Beware - Put your sunglasses on

It's officially that time of year, again.

Soccer season has officially kicked off.

In truly blinding fashion. I was glad to hear we weren't going to be that awful burnt orange color again. And when I heard we scored a neon color I was pretty ecstatic. Hey - you can see them from a mile away!

That is until I tried to take a picture of it. And my camera out and out refused to focus. And blew out all the highlights. Every single picture had to be hand edited. Needless to say, I didn't share nearly as many as I typically would otherwise. And a flurry of internet searches haven't turned up any useful information on how to prevent the same thing from happening again next time.

And, yes... I did say that we were only going to play one sport at a time.  And we were going to play Baseball in the Spring. 

But Ryan begged and really wanted to play.  He was afraid if he sat out a season he'd lose his spot on the team.  And he really liked his team.  In fact 7 of the 10 players from last season came back - 4 just like Ryan who hadn't been planning to come back in the Spring and were planning to play Baseball instead.  Now we are all doing both.  And it'll probably be the death of me.  :)

Connor on the other hand has decided he would prefer to sit on the sidelines and cheer instead of "all that running!"  So he parked himself on our new bench seat (a nice new treat courtesy of an Amazon Lightning deal around the holidays.)  And before you give me a hard time about it - I didn't.  Kevin did.  :)  I was of course appropriately excited and the kids made good use of it during our game.  Since we have 5 people on the field, and 5 on the sidelines - the 6 seater (with an extra spot for Connor, or maybe the team mom someday) worked out really well.

Even though we had only had one practice the team played a really good game.  And 2 out of the 3 new players we picked up look like they are going to work out pretty well.  We might just have one power house team!  :)

My Valentine Sweeties

Since the kiddos will come home tomorrow with more junk than they could possibly ever eat I decided to go ahead and give the kids their heart marshmallow treats that I picked up for them.

Needless to say they didn't last long... :) 

Kids Valentines

Happy Valentines Day!

Finished up the kids' valentines this past weekend.

Thought they turned out super cute.

And, no, there's no rhyme or reason why Connor's Valentine is bigger than Ryan's.   I can't explain it.  I am sure it had something to do with the original picture and cropping, or antibiotics, or 2am Photoshopping, or Aggie math, or something.

I noticed it.  Quirked a perplexed eyebrow for about 0.2 seconds, shrugged, said "eh", and moved right on along to printing, and cutting, and punching, and stuffing.

En masse.

Had planned to make one with a fake flower for each of their teachers.  Tried it.  Didn't like how it turned out.  Shrugged, said "eh."  Turned the light off and went to bed. 

Though really I can't say enough good things about their teachers and should really do something super nice.  Ryan read a 50+ word book to me at dinner tonight in a matter of minutes.  I was stunned.  And so proud.  Ryan's been bringing home reading working on and off since about Thanksgiving.  He's read a dozen or so beginning readers to me over the last couple of months.  But nothing like he did tonight - he read right along.  Only having to stop and really sound out a couple of the words.  I was astounded.  Better yet, it was a funny story and not only did he read the words, he understood them enough at the same time to appreciate the humor and comment on the silliness of the vivid imagery it conjured.

Not to be left out Connor brought home his first reader this week, too.  About Mat.  And Sam.  Who sat.  Mat even sat on Sam.  And Sam sat on Mat, too.  Which sent both of the boys into giggles as he steadily, but patiently, worked his way through sounding out the words.  So excited as he mastered each word.  Not only was I so proud of him that my eyes turned misty, and my beaming smile a little wobbly, but more importantly he beamed from ear to ear and was SUPER proud of himself.