Meet our Cheetah!

 So today was a big day!  AJ started his 2nd season of soccer... meet our new little CHEETAH!  This season we joined our friend's team that is coached by none other than our former Coach Slime from KK's first days of soccer.  AJ was ready to show us his moves and he was handsome as ever!

 

Here is the team saying their pledge and giving one another high fives before the game.  They are so little and so cute!

Yes our child is standing out on the team with blue socks and blue shorts... apparently when they offered mommy a $15 discount if you already had the uniform from last season, they didn't make it clear that you would not match your own team.  Oh well, TEAM AJ we have arrived...

AJ was very impressive this game - last season was his first time ever to play soccer and he was teamed up with a lot of bigger, older kids so he didn't have the chance to get to the ball much. 

 

Now AJ is the more seasoned player on our team... and paired along with his "wisdom" about which goal to kick it to (something most of our team didn't understand, they figured whichever goal was in front of them would do the job haha) and his awesome listening skills, he was quickly a coach/ref favorite to do kicks and throw ins.

AJ standing by Coach waiting for the whistle to play

I love that this kid never feels the need to chase down that ball too hard - Cracks me up!  Case and point: this photo showing our boy just taking it all in and thinking about his strategy. 

 

I do love that you will never catch him pushing or stealing the ball from his teammates.  A lesson both of our kids have taken to heart!  He has had the ball stolen from him several times, but in true AJ fashion he just runs along and waits for his moment to come to him.  Love this boy!

Caught him smiling before a kick off!

Corner kick!  He had some great kicks with nice distance, very impressive for a little man!

He makes it look so easy

Daddy got this picture as he was coming off the field for a break - he was having a blast!

 



 

Baby Kins, in true 3rd baby fashion, was content to just be snuggled by our "adoptive" grandma and eat cheerios for breakfast for the entire game. 

It wasn't all business... as you can see AJ and Coach had some wrestling and tickling to do mid-game.  This came after AJ ran over and said he was ready to be put back in. 

We do love Coach - he is patient and kind and awesome!  (I mean, he plays Red Light, Green Light at practice.  AJ has loved him ever since that and the "kick the Coach" game they played at practice).

Always listening and obeying (to the ref anyway hehe)

So here it was: our All Stars 1st game of the season.  To be honest I have no idea if we won or lost.  AJ didn't score a goal and it is very possible the only goals our team did score were in the wrong goal.  But we had so much fun watching AJ play.  My cheeks hurt from smiling!

 

Sweet Dreams Y'all!

 

Team Eclipse Kicks it Up

It is that awesome time of year: Fall!  And with fall comes SOCCER SEASON! 

 

We have been blessed with a pretty amazing group of girls and parents.  While we love watching our girls dominate on the field, we are actually pretty laid back and have a few laughs while we cheer our team Eclipse on to victory (and maybe all of us moms like to chat about anything we can think of during practices and sometimes games).

 

We also have a pretty great coach, we call him Daddy :-)

 

Here is my girl, her 7th soccer season! 

(please ignore the highwater shorts, that would be my bad on the tuck job that was corrected before kickoff)

I love this girl so much!!!

 

 

Of course, fall in Texas means 100 degrees outside... at least at the start of our soccer season.  Here are the super awesome siblings, hanging in the shade and trying to stay strong while watching the girls do their thing on the field.  At least we always have yummy snacks to keep them happy! 

 

Now if you follow along over the seasons, you know that KK is a special player (well in my mind she sure is, and its my blog so let's just go with it shall we?).  She loves to score, as any kid does.  But she really loves and shines at her defense.  Something clicked inside her a few seasons ago, and she gets the biggest kick (ha no pun intended) out of chasing the other team down and stopping them cold from scoring.  Last season she was one of our strongest defenders, one of the few who understood how to kick the ball out of bounds to stop the play and avoid the goal if needed (versus the normal reaction of most kids, to just get the ball back to score).  She is also really good about listening to the coaches when she is on the field and doing what she learned in practice.  She is also pretty good about being the example for the team... being a good listener and having Daddy as one of the coaches makes that a must.

 

(Disclaimer as I don't want anyone to think the rest of our team isn't equally awesome: I am by no means claiming she is the star of the team, our team is full of amazing talent and all the girls shine at different times with different skills, these are just KK's skills I am currently pointing out).

Here is KK, not afraid to get into another players way to defend! So far apart from our first two seasons, she now loves the competition and challenge.

She scored two goals in this game!  This is impressive as this is the first season that we have "positions" with one girl as goalie and one girl hanging back as a defender.  With goalies, our girls were all thrown a little off balance.  Last season there wasn't a person in the goal box who could scoop that ball up with their hands and stop you cold.  So scoring at all is impressive, but twice in one game - that is down right AMAZING!  GO KK!

We do tell KK each game how proud we are of her ability to share with her teammates and support them.  She will never attempt to steal the ball from her teammate, her reaction is to follow them and help them as much as they need.  I love seeing that in her, it doesn't always mean she gets the ball as much or the chance to score as much as others.  But it does mean that she is learning something more important: that being a teammate is more important that getting a goal. 

I like this shot as you can see Coach Daddy in the background, watching his girl do her thing.

 

Here is the 2nd goal she made, I just got the shot of her running after she kicked it in... I was cheering a little too loud at the time to remember to snap a picture :-)

 

So despite the crazy hot humid hour we spent out there on the field, it was a wonderful game.  All the girls did great and played so well together and most importantly they had FUN.  KK gets to play goalie next game, which I have a feeling will be awesome to watch since that defender in her shines so bright.  I can't wait to see Team Eclipse in action next week! Stay tuned!  AJ will be joining the blog too as he takes the field in his second season of soccer.

 

Sweet dreams y'all!

 

PS... not that we keep score, but our team totally won.  So far, undefeated.  But you didn't hear that from me!