The Saratoga Sting

Noah is our sports kid. He wanted to start playing soccer before he was three. Since he turned four, he has been on nine city league teams. He loves it.
It's been fun watching him improve. This spring we decided it was time to start competitive soccer. All summer he was up at 7:00 on Monday, Wednesday & Friday mornings so that he could condition with his team. He had practices on Tuesday and Thursday nights. When the season started I could really see the improvement in his ability to handle the ball and run the field.
Noah isn't super competitive. He loves to play and won't freak out if they don't win. His ability to keep a level head during a game resulted in the coach making him team captain. Besides being able to tell the other players where to go & what to do during the game he also got to do this:
The Sting finished the season with 5 wins, 4 losses and 1 tie. Noah doesn't always agree with the final score. Usually on the drive home he'll award and take away goals as he deems necessary. For being a first year team, I think they did really well. We had a couple of hard losses but also a few blow outs of our own. I think the last team we played will think twice before they make us sit facing the sun. At least they didn't have to shade their eyes to watch our team obliterate them 9-0.
This season's games have been more entertaining too. Soccer is so much better to watch when the players understand the sport. They all actually know which goal is ours, can play their position (for the most part), & they even pass the ball around. Sometimes they run a play and it works. It's been amazing. The funniest game though was when both teams and the referees were wearing yellow jerseys. That can get very confusing. There was only one thing to do and it was pretty amusing. Good thing it was still warm.
I am a miserable soccer photographer. We don't keep track of how many goals he scores, he scored plenty, but I only have video of one. A penalty kick which, even then, I barely got.


We have a little break before we start up indoor soccer this winter. It is time consuming and I am dreading the driving, but Noah loves it too much to stop.

Spooky

Ever since he came home and saw the Dobson's pumpkins Zack has been pestering me to get out our Halloween decorations. I don't have very many and I wasn't planning on buying anything new. I am just not feeling that vibe. I've been way too busy to even think about witches and ghosts. Instead I have been trying to convince him that decorations are unnecessary because our house is so messy that it is scary. He is not buying it.

A few days ago he showed me a dryer sheet and told me that it looks kind of like a spider web. Later that day I found he put it here:

I know pathetic when I see it, (and I needed to be able to throw away his spider web decoration) so the next day we headed to the store to find some decorations. Last year Smith's went all out with the automated Halloween characters. They scared Zacky to death. I had to avoid that aisle and any check stands near it. I assumed that he would love all the floral and leaf arrangements. Pretty, I guess, is not for Halloween. This year he is all about scary stuff. And he is picky about what he wants for decorations. After three stores, he didn't find any decorations that he liked enough to beg me to buy. We ended up with an official spider web, that we still need to put somewhere, some pumpkins, window clings and 25 feet of skull garland:

He thinks it looks "spooky." I am just hoping this will satisfy him. Something tells me it won't.

Happy Birthday to me... a week ago

My birthday was last week. It's really not a big deal for me. But all my boys love a good celebration. Matt stayed up late so that I would wake up to this.
I really need to let him do the birthday signs. He is much more creative. Ben loved the "bubble letters."

Noah, Ben & Zack all went out of their way to make it a good day for me. I didn't resort to "don't ruin my birthday" one time. Noah's gift to me was that his soccer team would win their game, which they did. Thanks to Lynne for baking this yummy cake and letting Zack decorate it. That was a double present.
After such a great day, I didn't think it could get any better, but a year ago I bought this on my birthday:

This year, for my birthday:

This birthday will be tough to beat... I'm thinking next year: Hawaii!?!

Pretty

Yesterday Zack informed me that I need to go get pretty. I didn't look pretty because I was wearing a black sweater (I know, sweater?!). I needed to go put on a dress, preferably one with flowers, so that I would look pretty. I said: "What if I don't want to look pretty?" He looked at me like I was crazy and then repeated his request for a dress, adding that I ought to put on my green neck-a-lace ( how he says it). By then he was getting frustrated with the fact that I hadn't jumped off the couch. He started begging. I tried to sidetrack him, but he was focused. He wanted me in a dress, a neck-a-lace &, his eyes lit up, a crown. The fact that I don't own a crown sort of put a damper on his plan so he let it go and tolerated the black sweater.

