Let's hear from Ewan as a 12 year old

I know, it's amazing: 1. that Ewan is 12 and 2. that this is my second post in a month.

But, let's keep the birthday question tradition going.  A few months late, of course.

Ewan, what is your....

favorite color?....black

favorite fruit?....banana

favorite breakfast food?....waffles

favorite dessert?....cookies

favorite movie?....Infinity War

favorite thing to do outside?....jump

favorite animal?....penguin

favorite game?....Fortnite

favorite television show?....Teen Titans Go

Who is your best friend?....Gage, Mason

What do you want to be when you grow up?....NBA All-Star

As always, here are links to previous years: 11 years old, 10 years old, 9 years old,  and 8 years old, 

Thursday night

Just a Thursday night at karate.  I thought we would go to the open mat class and then, maybe, Ewan would get to promote to his next belt.  We have been working towards promotions for what seems like forever.  We get there, we just go slower because of other commitments like sports. 

Surprise!  Kella and Kinley got in on the promotions, too.  Pretty cute watching my 5 year old try to do basic series and run a kata.  And, they all did great.  It was tough-Ewan's group had to run the same kata at least 5 times until the Sensei was satisfied with how the kata looked.  Kella and Kinley stayed strong through the 2 hours that included class and promotion.  They worked on kata, basic series a little sparring and self-defense.  The payoff-promotion.

 

The promotion class, before.

Ewan promoted to green belt!  

Kella promoted to full yellow belt!

Kinley promoted to yellow-striped belt!

The promotion class, after.

Our newly promoted.  Look at how excited they are.

Let's hear from 11 year old Ewan!

Here we go.  Our yearly questionnaire for our birthday boy.  The older the boys get, they act like I'm torturing them by filling this out.  Too bad.  It's my right as the mother to get what I want.  And, I want to know what Ewan likes as a new 11 year old.

Ewan.  What is your favorite....

color?...green

toy?...phone

stuffed animal?...Buddy (a stuffed husky dog)

thing to sleep with?...stuffed animals

fruit?...banana

thing to eat for breakfast?...food

thing to eat for lunch?...food (ha, ha. so funny)

dessert?...ice cream

drink?...Dr. Pepper

birthday dinner?...pizza (I know Ewan likes Little Caesar's best)

animal?...pig

book?...Captain Underpants

song?...My House (as in,  "Welcome to my House")

game?...Star Wars Battlefront

TV show?...Teen Titans Go

movie?...Lego Batman

thing to do outside?...jump on the trampoline

Who is your best friend?...Owen Hunt

What do you want to be when you grow up?...a NBA star

Here are Ewan's answers as a 10 year old, as a 9 year old, and as an 8 year old.

Ewan turned 11!

Right after Labor Day, our Ewan turned 11 years old.  No lies, he had been looking forward to his birthday for a long time.  I paid attention and had a nice list of present ideas to go from.  I think the only downer for his birthday was that he had to wait until after soccer practice to open presents.  

Pre-opening.  Andy hid his presents, of course, and gave Ewan a list of riddles to solve to find the presents.

Oh yes, 11 years old in this house gets you a phone.  Reality is, Ewan is really only going to use the phone to play games on and watch videos.  At least for now.  But, ever since Marcus got his at 11, the expectation is there for the other kids.

The phone was cool, of course, but, this was Ewan's favorite gift: a gigantic nerf gun.  I think the thing shoots out 5 darts at time which means lots more darts to find in the yard.

Our boy asked for the Reece's cake that I've made before.  Talk about a sugar rush.

Yearly baby pic with Dad.

Yearly pic with Mom.  He's catching up to me, but not yet.

Ewan loved his birthday and we love our Ewan!

Back to school 2017!

If you follow us on social media, you will know that the kids, except Kinley, started school on Tuesday.  So far, so good.  I would say the biggest challenge is getting ourselves back into the school bedtime schedule.  Summer was great.  We stayed up late. We slept in lots.  Now, school reality has set in.

Cale and Marcus left first.  Cale is in 7th grade and is taking honors English, honors math and honors band-French horn.  Marcus is a freshman and his classes include AP World History, Spanish, Biology and band-trombone.

The second round of schoolers included Kella (1st grade, Mrs. Sears), Ewan (5th grade, Mr. St. Amand) and Liam (3rd grade, Mrs. Lodge).  They were ready to go and had all met their teachers the night before.  Ewan actually had his teacher back in 3rd grade for some of his classes.  Kella's teacher is new to the district and somehow, Liam's teacher has never had a Shaffer in her class and Liam is the 4 kids to go through the elementary school.  How is that even possible?  

Good news, everyone had a great day.  They loved their teachers and were happy to go back to school the next day.  The trend is holding and routine is getting easier to slip back into.

Here's to a great year!

