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.

Last post of 2016

And for the grand finale of 2016, I took the kids to Grammy Pammy's house.  It was time to see some cousins and have a little bit of Christmas with Lanny.  It was nice to go, since we hadn't been to Grammy's in over year.  Andy got the gift of time to himself, time to work and time to work on the school house.  

Liam, helping Grammy make paluszki (maybe this is the right spelling).  They are a delicious Polish dumpling-like food that we love to eat.  All the kids got excited to see them cooking.  And, what's fun is that I have another picture of Liam from a couple years ago helping Grammy make the same dish.

The O-niners.  Love getting pics of Abi and Liam together.

Jacob looking cute.

Oh, the cousins have an air hockey table.  The boys loved it.  They also had fun with the karoke machine and used it, among other things, to announce and commentate on the air hockey games.

I also had fun with the karaoke machine.  

Presents from Lanny!  Kella got her rainbow horse.  

Blaze the car for Kinley.  She loved that show on tv.

Ewan got more action figures for the army he is amassing in his room.

Camping stuff for Marcus.

An "active robot" for Liam with some awesome dance moves.

Look, more soldiers for his army.

Aunt Bitsy, modeling a new helmet for one of the cousins.

Cale, our budding engineer, with a new robot building kit.

Lanny got some weeping angel jams from Aunt Claud-don't blink!

Cale also modeled the new bike helmets.

Love that I got a photo of me and Bitsy together.  This is going on facebook!

A last pic of the o-niners.  

We stay late at the cousins and kept all the kids up way past their bedtimes.  We slept one more night at Grammy's and then came back home.  Where these lucky kids got to open more Christmas presents, this time from Grammy Linda and Grandpa Jerry and Uncle Chris and his family.

Crowns from the poppers.  Sending the old year our in style.

The boys stayed up and the parents dozed on and off in chairs.  We played games and watched Star Wars and tried to time the explosion of the Death Star in the movie with midnight.  (we were close). A simple, easy way to bring in the new year.  

Happy 2017!

Christmas!

Such excitement for Christmas here!  Santa worked long and hard to find just the right things for each of these red-headed children.  I think he was successful.  Also, I didn't have to

work on the eve-a great present for me.  Here's some pics, but not too many since I didn't want to celebrate behind a camera lens.

The night before....

All the stockings...too heavy for my makeshift mantle that I've done in the past.  So much easier just to lay them out on the couch.  Plus, clearly some things did not fit in the stockings.

Christmas day is was fun to hear kids run down stairs to find their stockings and  presents.  Except for Marcus, he did not run.  He is too cool.

Cale-happy with his panda things.

Some super-heroes for Kella.

Ewan-excited for presents.

I think all the kids loved their presents.  Kella wished there were more.  Kinley, Kella and Liam all helped Grammy Pammy open her gifts (as in, opening the present on the way to handing the present to Grammy).  I don't remember too much fighting that day. We had new toys and new games to play.  New electronics, too. And, we had a killer dinner, made by Andy, of beef brisket plus sides.  A great day overall.  

Grammy, reading with Kinley's  pigs.

Hats and presents from Aunt Claud!

So fun to be able to spend this day together!