"Mama you taught me to do the right things.."

Happy birthday Mama! We love you so much, and we are so blessed to have a mother as wonderful as you!

"And remember Mama, you are my sunshine!"

(Title lyrics from Mama's Song by Carrie Underwood)

"You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine..."

Today is Mom's Birthday! Unfortunately Jordan's gone, to California, so she couldn't be here. She is baby-sitting for Ben, Addie and Jack, (see her mini blog/twitter) our younger cousins for a few days while Uncle Mark and Aunt Julia are on Vacation. Mom didn't really want to celebrate without her, so we did a small celebration with pancakes, sausage and eggs... And of course the presents!

Jordan, AJ and I gave her a certificate for 5 massage at The Highlands Day Spa. One of which is today! Dad, Joel and Isaac all got her another laptop, as her old one wasn't working too well. Gregory gave her a hanging basket! He was very proud of it... Mom also loved all our cards, we got those ones how you press the button and your message plays before the song... yeah! DoeDoe found this one for Gregory that had You are My Sunshine, Mom's and His song :) She was very happy to see that!

Altogether we had a happy day, even if DoeDoe wasn't here to celebrate! I apologize for the lack of pictures - We didn't take any today! I'll try to take more pictures for the blog though... If Jordan left her camera! Okay ptyl everybody!

Title Lyrics from You Are My Sunshine

"The good Lord gave us mountains so we could learn how to climb..."

After two months of hard work and three weeks of utter chaos, scrabbling to get the project completed, Regional History Day was over after we performed at 11am. How did I reward us for all our hard work? I started a blog.

Our goal in this blog is to keep you updated on the ins and outs of the Schaefer life. With most of the literate members of the family as contributors, we hope to have fresh posts for you to read consistently. Be sure to comment and let us know what you think!

Back to History Day: For those you for who don’t know the story, after being told repeatedly since September that we would be doing a project, Joel, Isaac and myself (with our WONDERFUL mother and grandmother as leaders, helpers and counselors) finally started research on our topic in January. We had chosen as a topic, John Adams and his part in the Boston Massacre of 1770.

At the moment, as much as I’d like to, I can’t share with you about all the interesting facts we did learn about the situation and the events that lead up to, happened on and followed after March 5th 1770. What I can tell you is our Wiki page that we used during research, is being built up and should be available for browsing in the not-too-distant future. We’ll update you as soon as that is up and running.

March 15th, 2008 was our deadline and the date of Idaho History Day’s regional competition. From those in the audience and the judges, we are told that the performance was wonderful and of amazing quality. Each of the three judges gave us fantastic marks; simply gushing about the depth, superiority and measure of our research and then the quality of the performance and the actual acting.

For better or for worse, we were the only Senior Group Performance at Regional, which means we had no competition. But we were given a “well deserved” first-place and are heading to the State Competition in Caldwell, ID (Albertson College) on April 11th. Your prayers as we continue to develop our project and finalize our research would be greatly appreciated.

(Title lyrics from "Mountains" by Lonestar)