Fall

Fall

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Will's First Soccer Practice

Will has been looking forward to soccer for weeks now and tonight was the big night - his first practice.  He woke up at 7 a.m. this morning ready to go!  What a long day we had waiting until 6:15 p.m.

Will was actually excited for me to take pictures of him.
He said "You can take like 100 - No, more than that!"
They started with warm-ups - toe touches then jumping jacks. 
The jumping jacks were particularly fun to watch!
Will was excited to take his turn as goalie.  He had asked me on the way there if
he could be goalie.  I think he liked having an excuse to fall down!
Caleb getting his shot at the goal.

Natalee made a great shot and Will did a good job blocking it - they'll make a good team!

Will took one pretty good ball to the gut but got right back up.
Monica, his coach (and Caleb's mom) was proud of him for being so tough!


Monday, February 6, 2012

Valentine's Day Cookies

We baked Valentine's Day cookies with Natalee and Brady again this year.  We all had so much fun this time (a big contrast to the stressful evening we had baking Christmas cookies)!  We planned much better this time.  Improvements included painting on the icing, taking a break between rolling the dough and icing the cookies, and encouraging Will to use larger sprinkles rather than the sugar crystal ones. 

Will's dough rolling skills have improved greatly.  He also got much better at
getting more than one cookie out of the dough each time he rolls it.  I was proud of them all
for sharing the two cookie cutters among the three of them without any argument!
This is Grandma Nelson's rolling pin.
I know she would be so proud to see Will using it. 
I talked him into one big smile for the camera!

All the kids were ready to sit down and focus on the icing after they ran
numerous laps around Lindsay's house while the cookies were baking and cooling.

Last time, the kids (especially Will) piled TONS of M&Ms on each cookie.  This time, to
make sure we had enough M&Ms and to practice counting, we made a limit of 5
M&Ms per cookie.  They really did good with that since there was only
one over-the-limit cookie by the end.
You'll notice there is much less decoration on the cookies this time.  That is due in part
to the fact that Will's motivation this time was to decorate as many big
cookies as quickly as he could.  He was operating under the
assumption that all the cookies he decorated were
his to eat!  He slowed down after I explained
they were all to share.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Playing with Daddy

Will loved playing with Jerry in the evenings - whether it's Wii, cars, or board games.  Tonight Will decided on a puzzle/numbers game he got for Christmas.  

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

A Rare Opportunity

It's almost 60 degrees outside today!  We took advantage of the nice weather and went outside to play after lunch.  It's been a long time since Will was able to get out his scooter and bike so he's having a great time!