on Columbus Day and calling it Columbo's Day. We did that this year. I made some snickerdoodles and then we settled in to watch our first episode. Nico watched it with us and it had Dick Van Dyke in it as the murderer. The next one we watched had Johnny Cash in it.

Then, Guy's birthday was on Tuesday. I made meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and veggies for dinner, one of Guy's favorite meals that we could all eat, and then we just hung out.

The biggest news this week is that Guy is switching to days, and TODAY is the day he did it! He was able to go out with us to run errands this morning and it was awesome, Nico enjoyed hanging out with Daddy ALL day (besides the time he was at school). We picked up a coffee from Flying M on the way home, his second of 3 coffees that he has had today. He is super tired right now and will be heading to bed shortly.

Also this week we got a mystery package. I have been ordering my digestive enzymes from Awake Wellness online for the past 2 years. Every time they send me my order, it always has 2 lollipops in it, ones that Nico can eat because they don't have corn syrup. Nico is always so excited. I wrote to the company and told them how much we appreciated the two lollipops they send in every order, and that Nico now asks whenever we get a package, "Does it have lollipops in it?" I never heard back from them, but then on Tuesday we got a package. When I saw who it was from I had a sneaking suspicion what was inside, so I had Nico open it. Sure enough, he looked inside and said "It's a lot of lollipops!" They had sent us several handfuls of lollipops!!

Nico has been illustrating things that have been happening in day to day life. Him and Guy often sit down at the table and draw, and Nico always comes up with something interesting. Shortly after staying with Grandma Salisbury, he drew a picture of her and him at Fred Meyer, with Grandma pushing the cart. We gave that one to Grandma. Then he drew one of the cabin, be sure to note the moose in the lower right corner, and the steep driveway! There is also a difference between Papa's truck, and Grandma's car.

On Tuesday we had gone to see G.G. It was a fun visit as always, Nico played with a few of G.G.'s old cars, one that used to belong to Grandpa Russell, and one that used to belong to G.G.'s brother. Nico also played with a coke bottle truck. That night while I was at Tap class, Guy and Nico drew some more and Nico drew the bottle truck. You can see the bottles sticking up from the top, just like the toy!

We made a silly video tonight per Nico's request, "take a picture of me doing this!" He wanted video, so I took a video and we stuck all the different funny episodes together into a funny movie. It's him making funny noises and flopping around. hehe...  Here you go!

Exam, Movie, and some Good News!

We have some great news to share this week! Guy was offered the engineering position!! We finally heard back from them last week and he accepted the offer shortly after. He will soon be moving to the day shift but "soon" is a relative word ;) They're talking some time in November the switch will take place. Guy has been on nights for 5 years, I can't believe the switch is finally going to happen! I am more than ready.

On Saturday I had some henna to do, so a friend from church watched Nico. She took Nico and her 3 kids to the Sensory Friendly Movie, they were playing Shaun the Sheep!! Nico had a lot of fun.

On Monday I had my huge aromatherapy exam. It will be 6 weeks before I hear anything about it, but I'm pretty sure I passed! Nico got to spend the morning with Papa while I was at the exam. They did legos and then walked to the park for a bit. I finished the test sooner than I thought I would, so I was back shortly after they ate lunch. Thanks for watching Nico, Papa! :)

Nico officially asked to switch to creamy peanut butter. So Guy bought some creamy peanut butter for the first time since we were married. Guy is wondering if Nico will ever want to switch back to crunchy, like Guy did when he was younger. We will see! I offered to buy them each their own kind of peanut butter but Guy said he preferred not to. He will just endure! ;)

Guy putting creamy peanut butter on his pancake. 

Nico spinning on his bottom. (break dancing) "Take a picture! Cheeeeeeeese!"

Nico had a lockdown drill at school yesterday. He told me about it as soon as I picked him up. Mommy! he said. When a guy comes in, you turn off the lights and close the door and you get in a line and you are really quiet and then you go outside (they have a door to the outside from their room).

