Soccer in September

Troy's 1st Soccer Season - U7 Katy Youth Soccer

Team : Texans

I asked Liam to stand still for a picture, but he said, "No mom, take a picture of me dribbling."

Liam's 1st Soccer Season - U5 Katy Youth Soccer Coed

Team : Dragons

Liam's 1st Game

Liam has no problem chasing after the ball and wanting to score. At home, Liam shoved Troy when Troy was defending the goal a little too well. For some reason, it brought out extreme laughter out of me and I had to collect myself in order to have a teaching moment. He was sorry and back to his happy self. 

Troy's 1st Game

Ben has always talked about how he wants to help our kids excel in sports. He wants them to feel confident, learn hard work and team work. I loved this first "dad's advice" moment. Troy was a little taken back by the amount of contact in soccer. He tried hard to get to the ball, but if someone else had it, he would back off. My sweet Troy. He has come a long way since that first game. We practice at home (after this first game, we went and bought a small $30 goal to practice with. I'm not competitive or anything. It was all Ben's idea....) Anyway, now he is better about going after the ball. He's great at defending and improving at dribbling. But most importantly, Troy really likes it. I'm loving this new era of entering sports!

This little princess has been sick for over a week. She was sweet the first couple of days, but after that, she just kind of whined all of the time and you couldn't reason with her. It didn't matter if I gave her what she wanted, she would find something else to whine about. BUT..

The last couple of days have been a lot better. Back to my smiley Katelyn. She's still 2, and therefore is very hard to reason with sometimes, but she is quickly learning about timeouts. I love this girl to pieces.

 We had a RS activity recently about emergency preparedness. It was a good reminder! I got out our 72 hour kits to check how they were doing. It may have been a few.. several years since I've touched them. Needless to say, we will be changing the food and water.

Ben takes the SUV for young mens, so we got in the corolla and headed to Wendy's for a frosty. We had been trapped in the house for so long (because of Katelyn's sickness) that it was really exciting. Haha. The kids laughed at me when I dipped my fries in my frosty. But it's the best! One day they will learn...

 We went to a new park in Cinco Ranch (a really nice area South of us about 20 minutes.) 

My pictures are terrible, but Liam is at the top of slide. It was SUCH a cool park. We will be going back!

Friends

I haven't been taking very many pictures lately. But I noticed that the few pictures I did take, have Michael in them. Michael is a friend of Troys, but we all love having him over. I probably got my phone out to take a picture because they were all happy at the same time. Troy is very motivated to get his homework done or piano practicing if he knows Michael can come play. I'm grateful for good friends!

Katelyn has been really into reading books lately. Love it. She'll just sit by herself with that bag of books from the library and eventually someone will come and read to her. Me, Troy, or Ben. Ben is definitely the favorite. He is very entertaining (and loud) when he reads stories. ;)

If I'm watching something out in the living room, the kids will use my room to watch their show. Hot wheels is their absolute favorite right now. Little Einsteins, Daniel Tiger, and Dinotrux are the others. 

Yay for Doctors!!

At my 6 week follow up appointment, I had my blood work done to test different things that could have caused my miscarriage(s). I finally got the test results back this week. Turns out that I do have two chromosomal abnormalities. But it's treatable. I need to look more into it today to understand what it really is. The doctor said that I need 4x the amount of folic acid than other pregnant women. I've been staring at my children and thinking what miracles they are. I have a prescription for folic acid that I have to take twice a day when I am trying to get pregnant and during pregnancy. I'm grateful for a solution. I'm grateful for all of the medical knowledge we have so that I could find this out and treat it. Yay for doctors!

Liam and Troy start Soccer

Liam loved his first soccer practice. He even did
this pose for me all by himself. He gets anxious for his turn and sometimes runs around while waiting. When they scrimmaged at the end, he was kind of a ball hog. We will have to work on that. But he had that big smile on his face the whole time! Our friend in the ward is on the team too. Totally by coincidence. It made practice much for fun!

Troy's first two practices have been cancelled because of rain. In fact, I just got a call from my neighbor saying that the bridge by the school might flood and I should think about picking Troy up early. Hope the games don't get cancelled tomorrow. His little heart is set on it.

I'm so excited to be a part of the soccer world
again. One proud mama!

Wedding, Birthday, and at Home

We were so excited to be able to go to our own family's reception! My cousin Tim (named after my dad) got married to Lauren. It was an extremely beautiful reception. It also happened to be on the same night as our stake conference, so... we couldn't find a babysitter. Whoo. It turned out okay though. Love this Andersen family. 

Our friend's little girl, Quinn, turned 2. They had quite the party. We all had so much fun. 

Liam and Troy asked if they could do the same thing on their birthdays...

Sweet JJ was so helpful to Katelyn. She was pretty small, but she is a very determined little girl. If she wants to do it, she'll find a way, even if it's someone else pushing her all the way to the top.

Most families in our ward do not have family nearby. I'm so grateful for all of these sweet young moms to be able to call upon when I need a babysitter. And I have, a lot. This past couple of weeks I got to return the favor a couple of times. Liam and Katelyn LOVE it.

We play a lot of lego's at this house. Ben get's super into it. I wish you could hear the sound effect that goes with Ben's face.

Katelyn is starting to enjoy watching shows. There are only a couple that will captivate her though. The first is FROZEN. She watched it on the floor while Ben and I got some necessary house stuff done. 

Katelyn also LOVES to dress up. At least 4 outfits a day. Usually dresses. Lately she likes putting my hair bands on. I use them when I run. Glad they have a second purpose.