SOCCER!!!!!!!!!

Saturday mornings this fall have been quite busy with soccer for both of the boys. Up until now I have not had the energy to deal with bringing the camera to the games but since the weather looked to be quite nice today I thought I would chance it! On a typical Saturday Andrew will play a game in the morning at 9:00. Sometimes home, sometimes away. Andrew's game lasts 55 minutes (two 25 minute halves and a 5 minute break for intermission) and is much more strategy oriented than the little guys on Zane's team. This year they are playing with a goalie for the first time and it has proved to be quite entertaining. Andrew's team won their first game today and although his coach was excited with the win she was MUCH more excited with the improvement in position playing as well as the passing to each other the team was doing. Andrew played one of his very best games and even scored a goal! As Andrew progresses as a player we are seeing a trend/preference toward the defensive positions rather than the forward/offensive positions. Although when he was playing forward today he really came on quite impressively and played good and aggressive.

Zane is playing rockets this year and Eric is his coach. Rockets is wonderful since they only play/practice on Saturdays. All Zane's games are at 10:45 which works out great for both Eric and I to be able to watch all of Andrew's game. Also, Zane plays at the same field as Andrew does when he is the home team. It makes it extremely nice to be able to just move chairs to a different part of the field. Zane is having fun his first year of soccer but we are definitely seeing that he is a year younger than most of the other kids on his team. He is exactly one month too young to be playing this year and it is quite apparent that he is not as emotionally ready as the other boys on his team. It will be interesting to see if he wants to continue playing next year. I think another year of maturity will do wonders for him though!

Gwen is having a marvelous time playing with all the different soccer balls at the field. She periodically steals them from random people and runs on the field. Usually she is no where near the action though. I can see we are going to be quite the soccer family in the years to come.

Today as we drove to the games Lucy asked if she was going to play soccer today. Nope not yet. But I know that she is going to want to when the time comes. She already naturally dribbles the ball and can do an overhead throw in that sometimes looks better than the ones that Zane's team does. Lucy is just scrappy. I can see her really enjoying soccer a lot. She may look like a cream puff princess but inside she is tough as nails!

Two Stories About Andrew

My Andrew is a funny boy. He is goofy but shy. Smart but hates the spotlight. Perfectly fine with participation but sincerely loathe to get credit for anything publicly. If I had to categorize him it would be as an introvert. He is a hard nut to crack emotionally and it can be extremely difficult to worm out of him his feelings. Sometimes I think he doesn't know what he feels himself. Or if he does he doesn't seem to know how to express it at all. So he doesn't. He bottles it all up tight as a drum until it comes out. Sometimes as a blast, sometimes as a leak, sometimes not at all.

Wednesday nights we participate in our church's family night programming. The kids attend a class, Eric helps with the youth group and I lead a Precept Upon Precept class. Right now the boys are learning about the fundamentals of faith. Salvation, baptism, communion. Stuff like that. This week, as I was picking them up, one of the teachers Miss Jan stopped me to tell me that Andrew had prayed to ask Jesus to live in him. I was of course excited and asked what happened. Jan said that she didn't really know. Just that last week (as in the previous Wednesday) Robyn had prayed and that Andrew had told Jan tonight that when Robyn prayed he did too. What a boy! He keeps this information in the bag for a whole week before he shares it. But you know what? That is ok. I asked him when we got home about it and he said yes that he had prayed but he always felt like Jesus was living in him and that he had done it before but he thought he should pray just in case. I gave him a big hug and kiss. God has such wonderful things in store for my Andrew.

Thursday Andrew came home from school sobbing. This is not usual. He said to me as he walked in that he was extremely hungry because he didn't get to eat lunch. My immediate thought was "oh crap! I forgot to put his lunch bag in his backpack!" But that was not the case. Apparently he started speech on Thursday and due to a series of unfortunate events he got to lunch right as they were packing up to head out to recess. Well, my sweet Andrew does not generally talk back to adults. So he obediently packed up his lunch and didn't eat it. Then came home sobbing. Today, after talking to his teacher, I think we have a plan. Apparently speech was super late (some problem with the phone) and it should not happen again. But my Andrew does need to learn to be more assertive when stuff like this happens. There is a difference between assertive and defiant and he will learn it. I just really hope the whole lunch thing doesn't happen again. Because I might go bonkers!

Piggy Tails

I tried piggy tails with Gwen this morning. They worked fabulously! She looks just like a bug with them in her hair. And since I did them with Gwen I had to do them with Lucy also. Such fun having two little ladies to fuss with most days! Gwen was not exactly thrilled to have her picture taken. Believe it or not that is her "cheese" face.


