Soccer ROCKED this week!

If you can think back to my post last week, regarding soccer, you will remember that it was quite the disaster.  Drew did not have fun.

This week was very different.  I remembered the water, it was an hour earlier, James came home early from work to watch and my parents and Hunter came to cheer him on too.  We had quite the little "Drew" cheering section, and it made all the difference.

He didn't want to go at first.  The only reason I got him in the car was because I told him daddy was going to be waiting for us at the soccer field.

Once there, he did great.  He listened to his coach, he tried hard, and he had fun!  We had fun too.....I actually got to watch and cheer, since I wasn't hugging and wiping tears away.......the pictures say it all.

So happy to see daddy!

Part of our cheering section

Hugs for Nana.

Our team is pretty tough....lol

I was worried about H running onto the field..but he was so happy to cheer and watch the game.

The popsicles after the game were the highlight!

We left Stewarttown and headed to Allison's farm market for some ice cream to top off our evening.  Fun times!  Drew is missing soccer this coming week, but we'll be back at it after that!  

Weekend wrap-up...a few days late

Saturday morning, we loaded up the van and headed to Springridge farm.  We were going there to celebrate our friend Allie's birthday.  As we drove there, the clouds rolled in and it started to rain.  We unloaded the kids and gathered underneath a shelter with the rest of our friends/party guests.  As soon as we got settled under the shelter, mother nature unleashed all her fury.....and she was PISSED off!  It was a pretty scary storm.  Water was pouring down the hill on either side of us, lightening and thunder struck every few minutes......and the power went off for a few minutes in the store.

Because of the storm, we weren't able to go and ride the ride-on toys or play in the sand box.  The party planner took us to the back of the main barn, as soon as the rain died down a bit.  Once there, we decorated a basket and painted a pot.  We had a yummy pizza lunch and cupcakes for dessert....delicious!  After lunch, we were taken out to the chicken coop where each child picked an egg out.  Both boys were thrilled to find their egg.

Happy birthday, Allie!

It was a great party, the boys are still talking about it!

After the party, we headed straight to the cottage.  The weather cleared up, and we had a wonderful afternoon/evening.  The newest owners to our cottage condo were up for the weekend, and they have 4 boys between the ages of 2-8!  Drew was sooo excited to have some new friends to play with.

It was a great weekend...the pictures say it all!

Friday, June 3

Friday I had 2 doctors appointments.  SOOO much fun!  The first was one that I had made with my family doctor.  My neck has been feeling swollen, and there are noticeable lumps, which I did not have before.  I waited an hour in the waiting room, saw the doctor for 5 minutes and now have to go have an ultrasound to check out these mysterious lumps.  She is worried it's my thyroid.

The second appointment was with a urologist regarding the enlarged kidney that showed up on the CT scan I had recently.  This appointment was much better, as I only had to wait a few minutes to be seen.  Said urologist is sending me for another ultrasound in 6 months, but isn't worried about the condition at all.

Good news!

While I was out, I e-mailed James to ask him how they were doing and this is what he sent me back....

I love my husband.

Our afternoon was filled with outside play for Drew and I, naptime for H and manure spreading for James.  He was out there for over 5 hours!  That's a lot of poop.

Once H woke up, we played around our house for a bit and then I took the boys up to the Glen for dinner.  James came up after, and helped my dad load their couch into the truck.  We were taking the truck home, unloading their couch at our house (it always seems that whenever we need a couch, my parents are magically about to get rid of theirs and get a new one....gotta love them) and taking our couch up to the cottage.  Our plan was foiled however, as it was calling for rain on saturday.  Oh well, take it up another weekend!

A crack, a play date and IKEA!

Wednesday morning had me dropping Drew off at school, handing Hunter over to my mom in the parking lot (so he could ride the bus with her) and me volunteering in Drew's class.  Mostly my responsibility that morning was helping the kids to water the grass that they were growing (in individual planters).  Clearly, Drew's teacher has never seen my gardens.

I went to pick H up at Nana's and then we headed to the superstore where I wanted to pick up a few things for later in the afternoon.  H had a quick nap at home and then we were heading back up to the Glen to meet Drew and his friend who was riding home on the bus with him!

On the way, a rock jumped up from the road and put a huge crack in the windshield.  Crap.  More money spent on a damn vehicle.  Fun times.

My mom was actually the one who had suggested this play date between Drew and his bestie from JK.  They are hilarious together.  They never stopped from the time they got off the bus to the time I drove him home.  They did everything....including the bouncy castle, which my dad brought up from the basement for the first time this year.

H was SO cute, trying to keep up with the big boys.  He tried to do everything they were doing...sometimes succeeding, sometimes not so much, but ALWAYS being super cute.

It was a nightmare to take bestie home.  Drew didn't want him to go and he didn't want to leave either.  Once I finally got him home, Drew crashed big time.  He was tired, and starving.  Not a good combo.  My dad had ordered pizza, so Drew and I stopped off to pick it up on the way back.  I shoved a bread stick in his mouth and that seemed to smooth things over until we got home.  Needless to say, he fell asleep on the way home from the Glen.

