Cabin Fever! Wait. Cabin, and then also a Fever

On Saturday the boys went up to the cabin for a visit! I was helping a friend out that day so I stayed behind. Bruce and Rory and Lexie were also at the cabin and Nico was able to play with them. He spent a lot of time hanging out with Bruce, they played in the snow on the porch. They also went sledding down the driveway. I forgot to pack Nico's boots in the bag, so he wore his shoes most of the time. Poor wet feet! But he didn't really care.

I love that last pic of Nico sliding down the ice with Bruce racing next to him. Nico sometimes refers to Bruce as his brother. I am so happy they got to spend so much time together. It makes my heart happy!

Grandma also had a little surprise for him - a brand new dot-to-dot book! Before they had left that morning, Nico had chosen 10 color-by-numbers to print out to take with him, saying that Grandma and others might want to do some with him. So he had some to hand out and it looks like Rory is doing one of those while Nico works on his dot-to-dot book. He was very excited to show the book to me when he came home. "Guess what IIIII got.... A DOT-TO-DOT BOOK! A RED ONE!" Grandma had sent him a blue one a few weeks earlier.

Thanks for having the boys over Ma & Pa! They had a blast!

The next morning before church he got down on the floor to work on his dot-to-dot book with his special pencil.

For a few days he was watching the movie HOME over and over and over again on his iPad. It is a great movie, I don't blame him.

Sunday night was the start of the Bible Study that Guy is leading, it was a low key night, we just did introductions and talked a little about the book we'll be reading. It went really well and are happy to be a part of it. Nico came with us and they had some fun things for the kids to do in the other room. Legos for Nico.

On Monday we went to the Discovery Center again, Nico spent the whole time (we stay for 1 hour) at the engineering station building a race truck. Evelyn joined him and she built a race car. After his was built, he tried it out on the tilted race track.

We had a few ho-hum days there, then yesterday (Thursday) I woke up with Nico snuggling me and he felt a little hot. Then he coughed sporadically that morning. I thought he might be getting sick, but I kept writing off the heat I was feeling from his forehead. After Guy left for work I figured what the heck I'll check his temperature, and he was 100.7. Bunker down time! Unfortunately he had lost his iPad privileges for the day, so we couldn't zone out on the iPad. We spent most of the morning doing color-by-numbers. We snuggled on the couch at about 11 and he zonked out for a nap. He woke up feeling groggy and icky and complained of a tummy ache. Essential oils really perked him up but then he was down again a few hours later. His tummy was really bothering him. He never got sick, but we spent the evening reading books to him on the couch because he just didn't want to move. His temp stayed at about 102.5 for a while and his fever finally broke in the middle of the night sometime. Strangely, he hasn't coughed at all since yesterday morning. I figure the illness was probably just a stomach thing? He's been nibbling on food this morning like he's recovering from a stomach bug though he never threw up.

So that's the story of yesterday, and last night why I just couldn't squeeze in a blog update!

Today we're just hanging out. iPad is back.

Late

Blog update coming your way tomorrow! (Friday!)

G.G., Nora

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was a great week!

Boop Snoots

On Friday we had a game night here and invited some other couples over to play board games. Jeff & Allicia also participated, so we were able to use their living room. We had Cassi and Cory over and a couple from our church, Matthew and Elizabeth. Their kids played downstairs in the basement. Nico and Evelyn, Avery, Ivy were all asleep. We played a really fun game called Takenoko.

At one point Nico poked his head out of the clubhouse and furrowed his brow: "YOU GUYS!" and then closed the door. Guy followed him and tucked him back in and Nico told him that we were being too loud.

While we were helping to clean the house before the guests arrived, Nico crawled onto the couch while Guy vacuumed, and Avery came over and watched him play on the iPad. The slide was on the couch so Guy could vacuum.

On Saturday, Guy took Nico out for a few hours so one of my friends could come over so I could show her how to mix henna paste. Guy took Nico to Camel's Back Park and they followed one of the trails there, around and around and then afterward they played on the playground. Outside for 2+ hours, Nico was pretty exhausted that night.

Monday morning we went to the Discovery Center again! We skipped the first two rooms straight away, since we had spent our whole time there last week. We went to a new room with things we had never seen before.

Nico told me his tooth was hurting on Monday. It was hard for him to eat. I took him in to see the dentist Tuesday morning. I was afraid it was Nico's cavities getting worse, but it turned out it was just 3 of his molars coming in! Ouch. But so glad it wasn't worsening cavities.

On Tuesday I volunteered in Nico's class. I'm sure the teacher had forgotten I was coming in, because she had nothing for me to copy/cut/produce so she put me at one of the centers to help the kids write numbers from 71-80. They were celebrating their 80th day of school that day! It's interesting to see how Nico interacts with his classmates and his teacher. His teacher is very strict but I think the kindergarten class needs it.

