2011 Week 10

Spring Soccer! We had our first dose of it on Saturday. The kids were SO excited to get started, and it was a nice day for it. It was Tyler's very first time in anything other than dance class (with Gma) and he did a fantastic job. He was right on task the whole time and really enjoyed himself. He was pretty funny to watch too. Then spent a lot of time taking turns kicking the ball into the goal and every time he was up he would kick the ball then throw his hands in the air and do a little dance. Then he'd turn around and dance his way back to the end of the line to patiently wait for his next turn. (he's the one in the red shirt, in case he's hard to spot) (Ty is sitting on my lap right now and his comment on the photo is "I so awesome-est!")

Kaitlyn was even more excited for soccer than Tyler. She had to wait all the way through Tyler's 1 1/2 hour practice and it was almost more than she could handle. She played on the playground for about 30 minutes then every few minutes after that she was back by my side asking how much longer until her turn. But finally she did make it to her turn and she had a blast. I have to say, I am super-impressed with the guy that is in charge of her age group. He had some really fun and creative looking drills and games for them to play.

Do you see Kaitlyn there in the middle? It was hard to get a good shot of her but she's the one in the center with the navy blue pants and the yellow jersey thing over her turquoise shirt.

While Kaitlyn was taking her turn with soccer, Tyler was playing on the playground - part of that time spent with our 9 year old neighbor (3rd grade - that's 9 right?), Sam, who does a good job of playing with Ty and keeping an eye on him. It was much appreciated since it was hard to keep my eye on the soccer field and the playground at the same time. My neighbor Eileen (Sam's mom) said she and her husband were laughing their heads off watching Ty make his way around the playground - first trying to get himself on the swings and once he was on them he couldn't get it to swing, then making himself dizzy going round and round the digger thing and flopping headfirst onto the sand and just laying there flat out to catch his breath/balance.

Let's see, what else was noteworthy this week? Well, I decided I really wasn't happy about Kaitlyn's dance class only learning 1 count of 8 in the entire last THREE weeks of class. No warming up, no across the floor, no nothing. Really not happy. Called the owner of the studio and didn't get a good response from her so I pulled Kaitlyn out of dance all together. Good thing I had already been looking at other options for next year.

Tyler is my little buddy every day. One day I sent him upstairs to grab some socks so we could go to the grocery store and he didn't come back downstairs. I found him on the floor of the hallway at the top of the stairs like this

Poor guy must have been VERY tired. So I left him there and let him sleep it off and we did errands later.

Ty and I also got some fun play/errand time with some of the neighbors - an impromptu "hey does anyone want to go to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast?" invitation from my neighbor, Shanna, at the bus stop that I was glad we accepted. 3 moms, 3 kids - a much more laid-back, fun approach to small errand running. We dropped off one vehicle to get it's oil changed and all piled in the Yukon to go to breakfast. Then we hit Walmart, picked up the vehicle, and helped Shanna pick out paint samples at Lowes. Even the kids were easy to manage because someone was always free to help one or buckle a seatbelt while someone else parked the cart. Plus the 2 preschoolers had a buddy to keep them company and that made them happy too.
I'm having fun getting to know the people in the neighborhood and happy that we picked the subdivision we did. With everyone being new to the neighborhood, we all go out of our way more than the usual to make friends and get to know each other. There are plenty of kids and most of the moms I have met stay at home too, so that works in my favor. Days like yesterday make me think we just might be settling in and making a place for ourselves here pretty well - and more quickly than I had dared to hope for.