Soccer, Soccer and Flag Footbal

Soccer season is in full swing around these parts.  I couldn't put it off any longer and finally signed Landon up for soccer.  He's only five years old but he's been ready to play since he was two. He gets a smile on his face just thinking about playing and puts his new cleats and shin guards on several times a day so he can go outside and "practice."  Other parents actually applauded him when he scored a goal at the first practice and the coach always has Landon demonstrate the drill to show the other kids how it's done.  It's impressive even if he wasn't my kid.
Ethan is playing soccer but can't decide if he really likes it.  He refuses to get too excited about anything Marcus does so we're still trying to figure out what his "thing" is.  In the meantime he provides plenty of comic relief for his teammates both on and off the field and couldn't care less about the score.
Marcus has broken tradition this year and is playing flag football.  He is still passionate about soccer but at his age any kid with skills/interest in soccer has stopped playing on the rec teams and plays on travel teams.  Unfortunately the travel teams play most of their games on Sunday and none of the coaches will honor our request to let Marcus play on the team even if he can't play in all the games.  It makes me so mad!  So now we are doing flag football.  Marcus is on a team with three of his buddies from church and the three dads are coaching the team.   We have suddenly become big football fans and I love it.  Football is such a great sport because there's a little something for everyone.  If you want to be the star of the show you can be the quarter back.  If you can't catch a ball to save your life then play defense.  It's great and I support it wholeheartedly.  My glory days were playing flag football at BYU so I love that I get to relive them now as I cheer from the sidelines.  Randy made me leave the field at the first game because I couldn't keep my mouth shut.   Next year I think I might have to coach.   

Friday nights=football so we ordered pizza and made a night of it with our friends

Piano Guys

My guys play the piano.  Piano lessons and practicing are typically met with much resistance but attitudes have dramatically improved in the past week after Randy and I went to a Piano Guys concert.  The concert was amazing!  We drove all the way to the University of Connecticut to see it which meant our babysitter made some serious cash, but it was well worth it.  The next day was rainy and uneventful so I spent hours with the boys watching the Piano Guys music videos on YouTube.  Marcus has figured out how to play upside down and is more determined than ever that I allow him to play the cello and Ethan is passing off his songs faster than ever.  I only wish I could've taken my boys to the concert.  Next time for sure.  Steven Sharp Nelson, the cellist, said "You can't teach your children to be passionate about music but if they can see you being passionate about music eventually they will catch on."  So my new goal is to be passionate about music so my children can catch the bug too.  This means I'm going to have to sit down at the piano and brush up on my songs once in awhile.  They had no clue I could play some of the music I heard at the concert and were seriously impressed with my {rusty but still there} piano skills.
Our favorite videos were Frozen {check out the frozen piano in the background}, Paradise {watch the piano being lifted in the air by helicopter}, and of course What Makes You Beautiful.

Randy and I are laughing at our hand holding in this picture - super nerds!

And now I'm off to the grocery store to buy lots of food to see us through General Conference weekend.  We don't have a set tradition or meal at General Conference but I try to do a few things to make it special.  We had a great family night to prepare for conference where each person learned about one of the Apostles and did a little report on them so we can look forward to hearing from that Apostle this weekend.  For those of you who need ideas for getting little children to listen to conference, I have small buckets of candy with words labeled on them so when the kids hear that word they can take a treat.  This works great when your kids have a sweet tooth like my boys.  I'm also going to take out the center page in the Ensign that has pictures of all the church leadership and hang it by the TV.  As we listen to each speaker the boys can search for the person on the page and place a sticker on their photo.