Nico often asks me when he will get to go to 1st grade, and I tell him it will be about 8 more months. He told Evelyn very succinctly today what was going to happen. Evelyn told him that he was going to a different school than her next year and Nico responded, "Not a different school, just a different classroom with a different teacher. I'm going to be in 1st grade tomorrow. I mean, in 8 months." I was proud of the way he expressed his thoughts!

Guy and Nico have been doing this cute thing when they snuggle in bed before bedtime. Guy takes Beady Bear and does "boop snoots" which just means that they bump noses. So Guy says "boop snoots" and then taps Beady's nose on Nico's nose. He does this a bunch and then Nico will take Beady and turn him around and tap Beady's bottom onto his nose and say "poop snoots". Guy just told me this and I laughed! I have to admit that I have been quite the encourager with saying that word, for some reason right now we all just find that word hilarious and Nico and I add it into most of our silly games, especially games where we have to come up with silly words or phrases.. For example, reading books at night, he will cover one of the words in the book with his finger and I have to guess what the word says. I often already know what the word is, but I make something silly up anyway. I'm sure this is just a phase...

Guy and Nico have also played the "laughing game"where they take turns trying to make each other laugh. If you make the other person laugh, you win.

Wednesday was mine and Guy's 10 year anniversary! Here's a throw-back for you: NNU graduation, about 10 1/2 years ago.

Guy has wavy hair!

This morning Evelyn had 2 cavities filled at the dentist. We played with Avery in the main house while they were gone. Ivy was asleep and actually slept the whole time they were gone. When they got home, they all climbed onto the couch and watched some Chitty Chitty Bang Bang until lunch time. They also got to play a little more tonight.

Sledding and the Discovery Center

On New Year's Day, Nico and I headed up to the cabin for the day. Guy was meant to come, too, but his cold had worsened and he needed sleep, so he stayed home to rest.

There was SNOW at the cabin and Nico enjoyed playing in it. The porch was covered with the stuff so he went outside on the porch to poke around. He ate some snow and stomped around and had fun.

Later that day he also went outside with Papa to go sledding! Nico went down first with Papa in back but then decided he wanted to be in the back, so they switched spots for the next round. I even went down the hill a few times with Nico. It has been a long time since I have done that. You can catch a video of this at the end of the post.

We had a nice lunch and dinner, we put together some of a puzzle, I even had a bit of a nap! It was so fun to spend the whole day with them!

Saturday was the sensory friendly movie. They played Peanuts. Afterward we went to Toy World to spend the $20 that Nico received from his Great Grandma French for Christmas. He bought a new lego and a couple smaller things.

On Monday we all went to the Discovery Center with Allicia and kids. We spent an hour there and only got through the first two rooms. We paid $10 to be added to Allicia's membership so now we can go whenever we want. There are so many cool and interesting things there. This time there was a suspended tunnel/bridge made entirely of packing tape that the children could walk through. I don't have a picture of that, unfortunately.

Discovery Center was in the morning and then Nico went back to school that afternoon.

The rest of the week has been ho hum. I think. Nico has been enjoying connect-the-dots. I download the really hard ones with 600+ dots on them. We have about 5 ones that are half done, as Nico likes variety and has been getting discouraged whenever he messes up.

We hooked up the Wii and introduced Nico to Wii Games like golf and bowling. We are limiting his time on the Wii currently because he has been very demanding about wanting to play games.

He was up at 4:30 this morning and is struggling to fall asleep tonight and it's almost 8 PM. Not sure why he's had such an awake day today!

Now it's time for the videos! Up first is Evelyn's Birthday video. Then, sledding!

 

Playing with Papa, and Parties

I forgot to mention last week a special gift that we received at Christmas, from G.G., a story written by her late husband, Walter Russell. It's called Cowbells and Ice Cream, very cute story about the Boss Cow (the one with the bell around her neck), and how taking care of cows is worth it in the end because you get to make ice cream. She had it bound into a little book with illustrations. I am so happy to have this keepsake!

I caught the cold going around, the next day after writing my last blog post. I am feeling pretty good now. It lasted a few days.

A few pictures from Christmas morning.. Nico putting together a small lego from his stocking

Sunday was special because Papa came over to play with Nico, Alexis with him. They tried going to the park first but didn't stay long, it was coold! They came home with rosy cheeks. I turned on the space heater and they warmed their feet by it. 

Wednesday was also a fun day with Papa. Papa and Grandma Salisbury took Nico out to Chicago Connection for lunch, then Papa and Nico came back here and played for about 3 hours while Grandma and I took a trip to Costco. They played games, and played games, and had a really fun time. 

On Monday our car wouldn't start, so after trying to jump it unsuccessfully, we called roadside assistance and a tow truck came and towed it. Turns out it was just the battery, which lasted almost exactly a year! We upgraded to a better quality one this time, since this is the second time our battery has died within warranty, same brand, the first time the battery had only lasted a few days! 

Today is Evelyn's birthday and we celebrated with her twice! This afternoon she had a party at a ceramics place. Every child got to pick out ceramic figurines to paint. Nico chose a boat, airplane, and tank and painted each one. We left the pieces there so they could fire them in a kiln and then we'll pick them up next week.

