Cloud Nine

After last weekend's stellar performance on the soccer field, the Gators new ranking was announced today. There were a whole lot of high fives and hugs taking place when we got the news, but I don't know if it could surpass the elation felt by all on Sunday after beating the number five ranked team from Alabama.
That's Keagan with his arms around the neck of number 1, and Evan is in the orange goalie shirt falling to the ground just after his chest bump with number 3.

There were maybe a few hoots with the obligatory airplane celebration, too.

We are still on cloud nine after the weekend of wins....so much so that dribbling drills in the house are now permissible.

Weekend to Remember

Just when I thought a weekend of soccer with these guys could not be any more fun, I experienced this past weekend's tournament in Thomasville.

Even though our championship game ended in a loss after a full round of penalty shots and then sudden death, I was still able to function semi-normally today. Evan, though, lost the battle with the emotional roller coaster ride. He was in bed this afternoon at 3:56 with a migraine. Keagan is not far behind. He is on the couch wrapped in a blanket in a semi-conscious state without his usual afternoon snow cone request.

We came away from the tournament with a second place win, and an even higher ranking. Evan says he has never before had such a heavy medal around his neck, and Keagan wants to know why we have to wait three weeks for the next tournament.

It remains a mystery to me why so few people do this on the weekend.

Teamwork

He can't tie his own shoes.
He wears Spiderman underwear.
His favorite website is Magic Treehouse.
He likes to sleep with his mama.
But he plays soccer with the big boys. Today he and his brother scored back to back goals. 

BOLD

Monday night Keagan came home and said he was fed up with his name sitting in the 125 point reading club when he had earned more than 200 points in the AR program. He took matters in his own hands, and made his own 200 point club sign with a piece of printer paper and a black Sharpie. He took it to school on Tuesday, and told his teacher he wanted to move his name to the next reading point club. Then he pulled out his home made sign. He even told her he would be nice enough to hang it in the hallway for her.

Oh, the boldness!

She emailed me today to say she printed  the 150, 175 and 200 point club signs and put them in the hallway. The kids moved their names to their new categories, and Keagan told her, "Go ahead and print 225 while you're at it because I know I will have that many points real soon."

Oh, the pompous attitude!

I love him even more for his outspokenness. Except for the time last week when I told him he had better watch his tone of voice when speaking to me, and he replied, "You better watch your own tone of voice."

Oh, the audacity!

His teacher says, "I love his heart." I say, "I love his bold heart."
I love it and love him even more for it - even if he might cross the line from time to time. 

Art Fair

My kids can do a lot of things and do them well, but art is not one of them. Much like their mama, a stick figure with eyes and a mouth is about all they can handle. I decided to attend tonight's art fair, though, to show my support to the school and the teachers. I had no intention of buying my own sons' art work. At $34 per framed work, I really thought it was highway robbery.

We found the first grade aisle, and we found Keagan's blue cat. Every first grader drew a blue cat, but Keagan's was the only cat drawn on the upper 1/3 of the paper and the only cat sitting in a field of grass with the sun brushing the tip of  his whiskers.

I took my obligatory picture, told him how beautiful it was, and hung his art work back on the rack. Keagan asked, "Mom, what are you doing? You are supposed to go buy it now." One look at his little face, and there was no way I could say no...not even to a blue cat drawn on only 1/3 of the paper.

Then it was time to walk to the third grade aisle. Every third grader used water colors to paint the ocean, and they each created origami sailboats to place in the ocean.

Evan had an orange sky when everyone else had a red/orange sky, and he had a small tear in the paper that became a representation of lightning. No one else had lightning in their pictures.


What could I do? Leaving behind Sun Kissed Cat and Lightning Strikes the Ocean was not an option. We headed out the door minus $64 but with two perfect pieces of art work created by the most talented artists I know.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Look what the Easter Bunny left for two sweet boys...

If it survives the summer, I will be surprised!

Coat of Many Colors

We made it back from the beach sun kissed and sun kissed some more. I really don't know what I was thinking when I asked my seven year old to spray sunscreen on my back. I should have known that when I shimmied my back right to left multiple times to try to even out the spray that he held in one spot for an extended amount of time, that I was doomed. Sure enough. My legs, however, if you are looking at the front side only, are rockin' one golden tan. Sadly, the backs of my legs saw little sun as I was so engrossed with "A Game of Thrones", I forgot to flip, and today they remain a pasty white.

It's as if I am wearing a coat of many colors.

We left the resort this morning after a rousing pick-up game on the ocean side basketball court. Let me just tell you that I think the suburbanite tweens wearing their Abercrombie t-shirts thought they had their two-on-two game wrapped up when they saw Little Bit and Tongue Wagging Man Child on the courts warming up. They had no idea, though, that my two boys have spent the last two years playing ball with anything but white suburbanites and they had GAME. Final score: 30 - 7. I warmly wished them a wonderful vacation and whisked my two away before a rematch was called. The tweens could do nothing but gawk at Little Bit and Man Child as we gathered our plastic Ninja toys and sand castle buckets and headed for valet parking.

Or were those two gawking at my coat of many colors?

No, it had to be all of those mad basketball skills that left them in utter confusion.