Last night while he was in bed not going to sleep, he said "Mommy I don't want to go to school!" I asked him how come and he said "I don't want a lock down!" it turns out he doesn't like the loud noise of a possible fire drill. He doesn't like those. He asked me over and over if there was going to be a loud noise at school and I kept telling him I didn't know, but that the loud noise was good because it tells you there's an emergency. The conversation was getting nowhere and around in circles we went, so I told him we'd talk about it in the morning.

On the way to school today he asked me if they were going to do a fire drill and I said I didn't know, and that was that.

Hearing about lock down drills reminds me to pray for his school and for his safety. What a good reminder! The principal also sent an email out that day to tell all the parents they did lock down drills.

I forgot to post some pictures from last week when we climbed the Camel's Back Hill! We did it on a whim and it was so much fun.

At the TOP

Looking down the way we came

VIDEO!

Another Birthday Party!

Saturday was Michael's birthday party. Michael is a boy that went to Nico's preschool and now they are in Kindergarten together! The party was at Quarry View, so Nico rode his bike. They had a bouncy house, and cake and snacks. And Michael's older sister was doing face painting! Nico asked her to do a lion! I got a rose on my hand.

Nico jumped so much on the bouncy house that he came out and said he had a tummy ache and wanted to go home. This was right at 3 PM when the party was over, good timing! We came home and turned the swamp cooler on and relaxed on the couch. He was soon feeling better. 

At the party I met the mother of another one of Nico's classmates, she helps out on Wednesdays in the classroom with the weekly art project they do. She invited to come help this past Wednesday because they were doing something that could use an extra hand. I agreed! Nico was very excited that I was coming to his class. He made sure I stood in line with him.

For the art project they had to wrap sticks in yarn and then we (the helpers) tied them to another stick to make mobiles. There was glue and yarn everywhere!!

Every month, Guy's cousin Missy (I call her my cousin too) puts together a girls night out for a small group of girls. I was able to go this time and it was a blast! We went out to eat. Nico got to stay home with Guy. Missy said she may try to stop by G.G.'s house the next time Nico and I go there. Looking forward to that!

Nico has Thursday and Friday off this week.. teacher inservice!

I have my Aromatherapy Registration Exam on Monday. I've been studying. Pray for me!

Still no word on Guy's job. I'm in charge of Guy's phone during the day in case they call, and I've been carrying it with me everywhere for 4 weeks now!

(Forgot to mention us climbing Camel's Back Hill! See next week's blog for pictures and video!)

New Bike!

Saturday was Bruce's birthday party! Nico and I went up to the cabin that afternoon and enjoyed seeing family and celebrating with Bruce. There was even gluten free Nico pizza!

We had to leave around 2:30 to be back in time to wake Guy up for work. After waking him up, I packed up my henna stuff and went over to the neighborhood's block party. I did free henna for a few hours that night for everyone who showed up. Jeff and Allicia handled Nico for me, they came to the block party and Nico got to jump on the bouncy house. He even came over to my henna booth and got a henna tattoo. He usually wants it wiped off as soon as I get it on, and this time was no exception. I got home after 8 PM that night and Nico was still up, so we snuggled a bit and he told me that he was never going to jump in a bouncy house again because he jumped so much that it made him sick.

On Tuesdays I have started doing something new in the evenings - Tap Dance! This past week was my second class. It is a lot of fun. Nico likes my tap shoes, but told me that he doesn't tap dance because he's a boy. So Guy took him to Youtube videos of Danny Kay, Fred Astere, and Nico watched them several times and danced along.

Still no word from Guy's job. Ho hum!

Today Nico and I ventured to a kids consignment shop to buy winter clothes. We got him some boots and a coat and some long pants and long shirts. We even bought him a Halloween costume - Raphael the teenage mutant ninja turtle.

