Birthday Interview: Leah is 8!

I almost forgot about the birthday interview until Nana Jana reminded me today! Leah started off strong but had to be prodded a bit to finish it. 

1. How old are you? 8
2. What is your favorite color? Spring Green (breaking Orange's long run!) 
3. What is your favorite toy? Hmmmm. Green Tea. It's a squishmallow cat. 
4. What is your favorite game? Hmmmm. I know what it is, but I don't really know what it's called. Can you describe it? It has to be on a windy day. You stand at one side of the yard & when the wind starts blowing in the opposite direction, you start to run forward & when the wind stops blowing, you run backward, and you try to see if you can get all the way across the yard before the wind stops blowing. Did you learn this from Bluey? No. Where did you learn it? I actually made it up, but when I told other people at school about it, they said somebody had already made it up. Do you play it at school? Yeah. 
5. What is your favorite song? "Beep Beep, I'm a Sheep" 
6. What is your favorite animal? Fox
7. What is your favorite book? Wings of Fire
   

   
8. What is your favorite movie? BFG 
9. What is your favorite TV show? I don't really know. Mark Rober videos
   

    
10. What is your favorite thing to eat? Salmon!
11. Where is your favorite place to go? Cosmo Park  
12. Who is your best friend? Frankie 
13. What is something you learned last year when you were 7? Last year I learned about sea dragons What are those? It's a type of slug that lives in the sea that kind of looks like dragons
    

    

    
    
14. What is something you'll learn now that you're 8? How to ride a bike without training wheels definitely
15. What is your favorite part of school? Probably reading & writing 
16. Who is your favorite teacher? Ms. Bashem
17. What is hard for you to do? (long pause) Thinking of things like this 
18. What is your favorite thing to do? Crafts 
19. What do you like about Me (Mama)? (long pause)  I do but I can't think of anything! (after another pause) You help me with stuff
20. What do you like about Dada?  He usually makes our dinner
21. What do you like about Amelie? Oh! She lets me borrow pretty much anything 
22. What do you like about Jim? He's good at music
23. What about Spark? He always wants to play with us
24. What do you like about yourself? I get back up again when I fall down. Is that literal or metaphorical? It's kind of both. The recess that I spent the whole time playing my favorite game, I fell down, got a bandaid and then started playing again. 
25. What do you want to be when you grow up? A chef!

Links:

7th birthday interview: https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2024/03/birthday-interview-leah-is-7.html 

6th birthday interview: https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2023/03/birthday-interview-leah-is-6.html

5th Birthday Interview: https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2022/03/birthday-interview.html 

4th birthday Interview: https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2021/03/leahs-first-birthday-interview.html

Pierced Ears

Leah's been asking to get her ears pierced & we said she could do it for her 8th birthday. Aunt Holly & I took her to Claire's in the mall and made an outing of it. 

She was looking a little nervous at first: 

But she was an absolute champ - it didn't faze her at all. 

It was also buy 3 get 3 plus 20% off since we did an ear piercing, so Holly & Leah had fun looking at every item in the store to pick out some things - including some earrings to look forward to for when she can change them in 4-6 weeks and this flower clip. 

Turns out it's kind of hard to take a picture of a tiny earring! 

Aunt Holly was skeptical about going to Claire's but we changed her mind!   

Drum Debut

Sam & Jim played at church - they'd done this before with Jim on the ukulele, but this was his debut on the drums. 

 Here’s the video (Sam wrote the song): 
It was during the burning of the grudges, and thus pretty noisy! You can see the flashes of light when the paper goes up in flames reflecting against the wall. 

Zoo Lights

I didn't think we'd be able to make the zoo lights this year - it was predicted to rain almost every day in St Louis - but the chance kept going down & there were only a few drops on the last day. I had (unfounded?) high hopes for this photo opportunity spot. 

The snow is fake! It was bubbles: 

We saw some sleeping sea lions and went through the penguin house. I thought this moltey penguin was amusing: 

We got hot chocolate & churros 

We walked around for about 3 hours!

We rode the carousel twice: 

And watched the 4-D movie - Rudolph this year. 

Here's the link to last year. 

