Soccer Season

Today, soccer season ends.

No more early Saturday mornings!

No more having to be in 2 places at once!

No more drying soccer boots after Wednesday practice and before Saturdays game on newspaper by the heater!

yes that is fog on a Saturday morning!

No really, I am going to miss soccer season.

We are lucky to have 2 super little players in our family who have happily given their all throughout the season.

They have practiced hard, kicked for all their might, scored the odd goal along the way and saved just as many in their time.
I am proud of what they have achieved in this season and for the way they have grown in their abilities. They have learnt more about team work and team spirit and have shown they have what it takes.
Thank you soccer season 2012, it has been fun. I look forward to 2013 but excuse me whilst I just go off and have myself a great summer first.

Scavenger Hunt #14 Someone Playing with a Ball

Seeing how we went to the rugby a few weeks ago and I managed to forget this hunt item made me more determined to accomplish it sooner rather than later.
It also helps that the boys are current both playing soccer so there was bound to be a point when I would remember the camera and achieve taking pictures of them.

This happened last week when they both had soccer practice at school at the same time. I was able to stand between both fields and snap happily away.
They both managed to be wearing the black top of their school uniform that day so it made it very easily to see which kids belong to me!

Ben getting ready to move in and tackle

Not sure what the hand in the air was for but sure he would explain further if asked!

Alex getting in there and having a go at getting the ball

Ben hoping to just touch it over the goal line (in fact I think he did manage to score a goal)

So next item accomplished and crossed off the list.
How are you doing finding all 21 items, almost finished yet?

Long Weekend

Hello Friends...
so great to see you all again. This past weekend has been a long weekend for us. We have been celebrating Queen's Birthday. Which just so happens to have fallen when they are doing all the celebrating in England. However just in case you don't know, here in New Zealand we have a long weekend to celebrate the birthday of the current monarch. They keep it the same weekend each year, regardless of when the actual birthday falls.
So as I write this post most people are enjoying the fact we have a 4 day working week this week.

Friday
the evening started with us coordinating all the activities we had for the weekend

• soccer
• staying at my cousin's house
• Judo
• Travelling home
• Alex's 7th Birthday
• Friends over for lunch

so despite a few protests from the lower ranks, we had a game plan in our heads as to what had to be achieved  when and possibly by whom!

Soccer

This was meant to be one of our easier weekends of the sport. The boys, most conveniently luckily, for us had both their games at school.

Because of this I had stupidly happily in my helpful mode agreed to assist with the fundraising sausage sizzle we were running. This fitted in with what time we had to be at school for Alex's game so no worries.

The morning however did not work out too well, we had to remind the boys 3 times to ensure they had their soccer bags organised. We successfully left the house, arrived at school only to have them both inform us that they had in fact not put their soccer shorts in their bags!

To say we as parents were a little annoyed was an understatement! I think Steve was ready to contact CYFS and have them taken into care!

Consequently, the boys have lost the privilege of all things electronic in our house for a week.

As you can see it was a normal early morning winter day for soccer, yes that is fog!

There was some sun somewhere, however it was at least 10am before it shone through enough to clear the fog.

This however did nothing to stop our little soccer players.

Saturday afternoon

The boys decided a few weeks ago that they wanted to participate in the Waikato Bays Judo Tournament that was happening in Tauranga. We are fully supportive of their judo so were happy to attend, however weigh in started at 7.30am on Sunday, so we decided to stay with my cousin who lives 20 mins away from the venue rather than a 90 minute drive first thing in the morning.

So we took bedding and dessert and had an awesome relaxed evening with the family, eating gorgeous lasagne and apple crumble with ice cream, to say we were all stuff is an understatement, it was a great winter dinner that filled you to the top.

We did however sit and watch the movie "War Horse" which after watching I am not so sure of. It was an interesting story, although sadly I spent the whole movie waiting for something to actually happen. I found the whole movie a little jumpy, jumping from this part of the story to that part and then on to another part, no real flow to it! But hey that is just my opinion of it.

Judo
at 7.45am on a cold Sunday morning, we joined the ranks of several other families and had our little ones weighed, all 22 and 25kg of them!

Then we went and got breakfast to be back for 9am to watch them fight their hearts out.

Sadly their fights didn't quite go how they would have liked!
Alex had only himself and 1 other in his class. So they had a best of 3 fight. The other person won the first fight and then sadly went on to win the next fight too, so Alex walked away with nothing. He had to win 1 fight to get a medal. He was devastated and very annoyed.

 Ben had 3 others in his class so he got to fight 3 times. He won 1 and lost 2 thus giving him a bronze medal.

They both did extremely well in their fights, even if they did lose some, but at the end of the day they both went and gave it ago and tried hard. We are very proud of them for getting out there and trying.
Grandma even came and watched them fights, so they had lots of cheering from the stands when they were fighting.

Home time
After judo we called back at my cousin's house and collected our bedding and then hit the road for the drive home. 90 mins is not far but when you have had a long tiring day it can seem like forever.

We were on the road at 5pm and got the pleasure of seeing a wonderful winter sky as the sun went down.

I got the camera out and took 1 picture and then Ben suggested "I get closer!"
Steve and I just fell about laughing as we tried to ask him exactly what he wanted me to do, because there was no way I could get closer to the sky!
Turns out he wanted me to use the zoom button on the camera, man they come out with such cute stuff all the time. Although he did go on to inform us that because it was a nice red sky then the next day would be nice, think he has been listening too much to his dad when he says:

• Red sky at night sailors delight
• Red sky in the morning sailors warning

I took more pictures and we all ooh'd and ah'd over the pretty sky ahead of us

I am aware that this post has turned into a long one so will end for now and tell you about the last day of our long weekend which just happened to be Alex's 7th Birthday.
Catch you soon.

