20 QUESTIONS: JAMES AT 8-YEARS

Most of these are accurate, honest answers, but keep in mind that James is equally likely to have answered some of the questions with the last thing he did/watched/listened to...

1. What is your favorite color? 
Blue

2. What is your favorite toy? 
Legos

3. What is your favorite thing to eat? 
I'm gonna choose a Go Food - Cherries!

4. What is your favorite thing to drink?
Water. I'm just choosing healthy things. 

5. What is your favorite thing to wear? 
MineCraft clothes

6. What is your favorite game? 
Lego Dimensions

7. What is your favorite animal? 
Penguin

8. What is your favorite song? 
The Jewel Song (he and Cora inherited some of our old CDs...)

9. What is your favorite book? 
The Ender Eye Prophecy

10. Who is your best friend? 
William

11. What is your favorite thing to do with Cora? 
Play cat and mother

12. What is your favorite thing to do with Mama?

Kiss

13. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?

Hug

14. What do you want to be when you grow up? 
Beat Boxer. I thought you already knew it?

15. What are you afraid of? 
Heights

16. What’s your favorite type of adventure? 
Going hiking

17. What makes you happy? 
Buster

18. What makes you sad? 
Me losing Jude (me too buddy)

19. What is your favorite movie? 
The School of Rock

20. What is your favorite TV show?

Frozen Planet

20 QUESTIONS: CORA AT 6 YEARS

Mama forgot to do these back in June (traveling on/near the kids birthdays can make it hard to remember all the "traditions" we keep, especially as I get older and my memory struggles), but better late than never!

1. What is your favorite color? blue and pink

2. What is your favorite toy? my baby doll (Aurora, when pressed to name one in particular, AKA the one she traded Cinderella for while in California)

3. What is your favorite thing to eat? popcorn and ice cream

4. What is your favorite thing to drink? water and juice and milk

5. What is your favorite thing to wear? my new Elsa dress up clothes that I got for my birthday

6. What is your favorite game? Uno and Slamwich

7. What is your favorite animal? deer and cats

8. What is your favorite song? Let it Go (yes, she's serious - I checked - seems we'll never be rid of this song)

9. What is your favorite book? (ran to go get it, though I suspect she just grabbed whatever was on top of the pile in her bed) Clifford's Birthday Party

10. Who is your best friend? Alanna! ooh, and don't forget Willow!

11. What is your favorite thing to do with James? play with him

12. What is your favorite thing to do with Mama? read with you

13. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy? wrestle

14. What do you want to be when you grow up? a ballerina dancer

15. What are you afraid of? bears and tigers (said with much fake drama and sound effects and running to hide)

16. What’s your favorite type of adventure? going on mountains

17. What makes you happy? mama kissing and loving on me (melt my heart!)

18. What makes you sad? when James hurts me

19. What is your favorite movie? Frozen (again, she's serious - still obsessed)

20. What is your favorite TV show? My Little Ponies

20 QUESTIONS: JAMES AT 7-YEARS

(Dark picture, but he was showing me how he can wiggle his first loose tooth with his tongue)

1. What is your favorite color?
Blue and Green

2. What is your favorite toy?
The Ninja Turtles tower thing

3. What is your favorite thing to eat?
Doughnuts (cue coy smile)

4. What is your favorite thing to drink?
Juice. Apple Juice.

5. What is your favorite thing to wear?
Minecraft shirt

6. What is your favorite game?
Lego Dimensions

7. What is your favorite animal?
Buster. (Dogs?) Yeah, a dog.

8. What is your favorite song?
The Goosebumps song at the first part of the movie

9. What is your favorite book?
Son of Slappy (Goosebumps)

10. Who is your best friend?
Manu. He feels like a cousin to me.

11. What is your favorite thing to do with Cora?
Play

12. What is your favorite thing to do with Mama?

Snap together (he means snapping our fingers in unison and competing)

13. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?

Whistle (I think he's being silly with these last two answers, but I'm not sure...)

14. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A Knight, so I can fight bad guys. Dun dun DUN!

15. What are you afraid of?
A Blaze. (and then I asked what a Blaze is...) It's like a guy a Minecraft that shoots fireballs at us and sets stuff on fire.

