Memorial Day Weekend

Posts are a little out of order (as you can tell by Maya's normal nose in these pictures), but I wanted to go back to our Memorial Day weekend. We accomplished a lot of small projects around the house and did a lot of fun activities with the girls. On Memorial Day we took the girls to Panera for breakfast, drove through the cemetary and the flag displays to explain the importance of Memorial Day to the girls and then went home for an afternoon of pool fun and grilling :) Josh and I had the conversation about how this is exactly how we had always envisioned life with a family :) These girls are just too precious!


This was the view from our deck that weekend... how fun!




Makenna posing :)


Look at those giggles!


Maya chilling on Daddy's lap... it took her awhile to warm up to the water. She kept yelling "Shirt wet! Shirt wet!" and tried going in the house for a new one. We finally convinced her it's okay to get wet in your swimsuit :)


Action shot! Maya got her!


Makenna


Maryn obviously thrilled that she just got someone with her duckie sprayer :)

Maya's Ouchie

I'm starting to think my girls have formed a club - the "have-to-have-an-injury-that-gives-mom-and-dad-a-heart-attack" club. Maya seems to have joined the club at a much younger age :( Sunday evening we were exploring all the new flowers in the park behind our house. The girls had tried to run on numerous occasions and we told them to stop since they weren't wearing appropriate footwear. Maya very innocently took three fast, jogging steps to catch up with Makenna, her feet got tangled up underneath her and her face caught the concrete. The only real injuries were to her face... she even "skidded" on the concrete with her face. I know that's too much information, but her mommy and daddy had to watch it and couldn't get there in time to stop it. It was horrible. She looks absolutely horrible. She came up with a face full of blood :( Forunatiely the bleeding stopped very quickly and there were no gaping wounds so that meant no stitches. She basically just scraped off a few good layers of skin.

After the fact, I'm just thanking God for the small stuff. This is really a small thing in the whole big picture... no major damage was done, it's just a minor inconvenience. We praise God for protecting our baby and making sure more serious damage wasn't done to her head or face.


This is just minutes after we got her cleaned up. Mommy knew she was going to be okay when she asked for ice cream right away :)


Her ouchie is mostly on her nose, but goes up on her forehead and upper lip as well. After the accident she kept reapeating "Maya fall down - go boom! Maya fall down - go boom!"


Snuggles with Daddy always make it better... oh and a little Blues Clues and ice cream with sprinkles :) We probably would have bought her a car at that point if she would've asked.


Maya's ouchies the day after her fall. Still not looking great. Everywhere we go she gets sad, pity looks :( She's still one of the cutest kids I know!


But she's still smiling! Gotta love my "sweetie-heart"!

Makenna Soccer - Spring 2011

Makenna's spring season with AYSO U8 has come to a close and I think most in our family are pretty sad about it. All of us (Josh included!) have turned into quite the soccer fans, especially when one of our daughters is playing! The team Makenna played with last fall and this spring made it even harder to be done... the coaches were absolutely outstanding, the girls on the team were all very sweet (and fun to watch play!) and the parents all got along incredibly well. Her team (the Flames) played together really well. Miss Makenna improved ten fold from last fall to this spring. She just made the age cutoff for the U8 league by less than 2 weeks, so she was definitely the youngest on the team. Some of the girls were up to 2 years older than her. In the fall, this age difference really showed in her ball skills and abilities on the field. She always seemed to be a half step behind her older teammates, which was very frustrating for her since she came from a different soccer program where she was able to dominate the field. But she didn't let that get in the way of her enjoying the game and she still loved soccer!! We were so happy that she could still enjoy something even if she wasn't the best at it. Well give her 6 months to grow and mature and this spring season was a different story. She looked like a different kid out there on the soccer field! She seemed to understand the strategy of the game, responsibilities of the various positions played on the team, and anticipating the action on the field much better. Not to mention that her ball handling skills and speed (thanks to all of her runs with Mommy and Daddy) improved as well. She scored 5 times this spring season, with 2 of those goals being in the final game of the season (I think she had to compete with Maryn since she scored 2 that day as well!). She had more assists than I could even count and had some great defensive blocks as well. She was even named "Hustler of the Game" on a few occasions! We are really proud of this girl for how hard she worked and how far she's come! We're proud to be soccer parents :)

Look at all that red jersey traffic she's busting through!





Take it Kenna!





Another chance to bust through the defense.


Looks how seriously she defends that goal!


Playing goalie and trying to not get side-tracked by mom taking pictures :)


"Cover your girl!" - she always took this direction very seriously :)


Look at those long legs running! Running and ability to switch up speeds is definitely one of her most improved areas.


GOAL!!!!


Defense!


Look at her turn that ball down the field!


Breaking away down the field. Right now I can guarantee you all the parents and coaches were yelling "Spread Out! Spread Out!" so Makenna could pass to one of them.

Maryn Soccer - Spring 2011

Maryn played in the AYSO U5 league for the first time this spring. I highly recommend this program to anyone else in the Cedar Rapids area. They spend the first half going over drills and doing fun ball handling skill games with the kids. Every kid is required to have a parent on the field with them so they have an adult partner to work with. This is an awesome idea that other soccer organizations should implement with this age group. The second half of their time, they divide up into teams and play games. Maryn LOVED it! The first few games she was exhausted after about 40 minutes of playing, but by the last game she was mad when she had to take her turn and sit out for awhile. She has terrific ball handling skills for her age and can very easily dribble the ball through traffic all the way down the field. She scored at least one goal every game and very proudly scored two goals in the last game. I'm pretty sure every person that crossed her path that day heard about her two goals :)


Lining up to kick off


Following the ball! She did well when the group clustered the ball, but tended to pull out the old "stiff arm" on her competition if she wasn't accomplishing what she wanted to :)


Breaking away from the pack!


Straight to the goal! GOAL #1!


Look at this celebratory run out of the goal! She reminds me of Mia Hamm :)


This picture post-goal #1 is PRICELESS! She was so excited!


Mad she had to sit out :(


Keeping up with the action!


Yes, that would be Coach Daddy you see there!


Water break! The first few practices/games she loved water breaks because she was getting tired. By the end they'd have to ask her to leave the field a few times because she was having too much fun to leave!


I don't have the action shots for this one, but here is when she put it in the goal the second time!!


Very proud of herself :)

Makenna's Two Front Teeth

This past week Makenna lost her fifth tooth. She is now missing her two front teeth :) It is so cute! But the permanent ones are coming in fast and furious... you can already see white permanent tooth on both sides! I told her she doesn't get to sing "All I Want For Christmas..." because she's not really toothless! This tooth has been loose for quite some time. Finally on Thursday it was just hanging on by a string. Well I'm a wimp and couldn't bring myself to pull it so she just went in the bathroom and did it herself! This is the third tooth she has pulled herself (the other two at school) and of course Daddy pulled the other two.



Here's a good shot where you can see some of the permanent tooth starting to come in.