Zack is all about things being pretty. This is how my table looked all last week.
Isn't it pretty? He put together this masterpiece one afternoon and fiddled with it every day to make sure it stayed pretty.

Sometimes I am pretty. It isn't very often. It's usually when I am wearing pink, something with a floral pattern, a skirt, or jewelry. One night I looked pretty because I had on some pj bottoms with a pink satin tie. I bought some new shoes and was told that they "are not that good." I should have bought the pink ones because they are prettier.

During preschool Zack earns money and gets to spend it each Friday in the preschool store. Usually he comes home with suckers, bubbles, and other little trinkets. Friday, he picked out a blue neck-a-lace for me because is was sparkly and had diamonds. I wore it all day, even to mow the lawn. I am guessing that is the prettiest I will ever look while I mow the lawn. At least to him.

Lucky Number 7

Ben's birthday was on Monday. But we started celebrating early on Saturday with the eagerly anticipated friend birthday party. He's big into fast cars right now, so we went for a car themed party--not Speed Racer or Cars the cartoon; he likes the cool cars like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bugatti. The kind of cars that they don't put on napkins, plates, pinatas, etc. We had to improvise a little. Here are some of the highlights. (I will spare you the lowlights like when I freaked out about how the house was so messy, or that no one was helping me fast enough, or that we didn't get a balloon bouquet and so the party was ruined... I was a little stressed. Everyone should feel sorry for Matt.)

Decorating race car boxes. We had two teams: The Super Flying Monkeys and The Blue Lightning.

The big relay race:

Building race cars out of packs of gum, life savors and mini candy bars:


A finished car:


And, of course, the pinata.
I stress out way too much about birthday parties. I think the kids had a fun time and Ben was all smiles so that's all that really matters.

Don't Come Here for Sympathy

I was raised with the Tim McGarry "suck it up" philosophy. Anytime I was sick I was reminded by my dad that he went to work all the time when he wasn't feeling well. It was true; I watched him do it. That's why when I am sick I pretty much keep going and I assume everyone else should too. While it makes me a great employee it doesn't make me the greatest wife. Ask Matt.

Last night he passed a kidney stone. For most people this would be a rare and excruciating experience. For Matt it's just excruciating. He passes them all the time. This is probably the 2nd or 3rd one this year. Want to see? (These are all that he has passed in the last 3 years).



It's become so common that I barely even notice. Here's what he sent me in an email today:

"Yes, I love the sympathy that you showed for me last night with my stone...I am pacing the house trying to wake you up and when you finally roll over you just said dang and then went back to sleep. It is kind of funny now that I look back on it. Maybe that is when I should ask to do things..... ;)"

Not good. I'll never be wife of the year.

Sabotage

Some of you may remember Matt's ill-fated blog, Chumperville. Well, maybe because David started doing one or because he has just been itching to have a blog all to himself, Matt has started another blog. The reason for Chumperville's demise was that Matt can't remember his log in or password so he couldn't update it. He's tried. I've tried. It's a lost cause. Thing is, poor Matt has 50 (no exaggeration) passwords at work that he needs to remember. If you want complete details ask him, he will be more than happy to tell you all of them. It is really complicated and boring and ok, I guess he is entitled to forget one. Which brings me to my problem, or in his words, his great solution. He created a new blog using my profile. It seemed like a genius plan. He was so proud of himself. Until we looked on my blog and found a long profile about Metallica. I don't really like Metallica. I am not a big lover of Metal or Dime Bag Darrell. That is all Matt. Not only do I now have his profile, but my comments and posts are all attributed to him and so now I am feeling a little violated. I don't have the time/patience to try to figure it out now so I just thought I should explain why everything is crazy here at the Francis Five.

Oh and Matt thinks he is funny and added something to my profile sometime last week. So if you read it, I am embarrassed about that too. Why didn't he forget my login and password?

UPDATE: I fixed it. Notice that I said I(meaning Kliss) fixed it. Someone else is asleep... we are so even on the whole kidney stone thing.