Hotel CaliFarnsworth

On Friday night I was being such a great, attentive mother. I knew each of my 3 kids had their first soccer game the following day so I prepped them for bed early.....which was right on time for them, early for everyone else. Preston's coach had called to make sure he was going to be there to play and to remind me to feed him a nutritious breakfast.

Saturday came a little too early for me. I was still pretty tired and slow going until a bouncy 5 year old came into my room. Suddenly I was energized and just as excited as she was for the day's events. First things first, we tackled Chloe's hair. She is very particular about her hair (as I am too). Just because she was about to run around more than ever, did not mean she couldn't look fabulous while kicking a goal. Chloe decided she wanted her hair in just one braid. I pulled her hair back, fishtail braided it, and placed it in a bun. After securing the ribbons in her hair she was ready to wake up everyone else. Douglas made the kids eggs, whole wheat pancakes (with sugar free syrup ofcourse), and chocolate milk. See what great parents we are? Geez.

Chloe and I left for her game after that. The boys were planning on joining us after they got cleaned up a bit. Chloe's game was at 8:45am. When we first got to the AYSO fields there were many soccer games already in play. I did not see her coach or anyone from her team though. I did see a few of my friends and spoke with them a little bit. After about 10 minutes (I had gotten to the field a half hour early) I started to panic. Still no one from the Lil Cupcakers team in sight. Surely I had the right times written down in my planner? Maybe it was Preston's game first. I ran to the upper fields to check. Nope. Hmmm. Just be patient Shauna. So we waited some more. I was becoming more and more nervous. Flashes of Chloe's practices kept flooding my mind and I began to think.....can she really play? Does she even know what to do? Her practices had been kind of a joke. Lots of giggling girls talking, sitting round, and way too many water breaks. Not much soccer going on. Hmmm, where WAS everyone? Finally at 8:45am (when her game was supposed to start) her coach showed up. A few minutes later teammates began showing up. Chloe's game ended up starting a few minutes late.

The Assistant Coach placed the girls in formation on the field. My favorite part was after they had all been placed a girl turned to the coach and asked, "Now what to we do again?" My thoughts EXACTLY. These girls had never actually played before. This was going to be insanely funny. The Coach told them to run and kick the ball into the net. She showed them which net. We were set. The game started and the Dolphins ran down the field with the ball. They kicked a goal. Our Lil Cupcakers stayed right where they were and did NOTHING. Not a single one moved. The coach said, "Go get the ball. What happened? Why didn't you go get the ball?" Not missing a beat a cupcaker replied, "cause that girl had it. It wasn't my turn." The Assistant coach spent a little more time explaining and then they were off again. The dolphins scored another goal with ease. In the second half the game apparently started to make sense to our team. They actually chased the ball and kicked it a bit. Finally we were able to score a goal. Then the Dolphins scored again. Then something even more miraculous happened. The ball was near our goal, the Dolphins almost had another goal. Chloe kicked the ball in the other direction and ran toward the other goal. She was able to kick it all the way down the field. Another Cupcaker caught up to her right when she was at the goal and kicked the ball into the goal. Yay! Go Chloe! Our team lost 4 to 2 but at least the girls sort of figured out what to do in the end. Hopefully they will actually practice a bit more now. Chloe was excited that she kicked the ball all down the field.

Preston's game was next. Preston was so excited when he found out that he would be playing Kai's team. How cool is that? Their first soccer game and they got to play against each other. Preston's team had 3 players out of town so it ended up being 7 against 11. This made Preston have to run around a bit more than the other team. A quarter into the game I had to take Derek to his practice and then game on the south fields. I didn't get to see the rest of Preston's game but they ended up tying. Preston's team had kicked one of the goals into the wrong goal for one of the other team's points. Oh well. Live and learn huh? Preston can't wait until next week to play again.

Derek was so excited to be on a team. He loves his uniform and couldn't wait to play soccer. I took him to the practice and he LOVED it. He was doing good. Derek was such a good listener. The coach even singled him out and had him show everyone a certain stop trick. That's pretty good seeing as there are 40 on his "team." Anyway, after practice they divided the kids up for games. The games were 4 kids against 4. This is where things went South. Derek was on the third field. The coach put a red jersey on him and told him he was on the red team. Derek got angry. He didn't want the red thing on. He said it was too big (the shirt went down to his feet). I assured him he would be fine. Then they got started. Derek got mad that he wasn't using his ball. So he flopped himself on the grass (in the middle of the field) and cried. The coach tried to coax him to get up and play....no luck. The kids tried to get him to play....nope. I tried.....nope. He was just mad as ever and refused to do anything other than lay on the grass and cry. Great huh? So Derek did not play at all in his first game. Derek says he wants to play soccer still. He now says it's okay if he has to be red. And it is now okay if they don't use HIS ball. We will see if all this is true next week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed......

Raising Funds
Chloe and Preston are trying really hard to sell items for their school fund raiser. They are trying to get to go to an Extreme Bash party. They each have to sell 15 items in order to go. They have gone to every neighbor that we know and have sold items. Chloe has sold 10 items and Preston has sold 4. I emailed our friends and family and asked for their support. I asked to please check out the fund raiser online and purchase items if they could. Preston has been checking online everyday (twice a day) to see if anyone has bought anything using his name for credit. No one has. He was very discouraged this morning. In his breakfast prayer he said, "Please bless that someone will love chloe and me so much that they will buy stuff and we could go to the party." Too funny huh? I had to let him know that people buy things from fund raisers when they want to or have extra money. It has nothing to do with loving the person selling it. Anyway, I promised him I would post it on my blog. So, since I haven't bugged you all enough (according to Preston), here it is again.

If you would like to support our fund raiser go to: http://www.sigfund.com and buy whatever. Then put Preston Farnsworth or Chloe Farnsworth for the student, Sierra Vista for the school and Upland CA for the city/Sate. Thank you and sorry if I am pestering.