Summer Soccer.

Landon and Kadence had their last day of summer soccer today.  It was the first "sport" activity for the both of them and I think it is safe to say it was a success.   Soccer was very fun for the kids and even more fun for us to watch (that is after the first day's chaos when I took the two of them by myself and they were on complete opposite ends of the 10 field complex).  There is nothing more enjoyable then watching your children try something new, show much improvement over a period of time, and then be so proud of themselves for it.  

This is Landon and his soccer team with his coach, Amy.  As you all know, Landon is full of energy and loves to run.  This quality turns out to be a very good one to have when playing soccer.  The first couple games were definitely chaotic but towards the end of the season they were looking quite a bit more like a "real" soccer game.  The kids finally grasped the concept of which goal to score in and who was on their team.  Landon even scored 3 or 4 goals this week alone (up until this point neither teams were scoring very often).  

Warming up and doing some stretching with the coach.  Landon really liked his coach and if you look close there is something priceless about her smiling at him.  I think she liked him a lot, too.  

Landon was so fun to watch!  Have I mentioned that his broken hand didn't slow him down, EVER!  We just wrapped his cast with some padding and an ace bandage so that if he accidentally hit someone it wouldn't hurt them as much.  I am SO excited to continue watching Landon play sports!

This is Kadence with her soccer team and coach, Shannon.  This was Kadence's first time doing an organized activity and taking direction from someone other than her parents.  I had no idea how she was going to act.  As it turns out, she can sure talk the talk but I am not quite sure she walks the walk.  I don't know if soccer will be Kadence's thing but I think she enjoyed being outside and running around anyway.  There were a couple of games that she decided she wanted to "sit out" a.k.a. bawl on the sidelines while her parents tried their hardest to get her to go onto the field.  In fact, I don't know if she would have played the last couple weeks if it wasn't for her sweet coach Shannon who she absolutely adored.  She mostly danced around the field running with the others but never kicking the ball (she would actually purposely avoid making contact with the ball).  When she wasn't doing what I just mentioned, she was following her coach around holding her hand and just staring at her with admiration.    She also spent quite a bit of time yelling, "Mommy!" then blowing kisses and smiling.  She's so fun and so different from her big brother.  With that said, 3 year old soccer is quite different even from 4 year old soccer.  The kids really have no clue what is going on for the most part and it takes forever to get from one goal to the other.  They require constant direction from the coach (and parents, you should hear some of these people yelling at their 3 year olds!) and lose interest very quickly.  It was fun to watch, but for very different reasons!

This was Kadence's favorite part of soccer...."Gooooooo Comets!"  (If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see how she really feels about her coach.)  It was SO fun to watch Kadence and I can not wait to watch her in the future...I think we'll try dance next :)