Liam's birthday questions (11 on April 24)

Ok. First up is Liam.  His birthday will fall in the middle of the stay home due to coronavirus time.  It's on a Friday this year and I was fortunate to be able to make a work trade so I can be home with Liam, at least for his birthday night.  He was a good sport and answered all the questions. Let's see what he said:

Liam, what is your favorite....

color?....purple

stuffed animal?....Detective Pikachu

thing to sleep with?....blankie

fruit?....apple

cereal?....Frosted Fruity Os (generic Fruit Loops)

thing to eat for breakfast?....cereal

thing to eat for lunch?....sushi

dessert?....homemade brownies

drink?....Powerade

movie?....The Greatest Showman

thing to do outside?....swim

animal?....dog

book?....Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief

song?....Come Together by the Beatles

game?....Jenga

television show?....The Loud House

Who is your best friend?....Jacob Holland

What do you want to be when you grow up?....A bio-mechanical researcher

Here are Liam's 10th year questions, and 9th  year and down. 

And, here's last year's birthday photo.  You can't tell from this pic, but we decorated Liam's cake to look like a sushi roll.

Liam's birthday questions for his 10th year

Let's see how Liam answered his yearly birthday questions.....

Liam, what is your favorite.....

color?....purple

stuffed animal?....Pikachu

thing to sleep with?....blankey

fruit?...mango

thing to eat for breakfast?....cereal

thing to eat for lunch?....vegetarian pizza

dessert?...brownies

drink?....fruit punch

movie?....The Greatest Showman

thing to do outside?....jump

animal?....red panda

book?....Dogman

song?....Thunder (by Imagine Dragons)

game?....Mario 64

Who is your best friend?....Jacob

What do you want to be when you grow up?...a nanosystems engineer

Liam as a 9 year old

Better late, than never.  Here are yearly questions I like to ask all the kids on their birthday.  Liam has the honor of going first.

What is your favorite....

color?....blue

stuffed animal?....Totoro 

favorite thing to sleep with?....blankie, Totoro

favorite fruit?....watermelon

favorite cereal?....Cocoa Rice

favorite thing to eat for breakfast?....cereal

favorite dessert?....brownies

favorite drink?....soda

favorite thing to do outside?....pool

favorite animal?....dog

favorite game?....Pokemon games

favorite television show?....Teen Titans

Who is your best friend?....Jacob

What do you want to be when you grow up?....a technical designer and movie maker

Just for fun, here are Liam's answers as an 8 year old, a 7 year old,  and as a 6 year old.

Just the 2 of them

Liam and Andy left for Cary Camp on Thursday.  This is the overnight camp for Cub Scouts.  Andy has been going for an easy 5 or 6 years.  This year, it's just these two from our pack, but I know they will have some fun.  

That time in December that Liam had his music program

It's feast or famine over here as far as time I get to make a blog post.  Right now, the kids are all in bed, Andy is still at work and I'm watching Expedition Unknown.  Josh Gates has one of the funnest jobs I know as a person who goes around looking for treasures and historical artifacts.  It's a job that I think Ewan, or, even Cale would be good at.  But, I digress.  

The third grade music program was on a Thursday in early December.  I was fortunate enough to not be working that night so I didn't have to re-do my schedule.  This is the one music program that the 3rd grade will do for the year and they got the "Christmas" one.  It was really more of a winter themed program since it was about weather and snow and snow days.  I'm am very confident that I have seen this specific program performed by one of the other boys.

Here is the crew that I brought with me.  Liam had to wear Christmas colors and festive things.  He was agreeable to wearing a Santa hat, which surprised me.  The girls did a little bit of dress up, too.  Kelly made a Rudolph headband and Kinley wore a Santa hat and her apron.  We must have been baking Christmas cookies before leaving for the program.

There's our boy.  Singing.  

And, he had a speaking line.  He did great!

You know, it's the 3rd grade program.  What can I say.  The kids did well and I always enjoy watching them.  The girls managed to behave for the performance which was probably only a half hour or so anyway.  And, the school reconfigured how they lay out seating for these things which makes it much less crowded in the gym.  All good things.  And, a nice way to start the holiday season.

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!

Let's hear from 8 year old Liam!

This week, we are celebrating 2 more birthdays.  The day will come when I post some of those pictures, but today is not the day.

Today is the day when we hear what Liam the 8 year old likes.  Here we go...

Liam, what is your favorite....

color.....green and gold

toy.....skylanders

stuffed animal.....frog and shark

thing to sleep with.....blankie

fruit.....banana

cereal.....raisin bran

breakfast food.....cereal

lunch food.....pizza

dessert.....brownies

drink.....gatorade

birthday dinner.....broccoli, cauliflower, mashed potatoes, biscuits

animal....stinkbug

book.....comic books

song....."Fight Song"

game.....Skylander Swap Force for 3Ds

TV show.....all TV shows

movie.....Despicable Me

thing to do outside.....play

Who are your best friends?

Gam and Jacob

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Scientist

For funsies, you can see how Liam answered as a 7 year old, a 6 year old, and a 5 year old.  Look at that-4 years running with this tradition!

Liam turned 8! Let's celebrate!

April 24.  Liam was looking forward to this day-his birthday!  We started with blowing up some balloons for his room (water balloons, since we had no bigger balloons at 10pm on Sunday night).  I got to go to Liam's room that morning and read a book to his class before lunch.  Kinley and I ate lunch with Liam and 2 of his friends and then it was time to come home a get ready for his birthday night.  

Andy decorated, hid the presents and wrote out clues to help Liam find them.

Opening some gifts.

Maybe just a little brainwashing happening here.

Birthday dinner! Liam got what he asked for: cauliflower, broccoli, mashed potatoes and biscuits.  Also, pizza, because everyone else has to eat dinner, too (thanks to Ewan to convincing Liam to ask for that).

Time to play with some birthday toys.

The cake!  Liam asked for a banana cake.  I found the best recipe for a super-delicious banana cake with cream cheese icing.  

Liam is happy.

Cake and ice cream and more time to play with presents.  What a great evening for a new 8 year old.

Can't forget the pic with Dad holding Liam like a baby.

And, a cuddly pic with Mom, too.

Sweet

Smart

Curious

Funny

Kind

Happy birthday, Liam!

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.

a little bit of Christmas program fun

Smack dab in the middle of December was Kinley's preschool Christmas program.  I forced everyone to come.  The promise of cookies afterward sweetened the deal.  Kinley did great.  It's always funny to hear her teachers talk about how much Kinley has improved through the year.  They have a great perspective, because they have known Kinley and her personality since she was born.  

Kinley's class dressed up like eskimos.  

The preschool sings. Kinley is in white, in front.

A close-up.  Kinley had her hair up in a bun for dance that morning, and she wanted it that way for the program. So cute!

more cute!

And, even more cute!

Santa came and just a couple of the kids wanted to see him.  Kella was excited to tell Santa she wanted a dog, a cat and a bunny for Christmas.  (pretend of course)

Liam wanted to smell test this Santa, ala the movie Elf.  I don't think this one smelled like beef and cheese.

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

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.