Family Soccer Game

Monday nights are usually when we have Family Home Evening, but lately our Monday evenings have been swamped. This past Monday, for example, I was gone for 3 hours from 4:00-7:00 taking Ethan to his jazz band practice in American Fork. After I walk in the door it's a rush to get dinner on the table, then homework and more music practice after that, then it's suddenly 10:00 pm  and we are begging them to wind things up and head to bed. So while we still did eek in a prayer and a few verses of scriptures, the whole FHE ritual that the kids enjoy and expect didn't happen. Happily yesterday we had dinner a little early and thus it was still light outside and we felt like we had extra time on our hands, yay! So we turned it into our FHE. Activity: Soccer. Lesson: Mosiah 4:14-30 and Corey shared this article (we like to keep out kids ready for what they'll face in the world they live in). Treat: Chocolate Ice cream. 

First, the activity ~ family soccer game in the back yard. It was a lot of fun!

We had some of our own family soccer rules. Such as there is no out of bounds, except for when we had to pause cause the ball went over the fence. We had to make a rule for No sticks, cause Abi thought we should add in some hockey action. Another rule was that no one could take the green ball from Sophi. If they did, she'd start freaking out and then one of us parents couldn't play. We had a total of 3 balls going at the same time.

Do you like Sophi's shoes? Nice.

Last time we had a full family soccer game was in Costa Rica. We were having slight flashbacks as we played and kids complained about a few things, but overall it was a huge improvement. So I decided that if I'm struggling with things not living up to my ideals, I'll just step away and give it 4 years and try again.

The field was a little tough - the ground in the playground area is made of dirt coated with bunch of wood chips, pinecones and pine needles. You don't want to fall on that, it's rough. Hyrum and Joseph both got tackled over there. Abi is behind Ethan here and has got the stick again...

They chose captains and teams and had a game going while I finished cleaning up dinner. Then I joined them and we made it "Kids vs. Parents" ~ the kids are always up for a challenge like that!

Corey and I were able to hold them off pretty well, we're such a good team. And of course my older boys were amazed at my skills, ha. Yeah, I was all about soccer back in the day. Corey has told the kids that I was on the Olympic Development Team and everything, and I gave it all up to be a mom. I was on ODP for one year, but it's not as important as it sounds. But it impresses the kids enough that they feel some reverence and fear when I start coming at them with the ball. Corey said "I don't know who makes the game harder, the big kids (cause they're getting good at soccer) or the little kids (cause we had to be careful not to hit them with the ball or run them over. Lily got a ball shot to the chest. She's okay now)

I was impressed that Lily could run around on the pine needle coated grass without seeming bothered by it all. I can't walk in the backyard without shoes on. I think Sophia is going to be my little soccer star someday, she loves it.

Wesley would like to be into soccer, he just needs a mom that will bite the bullet and add another thing to our life and sign him up to play before it's too late. Sorry Wes, we missed the deadline again, I'll remember to do it this fall, though, I promise! We had various obstacles running around during the game, some of them were children, other things were a hammock, a playhouse, a toy boat, slide, lots of pvc pipes from the ice rink, etc.

Do you see Corey there? His new name is "The Blur!" Bet ya can't catch Dad! Parents won 6-5. One time I kicked the ball toward the open gate and so I just went around the front side of the house and then tried to pass the ball back to Corey over the fence. But I kicked it too high into the neighbor's yard. Still that was the highlight of the game for me. A fun and memorable evening, and that's what FHE is all about.