Soccer!

Since preschool is out for the summer, I knew I wanted to have a least one scheduled activity a week to keep us in some sort of a routine. We are lucky to have lots of friends with flexible schedules that allow for frequent playdates, but I also wanted a little bit of structure.

We'd been talking about sports, gymnastics, dance, or music classes, and decided to let the kids pick whatever they wanted to do, and they both agreed on soccer.

So I signed Luke and Abbey up through our city's Parks & Rec. I figured at age four, $22 a kid was about all I was willing to spend (just in case they hated it).

At this age, we can afford to introduce them to several different sports and such, and then as they get older we can see what they are really interested in and invest in that. This particular soccer program offers class once a week for six weeks, and the classes are 30 minutes long, which is just perfect.

The first week, we got to know the coach and learned some basic soccer skills.

But not before learning the importance of stretching...

Their coach is really sweet and good with this age group, which makes me so happy. I feel like having their first "team" experience with a coach be a positive one is SUCH a blessing. 

They learned all about trapping the ball...

And dribbling...

The first week was all basics and learning ball control. I was really impressed with Abbey and Luke's ability to (for the most part) stay in control while dribbling!

Couch played Red Light, Green Light with dribbling/trapping...

Then they all got to dribble all the way down the court and score a goal...

We've had three classes so far and I'm already impressed with how much they've learned! Last week they learned all about offense and defense, and the coach matched them up with a partner and had one person trying to stop the goal while the other tried to score. I was so proud of how my kids did! They didn't play dirty at all, but stayed determined and kept good attitudes if they didn't succeed.

Which really is the whole point of this =).

I've been super happy with the experience and we've already chosen what we're gonna do for the second half of the summer. Luke chose baseball classes and Ab's chose basketball. It will make for the first time they've ever been apart in a setting like this, but they seem okay with the idea, and I'll be there watching and cheering on whoever is playing, with whichever twin is not playing by my side =). I think it'll be a good experience in independence for the twin playing, and good chance to just be an encouraging observer for the one watching with me.

It's cute how much more of an interest our whole house has in soccer now that the kids know a few things about how the game is played. David has been watching a lot of the World Cup, and on multiple occasions the kids have sat and enjoyed the games with him =)