Soccer!

Eli had his first soccer practice and game last weekend! He is playing through the YMCA. Soccer practice, which was really a 'get to know your teammates' and to '(somewhat) figure out the rules of soccer' type of practice, was on Friday evening and the game was Saturday morning. He will be playing every Saturday morning until Nov. 13th at various times if you want to come!

Anyway, the coach wasn't quite in tune with exactly how little the kids knew. For example, he'd say, "okay dribble the balls around the cones" and the kids just kicked their balls all different ways. So, luckily John was there and stepped in to help the coach and gave the kids some more direction. John is so good with the kids. He says he'll probably coach next time. I don't know who had more fun at practice, John or Eli! John just laughs the whole time b/c the kids are hilarious.

Eli did well at the game. Most of the time, he was right up there in the front of the clump of kids trying to kick the ball. He's pretty fast! He got embarrassed one time when his shoe came off and ran to us crying, but other than that, he did great. It's amazing how many melt downs there are at a 4-5 year old soccer game! There are two older 5 year olds on Eli's team who are good at actually controlling the ball and making some goals! Go Panthers!...that's his team name, BTW!

Also, I want to say a big thank you to our neighbors, Chad and Hannah, for coming out to cheer on Eli. It was fun, and Eli really liked that you were there, even though he didn't show it!

Jed and I played at the playground during most of the practice.


















Here's Eli dribbling. He was a little timid at first.






Jed sat in my lap and watched the whole game! I thought I'd be chasing him around and not be able to watch the game, but Jed decided he wanted to watch the game, too, thankfully! And he did it in style!




















And here's the game

Labor Day Trucks

On Labor Day,we went with our friends, The Klentzmans, to Burnet. If you've been reading this blog awhile, you've heard about Mia and Eleanor. Well, their grandparents live on some land in Burnet, and they happen to have some construction trucks that little boys are crazy about! They also have bb guns and skeet shootin', which are fun for the adults, too! So, needless to say, Eli and Jed had a blast. Their favorite thing was the trucks. There was a dump truck, a grader, a skid steer, and a backhoe. Jen was laughing at me and the boys b/c we knew the names of the all trucks and knew all about their functions and parts. She has two girls who call all construction trucks tractors! Eli got to drive the backhoe (Rex's dad really did let him steer around the barn and he did great) as well as control all the parts. Eli moved the stabilizers up and down (a special request by Eli) and even dig a hole with the scoop! Jed got to sit in the backhoe and see all the trucks up close, which was enough for him. It was heaven for the boys!
















Once again, my camera was out of memory at the worst time, so I got short clips of the boys and the backhoe.

In this first one, you can hear Jed say, "I yai duh-dum, Mama!", which means he wants to ride the dump truck. He says "duh-dum" for dump truck. Then you hear Jed say, "Hi Eli!, Hi man!". I guess he didn't know Rex's dad's name. Ha!

Changes

This is a week full of changes for us! Tuesday (8/31) was Eli's last day at the Mother's Morning Out program he's been going to at Jackie's. He started there last September, and we all enjoyed the year he had there. Lots of memories made with the ballet, tap, swimming, and gymnastics he did there! Eli was okay with ending his time at Jackie's and seemed sort of indifferent about he whole thing. I guess he was ready to move on. I'm pretty sure the gymnastics and maybe dance will continue through classes at the YMCA.
Here's a picture of Eli and his ballet/tap teacher, Ms. Carley:
















As of tomorrow, Eli will be going to his first day (9-noon) of pre-school at Faith United Methodist Preschool. Today, we went to go meet his teacher and get more acquainted with the school. Eli is excited and looking forward to it, thankfully! As usual, he acted timid when we went there and met his teacher, but I'm sure he'll warm up in no time. I'm excited for him! I think he'll have lots of fun and meet some new friends who are boys. The majority of his friends now are all girls, so I was glad to see that there are 5 boys and four girls in his class. His class is called The Rockin' Robins, by the way. I was surprised to find out that Eli already knew what a Robin was today. He said cousin Grayson, who is pretty much an ornithologist by now, told him about Robins. Anyway, more to come on Eli's adventures in preschool!
Here Eli is in the room where his class will do small group time. His circle has a frog on it, which I liked!

















We had to bring some photos of Eli and photos of us to Meet the Teacher so that they can use them for a project. These are the ones I sent. Aren't we cute?

















And these are some others we took, but didn't make the cut. Still cute though.

Lem-ah-lay

Do you remember how Eli used to say "potato" when he was about Jed's age? He would say, "po-tay-tay-tay-ko-ko-ko". Well, Jed says "lemonade" in a similar way with the added syllables. It's usually "lem-ah-lem-ah-lem-ah-lay". He's gotten better at saying it since I took this video last week, which makes me sad. I don't know what it is with them trying to say three syllable words, but it's so cute!

