Soccer – Week 5

F I N A L L Y ! ! ! ! 

Good weather.  And it made all the difference in the world.  Everyone had a blast.  Carter participated in the practice, played in the game, and was thrilled to wear his jersey.  There was no crying and only minimal whining.   It was actually an enjoyable Saturday morning and not at all a taste of purgatory like some of the prior weeks.

It’s really fun to watch Carter do the drills during practice.  When he’s focused, he’s quite good.  The problem is that he has the attention span of a Labrador puppy.

Carter is goofing around before the game with friend and former next door neighbor, Bennett.

Carter resting with Nana during one of the breaks in the game.  I swear these kids run the fastest when they are told it’s time for a water break.  They nearly race to the sidelines.

Aunt MB also came to the game but somehow I failed to snap a photo. 

 

In the final minutes of the game, Carter got to play at the same time his friend and classmate, Theo, was playing for the other team.  They were total goofballs together on the field.  They pulled their jerseys over their heads.  They pretended to shoot each other with their hands shaped like pistols.  I was laughing too hard to actually get a picture of Carter and Theo together.

Thanks to Nana and MB for coming out to the game and thanks to Mother Nature for FINALLY providing us some decent weather on a Saturday morning.

Next week I’ll have to miss the game as I will be walking 5k with my mom in the Komen Race for the Cure.  Hopefully I can convince Ben to drag the camera along and take some pictures and/or video of Carter in action. 

Hmm…maybe I can even get him to write a posting of his own.

Soccer – Week 4

The poor kid just can’t seem to get a break.   It was 75 degrees earlier this week, yet, today it was 38 degrees with gale force winds.  It was so dang cold and windy that my eyes watered the entire time we were out on the field.

The odds were stacked against Carter this week.  Not only was it frigging cold, but (because of the cold) the coaches decided to essentially skip the practice part and just play the game so we could all go home sooner.  Yep, they skipped the one part of the whole ordeal that Carter really enjoys.

 Coach Pat, Bennett, Carter, and Austin

Carter wasn’t too excited to play and preferred to be on the sidelines on my lap.  Truthfully, I preferred when he was on  my lap, too.  It kept me much, much warmer.

Right now the forecast for next Saturday is 65 degrees and partly sunny.  My fingers are crossed that we actually get that weather. If so, I have high hopes for Carter and soccer.

Mod Podge Wall Decoration

I finally found some time to do some crafting.  The whole “moving into a new house” thing really cut into my crafting time but yesterday (thanks to all the rain) I found some time to be creative.

Carter’s room, though cute, was looking rather incomplete because of the bare walls.  So when I found three metal stars on sale at JoAnn’s, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Here’s one of the stars “as is.”  It’s a simple brown metal star, certainly not offensive looking but not what I pictured for a little boy’s room.

I used some craft paint to paint one of the stars navy blue.  The paint is still wet in the picture.  It’s not this shiny now that it’s dry.

I had some really cute red, white, and blue scrapbook paper that I had bought at a huge discount.  I used this paper and some Mod Podge to cover the other two stars.  I made each point of the star a different pattern.  I made a template of the point of out plain white paper first and then cut out the scrapbook paper to size.  I made the long ends a little wider than the point itself so that I could wrap the edges around the back of the star itself to give it a cleaner look.

I liberally applied Mod Podge to both the front of the star and the back of the paper, put the paper on the star, and smoothed out the bubbles with a brayer. I wrapped the edges and then used another liberal application of Mod Podge to the top of the paper.

 

I don’t have any “action” shots as my hands are usually covered in the “Podge” and I don’t want to get it all over my camera. 

I was using a fairly heavy weight scrapbook paper and so a lot of Mod Podge  is needed to get good adhesion for the wrapped edges.  I like using this kind of paper because it doesn’t just disintegrate and/or tear when wrapping around corners. 

 

I really haven’t found a time when too much Mod Podge is a problem.  It just means longer drying time.  For most people that’s likely not an issue but I’m so impatient and want to hurry up and finish.  For a project like this one, I suggest letting it dry after completing two of the points, otherwise you will not have a good place to hold onto when doing the rest of the points.

Once everything was dry, I hung them on the wall in Carter’s room between his closet and his window.  I can’t put a piece of furniture there because of the vent on the floor and the wall space wasn’t right for a picture, I would need something tall and narrow.  The three stars seemed to do the trick and add to the navy and red theme already in his room.

[By the way, please ignore the curtains.  I have some red fabric that I purchased to sew on an accent panel at the bottom so that they go to the floor.  I guess that will now have to be the subject of a future post…but don’t hold your breath. My to-do list is a mile long.]

This whole project was done in just a couple of hours on a rainy Sunday and cost me less than $25.  The 3 stars together cost me $21, I used 5 pieces of scrapbook paper (on sale for $0.40/piece), and Mod Podge and craft paint that I had on hand.

I’m pretty satisfied with it.  What do you think?

Soccer – Week 3

We woke this morning to a huge thunderstorm.  The thunder shook the house, the lightning seemed to be right in our backyard, and the rain was absolutely pouring down. 

Ben and I were pretty convinced there would be no soccer, but we didn’t mention anything to Carter.  The last thing we wanted to do was give him the idea that there would be no game and then have to drag him out kicking and screaming if the game was on.

Turns out the rain stopped 5 minutes before game time and the temp was in the upper 50s.  Amazing…finally some decent (not great) weather.

I am so proud of Carter today.  This was a great day of soccer for him.  Carter wore his jersey!!!  Carter participated in practice and had fun.  Well….for the most part anyway.  There was one drill that he didn’t do.  It was a game of sharks and minnows.  Carter didn’t like the idea of the sharks coming around and stealing the minnows’ balls.   Overall, though, practice was a huge success.  Carter was a champ at Red Light, Green Light and has decent ball control.  He laughed and had fun.  He listened to his coaches.

Though he still didn’t want to play in the game, I didn’t care. I was too busy beaming with pride from the improvement over the previous two weeks.

When the coach put Carter into the game, he stood where the coach placed him on the field the entire time. He just watched all the other kids run around after the ball.  He didn’t even bat an eye when the ball rolled right past him.  Carter would just look over to the sidelines at us with big eyes that seemed to be saying, “Really? I have to do this?”

We can’t figure out his aversion to the actual game given how much he seems to enjoy the drills.  I guess for today, I don’t really care….he wore his jersey!

Of course I don’t have any pictures.  After hauling my camera out to the field two weeks in a row for no reason, I didn’t feel like doing it again (especially with the threat of more rain).