16. What’s your favorite type of adventure?
(shrugs shoulders) I don't have a favorite.

17. What makes you happy?
Playing with Legos (big smile... and a gesture, since he's currently building Legos as I ask him these questions)

18. What makes you sad?
When Cora slaps me

19. What is your favorite movie?
Goosebumps

20. What is your favorite TV show?

The Flash

CORA'S 20 QUESTIONS: 2015, AGE 5

(End of summer haircut to remove the crunchy, chlorinated ends before school starts. She chose the length herself and LOVES it, surprisingly, since she usually complains about even the slightest trims to her "Rapunzel hair". She went a little shorter than I'd have asked for had I been able to see around the corner from the dryer I was under, but if she's happy, I'm happy. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will be easier/less-dramatic to brush into a ponytail/bun at dance class...)

I'm posting Cora's 20 Questions today, but I did indeed ask her these closer to her 5th birthday (early July). I was just waiting for a good picture for the top of the post (and tonight I grabbed 3 good pictures of our little queen!) As usual, I recorded these verbatim. Her answers to 9 and 10 had me laughing, 14 is just... and I can't even explain 15 (since she has never seen a zombie outside of MineCraft). And since we're not outgrowing Elsa anytime soon (as evidenced by numbers 2, 5, 8, and 19), you can expect a room redo in the near future (she has requested BLUE walls, so we're rolling with it...)

1. What is your favorite color?  Light Blue and Pink
2. What is your favorite toy?  Elsa
3. What is your favorite thing to eat?  Pancakes
4. What is your favorite thing to drink?  Um... water
5. What is your favorite thing to wear?  My Elsa costume
6. What is your favorite game?  Skylanders Trap Team
7. What is your favorite animal?  Cats and kitties. Baby cats.
8. What is your favorite song?  Let it go!
9. What is your favorite book?  The Book of Life! Ha ha! OK, the I Spy books.
10. Who is your best friend?  James! James, my boy!
11. What is your favorite thing to do with James?  Play with him a the pool
12. What is your favorite thing to do with mama?  Kiss with you!
13. What is your favorite thing to do with daddy?  Kiss him and play Legos with him!
14. What do you want to be when you grow up?  A firefighter. I mean, a princess too, OK?
15. What are you afraid of?  Zombies! (said with creepy hands for emphasis) But not skeletons.
16. What is your favorite type of adventure?  Going to Disney and going on all the rides!
17. What makes you happy?  Kissing you and hugging you!
18. What makes you sad?  When Cannon scratches me
19. What is your favorite movie?  Frozen (but answered by breaking into song... "Let it go! Let it go!" and on and on and on, so I finally asked if Frozen was her favorite.)
20. What is your favorite TV show?  Teen Titans

JAMES' 20 QUESTIONS: 2015, AGE 6

I almost forgot to do these this year... The other night as we were driving home from the gym, James said "Mama, remember when I was 5?" Uh, yeah... it wasn't THAT long ago Bub Bubs... "Well, remember when you asked me what my favorite stuff was? I want to do that again!" Doh! (I TOLD you this boy has a better memory than his mama!)

(As always, answers are recorded verbatim)

1. What is your favorite color? Blue
2. What is your favorite toy? Legos
3. What is your favorite thing to eat? Waffles
4. What is your favorite thing to drink? Juice
5. What is your favorite thing to wear? Costumes
6. What is your favorite game? Minecraft. On PLAYSTATION!
7. What is your favorite animal? Wolf. I can be brave of wolves.
8. What is your favorite song? Spiderman
9. What is your favorite book? Well, I think... Well, it is... Well, the Lego book. In my backpack. (actually a comic book/magazine)
10. Who is your best friend? Eli! (and from school?) Ashia and Adrian! (anyone else?) And Manu! (I was hoping he'd say Cora...)
11. What is your favorite thing to do with Cora? Play video games
12. What is your favorite thing to do with mama? Kiss
13. What is your favorite thing to do with daddy? Play video games (this boy might be a bit too obsessed with video games for my liking...)
14. What do you want to be when you grow up? A police officer (aw, first time not saying "a daddy"...)
15. What are you afraid of? Invisible Man
16. What is your favorite type of adventure? Adventures with waterfalls
17. What makes you happy? Daddy being silly
18. What makes you sad? Cora calling me names
19. What is your favorite movie? Avengers
20. What is your favorite TV show? The Flash

CORA'S 20 QUESTIONS: 2014, AGE 4

Cora's 20 Questions, age 4.

Answers recorded verbatim (with mama's notes or additional questions in parenthesis).

1. What is your favorite color?

 

Pink, purple, blue, green... different colors.

 

2. What is your favorite toy?

 

My favorite toy is a kitty. (She has two stuffed kittens that she sleeps with.)

 

3. What is your favorite thing to eat?

 

Pancakes. (No change here!)

