Eight years old!

Monster ice cream cake in Maryland on December 8

Today is Ian's eighth birthday! He was due on January 20, but he decided to come on December 12, although the doctors were convinced he could wait at least a few more days even after my water broke. They were wrong. His delivery was the only one that I was not under general anesthesia. The first 3 years of his life were rather stressful due to physical issues, but since that time he's been a healthy child, for which I am very grateful. Normally we have celebrated his birthday with his grandparents at our house, but we're doing things

differently this year. First, we celebrated Grandpa and Ian's birthdays on Friday in Maryland. Today we had donuts for breakfast, he had chicken nuggets for lunch (his request), and we're all having pizza and birthday cake for dinner (his request). He opened his present from Grandpa and Gubba on Friday. He opened his presents from Paul and I this morning, and he'll be opening his present from Grandma and Pop Pop next week.

On December 19 we'll be celebrating Pop Pop and Ian's

birthdays in Lancaster by attending the Miracle of Christmas at Sight and Sound. My Dad's birthday is December 10, Ian's is December 12, and Pop Pop's is December 20. Next year I'll try to have a more traditional "party" for him and invite some of his friends. I started inviting friends to Nadia's birthday party when she turned eight. Ironically, Nadia had a Minion birthday party when she turned eight in 2016. Ian picked that theme because today we're going to watch Despicable Me 3 for the first time. It came out in the theaters this past summer and came

out on DVD last week. One of his birthday gifts was a DVD that contained all three Despicable Me movies. One of the perks of homeschooling is that we can take a day off of school for birthdays. I'm taking advantage of the day off of homeschooling to work on grading for the university.

1. He loves to snuggle.

2. He always wants to have honey mustard with his chicken tenders or nuggets. That is what he usually orders when we are at a sit down or fast food restaurant.

3. He always wants to have ketchup and mustard on his hot dogs. He often has a hot dog for lunch.

4. Pizza is one of his favorite things to have for dinner, and he's especially happy if it's pepperoni pizza.

5. He has a peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwich almost every day at lunch. I don't buy lunch meat very often, but if I bought turkey he'd pick that instead.

6. He still loves Legos although he plays with them far fewer hours per week than he used to.

7. He also still loves playing with stuffed animals. He carries them all over the house and even into the van. His favorites at the moment are his Minions. He loves the purple Minion I got him for his birthday. He was surprised when he opened it!

8. For many months almost every chapter book he read was from the Magic Tree House series (library books). Now he's reading through

the Imagination Station series. We own every book that has been published thus far in that series because Nadia also read all of them. Ian likes to read, but thus far he's not a bookworm like his sister has been (and still is).

9. He loves his guinea pig, Patches. He doesn't hold her as much as he did the first few months, but he does give her love every day. Grandpa and Gubba gave him a small stuffed animal for his birthday that looks like Nadia's guinea pig, Jenna.

10. He really loves bacon. If he requests breakfast for dinner, it's most likely because he wants to eat bacon. He doesn't care for eggs. He enjoys pancakes, especially if they have chocolate chips in them.

11. His favorite things to eat for breakfast include Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp, donuts, pop tarts, Frosted mini wheat, and Reese's Puffs. He chose a Peanut Butter Cup donut for his birthday breakfast. I buy six donuts and the birthday boy or girl gets two and everyone else has one donut. Ian, who can be very

generous at times, gave Oliver the extra donut today.

12. His favorite fruit to have at lunch is watermelon. When that isn't in season, his next favorite is a golden delicious apple cut into slices. He usually dips his apple slices in peanut butter. On their birthdays the kids are allowed to take a reprieve from eating fruits and vegetables if they want. Ian made sure I didn't forget about this family tradition!

13. His favorite vegetable to have at dinner is green beans.

14. He loves to drink apple juice or chocolate milk, but we don't usually have either of those in our refrigerator. The vast majority of the time he only drinks water.

15. He likes to sleep on top of a host of stuffed animals with his special blue blanket, sheet, and comforter on top of him.

16. He gets the least sleep of my three kids, in part because he usually wakes up between 6:15-6:30.

17. He sometimes falls asleep in the van, but not nearly as often as Oliver does.

18. He plays the piano more than his siblings do. Last week he was promoted from Level 1A to Level 1B (orange books to green books). I'm pleased with his progress especially as he is finally reading the music. For the first several months he was prone to memorizing it rather than reading the notes.

19. Last week he also was promoted to the third grade math textbook. It should go smoothly for him because he already knows his multiplication and division facts. Math comes more easily to Ian than it does to Nadia.

20. He doesn't play the Wii much, but when he does, he loves to play Mario. One of his birthday gifts that I got him was Mario Cart for the Wii.

