2013 Soccer Season

Both boys played soccer again this summer. Nolan was on the U-6 team for the first time, and Matt moved up to the U-8 team. Nolan still plays on the really tiny fields for the youngest soccer players, but Matthew moved to the middle school field, which is a lot bigger than the field he played on last year.

Both boys were #3 this year, so at least they were easy to track on the field. Nolan absolutely loves soccer - I think it is his favorite sport.

Matt had a great time playing on the U-8 team - he discovered his favorite position is mid-field, and his skill level really progressed over the season.

Many of the games were rained out this year (really, shut down due to lightning - they will play if it is "just" rain). I am sad that the soccer season has ended, because it means that summer is winding down. We only have a few weeks left before school starts again!

Matt's Baseball Season

Matthew played baseball for the first time this year. The "rookies" level includes children between the ages of 5-8 (some boys had recently turned 9 years old) - a huge age range for any sport. Since the rules regarding age changed this year, Matt was one of the older kids, but a first year player. He learned how to hit balls from the pitching machine fairly quickly and enjoyed the season.

His team did pretty well throughout the spring and ended up playing in the championship game. The other team was undefeated, and the boys were excited to play in the final game of the year.

They played hard, but were unable to defeat the dreaded Phillies. Everyone had a good time, however, and Matt was excited to get a trophy (his first trophy ever)!

The boys all signed baseballs so they could remember their teammates. The boys play on the same team for 2 years in a row, so Matt will have some friends when he returns next year.

We miss baseball season, but I have to admit I am glad it ended in mid-June. The season overlaps with summer soccer, which creates a very busy schedule in June!

Nolan's Tee Ball Season

Since Nolan was five years old and had already played one year of tee ball, we had the option of placing him on Matt's baseball team. We decided to keep him in tee ball for one more year, however, as he is small for his age and five seems a bit young for facing a pitching machine. I was happy with our decision when I watched Matt's games and noticed that most of the 5 year old children were the ones playing in the dirt in the outfield. Tee ball games are much shorter than baseball games, are played at an earlier time (Saturday mornings), and are not as competitive as baseball.

Nolan had a fantastic time this season. He was pretty good at hitting the ball off the tee and loved running the bases.

The season ended in mid-June and Nolan was a bit sad for the year to be over. He is excited about playing "real" baseball next year, though!

Spring

Sometime in late April, the snow finally stopped. The boys took their kites outside and had a good run through the yard.

My daffodils bloomed and the boys eagerly awaited the start of baseball season.

Honestly, the end of winter is the very best time of the year. We are always happy to see the glorious sun in the sky and green grass!

Buffalo Museum of Science

When my mom was visiting over spring break, we took a trip to the Buffalo Museum of Science. The science museum is fairly small, but the kids had a fantastic time looking at all the exhibits.

The boys really liked a pretend rocket-ship display. They both took turns in the pilot seat, pressing buttons and pretending to go through a lift-off sequence.

Everyone liked the globe with changing displays - you could display a live weather map, the earth, deep space, Mars, and the moon. Matt and Nolan spent a decent amount of time in this room.

Nolan really liked the hurricane simulator. He went into the windy booth several times.

The water table with sand/gravel was a huge hit - the boys could have played here forever. Honestly, sand and water are the best toys on earth.

We stopped by the top floor with the space displays, but there wasn't anything interactive here. Matt liked the space shuttle, so I took his picture before we left.

There was an interactive "reaction time" game that both boys loved. They would race back and forth to see who could hit the lit buttons the fastest.

After playing the reaction-time game, Nolan would run over and check his heart rate. The heart on the glass display would beat in time to a person's heart rate.

Matt was very interested in the biomedical displays in this area of the museum. He finished a human skeleton puzzle while we were in the area.

The museum isn't very big, but well worth a trip when we're in the area.

Indoor Camping in Late March

I really need to catch up on our fun times over the past (five) months! We had an exceptionally cold spring with a lot of snow, so Dennis set up a tent in our living room for the boys. They had a "camp out" and really enjoyed the experience.

Camping is a tough activity with Nolan, since he requires electricity for his feeding pump - we gave him the "night off" from his feeds for this night. I didn't want to thread all the tubing into the tent and have to disengage him from the pump while crawling onto the air mattress at 4:00 am.

The boys spent all night in the tent and had a fantastic time giggling and snuggling into their sleeping bags. One of these days, we'll have to go camping for real - though I think we'll try to get a cabin so I don't have to sleep on the ground!