Oh soccer season, you have come and gone. Again.

I had plans to put Porter in a real soccer league all summer.  I wanted PG to be able to really learn the sport, to see if he really enjoyed playing it.  I had the super-professional website bookmarked and I was ready to sign him up the second registration opened.

And then I forgot.

Until I received a reminder on Facebook that the old neighborhood league he usually plays on was now open for registration.  I hurried over to my super-awesome soccer league... and they were full.  Crap!

So back to the neighborhood soccer team we go (I may or may not refer to them as the "hippie league" since they don't keep score and everyone wins a metal at the end of the season).  But the awesome part was that Porter got to be on his best buddy's team.  Yay!

Here is a condensed version of Porter's best moments... with only my favorite pictures.  Because it's my blog and I can, that's why.

   
Water break!

I really, really loved PG's coach this time.  He made sure to rotate the players through every position.  Porter happened to prefer the high-action ones.  He seemed to get a little bored as a sweeper and goalie...

Porter's cheering section...

And when Wyatt gets mad that he can't run around free-as-a-bird in the street?  Momma makes a phone call to Nana and let's Wyatt talk away to her :)

When you give your ten year old daughter your camera to take pictures, you get awesome shots such as these:

And 500 more just like them!

See what I mean?  Hippies! :)

And yes, my son is wearing a Rolling Stones hat.  I am a horrible mother.

Now that soccer is over, we are in heated debate over the next sport he'll be playing.. any suggestions for a ball-hogging six year old?

Halloween

I am officially combining all October activities into a single Halloween post.  And mostly I am just going to post pictures, because I am so far behind in this recording my family's history thing that I am overwhelmed.  And I just don't seem to care too much about describing the stuff we did.  But I do feel the mommy guilt for not putting the memories down somewhere.  And journals and myself?  We just don't get a long too well.  Mostly because I lose them.  Every single time.

Isn't it funny how it takes me a paragraph to state that I will not be writing a lot?

I must tell you, however, that this year marked a big Halloween event in the Merrill household:  I did not make everyone's costumes.  I also did not take "Courtney Official" Halloween pictures.  Really, I cannot explain my laziness.  Except that we saw an "Army Guy" and fireman costumes at Costco for the low price of $20 and I jumped all over them.  Piper wanted to be a biker chick from Teen Beach Movie .... and my sewing skills- while they are amazing (just ask my heavily used seam ripper)- are not at the leather-jacket level.  I do score points for Adi's 50's girl skirt (and the twin one I made for her BFFL).  And the picture thing?  I planned on taking them a couple of times, but... it just didn't happen.

Anyway, now... onto to the pics!

First up: a trip to Vertuccio Farm.

Where we spent $50 to go down slides, swing, and play on a teeter-totter!

There was also a corn maze:

 And please do not ask about my children's clothing choices.  I am trying oh-so-very-hard to not micro manage their choices.

It is very hard.

Next up:  Mom's Annual Halloween Party.

I seem to have forgotten how to focus pictures.

See Mr. Wyatt down there in the corner?  He flatly refused (read:screamed his head off) to put on his fireman's costume.  So he went to the Halloween Party as a spoiled brat instead.  Wyatt: 1, Mom: 0.

  

Selfie!  I hate myself right now...

 
On the morning of Halloween:

Thank you, Walmart, for these awesomely cheap photo props!

For their lunches...

And, finally, Halloween night...

Wyatt decided that he would dress up as a Miner (aka: Daddy).  Luckily, Orrin had already brought him a hard hat, head lamp, and a safety vest.  I just sewed up the sides and bottom of the vest, and: wah-la!  A Halloween costume!  That he kept on!  Without crying!  It was a Halloween miracle!

Adi's best friend had a matching skirt, but she got to my mom's house just as we were leaving to go Trick-or-Treating, so I never quite got a pic of them together.  Sad Mommy :(

So there ya have it!  Halloween 2013!  Yeah- it's over!