Jed the Singer

Jed sings a lot these days. Actually, he's always liked singing now that I think of it. E-I-E-I-O has been his song of choice for several months now. He still likes that one, but lately he's been adding more songs to his repertoire. Here are couple videos of them. The first is "You Are My Sunshine" and the second is a song that he made up that he usually sings while he's playing or in the car.

Fireman Helmet

While we were in Dallas last weekend Eli's cousin, Grayson, gave him a real fireman helmet that he had when he was about Eli's age. Needless to say, Eli adores it! Thank You cousin Grayson!

Jed's Markers

For some reason Jed loves markers. He is usually carrying around a marker or crayon in one of his hands at all times. This means that he usually has marker colored on some part of his body at all times. Thankfully, he has gotten better about coloring on paper instead of the walls, but we're still working on not coloring on himself. Thank God for washable markers! Jed loves his markers, or "mahk" as he calls them, so much that he eats with them, sleeps with them, and even puts them in his little stroller and pushes them around like his babies! He's even gotten to where he prefers to carry (and wear) a specific color marker each day! Maybe he'll be an artist?

Dodge!

As you probably know, Eli is crazy about all kinds of trucks! He has quite a collection, as you can see in the photo. Recently he's been all about pick-up trucks. Lately, Eli has been asking us what the names are of different pick-up trucks that he sees while we're out and about. He really wants John to get a truck, more specifically, a silver or light blue Toyota Tundra with dual wheels in the back. The problem is Tundras don't make dually's, so Eli's second choice is a Dodge Ram Dually with a big grill on the front. Oh, and a trailer for hauling stuff, too. Dodge's are Eli favorite, but John said he likes Tundras, so of course Eli likes them, too. For Eli, the bigger the truck, the better! It's pretty impressive how he can name the trucks he sees while we're in the car. I think he's got all of them down now...Tundras, Dually's, Tacomas, all types of Fords, Chevy, etc. He's even recognizing the sizes, like 150, 250, one ton, two ton, etc. I'm learning a lot about types of pick-up trucks, too!
As I said Dodges are Eli's favorite, so whenever he sees a Dodge truck, he'll say, "Dodge"! It's funny because he says it in the middle of whatever he's doing or saying. One time when he was upset and being grumpy, he still said, "Dodge", but with a frowny face and a mad voice. Have you seen the movie, "Up"? There's a dog in the movie with a collar that talks for him and says what he's thinking. Whenever the dog would see a squirrel, it would perk up and the collar would say "squirrel"! It's the same with Eli and Dodge trucks. It's become like an involuntary reflex!

Undies!

Remember the post when Eli picked out his new undies? Well, I got some pictures of Jed in the same underwear. So far, Jed just wears hand-me-downs from big brother. I've taken him to pick out his very own special undies, but I haven't found any small enough! I love the tiny little undies!

Mama Can Sew!

I mentioned in a previous post that I took a sewing class and learned to sew back in May. Well, I took another class at the same place this month, The Stitch Lab. It was a more in depth sewing class for beginners. I learned more and gained some confidence in my sewing skills! I think the hardest part about sewing is the measuring, mostly because I'm horrible at math. I love being creative and sewing stuff, and it's easy to do in my home, as opposed to when I made pottery where I had to go somewhere with a wheel, kiln, etc. I hope to keep it up! One downside to my new hobby is that I could see myself spending too much money on fabric and being tempted to take all the classes at the Stitch Lab. I will try to control myself!

Here are some pictures of my sewing projects. I know some of you have seen these on Facebook, but now you get to see them again! I get most of my fabrics at the Stitch Lab because I have yet to find one I don't like there.
This is the first bag I made in the Crash Course.















Here is the pillow we made in the Beginner's Series, complete with piping and a zipper!













This is a simple drawstring bag we made in class.












This is the skirt I made in class. It has an elastic waist and it's reversible!

















I made this drawstring bag for Eli with the John Deere fabric he picked out. There is a red patch on it because while I wasn't looking, he put the iron down on it and it made a burn mark...yikes! He uses it for his stuffed animals.












These curtains were so easy to make!












I had an empty frame and got some foam board, wrapped fabric around it, and stuck it in the frame to make a pretty picture. Looks good above our bed!












These are some necklaces I made with scrap fabric and wooden beads. Again, very easy to make.













And finally, this is a dress I made! It's a LeSac dress, which is basically two rectangle pieces sewn together with a drawstring at the top. You can tie the string many ways to style the dress. So, it's like 20 dresses in one! Here's how to make one if you want. I'm going to make another LeSac dress using jersey fabric so that it's more flowy and not as stiff.
The pics aren't great. Eli took the one where my face is cut off and the one that's sort of smeary and artsy.