Connor {9 years}

There is just something about your first born. I feel like both of us have grown so much together over the years. Not to mention, Connor is just so sweet with his mama. He still holds my hand all the time and freely gives me hugs.

Connor is such a tender hearted and sweet boy, yet also loves to shoot you at close range with his nerf guns. He loves reading and devours books in a matter of hours. He definitely prefers realistic books and funny books to make believe. He has read a lot of history books, as well as all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and Captain Underpants. He enjoys playing with cars and going on drives with his dad. He also enjoys picking fights with his sister and brother ;) He has such an imagination as well. The things he comes up with never cease to blow my mind. Especially his ideas for making money. He has sold everything from comic books he has written, to paper airplanes. And his latest invention is an arcade game made out of a box that he operates and charges 50 cents for.

Connor also has a love for Harry Potter, which makes this mama's heart happy, as I too love it. We have read through the first three books together, reading them as the illustrated versions come out. But he has gone back and read the first two by himself as well. We have watched the first four movies together as well and he is ready for the fifth.

Connor has really expanded his palate over the past year and I have been very impressed. He loves all sorts of kinds of seafood. We make shrimp at home, but he loves going out for poke bowl and eating the raw fish. He has even gotten to the point where he will eat more and more of the meals I cook without them having to be modified, like he will now eat things with sauce and has even eaten some of the soups I have made this fall. He is just more and more willing to try things.  I am really proud of him and it gives me hope for our other picky eater.

Connor recently started taking showers in the morning before school. It was all his idea and I have to say, it just feels so grown up! There is just so little I have to remind him to do these days and it feels weird.

Connor prefers to be home over being out and about. He likes battling me and Ian at tetherball. He also enjoys playing various board games. Though the thing you can find him doing the most is curled up with a book.


Now for a little interview with Connor:

What is your favorite:

     color - red

     food - ahi tuna

     drink - root beer

     ice cream - cookies n cream

     toy - nerf guns

     book - Diary of a Wimpy Kid

     song - all the songs from the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid

     tv show - The Andy Griffith Show

     movie - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

     thing to do - watch Harry Potter

     game - clue

     sport - soccer

     animal - leopard shark

Who is your best friend? Nixon

What do you like doing with your friends? have nerf wars

Where did you meet Nixon? I don't know, where did I? His house?

What is your favorite thing about school? I have the nicest teacher in the whole universe

What do you enjoy learning the most? math

What do you like to do on the playground? play tetherball 

Who do you play with at school? everyone who plays tetherball

What is your favorite thing about yourself? That I was born in Scotland

Three things that makes you special:

     1. How good I can read

     2. I was born in Scotland

     3. That I'm the oldest kid in my family

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Connor {8 years}

The night before Connor turned eight, I spent a bunch of time going through old pictures of him to make a photo collage. I had so much fun walking down memory lane. Moments that seem like they happened yesterday, but also feel like a lifetime ago. I really do love how pictures can take me immediately back to that moment. Then Connor got in on the action and his little comments were cracking me up. Him remembering special moments or saying how cute he was as a little kid or requesting for me to find pictures from certain times. I really enjoyed laying in his bed with him doing that. It was a really great way to spend his last night as a seven year old. 

Connor is such a special kid. He can seem so grown up at times, yet is still so tender toward me. He still lets me lay in bed with him and talk. He asks for me to go out on the playground with him at recess when I volunteer in his class. He will hold my hand on the way home from school. I hope we are always able to maintain and open and close relationship. 

Connor is still very much a first born personality. He is a natural leader and tends to do well around adults. He is a rule follower through and through, though does an excellent job pushing his sister's buttons all the time. He loves reading. In fact, that is probably an understatement. He literally reads for hours each day. He loves it that much. His current favorites are the diary of a wimpy kid series and the captain underpants series. He also really enjoyed the jake drake series and books by Roald Dahl. Him and I are still reading through the Harry Potter series together, but that's a him and I thing, so kind of separate from anything else. 

Connor has a very vivid and alive imagination and can often be found drawing complicated things and making up story lines to go with them. He loves playing board games. He isn't picky, almost any will do. He loves playing with friends. He can often be found awake literally hours past his bedtime...poor guy has always struggled going to sleep at night! And he is generally the first kid up in the morning too. 

Connor is quite the picky eater, though has really branched out lately. I laugh about him being picky because he literally will not eat meat, yet he loves shrimp. He would drink gatorade all the time if I let him. His favorite breakfast is currently eggs over medium. The yolks have to be runny or he won't eat them. He also loves egg nog and ramen noodle soup. Oh, and let us not forget munchies and cheetos. He may be picky, but sure loves his junk food! Actually, he will eat pretty much any fruit. He's just not a fan of veggies or meat. 

