Happy Ninth

This post is progressing without much input from the birthday boy. In fact, Toa of Boy isn't even here. He's at camp. Without me. For a week. One of us isn't adjusting well to the separation.

And yes, this post is also getting written nearly a month after his actual birthday. Because somehow sitting down and contributing to Mommy's writing process wasn't high on the boy's priority list.

Meanwhile, my blog has been held hostage since obviously I can't write a birthday post for Sweetling and NOT write one for Toa of Boy. What kind of mother would that make me?

My first photos of Toa of Boy for his ninth year don't have Toa of Boy in the photo. Just his creations.

We were blessed this year with a HUGE tub of Lincoln Logs passed down to us from another homeschooling family. This was the first of many villages constructed.

But it was certainly not the last...

In fact, going through my photos of last year, there's a lincoln log village in nearly every month of the year.

But Toa didn't confine himself to Lincoln Logs. His real construction love was in Legos. While many months had a lincoln log village....nearly every week has an amazing Lego construction.

He kicked off his year of Legos with the Statue of Liberty last May.

Other, Mommy selected highlights of the Lego year include a two dimensional Puffle Mosaic.

And a complex, room by room, museum.

(We have close up photos of each room, but I'll just put the overview here.)

In addition to everything Toa built at home on his own, he also took a Lego Creation class at co-op this year and so came home with a portfolio full of photos of his classroom Lego construction projects.

One other building project I have to make mention of was his popsicle stick trestle bridge. This was a endcap project to a unit on industrial age construction and engineering. 

Not only did Toa take a Lego Creation class to hone his already sharp engineering skills, he also took a class on chess. Which put him way out of Mommy's league. I used to be able to hold my own against him, because while last summer Toa understood how the pieces moved and was quick to take my pieces if I was foolish enough to leave them unprotected, he didn't yet have any overall game strategies.

NOW, now, NOW he kicks my butt. He was already just sharp at chess...now he understands opening strategies and end game strategies and he lays cunning traps for the unwary. Look at him about to steal my black queen just a few moves into this game. His maniacal grin isn't quite visible in the photo. Pity that. (Pity me too!)

He also loves to design his own board games, and made a huge, choose your path adventure game which we all enjoyed playing. This photo is just one of 10 to 12 panels of this game board. Each panel had its own theme and its own challenges.

AND he made an amazing Perry the Platypus car for a pine car derby race!

AND his own cardboard box miniature golf course which took over the living room and had to be set up in shifts for each 'hole' to fit.

AND he finished his first TNT book for Awana. (Which I somehow cannot find a picture of him with his awards from the award night. boo hoo.)

AND he had a sizeable speaking part in the children's spring musical.

AND he studied the solar system and had some cool, boy-oriented hands-on activities.

AND he earned his high blue belt in Tae Kwon Do.

Look how old he looks there. What happened to my Little Guy? How did he grow up so fast????