Soccer

For us the sport that has just started this season is soccer.
Ben played last year but Alex declined to play, that was until  about 3-4 weeks into the season when he decided he wanted to play! However he was too late to join a team, so had to settle with just practicing each week with Ben's team.

This year is a different story.
Here is our little soccer wanna be....

Unfortunately we have a small predicament with him playing this year.
Alex is about to turn 7, therefore he belongs in 7th grade soccer.
However this year at school they didn't have many 6-7yr old kids come forward for soccer but they did have a nice amount of 5-6yr old kids who should be 6th grade.
So they decided that the 2 who should be 7th grade would remain at this level but everyone else would join them. So now we have a team of lovely beginners and Alex!
Even though I cheer him on every week, it is difficult not too, it can also get embarrassing as he is too good. Well not that he is too good just that compared to the rest of the team he looks like a saint at this sport. He has ball skills and control, he has skills that the rest of the team can't even work out.
This has come from the fact he has been practicing with his big brothers team who are 2 grades higher for the last year and he has taken it all in.

So our predicament is:

1. Do we leave him in this team, which is the right age and grade for him, even though he way outshines all his team mates etc
2. Do we move him to the next grade where he will play with kids a year older but on a better par of skill to him?

If he had more kids his age to play in a team with then I know this wouldn't be a problem as they would all have the attention span required, however at present Alex comes off the field exhausted as he has generally run the entire length more times than we can count just so the team actually stays with the ball.

If he moves to the 8th grade team he will be small compared to some of those players but at least he will enjoy the game more as he will have people to pass to, people who will back him when he has the ball and people who will be there at the same level as him.

We should find out after the weekend if our request has been accepted by the school.

Hopefully the numbers in other teams are sufficient for this move to happen but at least it is only week 4 in the season so should be a simple move and easy for him to settle in a new team quickly.

I will keep you posted.

S is for Soccer and Stitching

Aside from Judo, the other sport to start getting part of our life is soccer.
Ben played last year and this year they are both playing!
So after the Easter holidays are over we need to sort out the following gear for them both:

• Socer boots
• Red or black socks
• Black shorts
• Shin guards

Although my sport for the winter is starting to stitch again.
I have been a cross stitcher since I was Ben's age. I have tried embroidery and quilting but I always seem to come back to stitching.
To see some of my first ever pieces from when I was little go check out my quilting page.
I am starting slow this winter as it has been many years since I last stitched anything due to growing my boys, although now I don't have that as an excuse as 1 of the boys has decided that stitching looks like fun and is currently taking an active role in my fun too.

Yes Alex has started stitching too.

Grandma taught him how to sew and even drew him a spider web on some material. he has eagerly finished this and is now onto a new project.
Which leads me onto my little tip for you.
If you need to put a design on fabric and don't have a light box then just use what is readily available to us all.....Natural Light!

Take one window, several pieces of tape, the picture and the fabric. Took me 5 minutes to trace the design Alex wanted and I don't have any fancy dangled light box to use but you would never have known!

Oh the last thing before you go....apparently, occording to all the books I have read, I stitch backwards, well on cross stitch anyway!
Yep, all the books show you stitching from bottom left to top right and then bottom right to top left.
Muggins here goes top left to bottom right and then top right to bottom left!

At the end of the day as long as all my stitches go the same way who cares!

Winter Sport

This year, as mentioned before, we have had the pleasure of entertaining the new notion of winter sports for the boys.
Ben has loved soccer, there are no other words to say about it. He has grown so much in the last 12 weeks. His skills in all areas of the game have improved 10 fold and we now have an awesome little striker in our midsts.
He has learnt some awesome ball skills and foot control. I am so looking forward to when the back garden is finally finished and all flat, cause I can see he will be out there with a ball practising quite happily.

Alex, even though he didn't want to play soccer, sadly changed his mind after about week 4, unfortunately by then it was too late for him to join in! Next year for certain, as he too has gained some lovely little ball skills from joining in with Ben's team at practice each week.

Ben's team throughout the season has grown too and in fact they went on to win their division.

This last weekend the soccer season had finished, however most of the team signed themselves up for Jambo Soccer.
This is an all day of soccer games. Every team was represented by a country. To find out more about Jambo Soccer then check out their website.
Ben's team was Croatia, we even went so far as to get a Croatian flag to wave at the parade. It looked so cool, on the biggest wooden stick Steve could find in the garage.

However, it was a very long day, with lots of fast 6 a side soccer games lasting 10 mins each way with a 2 min break at half time.
Sadly the boys struggled with the pace of the games and lost every single one they played in. They never actually scored a single goal!
By the last game they had all had enough but were not quite ready to give up.
Unfortunately some bright spark decided to do the final results in an odd way.
The top 4 teams fought it out for 1st and 2nd. The winners got gold and the next team silver.
However this is where it got funny.....3rd and 4th walked away with nothing but the bottom 2 teams (5th & 6th place) got to play each other for the bowl prize?
So we had to play one more game.
We lost, no surprise there, although this time the team only beat us by 1-0 rather than the 3-0 from the previous game.
However what was ultimately surprising was the fact we walked away with a medal! Yea that is right, we got medals and certificates, bronze as they called it?! How? we are not exactly sure and do not understand why at all!

We, all the adults, logically thought that 3rd and 4th would fight it out for the bowl trophy and bronze medals and that the bottom teams would just get smiled at and told "well done for trying your best" and "better luck next time" but no.
Even now, 48 hours later, I am still trying to work out how we managed to come dead last, bottom of the bottom, with absolutely no goals to our name and still walk away with a medal etc.
If you understand all this and know why it happened this way then pray please let me know.