Yesterday the boys started their first team sport, soccer. Although neither Jeremy or I are big soccer fans this is really the only thing they can do at their age and it is a great way for them to burn off energy!!! James was soooo excited! As soon as we pulled up to the field and he saw all the kids he said "soccer, soccer, soccer, I am SO EXCITED - are you excited John-Mark?"Since the boys both have early August birthdays it makes the whole sports thing interesting. Of course, as soon as we found out I was pregnant with James almost one of the first things that Jeremy said was, "I hope he's born early August and not late July - that is the best time to be born for baseball because the age cut off is July 31st and if he's born in July he'll be the youngest on the team and August will make him the oldest, therefor the stronger, faster, etc." (already knowing he was going to have a boy:) I was clueless to this world of boy sports and age cut offs but he was right. Even for soccer they have to be 3 by July 31st in order to play on the 3 year old team. So, last year James missed the cut off by 11 days! This year we found a league that would let John-Mark play even though his birthday is 14 days after the cut-off. So what we have is both boys on the same team with James being the oldest and John-Mark the youngest (although, of course you would never know John-Mark is the youngest because of course he thinks he's 4!) You can really tell a difference with James though because he is definitely the tallest, fastest kid on the team because he's 4 and all the others are still 3. (This is the competitive advantage Jeremy is excited about once he gets in to baseball :) ha!)
The way this league works is we meet 30 minutes before the game for "practice" and then start the game. They played about 40 minutes yesterday, until all the kids started kind of wandering off :) I love how laid back it is this year. Both my boys loved it and James actually made two goals, never mind that one was for the other team :) John-Mark was really in to it during practice and the first 15/20 minutes of the game but then he was kind of over it and he briefly went missing until we found him on the side lines stacking cones :) It really is a truly comical thing to watch all these little ones trying to figure out what is going on. They have no concept of team work - they just all want to kick the ball at any cost, no matter who they are taking it from. I think John-Mark got a little confused and thought we were at home playing football because twice as James was breaking away with the ball he grabbed on to his back and tackled him to the ground - I seriously almost pee'd in my pants laughing so hard (which isn't a long stretch for a 38 1/2 week preggo mamma :) I think our team lost (with the help of James giving the other team a goal) but no score was ever given. We have 5 more games and I can't wait to see how we "improve" throughout the season :)
Here are a couple pics. I didn't get any action shots - it's hard to try and be the photographer, videographer, and cheering mommy all at the same time!
James during practice - he had just kicked his ball in to the goal
John-Mark during practice - loving it!
Daddy with his boys! We have a soccer coach but pretty much all the dad's stand around and help out. It's basically liked herding cats :)Of course, this is still his first love - BASEBALL and his Copperhead bat - This pic is for you Aunt Debby. He LOVES all his Florida gear and has now converted to the dark side and told me to start calling him "Gator" to which I told him I would not be able to do :) Thanks for all the fun clothes!
Lastly, this pic is just pure sweetness. James loves to sit in Gracie's princess chair so I often find them sitting together watching their favorite show - Word World. How sweet are they. Can you tell she adores her "bubba"!