He was pretty set that he wanted to be the Armor of God for Halloween but we couldn't find an armor suit there, so I let him look at the other costumes while I looked at clothes, and this is what he found! It's not in very good shape after taking it out of the bag, but, it'll do!

Then on the way out we saw a bike that he liked, and so I considered... his current bike has a flat tire and is so small. Instead of fixing the tire, why don't we just buy a new bike? :) And this bike was signed by Kristin Armstrong (the bike park that we go to sometimes was named after her). And this was also a Trek bike, brand new costing $299, and we bought it for $32. It does have a non-functioning right brake and the handle bars need to be tightened because they turn, but Jeff has offered to fix the bike for us! We took the bike out to the park tonight, Evie followed on a tricycle. Nico took the park loop a good many times and got used to riding it. Unfortunately he cannot get up on the bike without help. He tried several times but he can't touch the ground and sit on the seat at the same time so it will require some serious skills to be able to do it. He'll get it eventually. But this also means that landings are sometimes dangerous. I told him to kick his foot out and fall on his foot after he stops. This usually means that the bike also falls too. He had a few crashes, and thankfully I was there at the right moments to prevent the serious crashes from happening. God's angels were also at hand :) 

AND OH MY GOODNESS! I don't think I ever mentioned the hot air balloon chase we did a few weekends ago (September 5th). How could I forget! A hot air balloon landed nearby and so me and the kids raced there and got there just in time for Evelyn to get to go inside the balloon and see the fire. Nico wanted to stand back. There's a video below too. Two videos today! One of biking, one of hot air balloon.

Video!

G.G., Bible Study, and the ickies

Nico had a lot of fun with Grandma while I was gone! Thanks so much for watching him, Mom! 

I returned home Saturday night, and saw Nico the next morning. He woke up while I had gone to the bathroom and I came back into the clubhouse with an angry-voiced Nico saying "Mommy! Mommy!" because I wasn't there. Hehe.. he was grumpy but I made him smile and then we snuggled for a long while in the bed before getting up.

Sunday we had church and then that night was the first night of Bible Study this year. We dropped Nico off at the big kids group and Guy and I went to our group. It was great to see everyone again. We had to go around the room and introduce ourselves (even though we knew most of the people) and say something interesting about us that nobody would know. Mine was that Guy and I did a lot of puzzles together while we were dating and that a few years ago we did a 13,000 piece one. When it was Guy's turn, he told everyone that he likes to try to identify sandwiches from long distances. Hehe.

We haven't heard anything about Guy's job yet, but he did tell me that he got a "wink" from the hiring manager. Not sure if I already mentioned that. Now we're just waiting... and waiting... and waiting...

On Tuesday morning we went to see G.G. and Nico wanted to bring his checkers game to play with her. He brought it with us and G.G. taught him how to play. G.G. also let him feed Scamper two treats, and Scamper ate them right off his hand, to help him learn that Scamper wouldn't hurt him.

On Wednesday morning we went to the park with Allicia and crew. We usually do this Monday but on Monday we both desperately needed to go grocery shopping, so we postponed it until Wednesday. The plus to doing it on Wednesday was that there were no lawn mowers.

For the past few days Nico has been complaining of tummy aches before, during, after bed and before, during, after eating. Wednesday morning he only had a few bites of pancake and started whining. After lunch he told me he was sick and needed to stay home from school. Hmm.. I sent him anyway. He did fine at school but didn't eat anything when he came home, and right before bed he got sick once. He felt so much better afterward, and slept until morning, when he ate some food and then again for lunch. I kept him home from school. He skipped dinner again tonight and though he's telling me he doesn't have a tummy ache, he really has no appetite for food. He ate a few monster teeth before going to bed just now, but wasn't very interested. He had a temp of 99.3 earlier. Not that that's significant, but sometimes that can mean something.

I'm hoping he'll be okay tonight and wake up his chipper self tomorrow. He does seem to have a runny nose, so perhaps that's related.

That's it for this week... hopefully next week we'll have news from Guy's job!