21. When he plays a board game, he loves to use something else for his "men" than whatever typically comes with the game. He might use a Lego mini-figure for example. In Maryland a few days ago he used a Smurf when playing Sorry. I got him the game Mastermind for his birthday. This definitely wasn't his favorite gift, but hopefully he will enjoy playing it. It was a game I really enjoyed when I was a child. Oliver had fun playing with the colored pegs this morning.

22. He loves to draw people on little bits of paper and put them into the plastic holders for the people in Chutes and Ladders.

23. He prefers to play with Nadia, but lately she has been spending more time in her room by herself and so Ian has been either playing by himself more or playing with Oliver more than usual. He and Oliver don't get along as well as he and Nadia do, but hopefully over time that will improve.

24. I've given him a break from doing a handwriting textbook this year. Nadia started learning cursive in January of 2nd grade, but I'm going to wait until the third grade for Ian to start cursive.

25. Ian has started doing Rosetta Stone Spanish this year.

26. He is making a lot of progress in gymnastics, especially with his cartwheels.

27. He made a lot of progress in basketball; I'm looking forward to seeing how he'll do this season as he'll be playing on a 2nd/3rd grade team. His first practice is this Thursday night.

28. He loves to draw. Lately he has been into drawing arctic animals such as arctic loons, walruses, penguins, etc. He was very excited to see the puffins at the aquarium on Saturday.

29. He is a homebody.

30. He prefers baths, but because he and Oliver were making a mess in the bathroom, he has begun to take showers instead.

31. He prefers to sit with us in the worship service than to attend the Kids' program.

32. He sings quite a bit throughout the day. I love to hear him sing!

33. His glasses strap does a great job of keeping his glasses on his face. Now if we could find a way to keep his two nose pads on his eyeglasses. They've been replaced many times. At the moment he's missing one of them.

34. He eats his breakfast efficiently and feeds the guinea pigs and gives them water each morning.

35. He is very bossy and critical when he interacts with Oliver.

36. He has begun to ask for me to invite his friends over to our house. Next year I'll be sure to invite some boys to his birthday party.

37. He is almost half-way through the third grade spelling book.

38. This year he played on a basketball team, soccer team, and flag football team.

39. He really enjoyed his second week at Camp Good News this summer (day camp). He went by himself in 2016. This year he went with Nadia and Addylade (neighbor). He didn't want to go to an overnight camp this year, but next June he will be going to Camp Susque for 3 nights.

40. He enjoyed horseback riding lessons, swimming lessons, and tennis lessons this past summer.

41. He loves babies - both infants and baby animals. One of his birthday gifts today were two small purple dragon hatchlings (figurines).

42. He doesn't like to wear socks. He takes them off as soon as we come in the house. He wears them only when he has shoes on his feet (when we're not at home).

43. He mostly wears size 7 or 7/8 shirts or tops. I tried a size 8 dress shirt on him, and it was far too big. He wears size 6 or 6/7 pants. There are a few size 7 pants that fit him, but most of the pants I have in that size are in his closet until he grows a bit taller. Ian can also fit into some 5/6 pants, but I have given those to Oliver because Oliver wears 5 or 5/6 pants now. Ian's favorite clothes to wear lately have been sweatshirts (Monday through Saturday) and a sweater or a sweater vest with a turtleneck on Sundays. Dress shirts and ties aren't his favorite any longer. I think he will get a lot of use out of the custom t-shirt over the next year that I got him for his birthday announcing that he has turned 8! It has a BB8 on it from Star Wars, which I thought was perfect given he's now 8 years old.

44. He lost three teeth in the past few months - all on his top jaw. His front two teeth have come back in at weird angles. He's returning to the orthodontist next month, and then we'll find out if he's ready to start braces yet or not.

45. He loves to use the iPad. Because he got a new game he's playing the Wii instead of the iPad today. Normally he has to earn a turn (20 minutes), but since it's his birthday he can play a total of 40 minutes today without needing to earn those turns. 

46. He has really been enjoying listening to the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place (a book series we've been listening to in the van that we have been checking out from the library).

47. Ian has a hard time saving money. He wants to spend it as soon as he gets any. He is generous with his money though and often buys Nadia something that she wants with his money.

48. He and Oliver both love to listen to music on the CD player.

49. He has seen all of the Star Wars movies except for The Force Awakens. Mario, Minions, and Star Wars are some of his favorite things to talk about.

50. He's now old enough that he doesn't need to use a booster seat in the car any longer! His new chore is going to be to help clean the bathrooms with me once a week. Nadia will be relieved of that chore, and instead she is going to start helping me with sweeping the kitchen. He can't wait until he can stay up until 9 pm (when he turns 9).