11-Man Football vs. Big Piney

 Last Thursday evening the nine year old had his first 11-man football game - full length, full field.  They had been playing 9-man, half field, with 12 minute quarters, so this was a pretty big shift.  They had also been playing color teams from our own town, so this was their first contest against an out of town team too.

See the kid in the white with the red helmet #30 - the one that is head and shoulders bigger than the rest of the kids?

Guess who my son lined up against? :)  He did really well and was able to defend against him pretty well.  I don't think that kid was double my son's body weight, but I bet he was pretty close.  If you look in the photo above, my son is #6 - with the blue sleeves.

 It was cold and raining again, but thankfully nowhere near as cold as the homecoming game and much lighter rain than the jamboree.  The four year old was catching rain on his tongue.

Not to be outdone, the two year old had to have his tongue hanging out too.

It was a great game. We won!  26-0

-

In the pep talk after the game the head coach (who also is the head coach of our high school team) was encouraging them by pointing to the score board.  My son says he pointed to it and said, "See that? That's what we play for" just as the person operating the board shut it down.  It was pretty funny.

After the game he was so excited :)

He has one more game - this coming Saturday in Jackson Hole, then he's done for the season.  He's really learned a lot and enjoyed playing.  But I think he'll be glad it's coming to a close.  We had snow Monday and didn't want to go to practice until I told him it would be inside.  It's getting too cold here to play much longer.

Fun at the Library

 We've had a busy weekend and I haven't had a chance to catch up on my blogging, so there will be several new posts in the next day or two.  This was last Wednesday - we were hanging out at our local library and my two youngest clowns took full advantage of the dress up box.

We have an awesome library and I know I have mentioned that before, but honestly, it's the best library I've ever been to - and that's saying something considering my idea of touring a new place requires a trip to the library. Some of them are so institutional.  Ours is a log cabin with a sit-down-and-stay-awhile feel.

We are spending a lot more time at the library these days - now that we live farther out of town I try to find in-town stuff to do while waiting to ferry my children from one place to another on days we have activities. The four year old attends preschool four days a week for three hours per session, and our homeschool group has swimming lessons on two of those days.  The nine year old has football through this week, so we do a lot of running around.

 The swimming lessons start 45 minutes after we drop off the four year old, and the nine year old and I have figured out we can just squeeze in a game of chess at the library in that amount of time. :)

Also last Wednesday, we had our open house for signing up for 4H for the next year.  They were drawing for door prizes, and they called the nine year old's name first.  He got to choose from a box of goodies, and was lucky enough to get this super-soft sweatshirt.  (I caught him just in time - he was seriously considering a plastic slinky).

The Help I Do Not Need

The two year old is really testing my patience this week.  His favorite new thing is to climb up on the table (as I'm sure you've guessed from the previous posts). His nine year old brother was going to have cottage cheese for breakfast, but had to take care of something before eating.  We came back to the table to find that the two year old had added salt... LOTS of salt.  He was in the process of "cleaning it up" when we found him. Ugh. I don't put much stock into the "terrible two's" but this kid might convince me before it's over.  I finally decided "cleanup" would best be done with the hose attachment on the vacuum.  But I'm still finding tiny grains of salt here and there.

September Reading

Well, I've hit a new low - ha.  I only managed to read ONE book in September, and that was a challenge.  We spent the month moving so I didn't have any extra time.  I wanted to finish this one for my library's evening book club, but then I ended up not able to attend anyway.  So the stats this month are pretty pathetic:
Books Read - 1
Pages - 280
Inches - .75

Year to Date:
Books Read - 59
Pages - 18,002
Inches - 72

I'm still pretty happy with the year to date stats though :)

A Snowy, Frozen Homecoming

 Friday morning, we woke to this - snow and low clouds in the mountains...

...and, very cold temperatures ... and did I mention the wind?

We had several inches of snow.  Before I get to the homecoming details, I'm going to share with you what our morning was like.