Here's Connor's answers to the same questions I've asked him for the past several years:

What's your full name? Connor Thomas Booth Grimbleby

How old are you? 8

How tall are you? 4 1/2 feet

What color are your eyes? Blue

What color is your hair? Brown 

What is your favorite...

    color - red

    food - ramen noodles and mac & cheese

    drink - root beer, orange crush and dr pepper (this made me laugh. I know he has had root beer before, but I never

              knew he had had the other drinks before, so who knows!)

    ice cream - cherry sherbert 

    toy - bey blades (he just got them at his birthday party)

    book - Captain Underpants

    song - I don't have a favorite song

    tv show - I don't really watch tv (hahahahah!)

    movie - Cars 2 (he swore he hated these movies up until a week ago!)

    thing to do - play 

    game - monopoly

    sport - soccer

    animal - allosaurus

Who is your best friend? Nixon

What is your favorite thing about yourself? That I'm the oldest one in my family 

Three things that make you special:

    1. I'm the oldest one in my family

    2. I have a lot of friends

    3. I know how to play chess

I asked if he wanted to add anything and he said he wanted to add that his favorite app is super mario cart run. And I would like to add that I found out he was telling everyone proudly on his birthday that he was born in Scotland. That made me smile. I have often wondered what he would think about that the older he gets and it was fun to find out from some of the adults at his school that he was telling all them...which of course led to questions of why we lived there and such. 

This past eight years has been quite the journey. This boy of mine has stretched me more than I knew I could stretch. He has pushed my patience. He has made me love more than I knew possible. And he has made me swell with joy and pride more than I knew I could. That's eight years down and a lifetime left to go. 

In case you want to take a walk down memory lane with Connor, here are his updates from years past - 7 years, 6 years, 5 years, 4 years, 3 years, 2 years, 1 year and 6 months.

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An Interview With Connor {6 years}

I didn't expect this, but I really had to keep at it with trying to get answers to these questions from Connor. He would answer "I don't know" to almost everything. And, a couple of the questions I asked numerous times and finally just gave up because I couldn't get a response. Maybe this is a preview of the teen years…eek! Anyway, here's Connor at six years old from the perspective of Connor. 

What's your full name? Connor Thomas Booth Grimbleby
How old are you? 6
How tall are you? I don't know
What color are your eyes? blue
What color is your hair? Let me go look in the mirror…brown
What day of the week is it? Saturday, my birthday

What is your favorite…
     color - blue
     food - candy
     drink - apple juice
     ice cream - blue raspberry
     toy - my skeleton (a decoration from halloween)
     book - I don't really have one favorite, I have lots of favorites. Like my outer space books.
     song - Welcome to New York and Day One
     show - I'm not going to tell you (I tried asking three different times)
     thing to do - Go to Rockin Jump
     game - minion operation
     sport - tball
     animal - bird

Who is your best friend? Nixon
What is your favorite thing about yourself?

Three things that make you special:
     1. I was born in Scotland
     2. My name starts with the letter C
     3. That I lost two teeth before sissy

What makes you happy? When I get what I want
What makes you sad? When I have to go into time out

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An Interview with Isla {4 years}

Just to remember some of the things Isla was in to when she turned four…or some of the things that just don't make sense and it will be fun to watch her answers change over the years.


What's your full name? Isla Grimbleby
How old are you? 4
How tall are you? 4
What color are your eyes? blue
What color is your hair? brown
What day of the week is it? I don' t know

What is your favorite…
     color - purple
     food - watermelon
     drink - apple juice
     ice cream - vanilla
     toy - Cinderella light up toy
     book - Cinderella
     song - princesses (I even questioned her on this, but she insisted on it. I really don't know.)
     show - Cinderella (sense a theme?!)
     thing to do - play
     game - hide and seek
     sport - silly (yeah, I don't know)
     animal - kitties

Who is your best friend? Felicity and Payslie
What is your favorite thing about yourself? My head

Three things that make you special:
     1. my toys
     2. my necklaces
     3. "that's all"


Some of Isla's answers took me by surprise a little. For instance, though she really likes Cinderella, I didn't expect her to pick all that Cinderella stuff. She plays with her stuffed kitties all the time and takes them everywhere with her, so I expected something like that to be her favorite toy. And I thought she would say Little Einstein's or Jake and the Neverland Pirates was her favorite show. I was excited to ask her things about herself and see her answers. Her saying her head was her favorite thing about herself made me smile. The answer came complete with her patting herself on the head. And the things that make her special threw me off a little, but gave me a chuckle too.

It's fun watching my kids grow up and I am excited to see the answers change over the years…and eventually I am sure I will have to take away their car keys to get them to cooperate with my little interviews ;)

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