I'm a soccer mom now

That's right, I'm a soccer mom.  We enrolled Katelyn in her first soccer league this fall.  It was only for 6 weeks, which ended this past Saturday.  It was for one hour a week on Saturday morning.  Perfect for our family.  She loved it - kind of.


Here she is the first morning.  She was so excited.  We used some of her birthday money to buy her a new ball, shin-guards, and socks.  This league does not allow cleats.

Before the first day

Not quite sure what to do.

First attempt at stretching (she is to the right of the coach, standing completely straight up).

Getting the hang of it during the passing drill.

The first day was interesting.  A bunch of three year olds (20 in her group) in a totally new experience.  Many, including Katelyn, followed their parents off the field constantly.  It ended up being about 1 parents per kid out on the field while the drills were being taught.  This got a little better each week as the kids began to understand what was expected.  By the end, we didn't have to really help Katelyn at all.

She learned a lot about waiting and going to the back of the line after she had her turn.  The first couple weeks she kept telling me how hard waiting was and how she didn't like waiting, but by the end, she just understood that was how it worked. 

The 5th week was so windy outside that they played in the gym.  The balls rolled EVERYWHERE.

The second and third weeks, she did well in the short scrimmage that the kids did.  Going to kick the ball and running in the right direction.  The weeks following that though got tougher.  It seems like as some of the other kids understood what to do, it got harder for her to actually get to the ball, and so she got frustrated and didn't want to scrimmage.  She still liked the drills though because she could kick it in the goal.  She is quite the little perfectionist.

Katelyn's fan club for on of the weeks.

On the last week (this past weekend), they took photos, scrimmaged another group of kids and then got trophies.  She did not like the scrimmage and informed us when she ran of the field that 'this is not fun'.  That was when we finally got it out of her that she was mad because there were too many kids and she couldn't score a goal.  - Haha, love that girl.  After she got the trophy though, she was loving soccer again.

Here is her team the last day.  The group got smaller as the weeks went on.

Overall, it was a great experience for her.  Our main goal was to have her in a different environment with other kids and learning from a coach, since we do not plan to enroll her in preschool.  We didn't really care about how much she learned about soccer.

Oh, and the bonus was that her team was the orange team - 'Go Tigers'.  She thinks that she was put on the orange team because it is her favorite color.  I'm not sure what we will do next time she is in something and she doesn't get on the orange team.