 

4. What is your favorite thing to drink?

 

Juice!

 

5. What is your favorite thing to wear?

 

Ariel. (The costume or the nightgown?) The nightgown.

 

6. What is your favorite game?

 

My favorite game is Doc McStuffins. (Had a little coaching from James there...)

 

7. What is your favorite animal?

 

A kitty. (Obviously)

 

8. What is your favorite song?

 

"Let it Go!" (Of course)

 

9. What is your favorite book?

 

Frozen! (She has the Little Golden Book about sisters.)

 

10. Who is your best friend?

 

Manu! (He is still talked about almost daily and the kids can't wait to see him next month) (And from school?) Asia and Emma!

 

11. What is your favorite thing to do with James?

 

Play in the pool and eat Popsicles!

 

12. What is your favorite thing to do with Mama?

 

Take a bath. (We are fond of our salt baths and bubble baths...)

 

13. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?

 

Cuddle with him! (That's so sweet Cora! Daddy likes to cuddle with you too!) I said COLOR, not cuddle! (Well OK then. Sorry daddy.)

 

14. What do you want to be when you grow up?

 

A mommy. (How many kids do you want to have?) 18! (18?!) I mean 1.

 

15. What are you afraid of?

 

Bears! (But that won't stop her from going into caves...)

 

16. What’s your favorite type of adventure?

 

Going to grandmas! (Since she said grandma quite clearly, I assume she meant both Gramma's house AND Grambot's house)

 

17. What makes you happy?

 

When I'm hugging my mommy! (Me too Baby Doll! You give amazing hugs. When you're not purposely trying to strangle me...)

 

18. What makes you sad?

 

When somebody hits me. Like Carolyn (new girl at school this summer, who NONE of us are enjoying very much) and Jameson (her best boy buddy at school - he plays rough, and apparently Cora is the only girl who will play with him... She also told me that he holds her hand and kisses her...)

 

19. What is your favorite movie?

 

Ariel! And Transformers! (There was some coaching from James agian here...) And Frozen! And the robot movie! (Again, coached by James... We let them watch Short Circuit over the weekend and it was a big hit)

 

20. What is your favorite TV show?

 

Octonauts (We love this one too - so much great information on marine life and the characters are adorable. Even the catchy songs don't bother us.)

JAMES' 20 QUESTIONS: 2014, AGE 5

(As always, answers are recorded verbatim.)

1. What is your favorite color? Blue
2. What is your favorite toy? My Batman house
3. What is your favorite thing to eat? Peanut butter and jelly
4. What is your favorite thing to drink? Juice. I all the time say I want to have juice!
5. What is your favorite thing to wear? My green picture clothes (I assume from his 5-year portraits?) and stripes too (and he asked me "Did you write down that I like stripes too?!" - I wonder if this is because I sometimes say I love boys in stripes?...)
6. What is your favorite game? Madagascar! Wait! Wait! No! Rescue Bots! (both are LeapPad games)
7. What is your favorite animal? My dinosaur (Jay's old stuffed dinosaur)
8. What is your favorite song? (holding his hands up in the classic "I don't know" gesture with a silly face) I don't have a favorite song (I had to tell him that was OK before he was willing to move on to the next question)
9. What is your favorite book? The Batman books (a series of 4 short story board books)
10. Who is your best friend? Manu
11. What is your favorite thing to do with Cora? Play with my best toys
12. What is your favorite thing to do with mama? Snuggle with you
13. What is your favorite thing to do with daddy? Snuggle with him too
14. What do you want to be when you grow up? A daddy (this is always his answer)
15. What are you afraid of? Monsters. Ones that have horns.
16. What is your favorite type of adventure? Going to the hotel with the waterslides inside! (yup, that trip was totally worth it - we're so going back!)
17. What makes you happy? Laughing (how cute is he?!)
18. What makes you sad? Coley, because she all the time doesn't want me to play with her and I always want to play with her... (Coley has always been his favorite girl in class and they used to play together a lot. He says that now she either plays with Manu only or with the girls only, and not with him. He looked genuinely sad about this, poor guy!)
19. What is your favorite movie? The Transformers
20. What is your favorite TV show? Legos of Chima (AKA Legends of Chima)

Links to questions from age 4 and age 3

CORA'S 20 QUESTIONS: 2013, AGE 3

 That's right folks, it's Cora's turn to answer the yearly questionaire!

Her answers were mostly predictable (we know she loves pink and baby dolls and pancakes, oh my!), but she threw me for a loop a couple of times (chocolate milk and scary movies?), and I thought it was cute that her favorite song is the same as James' was at 3-years.

