Fall Soccer- The Flames

 

Avery graduated from the small full fields to the medium size fields. It was a hard adjustment for the girls at first! They had less players and more field to cover so they really had to learn to spread out and use eachother so they weren't running around as much.

 

After Avery's first game we realized we were going to have to work on endurance. She and I started running together... or trying to! You could always tell the weeks when we didn't get our running in!

 

Avery continues to improve... she has a beautiful, solid shot! She's more of an offensive player and feels more comfortable up there than defending the goal. It will be nice when they actually start having positions, but I really enjoy watching her play! It's just a little more nerve-racking when she's in the goal!

 

The Flames had a great season... they play each opponent twice and I think they beat each team at least one time around. Go Flames!!

Fall Soccer- The Storm

 

Austin has finally graduated from the small blue goals to the full field white goals! That also means he is now on an all boys team. (Side note: Austin scores a goal here! Yay!!!)

 

Austin improves every year, he has gotten so much more aggressive and has really got some speed and determination to him! It also helped that most of his games were at 10:30am instead of 3pm or 4pm! He was more awake and ready to go!

 

Randy signed up to help be an assistant coach so he was pretty surprised when they handed him the roster. But he did a great job! His team was very coachable and he had them passing, spreading out and being team players... something that is very hard to do at this age.

 

It was a great season and you could see the kids improvement from the first game to the last. Go Storm!!

Happy Halloween!

 

Halloween came up so fast! Luckily we had costumes from the older kids to pick from! Ashton was a little monkey... she looked so cute! That silly girl can down a sucker in the matter of minutes. She loves suckers and will hold on to that stick until there is nothing left to lick! That was her favorite part of Halloween!

 

Addie was a fairy last year, but she got a Tinkerbell costume for her birthday and wanted to be her this year. We practiced saying "trick or treat" and "thankyou" before heading over to the trunk or treat at our church. She did very good and couldn't wait to trick or treat again on Saturday. She asked me every day from Wednesday to Saturday if it was time to trick or treat again! It couldn't come soon enough!

 

What I noticed most about myself this year was how much more laid back I was. Normally I have to get the make-up and hair and costumes just right and start hours beforehand. But this year we just went with the flow! For instance, Austin wanted to be Batman for the trunk or treat... but when Halloween rolled around he changed his mind. We actually had a little melt down (he had gotten woken up from a nap and wasn't in the best of moods) and he ended up wearing a white shirt, jeans, a pirate eye-patch, sword and an eye-liner goatee. The most amazing part was I didn't even care!

 

Avery did some compromising too. She had a soccer game on Wednesday so she showed up at the trunk or treat as a soccer player. I have to thank my mom for helping me with the kids at the trunk or treat while Randy was at the soccer game with Avery. I also have to thank my sister for letting Avery borrow this cute Belle costume! Like I said, I was mellow this year and if it were up to me she would have been a soccer player for Halloween as well! But I'm glad she wasn't because she looks so cute! They all had a blast... passing out candy and getting WAY too much candy! Happy Halloween everyone!

Pumpkin Patch!

 

Wow! It seems like we just went to the pumpkin patch! But it's that time of year again... and the kids love this tradition. This year we went with Russ and Emilie and their kids. Here are the kids riding the tractor out to the pumpkins.

 

Em was sweet enough to take a picture of our family.

 

We let the kids pick out the pumpkins. It was pretty muddy but they didn't seem to care.

 

I think they did a good job with the pumpkins. They were ready to carve as soon as we got home... but we've learned from experience not to carve until closer to Halloween!

Taking Advantage of the "NO" stage

Ashton has quite the personality. She knows when everyone thinks she is being cute and totally feeds on it! We are having so much fun with her! As with all kids, AJ is going through the stage where she says "no" to every question... so I thought I would take advantage of that! Side note: she can say alot of words like momma, dada, nana, papa, gum-gum (that's my grandma), baby, paci, and cracker to name a few. But she doesn't always do them when YOU want her too!

The Bruin Mile

 

Avery brought a sheet of paper home to announce the Bartlesville Bruin Mile for the elementary schools. It is mainly for fourth and fifth graders, but the younger kids were invited to run also. I figured with soccer starting this would be a great event to train for and benefit her soccer games as well! We planned on running every night that she didn't have soccer practice, but it hardly worked out as we planned!

 

So the day came to run. I sent her with her dad because I was babysitting, hoping she would be able to finish the mile without walking too much!

 

Randy said he was so proud of her! He saw girls coming in so he started looking way down the race for her, but she had already past him! You can see her back side as she's passing the finish line.

 

She ran with 78 third and second graders, and came in 13th. The first 15 places got a medal... she was so happy! But she was even more happy when her picture made it in the paper!

Gymnastics for Addie

We had to figure something else to do with Addie to help pass the time while the kids were in school. Avery and Austin both did gymnastics before starting school, so we thought this would be a great activity for Addie too. Not to mention she had a lot of cute leotards from her cousins that she needed to put into good use! Here she is with her friends Evie and Ellie doing their "ta-da's".


You can tell Addie is a third child with a trampoline at home... she picked up gymnastics pretty quickly. If she is on the wedge, she can do a backwards roll by herself. At the end of practice they show off one of their skills and then they get a sticker.

Addie loves gymnastics and especially putting on her leotard. She puts it on first thing in the morning if she knows it's gymnastic day and makes me do her hair right away. She doesn't go until 1:30pm, so by the time we get there her hair is already falling down... but she's happy!