 The two year old spotted some birds in our bushes.  He was laying on the floor above the stairway to the play area so he could see the birds better.

He was awfully naughty.  While we weren't looking, he helped himself to some cereal that his brother had on the table.  Problem - he is allergic to this cereal.  Okay, so that is only one problem.  The huge mess was the obvious other problem.

 The four year old loves pop tarts. I usually open the packet away from him and only give him one of the two in each packet.  But yesterday I made the mistake of opening it in front of him.  He had a total meltdown because he was sure I had broken his pop tart because there were two pieces there.

We had a lot of birds hanging around yesterday.  Two very fat robins were hiding in our bushes.  We actually bought a couple new bird feeders when we went to town so the boys will have more opportunities to watch them throughout the winter.  I call it a homeschool investment.

 I think we will really enjoy our bird watching.

But... while we were all enthralled by the robins, the two year old climbed up onto the table and helped himself to his brother's cereal - he's allergic to the cereal and milk.  And if you look at his blue plate, you will see the remainder of his four year old brother's pop tart, which of course he is also allergic to.  Needless to say, we dosed him with Benadryl right away.  I was surprised though that he didn't react at all to getting into those things.  Normally even with the Benadryl, he will start itching and scratching right away.  We were told the allergies should go away eventually.  I don't know if I should get my hopes up yet or not, but I did call the doctor to see if we can start experimenting with reintroducing some of the foods he has been allergic to or if we need to wait and have another blood test first.  I should hear back from them on Monday.

 We were looking forward to the homecoming parade ... until we walked outside and the wind hit us.  We very nearly decided to stay home, but figured we might as well go.  The nine year old grabbed a shovel to clear our sidewalk (though the four year old was sure we should use the snowblower).

Not to be outdone, the four year old found a shovel too.

At the parade I had a hard time deciding whether the school district was crazy for not cancelling the parade - or whether we were crazy for being there to watch it.

I think we're all nuts.

The four year old was really excited to "squish the snow" and he told me that morning that we needed to go outside and look for snowmen.  I think he believes they just show up when it snows.  :)

The high school classes have contests for the best float (each class has one float).  They had some pretty good ones.

 This was the senior float, which won the prize for best float.

Our nine year old's football league had to wear their full uniforms to the homecoming game.

 The junior players ran out onto the field with our varsity players and were introduced by name.

 He was pretty nervous about it before hand, but excited by the time of the introductions.  After that, the kids all played football behind the stands and didn't really watch the game at all.

 I had to take a picture of this quilt.  It is just like one I have that used to be my grandmother's.  It is made of polyester fabric which looks like it is from pants like my mom used to wear back in the 70's- mine at least looks like it could be made from clothes because there are areas with seams.  Mine is tied just like this one too.  I just thought it was interesting that they are so similar.

 Do you like our Superman blanket?

So does the four year old.  He spent quite a bit of the game huddled under it on the floor of the bleachers, including most of the fourth quarter.  Did I mention that the temperature was in the 20's, with wind making it feel like the teens?  My feet were so cold by the end of the game that I couldn't feel them, and I'm still sore today from being so tense and shivering.  I really should have taken the boys home after the first half, but the game was really good.  We won 38-35 and it came right down to the last few seconds of the game.  Very fun to watch - I just wish the weather had been a bit warmer.  They had to scrape the snow off the field so the game could be played.  We're really spoiled to have a field like the pro NFL fields - made with tiny rubber pellets for cushioning - and made to drain well.  That's all thanks to the boom we've had from natural gas drilling.  But that's another topic.

Snowing Again

 After a miserably cold night of football, we woke to this...

It was coming down pretty heavy for awhile.

The two year old loves all the big low windows and sliding glass doors in this house.  He can see out easily and was so excited about the snow.

