Let's hear from Ewan!

A long time ago, in a far-away month....Ewan turned 10. My third boy in double digits.  It was a lovely time, as recorded in a previous post.  But, I never did get a chance to have Ewan fill out his yearly birthday questionnaire.  Ewan is such an interesting boy.  I envision a life for Ewan in which he is an explorer or discoverer.  No sitting still for this boy.  Let's see how he answered his questions this year.....

Favorite color:  blue

Favorite toy:  "choobaka" (Chewbacca)

Favorite stuffed animal: Buddy (his husky dog)

Favorite thing to sleep with:  blanket

Favorite fruit:  "bananananananananana" (Ha!)

Favorite breakfast food: French toast

Favorite lunch food:  Quesadilla

Favorite dessert: cake

Favorite animal: Red Panda

Favorite song: Everything is Awesome (from The Lego Movie)

Favorite game:  Pokemon

Favorite TV show: Teen Titans

Favorite movie: Star Wars

Favorite thing to do outside: play

Best friend:  Landon

What do you want to be when you grow up?  pro soccer player or astronaut

For fun, here are Ewan's answers from turning 9 and turning 8

Cale's birthday! He turned 12!

The week of Thanksgiving we got to celebrate Cale's birthday.  It fell on the last day of school before break, filled with basketball practice for Cale and Liam and basketball games for Andy.  And, we had a friend of Marcus join us and get a feel for how crazy a night in a family of 8 can be.  

Someone hid Cale's gifts.  I don't know who.  I think he had to find them by solving riddles.  We were kind and even let him open one of his presents early so Andy could watch.

Promise-he was actually excited about his presents.

Marcus immediately tried to "solve" one of the puzzle cubes.

A white cake with coconut frosting was Cale's request.  Ice cream for the side.  Cale even had his own personal little container of coconut ice cream.

Little bit of Wii time with Cale's new game.

Can  you tell it was a great birthday?  The birthday boy fell asleep  watching a movie.  Also, notice the wall?  Decorated for Cale's birthday by Kella.  It's a dinosaur.

Kinley's favorites

Swinging, playing outside, her bumblebee outfit, wearing her hair in a bun for dance class.  It's all here in these pictures that show us a slightly warmer day that the freezing temps of December.  

one of the nighst they dressed in costumes-aka Halloween

This Halloween was perfect.  The weather was the best we've had in a long time.  I loved the communal feeling in our neighborhood.  It was a little bittersweet, knowing that this was our last Halloween in this house, in this area.  But, we made it a good one.

Kylo Ewan-he got to run around the neighborhood with 2 of his friends.  Marcus went to a friend's house, too, and trick or treated with them.

And, the rest.  Kinley needed a costume change from a bumblebee and became a princess.  Kella stuck with a classic-Elsa.  Cale was the Grim Reaper and Liam kind of threw together some stuff at last minute and called himself a "junior wizard". Love it.

My favorite view-the post-trick or treating view.  Fireplace on, Comfie on the couch. Perfect.

And, we got our pumpkins carved just in time.

the cutest bumblebee...

Little Miss wears this costume at least once every week-it's what she wore to her Miss 

Spider's Tea Party at preschool way back in October.  I try and string out the days by leaving it hanging up to "to dry" in the laundry room for a few days.  I actually just took it off the hanger in the laundry room to put back into circulation.  I wouldn't be surprised if she's wearing it by tomorrow.

Sweet Bumblebee.

Kinley was so happy to go and pick out her costume.

by Kella

Featured today are 2 projects Kella has done for kindergarten.  The first contains "fun facts" about Kella-like favorite food, favorite things to do, etc.  She was super-excited to color the entire thing pink-clearly her favorite color.

And, her Indian lady.  The kindergarten kids make these every year.  Andy gets a kick out of seeing which kids obviously had help with their projects.  Kella colored her lady (the girl loves coloring!) and then I dug up stickers that she added for embellishment.  

She finished up another project today-a Christmas ornament.  It is beautiful and glittery.  And, made by Kella.

Some big stuff going on here!

Probably the most exciting news of the fall is that we bought a school!  That's right, an old 1930's high school that needs a crazy family like us to come in and make it beautiful again.  Of course, we started this project at the beginning of the busiest time of year for Andy, so almost nothing has been done, except for beginning to move our possessions to the school.  The kids are stoked-mostly because the school houses a for-real basketball court and stage-what!  Our original plan to be in by Thanksgiving is out the window.  Now, I am hoping for Christmas.  Possibly doable.  So, stay tuned as we start this fun mess.

Here is the link to the original listing.  Lots of work-right?

                                              

Finally! School pictures for 2016!

Hey!  I finally found time to upload the boys' photos to be printed off, and saw that I'm right on schedule, as this was the same time last year that I was taking care of printing off yearly photos. Maybe, some day soon I will get the photos sent out.  Until then... Another year older, another year wiser....the boys, that is.  Here we are.....

Cale-6th grade, Honors math, Honors English, French horn

Ewan-4th grade, Mrs. Cherry

Liam-2nd grade, Mr. Clary

Marcus-8th grade, Honors math, Honors band, trombone

And, Marcus....

Oh yeah, this boy made All-Region Junior High Honor Band.  He's proud, I'm proud, we're all proud here.  

another preschool field trip-pumpkin patch edition

What October would be complete without a field trip to a pumpkin patch.  I know Kella's kindergarten class took one.  Kinley's preschool took one, too.  This is always one of my favorite trips because the pumpkin patches are close to our house and we don't have to get ready quite as early those mornings.  This day was no exception.  Kinley and I took our time getting to the patch, and still made it there a good 20 minutes before everyone else.  Plenty of time to take pictures.

It was a windy day.  The sky was clear, but it was cool, jacket weather. 

We found a stick. It was awesome.

The kids got to play in an area with a tunnel slide that started at the top of a hill.  Kinley loves slides.

She also loves to drive stationary, wooden tractors...

She does not like to help her mom take selfies.

And, we even got to picnic lunch it at the golden arches-our favorite restaurant.

Oh yeah, soccer season ended...

So, many weeks ago, the boys played their final weekend of soccer.  I don't miss the running around to practices and coordinating attendance at 4 different games at at least 2 different locations, that's for sure.  Pretty sure we saw improvement in all the boys.  Or, at least they had fun, which is important, too.

Liam-got more confident with his playing.  He is quite the good little passer and helped get the ball to the right player to score a goal.

Happy that he got a medal!

So many possibilities on these empty fields....game day at Noblesville.

This is a picture of one the last games Cale played this season.  He was matched up against that big orange guy in the picture.  Orange was a good player and Cale's job was to keep Orange from going up the middle of the field to score.  Mission accomplished.

Ewan's team finished with an 0-whatever record.  They won no games.  They might have tied one.  Should be interesting to see how the team looks in the spring.

Cale's team came through and won their division!  Those boys were super-excited.  As was their coach.  These kids played so hard and deserved this.  Of course, Cale was thrilled.

And, there we go.  Soccer is behind us and we have already started basketball season.  The never-ending sports cycle continues.