Football!

When it was time to signup the boys for football in the Spring, BS volunteered to be the assistant coach for Wilbur's 3rd grade team.  You may remember it was Will's team that ended 2011 undefeated and champions of the Utah County Football Conference.  As luck would have it, four other Dads volunteered to assist, but no one was willing to budge and be the head coach.  The league was talking about seperating the boys from Will's team last year (because the other lone peak team had a few head coach volunteers), and BS didn't want to see that happen.  He volunteered to be the head coach.   This meant that BS would be pretty much gone from August to November.  

Sambo is in 5th grade, and the 5th graders try out for A and B teams.  After two weeks of hot summer tryouts, Sambo made the A team.  As it turned out, this team was basically his team from two years ago that won the conference championship.  Turns out the 5th graders played their games at noon every Saturday, and the 3rd graders played at 1:00 in a different city. So BS was only able to see one of Sambo's games :(

Wilbur played defensive end, and was really good.  We were all amazed how much more coordinated and aggressive he was this year.  BS would glow when Wilbur was on the field.  A couple things about Will;  he would not back down from the bigger kids, and would remember what the coaches asked him to do the first time.  If you were watching the defense, you would always find Will on the bottom of the pile.  More than once, Will would make a bit hit, and when helping the running back or quarterback up tell them sorry for "smoking them."

Sambo was more of a utility player.  Although he dreamed of running or catching the ball, he usually ended up as corner, linebacker, or defensive tackle.  Sambo's coaches told BS that Sambo had the biggest hit of the year.  He was lucky enough to have a couple carries, and will think about them until football starts again in the summer.

The 3rd grade team had a great year.  Thanks to a double overtime win (where Wilbur sealed the deal with a sack and fumble recovery), the LP 3 Knights finished the year undefeated.  Finishing in first place, the 3rd graders got the first round bye in the playoffs.  In the semi-finals after a hard fought effort, we were as Will would say "extra smoked!"  BS was proud of the boys, and their 8-1 record.  I was proud of the boys too, but also proud of BS for being a terrific Coach and doing a great job teaching and being a positive influence.

Sambo's team also ended the year undefeated!  They won the semifinals, and made it to the championship.  There will be more on this later.  

Now that the season is over, BS and the boys are wondering what to do with their Saturdays and weekday evenings.  Each night since August it has been wake up, work/school, football, and sleep.  Repeat this process over and over.  BS absolutely loved spending the time with Will, and watching him turn into a football nut.  He said he had more fun coaching, than he ever had playing football himself, but it would break his heart not to see Sambo play.  It is a good thing both teams practiced on the same field at the same time, so BS could be there for Sambo as much as possible.  

Here we are, cheering on the boys:

A quick nap between soccer game and football game.  Quincy is quite the trooper going to all of these games!  Eventually I discovered that Chops is the secret weapon to entertain her at the games!

Wilbur and Sambo, we are all so proud of you!  Go Knights!

And thanks again to family members coming to cheer them on!

Costumes!

Halloween has come and gone and I have plenty to blog about from the past month - but for now I will stick with just the costumes.

This year, Halloween was pretty low key as far as the costumes {for once}.

Millie went back and forth between being a super hero with her friends to a princess with her friends to not dressing up at all and then settling on Cindy Lou Who.  I'm proud of her for not following the crowd - she just was what she wanted to be...and came up with the idea and her costume herself.  The only thing we had to buy was the top.  I thought the hair-do would be very intense but it actually only took 15 minutes.  I have to say it was perfect in the morning before school, but by the time I took a picture that evening it was a bit disheveled.  Oh well, she looks darling anyway!

And, PS, she went to her first "dance" after school.  They had a Halloween dance that she helped plan and decorate for Student Council.  I may have found an excuse to bop over to the school and spy, but I soon realized that kids these days just stand around and talk during the dance.  Sometimes they might fast dance for a second but that's it.  No slow dancing, which is totally ok with me.  In fact, they played one slow song and it was cut-off halfway because NOBODY was dancing!  When I was her age  it was all about the slow dance :)

Sambo wasn't really worried about what he was going to be until about 2 weeks before.  He was just thinking about friends and football.  I told him he had to decide and commit in case I needed to make anything.  We got online for some ideas and within 5 minutes he had settled on the Lorax.  He thought the mustache was super cool.  Then all I had to do was find some orange sweats.  Thank-you Walmart!


I wanted to stuff his sweats to make him chubby but he thought he would be too hot and sweaty.  True.

Will wanted to be a cheerleader.  I pulled out my good 'ol Spartan cheer uniform from Junior High and Voila!  Easy Peasy!


The only hiccup was that the night before Halloween we got a school-wide phone message that there was no weapons, masks, or cross dressing allowed at the costume parade.
Abort cheerleader!  We desperately pulled-out a gorilla {or monkey?} costume from our dress-up collection and told him it was totally awesome.  He bought it - at least for the school part.  He went back to the cheerleader for Trick-or-treating that night.

Quincy has known since last year that she wanted to be a witch, and lucky for her I had a darling witch costume from when Millie was 5.  She LOVED wearing this costume and was as cute as can be.  Of course, she had to be a witch with a cat so for many days leading up to Halloween you could find her in her witch dress with a broom and a stuffed cat.  Man does she love her stuffed animals!


As for BS and I...we were weak sauce this year.  Life was too crazy to worry about costumes {especially with the boys' football play-offs going on}!  We missed 2 Halloween parties that we usually dress-up for because I went to Cedar City with some girlfriends to see "Les Miserables" {which was fantastic by the way}.  So, we didn't really have an incentive to get fancy with costumes.  Because Halloween was on a Wednesday, I had to pull something together because I work on Wednesdays and I would be considered lame if I didn't dress up.  So I went as a football player.  Threw on the boy's shorts and knee socks and jersey.  Then a little eye black and called it good.

What an awesome Halloween and the kids looked great! 

Hee-Haw!

We spent a beautiful Fall afternoon at Hee-Haw Farms last Monday, the last day of Fall Break.  BS was able to meet us from work and it turned out to be a fantasic day.  We had such a good time with the kids.  Just the 6 of us.  :)

We held bunnies and piglets, pet and fed the goats and Roosters:

We slid down the giant straw slide in potato sacks:

A very thrilling animal train ride:

Some Tetherball:

Digging, burying, and rolling in the corn:

A journey through the Corn Maze:

A hayride to pick our pumpkins and get candy:

Our pumpkin loot:

Q is trying to look scary:

Practicing for the upcoming deer hunt with the corn launchers:

A pig chase race for free stuff.  Of the 4 kids, of course Will did whatever it took to get free stuff...he won!  He didn't care that the piggy was poopy and muddy and squealing very loud:

Oh happy day!  Love these kids!