This is one of the many windows outside the playroom.  It was originally a porch/sun room, so it's nothing but floor to ceiling windows.  This afternoon he was playing down there and spotted a bird in the trees.  This little guy is enthralled with birds.  He stood up and squatted so he could see through the bush and watched the bird for several minutes until he flew off.  Could there be a better homeschool classroom?  This is even better than the zoo :)  I'm going to put a little bird feeder down in those bushes so we'll attract even more birds.

Today's snow is about the third that has put down much.  These last pictures are from last week - at the old house.  It snowed about the same amount today, and like last week, was pretty much melted off by noon.

It's really pretty early for so much snow.  We usually have snow that seems to come more frequently around the end of October, sometimes later.  It has been really wet and cold here most of September already.  We're in the high mountains of Wyoming, so we can see snow nearly every month of the year (the only month I don't recall seeing snow myself is August, though it definitely could happen and probably has).  But this seems unusual for our "high desert" environment.  It's been very wet - more like Spring.  I even overheard a couple of "old-timers" talking at the thrift store today about how mixed up the weather is.  They were talking about the grass growing as if it's Spring.  I wonder what this means for our winter...  Good thing my Dad got our snow blower running (I bought a huge old Toro from someone locally online for $35, but it didn't run.  Now it does, and I'm thinking I got a steal!  Thanks Dad!)

Frozen Football Fun

 We have an awesome youth football program here in town.  The man in the background in the grey sweatshirt is our high school football coach, and he and several other men volunteer their time to coach our kids. It really takes a lot of time, and normally we enjoy watching fun games like the one above (my 9 year old is #71 in the white jersey).

But last night was a little less fun.  We got to the field, and I sat in the car as long as possible before digging out my lawn chair, umbrella, and winter coat.

 It rained really hard through the whole evening.  The wind was blowing and the temperature was in the 30's.

Normally they probably would have cancelled, but last night was the "jamboree" - which is actually a really fun format.

Each team played each of the other 3 teams - four plays on offense, each starting on the 20 yard line.  (That in itself was a merciful act - they were supposed to play seven plays each, but due to the weather they cut back - thankfully!)  They kept track of how much progress each team made from the 20 and totaled the points.  So for instance, my son's white team started out on offense against the black team.  They lined up on the 20 for four plays (and they happened to make it to the end zone on three of those plays).  Then they traded places with the black team, and the black team had four chances from the 20.

 After they had exchanged 8 total plays with the black team, they went to the other end of the field and tested their skills against the orange team.  Then back to the first end to play against the green team.

When that was all done, they tested the skill of the defense.  The white team lined up on the five yard line, defending the end zone.  Each of the other three teams had one play to try to get into the end zone.  None of them made it.  In the end, we were all frozen - especially the kids, who were completely soaked.  My son's team WON!  Thankfully Bugga had offered to keep my two youngest, so they were spared the horrible weather.  My legs were shaking so bad by the time it was over that it was hard to walk. We went home and made hot cocoa :) and had our crockpot pulled pork sandwiches (which my nine year old calls "coffee pork" because it's just a pork roast cooked all day in coffee, then shredded and mixed with barbecue sauce).  

Hopefully the next game will be warmer.  They're actually done (they've been playing 9-man football) but the older kids get to continue if they want to in 11-man.  So practice for 11-man will begin next Monday, and they play an the Big Piney team here on Thursday, and for the first time will get to play full field (they've been playing 1/2 field).  Then we get to travel to Jackson Hole to play their team the Saturday a week after that.  It's going to be a busy couple of weeks.  This is homecoming week for our high school team, so at Friday's game all the younger players are going to be introduced by name and get to run out on the field with the high school team, dressed in their full game gear.  Then the following weekend, we get to go to the University of Wyoming's homecoming game.  The youth league bought tickets for all the players and parents could purchase discounted tickets.  The weekend after that is the Jackson game.  I think we're pushing it as far as weather goes.  We woke up to snow this morning, but I'll put those pictures in a different post.