Christmas 2024

Well, Christmas 2024 is in the books.

Caption: Hello Jim. It appears that you have been mean to your sister your whole life and I never gave you coal so be expecting it. Naughty list ....... James ........... PS (to Leah) you are not on the naughty list, that was a prank from your brother. 

Jim & Leah were arguing about how to make Mac & cheese for lunch on Christmas Eve & Leah whirled around to stomp off & ran smack into the door knob (or maybe door frame)? She immediately developed quite the black eye - and it gets ever more pronounced throughout the series of Christmas photos. They made up that afternoon & she regained her good spirits! 

We started celebrating with the UUCC Christmas Eve Service - we've gone I think every year since 2013. I took a before church picture of the kids: 

And an after church picture of the whole family. We've taken a photo in front of the ficus tree several years in a row. Why not the Christmas tree, you ask? That's a good question! Maybe it's too busy in the lobby? 

The candlelight service is very nice. I asked Leah if she'd hold an electric candle or a real one and she remembered and reminded me that This Was The Year I'd said she could hold a real one. She was careful! You can barely, barely see her and Amelie in this photo that Sam took. His folks attended the same (somewhat rowdier) family service that we did, but we didn't all sit together - it was quite crowded! 

Jim and Leah really, really wanted to open a gift after we got home on Christmas Eve. This isn't really a tradition that we've done - except maybe one year when we said they could open a book. Amelie didn't want to spoil any of the surprise. 

They drug out all of the gifts & sorted them into piles (so as to pick the best one?) Leah got her color chemistry set & we did experiment #4 with black ink. Jim opened Amelie's gift to him, which was smooth black tuxedo paper & special gel markers that would draw nicely on the black paper. 

Here's everything put back under the tree after the kids were in bed - all ready to go for Christmas - you might notice the bike-shaped lump under the blanket. Leah did not notice it! 

I heard Jim and Leah get up about 5:20am! They were talking downstairs & perhaps rifling through some of the packages. Sam went down a little after 6 to start bacon and cinnamon rolls that he'd prepped the night before & we were wondering when to wake Amelie up, but she came down right after 7. 

Sam made the kids line up for a picture with their stockings before they could get started. 

And they're off!

Amelie was VERY EXCITED to get this book: 

She spent the day reading it - The Book of Bill (from Gravity Falls) 

Leah was not impressed by the dime-sized amount of lip balm in the Bluey lip balm. 

Here she is working on her science experiment / chemistry set again - this time Experiment #7 (erupting volcano): 

Jim got 400 tiny plastic ducks & has named all of them Jamarion for some reason.

Here's Jim with his baritone ukulele - we were afraid it wouldn't come in time, but it pulled through at the last minute. 

We kept laughing because he kept making this face!

Sam also enjoyed playing with the uke! I think this is only fair, since Jim has completely co-oped the regular ukulele I got Sam for Christmas in 2019. 

The bubble wrap that was around the ukulele was a bonus. 

We spent Christmas night dinner with the Buffaloes - we'll get to see his younger brother & sister in law from New Mexico on New Year's. (& Someone should take a picture!!) 

And then the day after Christmas, Nana Jana & Steve came over & gave the kids even more presents. We did not coordinate on the brown clothing. 

Here's the link to 2023! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Eve

Well, it finally happened - one of the kids fell into the fountain at Cherry Hill (not pictured). They were a great sport about it (after the initial shrieking) and continued on to drive around and see some more lights & the unity tree. 

I'd heard the Magic Tree had to move & when we got there the new one was smaller & another of the kids said "Well, this is underwhelming." But it was still nice! And the weather was great!

Like mother, like daughter: 

Nutcracker

Nana Jana took me & Leah & James to see the Nutcracker. 

Leah was very pleased with her fancy dress.  

Jim wore his own fancy shirt. He's so tall! 

It was Jim's idea to take individual photos, too. 

Steve played chauffeur. 

I didn't know you could take drinks/candy into the theater, but Jim asked the workers at concession who said he could & then had 2 seven-ups. Leah wanted to stand up towards the end but was mollified by sitting on the aisle step - as you can see we were all the way up in the back. 

Here's a link to the first time we went - with just Amelie.