Samuel True: Birthday Portraits & Interview

Sam is another year older. What a great year he had being six! The top portrait I've titled "Seven Going on Seventeen" since it looks like a pretty typical senior portrait, and he's so serious. Sam has grown up a LOT the past year, and has begun writing his name and introducing himself to people as Samuel because that's "more official".

The photo above was Sam's personal favorite from the shoot. He didn't elaborate as to why it was his favorite, but maybe it reminds him of all the times he's down in the grass because he slid for the ball playing soccer. That became his overwhelmingly favorite sport this year, both to play and to watch. His favorite club is Real Madrid and his favorite player is Diego Forlan of Uruguay. Falling in love with soccer has been a natural impetus to Sam learning a lot more geography and to writing better, as he keeps stats of all sorts of games in a notebook, just like his big brother.

Sam believes his biggest accomplishment of the past year was learning to swim. Other contenders for the title were performing in a choir concert and playing on a soccer team. He's also proud to have lost several teeth, survived getting his first cavities filled, and followed that up with being cavity-free at his last cleaning. He does not love having his picture taken.

Of the many books he has read both alone and together with Isaac & I as part of school, his favorite this year was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. He's not yet seen either movie version and I can't wait to show him! His favorite song remains "Angels We Have Heard on High" but he also enjoys many of the Glee covers he hears on my iPod.

His favorite DVD is the one of World Cup 2010 Highlights Isaac got for Christmas, but his favorite actual movie from the past year is Despicable Me. We all love those silly minions. Sam's favorite thing to do around the house is the Wii, though his first answer was play soccer. His favorite game is now Wii Sports Resort, but he just got that for his birthday (so it's not from the past year).

Though we studied the human body by his special request and have had a great time with our science curriculum on the animal kingdom, Sam declared his favorite subject of the past year to be History. In particular, he liked the unit study we did on Egypt. Noteworthy to me is how well Sam has done in math. He memorized most of the multiplication tables quickly and can visualize math in his head far easier than I. Scripture study is part of our daily life and I consider it part of school, too. His favorite scripture hero (at least today) is Captain Moroni with his Title of Liberty. Good choice. You can read about him here.

This dramatic and delightful son is cuddly with me and/or his father, when he sits still, loves his baby brother with a passion, desires Isaac's constant companionship, and tolerates Charlie pretty well. He is confident and talks with strangers easily. He likes to read in bed, especially my old Calvin & Hobbes anthologies (Calvin, you may recall, was a six-year-old.), although currently he's re-reading Prince Caspian from C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series.The sky is the limit on Samuel's potential and I can't wait to see what this year of being seven brings!