Zane of course wanted in on the picture action since I was attempting to take a nice shot of the two pig-tailed girls. (Who did not cooperate with me and the camera) He does love his sissies for sure!


Gwen was just feeling too squirmy for pictures. It is hard to keep her in one spot for very long before she is itching to get away and be independent. Zane is big enough to try and pin her down though! He does a pretty good job of it.

Big Boy Zane

Zane is a constant source of amazement and wonder for me. Some day I would love to know exactly how his brain processes stuff and makes decisions because in my estimation it is totally and completely backward and illogical.


I have known that Andrew going to school and the girl taking naps has given me a wonderful chunk of time to spend with my sweet boy. He and I both look forward to our post-lunch workbook/reading/puzzle working time a lot. I think it just fills up a need to bask in each others attention. In fact during the summer we both really, really miss it. Spending time together just the two of us wards off countless temper tantrums and fits. It is a really good thing for everyone.


Right now we are currently working through a whole bunch of preschool workbooks that Zane got for his birthday. He loves learning and is incredibly smart. My hope is by the end of the year to have him close to reading. Right now we are just focusing on letter sounds and a bit on handwriting. As we work through the books though I can see that we made the absolutely correct choice to have him stay home for another year before kindergarten. He just simply needs to make up his mind that he is ready for school and then he will be a superstar. In fact all last year he sobbed that he didn't want to go to school. Now that Andrew has returned to class Zane is starting to say that he wants to go to kindergarten. Once he makes up his mind the hard part is over. Just getting him to that point is what seems to take FOREVER!!!

Oh Lucy!

I left this morning for the gym and Eric was still upstairs. When I got home this is what I saw:


Apparently the girl got a hold of a sharpie. I think that she was in the process of "painting" her nails when her hair got in her eyes and she used the sharpie hand to brush it back. You can't see the whole line. It goes from her chin all the way up her face. You can't see the nails either but they certainly are pretty. The good thing is that she actually seemed kinda upset. Kinda. I didn't even know the sharpie was laying around. Sheesh. Leave it to Lucy to find it. So how long do you think it will be until it wears off completely? A week?

Little Miss Thing

Just now I was sitting at the computer and I heard Gwen squeaking. I turn around and this is what I see.



I don't know where she has come up with this look but it is certainly not the most attractive of faces. Hopefully she will grow out of this one!

First Day of SECOND!!!! Grade

There is something wonderful about starting school when it is raining. There is everything wrong about starting school during a hot extended summer. So imagine my delight when the weather cooperated today and was nice and drizzly as we walked to the bus.

Andrew was very excited to start school. He has some friends from kindergarten in his class this year as well as his very special friend Anna. Although apparently I wasn't supposed to mention her in this post. For whatever reason that is embarrassing. :)

Here's to another wonderful year of learning for my Andrew! I can hardly believe that next time we have a first day of school I will be putting my Zane boy on the bus too!

A Rainy Day

So yesterday I intended to do this post. However, falling asleep on the couch at 7:45 wiped that thought out of my mind so you all are getting it this morning. Anyway, Monday was a very rainy Labor Day. The kids were bored, I was bored and other than a quick trip to Target in the morning we had nothing to do. Eric was off hiking Mt. Pilchuck and then serving dinner at the Salvation Army so it was up to this momma to think of something fun to do.

The kids sat and watched quite a bit of a Looney Toons marathon during the afternoon. Sylvester the cat, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzalez, not to mention Bugs Bunny were a very good fit but by the time dinner rolled around I was tired of the tv being on and had to come up with something to do. So we pulled out the old standby Play-Doh. And boy was it a hit!

Lucy and Zane both really love playing with Play-Doh right now. It kept them occupied for over an hour which was wonderful. I have no idea what Lucy was making but Zane kept mumbling something about making Beef Stroganoff with his yellow Play-Doh. He worked very intently!

Gwen was a flutter-budget the entire time but she thought she was super big stuff when I let her sit in one of the table chairs and play with the Play-Doh toys. She didn't even seem to care that there was nothing to go with it. Just the toy and the chair were enough to thrill her.

Andrew declared himself too big for Play-Doh which didn't really surprise me. So he sat and played with his Lego's instead. Ever since we went to the fair and saw all the Lego creations that kids had entered he has been working on a masterpiece car to enter next year. I wonder how many revisions we will see before he ends up on a final version.