1. What is your favorite color? "Pink!"
2. What is your favorite toy? "My babies"
3. What is your favorite thing to eat? "Pancakes"
4. What is your favorite thing to drink? "Chokit milk" (She really prefers "white" milk though...)
5. What is your favorite thing to wear? "Swimsuits" (True, and she wears them at random times)
6. What is your favorite game? "Dominoes"
7. What is your favorite animal? "A bear" (Yeah right...)
8. What is your favorite song? "ABCs!"
9. What is your favorite book? "A coloring one" (She's really into coloring lately)
10. Who is your best friend? "Emma and Asia" (School buddies)
11. What is your favorite thing to do with James? "Be him's best friend" (Aw, heart melt!)
12. What is your favorite thing to do with mama? "Go to work with mommy and watch a movie and go potty" (Yup, that's basically what she does at my office, a movie interspersed with MANY potty breaks so she can walk around and snag candy from my coworkers...)
13. What is your favorite thing to do with daddy? "Play with Dada and read books with Dada" (Admittedly, Jay does do more of the bedtime stories, but I get my turn a few times a week)
14. What do you want to be when you grow up? "A mom"
15. What are you afraid of? "Bears. We don't go on bear hunts." (Ha! Told ya!)
16. What is your favorite type of adventure? "Going for NO bear hunts and we can go to a hotel." (Apparently trips that require hotel stays are exciting, as long as there are no bears, or even singing about bears - she literally screams for us to stop if we start singing "Going on a bear hunt, gonna catch a big one!")
17. What makes you happy? "Petting Jude" (I honestly think Maxine is her favorite cat though)
18. What makes you sad? "Don't know" (Does this mean that she's always happy? That would be awesome!)
19. What is your favorite movie? "A scary, scary movie with monsters, with bigger monsters in the movie, real monsters, not pretend monsters!" (Oh yeah? I find that hard to believe...)
20. What is your favorite TV show? "Pirates!" (No idea what she means... "Jake and the Neverland Pirates"? She's seen that a few times and the kids own a Jake game. Or maybe she just said this because we let her watch "Pirates of the Caribbean" over the weekend...)

JAMES' 20 QUESTIONS: 2013, AGE 4

Last year we started the tradition of asking James 20 questions after his birthday, to record some of his favorite things at that age and see how they change as he grows up. His answers last year were pretty accurate for what we would have answered for him at the time, based on his known likes and dislikes. Same goes for this year, though I would have guessed blue as his favorite color and "Over the Rainbow" as his favorite song. His favorite book changes every week, so that's a hard one. And honestly, his answer for the favorite animal question is likely due to the fact that he and Cora were searching for the toy snake after dinner (so Cora could take it to school for "S" week), though we hadn't just had pizza and water for dinner (so those really ARE his favorite menu items). His answer to #14 melted my heart, as did his answer to #17 again this year.

1. What is your favorite color?
Green and red.

2. What is your favorite toy?
The helicopter.

3. What is your favorite thing to eat?
Pizza.

4. What is your favorite thing to drink?
Water.

5. What is your favorite thing to wear?
Batman (while gesturing with his arms to show me his jammies).

6. What is your favorite game?
Soccer game.

7. What is your favorite animal?
  A snake.
8. What is your favorite song?
Twinkle, twinkle little star.

9. What is your favorite book?
Letters. ABC letters book.

10. Who is your best friend?
Manu.

11. What is your favorite thing to do with Cora?
Play with toys.

12. What is your favorite thing to do with Mama?
Work with you.

13. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy?
Wrestle like this (gesturing and making noises like "pew! pew! PISH!").

14. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A daddy. I want to be James' daddy.

(Now that's a compliment to Jay if I've ever heard one...)

15. What are you afraid of?
I don't know. I'm afraid of monsters.

16. What’s your favorite type of adventure?
Going on a bear hunt. And a dinosaur hunt. No, not a dinosaur hunt. I don't want to sneak up on dinosaurs 'cause they're THIS giant (again with the gesturing).

17. What makes you happy?
Mommy and Daddy.

18. What makes you sad?
Daddy going away from me. He goes away when he's mad and angry at me. (When I then asked him if it was better for Daddy to walk away though than to yell, he said "Yeah, this is not a yelling house. Yelling is not nice.")

19. What is your favorite movie?
Spiderman and Ironman. (Not that he's seen either movie...)

20. What is your favorite TV show?
Spectacular Spiderman!