Nico asked first before helping Evelyn open aaaaall her gifts

I got some video but that will have to come later. Then this evening we celebrated Evelyn's birthday again but over here at the main house with their family.  None of Allicia's extended family were able to make it because they are sick, so it was just a few of Jeff's extended family. It was a pretty low key party and was very fun! The theme was a hotdog party a la Pigeon. Then we set off fireworks, just like last year. Then before bed Jeff read all the kids "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late." It was very cute. All will be included in a video to be posted later.

Now it's time for the Christmas Snippets Video! I couldn't seem to locate the snippets from the Thanksgiving "Christmas" we had at the cabin. So this video picks up in December some time.

Christmas Visit!

What a fun filled week! On Friday was Nico's Christmas Party at school. It was Miss T's last day (she was the student teacher). The kids had each written her a page in a book saying their favorite thing about her and drawing her a picture. Miss T went through the book and as each child's page came up, they had the opportunity to go up front and read what they had written about her. Miss Lung said to the children that if they were too shy they didn't have to come up front, and most of the class did not. Nico did! He went right up there and told everyone what he had written. After he said it, Miss Lung came up and pointed him toward the audience and whispered to him to speak in a loud voice and repeat what he had said.

"My favorite thing about Miss T is that she plays with me."

The kids were able to decorate cookies, decorate an ornament, pin the heart on the Grinch, and play Bingo. I was at the bingo station with the Grandma of one of Nico's classmates. Nico decorated a cookie and gave it to Miss Lung.

Here he is making an ornament.

Nico brought home a gift for me and Guy, it was to "Mom and bad" ha ha ha! It was a beautiful ornament that he had made at school.

On Saturday Grandpa and Grandma Russell came into town!! Nico spent the whole morning asking when they were going to come. When they were on their way, Nico went outside with his umbrella and waited for them.

Nico opened a few of his presents on Saturday, coming in a video soon, will it be tonight when I upload it? We will see! You will know by the time you reach the end of this entry whether or not there is a video at the end of it ;) (p.s. no video tonight, will work on it this week and try to have it next week!)

Nico got a beautiful new quilt from Grandma Russell - it has a winter side and a summer side, and fits perfectly on our bed. I'm sure Nico won't mind us using it, and hey he sleeps in our bed sometimes anyway right? :) He also got a stuffed animal that used to belong to Guy, along with the book, "Beady Bear". Nico was so excited about that! He slept with Beady that night (and has been sleeping with him every night since then). But that first night, he got up in the middle of the night to crawl into bed with us and as he was crawling over Guy he yelled, "MOMMY! I can't find Beady Bear!" I told him we could look for him in the morning and that seemed to appease him.

Quilt on the Winter Side

On Sunday G.G. came with the Grandparents Russell and we all went to church, it was the Madrigal play they put on every year. The content is always different but it always takes place in Medieval times. They fed us food and the play was good. 

I should have snapped a picture of the stage. It was cool to see our friends in the play. Lots of great costumes. Last year we didn't know many people at the church yet, and Guy wasn't with us last year. But Guy was with us this year!! Wahoo!!

We came home afterward and opened the rest of the gifts. It was a lot of fun. Nico claimed that his nose was hurting so we gave him an ice bunny we have in our freezer (a tiny ice pack surrounded by a soft bunny), he would put it on his nose and it helped.

He spent some time putting together his new lego from G.G. that afternoon.

Monday was a relaxed day. Talking, hanging. Gma Russell and I and Nico went grocery shopping in the morning and Nico claimed tummy ache and was feeling sick for a large part of the day, even after a nap that afternoon. He had a slight fever after waking up. (100.3) Then he spoke up all of a sudden and said "I want a hamburger!" all he wanted was the meat. After he ate 3 small hamburger patties he was fine. The fever was due to the cold he caught. Guy started feeling the cold coming on him Tuesday morning. I might be fighting it at the moment too, kind of a scratchy throat. 

Tuesday we were able to see Gpa & Gma briefly before they had to be at the airport. Nico and Grandpa played a bit of one of our new board games - Ticket to Ride. They also did a lot of color by numbers together.

Some more pictures from the weekend..

Snuggle City!

Watching the iPad

Activity Book

Putting together a wood tractor

Overall it was a great visit!

Nico has been enjoying doing advent candles every night. We let him light them and strike the match himself. Tonight was the last night for it, Christmas eve! Also tonight we had dinner with Jeff & Allicia and family. Turkey sandwiches. Then Guy was excited to bring out the pumpkin rolls he received from Gma Russell. Then for the third year in a row we put a candle in an orange and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus! Nico led us in prayer for the dinner and Evelyn led us in the Birthday song for Jesus. Then after the kids went to bed we congregated in the living room. Guy is currently playing Ticket to Ride with Jeff and Allicia and their friend Justin, and I am happily plucking away at the computer. Living here has been a blessing and I'm enjoying the times like this that wouldn't happen if we didn't live here.