dropped the ball

Needless to say, when it comes to blogging about sports, I have totally and completely "dropped the ball," so to speak.  It is one of those things where I have so many pictures over so many different days, that I have to go through them all, and it's just kind of gotten lost in the shuffle of bloggerdom.  I went back to check, and I haven't posted any of these pictures before.  That's terrible, because some of these pictures are a year and a half old!  

In the fall of '09 Ben (3rd grade) and Jake (kindergarten) both played lacrosse.  For Ben, it was his last season.  He loved playing with all his school friends, but he didn't love the sport.  As you can see in the picture below, that was about as into it as he got. :)  That's ok, though--he's found other things to keep him busy, including piano, art class, and building Legos of course.

Jake, on the other hand, was a machine (as a kindergartener!) and he really liked it.  Unfortunately, they didn't have enough kids to make full teams, so the season was mostly just one big practice.  

So in the spring of '10 Jake decided to play soccer with some friends 

here in Riverton, and had a great time.  

Then last fall he hooked up with a bunch of school friends to play up in Sandy.  This picture was taken after he scored his first goal, just before the end of the season.  He was so excited he could hardly contain himself.

(Jake on the left in the front row)

Which brings me around to winter '11.  Jake was the first of the boys to take a crack at basketball.  This picture was taken just before their first game--the boys thought they needed to workout to get stronger!

This is a classic shot--Jake is the tallest on his team, so in the first game they asked him to do the jump ball to start the game.  Um, he had NO CLUE what a jump ball was, thus his feet were planted firmly on the ground, just looking up at the ball!  Really, I should be ashamed of myself for not teaching him better.

This was one of the best moments of the season.  The ref stopped the game to help the girl on the other team tie her shoe--how cute was that?!

Jake shooting, and making, his only basket of the season.  He's getting there!

Jake and his friend, Daniel, with their first grade teacher, Ms. Neal.  They LOVED that she came to the game to see them and support them.

For the last game of the season all I had was the camera on my phone, but I still got some fun shots that night.  Daniel's mom, Oksana (from Russia), helped keep Will preoccupied with folding, and flying, lots of paper airplanes.  She was a lifesaver that night!

After the game I took the boys to La Frontera, formerly known to us as "The Chip's Place," for dinner to celebrate the end of the season.  And now we are caught up.  Jake just started soccer again (Will wanted to play so badly with Jake's team, but they are bursting at the seams this year with 14 on their team), so I'll try to be better about posting something about this season before the end of the year!  I should have taken pictures of last week's game...in the SNOW!