Thursday James' mom came over to watch the boys while James and I did some work around the house. I cut the grass (3 hours and still not done!) and James spread some manure.  Oh the glamorous lives we lead.  Halfway through, James took me to Kelsy's for a date lunch.  It was fun, although James smelled like crap (yes, actual crap...at one point he was in the actual spreader, knee high in it, shovelling it out as it had jammed) and my hands were brown from weeding the gardens......we are HOT.

Once home, we continued with our fun chores and then once Grandma left, we headed to Ikea for dinner and apparently the funnest night of our children's lives.  That place is a frigging playground.  The boys had SO much fun playing in the different kitchen set-ups, trying out the beds, sprinting through the store.  I have to admit, I had a great time too.  Love going there and dreaming about how I want things to be set up at home and at the cottage.  Dream being the operative word there.

There was about to be a freak out by Drew when I asked him to come to dinner and another boy was going to erase his drawing.  My phone came to the rescue when I told Drew I could take a photo and we could save it forever!

"MMMMMM....ranch dressing"

Both boys fell asleep on the way home and James and I were able to watch a DVR'd episode of Friday night lights.  Good times!

What do you do when......

......your kid decides he hates the new activity he has just tried once?

I'll start from the beginning of the day (yesterday).

I loaded the boys into the van and we headed to gymnastics.  On the way, along Mountainview, I spotted a pile of vibrantly coloured plastic.  Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a little tykes climber.  Score!  I pulled into the drive-way, knocked on the door and asked the PJ'd man if he was getting rid of the climber. He was soooo happy I was going to take it instead of it going into the garbage.  Not happy enough to help me load it in the van though!  It barely fit, was bigger than I thought, and I ended up having to leave our stroller at the man's house (thereby ruining the plans I had for after gymnastics).

Once we made it to gymnastics, both boys had a great time.  Nana showed up half-way through to watch, the boys were thrilled to see her.  After gymnastics, we headed up to the Glen so that I could drop the climber off there (allowing me to pick up our stroller on the way home).  Once there, we filled up the water table and mini pool and the boys were soaked in no time.  After some swimming and splashing, the boys decided they needed to wash their gator and have some ice cream to cool down.  It was HOT yesterday.

The climber will look like this, once it's set up.  I think we're going to take it to the cottage.

After some lunch at Nana's, I took the boys home.  H fell asleep on the way, and had a super long nap.  Water play really tires him out!  Drew and I played outside for a bit at our house, but it was crazy hot, and I wanted Drew to rest a bit before soccer (which apparently didn't help the situation any once we got there).

We headed inside and played lego and trucks for the rest of the afternoon.  Once H woke up, we headed back up to the Glen.  Lots of pool time/water play throughout the afternoon and a hot-dog supper led us to the big moment.  Drew got all dressed in his soccer uniform and I took him to Stewarttown to play his first game.

It was pretty overwhelming once we got to the fields.  There were a ton of games going on, I didn't count them, but I would guess 10 or 12?  Add in all of the kids waiting to start their games at 7:15 and you can imagine all of the people there.  The format for the games is 30 minutes of practice followed by 30 minutes of 3 on 3 game time.

He seemed ok once we first got there.  There was a bit of waiting around, and then he met with his team on the field.  They them called all of the kids in the middle so that they could do a large group warm-up, at this point, Drew decided that he had to go potty...a quick trip to the johnny on the spot and we were back to the warm-up.  This is where things started to go wrong.  He missed the instructions, and Drew does not like it when he doesn't know for sure what's going on.  He followed the instructions as best he could and somehow ended up in tears once it was all done.  He came running out to me, and wanted to leave right then.  Ugh.

I talked him in to trying it out for a bit.  He was upset that he didn't know how to play.  I told him that no one knew how to play....it took some time, but finally got him to join in to the practice.  This part seemed to go ok.  He kicked the ball back and forth with another kid and then they started the game.  He was the first one on, played his time and then the coach told the kids to head to their parents for a second and get some water (did I mention it was hot??).  Here is where I win the "worst parent of the year" award.  I forgot the damn water!  So, the little man was exhausted, AND thirsty.  The rest of the time did not go well.  He refused to go back on the field for most of the rest of the time, and sat with me, instead of his team.  At the very end, the coach finally persuaded him to go back on.

He hated it.  Was so mad at me for putting him into it (he ASKED to play it!!!) and I couldn't help feeling disappointed that he didn't have fun.  It seemed like he was the ONLY kid who wasn't having fun.

We headed back to Nana and Papa's to pick H up and rehydrate Drew and then headed home for a very late bedtime.

I'm not sure what to do.  He asked me today to "un-register" him.  My gut tells me that if we spend some time practicing with him this week, keep playing up the positives of soccer and (ahem) NOT forget the water next week...it will get better.  So that's the plan......hopefully it won't be so hot next week too, that would probably help things.

Wish us luck.