That's a Wrap!

It was a big week, one where we wrapped up two of Jacob's sports!  We almost won't even know what to do with our time!

Before we got to that, I want to share this adorable picture of Carter with his late-arriving birthday present from Craig's parents.  He has wanted this for so long, and finally got it!  And for his picture, of course he hopped right in the box!  He was sort of hanging out in the box after that and it unexpectedly broke, which led to a hilarious moment of him falling out backward...which he then wanted to re-enact with me videoing it.  Silly boy...

Friday night Jacob had his last lacrosse game for his Storm team.  I figured I should take a couple pictures to commemorate the occasion, since he no longer wants to play with them.

I even got a shot of him taking a rare faceoff--they were shorthanded so he played midfield for a bit!

They lost yet again--which made three complete seasons without a win.  Last spring and this fall and winter were all duds...not a single win, and barely even close in any game.  He did what he could, usually chipping in a goal every game or two, but losing that much definitely sucked the life out of him a bit.  Still, it was a bummer to see it end, if only because we have met lots of great families over six years in this league, and we're not sure if we'll ever really associate with them anymore unless it's outside lacrosse itself.  He's not planning on going back, but we're hoping he'll consider a new team in the fall.

It snowed Friday night (again) and we woke up to an inch or two of snow on Saturday morning.  But this was blooming in my kitchen, so it must mean spring is coming!

I've had this plant since Halloween, and it probably stopped blooming a couple months ago.  It still looked healthy and had new growth, so I kept it around.  One bloom popped last week, and now there are two more!

Then, Saturday afternoon was Jacob's last basketball game.  It seems like we waited forever for the tryout night (October), then forever for the team assignments (December), then forever for the first practice and game (January), and now here we are at the end of the season.  It's been a bit of a mixed bag.  Jacob still loves basketball, but they ended up with a 2-5-1 record and he got no points in the last two games after scoring at least a few in every game prior.  He just wasn't getting the ball much, and Saturday's game was against one really tough player who scored almost all of his team's points.  That kid was slick, and the first thing I told Jacob is that if he wants to go to the NBA, that's the kind of kid he's going to contend with.  He was so good.

He did have to take a couple foul shots.  I got the second one on video.  The sun was totally in his eyes so it probably wasn't a fair shot.

Sunday was the season-ending celebration for basketball, held at the church where they played half the games.  

It was amazing to see a large church overflowing with players and families, especially since we only saw a small percentage of them during the course of the season.  There was a juggler named Forrest Davis who did the entertainment, and it was pretty awesome.

Here he's balancing on a ball and holding a spinning plate that's going to go on his head momentarily.

I remembered to take video once the plate was up and he started juggling clubs...

Then he went up on a unicycle and juggled knives!

Jacob wasn't that excited about going, but I'm glad we did!  Bonus points for him that it set our whole schedule off and he got to miss his travel lacrosse practice.  We're still more than two months from training camp and his first tournament, and practice is at a terrible time (Sunday evening, completely through the dinner hours), so we're not super concerned about him missing it, but we have to try to keep him on track now that this will be his only sport for a while.  It's our last gasp with lacrosse as a whole, so hopefully we can find some magic in there somewhere to remind him how fun it can be.  But he's anti-contact right now ("I don't want to get hit!") and still bitter about being downgraded from his previous team, so it might take a lot to get him to buy back in, even to get through these last couple tournaments.

We still have some figuring out to do for his next steps in basketball.  He doesn't want to play in this league again next year because he hates the half-court games.  They'd end when he hits 7th grade, but between now and then we will undoubtedly be checking out as many camps and team options as we can find.  Travel is a possibility, but might not be a valid option just yet.  He's got a whole plan in his head to play with a friend of his, but we need to figure out what he's capable of.  I wouldn't be surprised if we were back to this next year, but we'll see!

So, now that all of Jacob's weekday sports are done, it's time to start working on Carter.  Track and field seems to be his spot, but there aren't many options for Kindergartners in that realm, so we're going to try martial arts first.  We have a couple places to check out, and hopefully then we can make a decision on which place and which type, which probably will be influenced by price and time.  I'm excited to see him try something new, and I think he needs that kind of outlet.  I'd also like to find a soccer league for him as he's been playing it around the house much more lately, but we really need to figure that one out quickly.  He's so much more of a wild card, so I think we have some exploring to do to find his niche!

I guess it's a "change is in the air" time of year.  Let's hope spring joins in the fun soon!