Time for some car racing

Pinewood Derby time came around again.  This year, it was Ewan and Liam's turns to participate.  Andy and I built cars as well.  Well, Andy cut mine out and I did most of the painting and all of the hot glue gunning.  I know that the boys would like to have the fastest car every year, and that does not happen.  We don't spend a lot of time in derby car studies to figure out how to make our cars the fastest, look the smoothest. The boys don't make making the cars a priority and the derby usually falls during our spring break and we are usually out of town in the days before the race.  This year was no different.  We missed the practice run day and were putting the finishing touches on our cars on Friday night before the race.  Typical.  Our cars look like they were made by children-not the adults.  Which they should, since it's a kid event.  Hey, even my car looks like it was made by a child, not the adult.  

Liam, waiting to race.  The cars run in lots of heats so they get a chance to run in every land and race a lot.  Liam's car consistently placed last.  So much for being fast.  He was not a happy little person.  It's hard not to win.

Ewan's car didnt' fare much better.  But, Ewan was pleased that he didn't place last in every race-he beat Liam every time they raced.  Ewan's car even placed 2nd in a heat once.  And, there were snacks.  Everyone was pleased about that.

Big people are like little kids.  Andy built a Batman car-black, in the green lane.  It was a horrible car to race.  I say never again to that kit he purchased.  It looked cool until it got on the track and promptly fell off and started to break apart.  Thanks goodness for hot glue guns.

To represent the ladies, I made a car to look like a dancer.  She was the second slowest of the adult cars, but she was the prettiest.

There's Ewan with his car.  It was red with lots of weights on the top. 

Here's Liam.  His car had 3 googly eyes on the top.  As the slowest car of the the derby, he won the "safest driver" trophy.  Not the award he was hoping for, but, it is a trophy.

Kella with the girls' car.  I might be biased, but, this is a car that should go in a shadow box to be kept forever.

See, Tiny Dancer is beautiful.  It's the pearls that do it.  I know.

It was a nice way to wrap up our last weekend of spring break. Also, full disclosure, I'm glad the derby is done for another year.

Basketball season draws to a close and I finally post some pictures

Basketball has eaten up a great portion of what used to be our "free time". 5 out of 6 Shaffers here are participating/are done participating in basketball this season.  Admittedly, I am sporadic with my picture taking and more sporadic with posting pics here, or anywhere else for that matter.  So, be prepared for the onslaught of pictures.

Here we go.  These may or may not be in some sort of order.

Ewan-looking spiffy in his travel jacket.  He loves this thing and wears it all the time.  Fun fact: Ewan, Marcus and Cale all picked the number 22 for their basketball number.  If I had my stuff together, I might have tried to force those three to take their picture together in their uniforms.  Didn't happen.

For fun-Ewan's team got to play a game at Banker's Life Fieldhouse-where the Indiana Pacers play (and, for more fun, they went to and actual Pacers game first-Andy took all our boys to that game).  I got to take Ewan and enjoyed watching him play.  He also scored 4 or 6 points.  I can't remember-but I know he was the highest scorer on his team that day. (Side story-I drove our big van and parked it in a tiny, old parking garage that we barely squeezed into.  When we left, I got one of the employees there to back the van out and bring it down to the first level for me.  I think they just wanted to get rid of me.)

On the court.

Passing the ball in.

Kella wanted to play basketball this year.  She is on one of 6 kindergarten teams.  She is probably the smallest person on any of the teams and definitely the most fancy dressed for practice.  

These 2 are random photos from one of Marcus's games.  Look for the 22.  He played on the "b" team this year and had a good time and a good season.  There are just 2 weeks left with one more tournament.  It's an "a" team tournament, but Marcus was asked to keep playing with a chance of maybe playing in the tourney.

These are all Cale.  They might have been playing the same school as Marcus was.  I don't know.  Look for the 22, red hair and orange, knee-high socks.  That's how I figured out which boy I was looking at.

We spend time taking selfies during the games. 

Some more of Cale.  This was his last game of the season.  The 6th grade season is shorter that the other grades.  Cale played on the "b" team, too, and did a great job.  Personally, I think he should have played on the "a" team.  But, I am not the coach.

Another selfie interlude.

These are of Marcus's last home game and last "b" game.  They are in a backwards order.  Just how I uploaded them.  I had the sense to get out my phone to get these pictures.  Potentially, one of the last games he plays in ever-if he doesn't make the freshman team next year.  

Ewan's travel team.  Their regular season is over.  The team finished the season with 1 win (in the last game).  They get a Sunday off and then the next one will be the start of the tournament.  At this point, I do expect them to not win and advance.  A totally different position than what they were in last year, when the team (made up of several different players) won the whole post-season tournament.  But, Ewan's had fun and it's been a good experience.

Rec league is still going strong and will for most of February.  Ewan, Liam and Kella are all playing in that league.  These games take up our Saturday mornings for now.  Hopefully, that means I will get a couple pictures to share here in the future.