Well, it was too wet to take any pictures today, but Brandon had a great game today! He came through with four goals and some great defensive plays. He is fantastic at knowing where he’s most needed and getting there. He did great sweeping behind his goalie to help defend the goal today. It’s fun to watch the utter determination on his face as he runs hard from one end of the field to the other. His focus is intense. It’s definitely his sport.

Alyson declined to even GO to soccer today.  Potty training is absolutely getting the best of us.  Today she wore a pull-up to Brandon’s game, and with half hour left before her game she’s refusing to change her stinky bottom.  I’m SO done changing diapers.  I told her if she didn’t change, she wasn’t going to soccer.  Then she decided she didn’t want to go anyway.  🙁

Here we are, on the eve of another round of soccer games, and I haven’t posted about last week’s yet.  Brandon and Alyson had games at the same time last week, so I missed Brandon’s.  He’s mister soccer star out there… he scored SIX goals.  He has three more games.  By the way, he’s BJ again.

Alyson had a decent game.  She was a bit clingy, and wanted a drink of water every 90 seconds, but she opened up some when they got to play the game where you kick the ball to try to hit the coach’s legs.  She thought it was hilarious.  She even scored her very first goal during practice!  During the game, she just stood still at her spot on the field and absolutely refused to move.  She actually spent most of the game time laying on the ground.  Oh well.  Two more games to go.

Week 2 found Alyson much more prepared to play soccer. She arrived at the soccer field ready to play. She initiated triangle passing with me and the coach’s older daughter Chelsea. She had a great time doing the practice drills with her team. She wanted to do everything slowly, but she was getting the hang of it. Unfortunately, only three of her teammates showed up, so they really needed her to play the whole game. When coach called the kids together before the game started, he told them he needed them all to be sharks and go after the ball (they play a game called Sharks and Butterflies during practice). Alyson replied, “I want to be a butterfly!”. Have I mentioned she wants to be a butterfly when she grows up? 🙂

During the game, she decided she no longer wanted to play. She wanted to play with her own ball, not go after the single ball on the field. She stood resolutely on the sidelines and clapped for her team.  I told her she needed to stop the red shirts from scoring a goal.  Her response?  “I want them to get a goal!”

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/999494[/vimeo]

This is how she spent the second half of the game… in the middle of the field… playing in the dirt. She did have one good stop when the ball ran into her, but other than that she didn’t even attempt to make contact with the ball during the game. Huge progress this week though.

Brandon had another great game. He had an awesome stop at goalie – he caught the ball under his chin. I didn’t get a picture of that one, but here’s another great stop:

He also had a great goal. It’s fun to hear the parents on the sidelines murmuring, “Wow, Brandon’s fast”.

He zooms across the field and is fantastic at being in the right place at the right time, getting open, and calling out to his teammates to pass to him.

Unfortunately, Brandon got hit in the eye by the ball late in the game and wasn’t able to finish the game. He’s fine though.

Alyson started soccer this morning. In the rain. She didn’t want to play. She didn’t want to be on the orange team. She didn’t want to be #2. She cried. We did manage to get her to put her shirt on, about half way through. We did get her to kick the ball a few times in practice. She did participate in the end of the game high-fiving the other team, and the team photo op at the end (because she wanted her snack). But that was it. She didn’t play in the game at all. We’re hopeful she’ll participate more next week. She’s decided she’d rather play baseball 🙂 Alyson’s team is called Thunder Mud. LOL

Brandon had a great game today. He scored three goals and played the entire game, thanks to some absent teammates. Brandon is on the Black Bears this spring. What a day!

Christian had baseball practice too, but Bill is chronicling baseball on his blog 🙂

So I have several posts to get written and pictures to upload 🙂

The month started with a joint family birthday party for both winter kids.  We ended up accusing Brandon of wishing for snow, because not only did it snow on the 1st during the family party, it also snowed on the 9th, his actual birthday and kid party date.

Here are the birthday kids… I can’t believe Alyson is 3 and Brandon is 6 already.  She’s become quite the naughty little child, both at home and at daycare.  She’s also getting very complex in her sentences (lots of sentences connected by words like so and ‘cuz).  And she’s very very loud when we say it’s bedtime.  She still really loves to go play with her friends at daycare the two days a week she’s there.  She is potty trained, but wears a pull up at night.

Brandon is really enjoying Kindergarten and seems to be very popular.  He had a massive 18 kids at his birthday party at the Lynnwood Pool.  It was a blast.  The only thing that made me cringe was his method of attacking gifts… shred one open, throw it on the floor and race to the next one.  In fact, at the family party he demanded to know where his gift was before he’d let anyone in the door.

Dad and Karen brought one of the best treasures… a gingerbread house to make with the kids.  They had the best time decorating it with the gazillion (ok, I exaggerate a little) candies, and eating their fair share too.  Here it is, in all its glory.  I was really surprised at how precisely Alyson lined up the gumdrops on her tree and the roof 🙂