Soccer, Gymnastics, and School... oh my!

As the weather has been getting colder, we've been looking indoors for entertainment. First, Owen has been attending pre-school at the church just outside our neighborhood 3 mornings a week and loving it!  They are learning letters, doing show-and-tell, and cutting with scissors, which is apparently a crucial skill for kindergarten that a lot of kids are lacking.

Pee-wee t-ball was so fun that we signed up Owen for 6 weeks of pee-wee soccer.  It's also highly amusing!  Picture a herd of 3-5 year olds chasing the ball around in a big circle wherever it goes.  There are goalposts marked on the wall, but there is no goalie and no one is keeping score.  Basically, it's 10 minutes of running, 5-minute half time, and 10 more minutes of running.  This makes for tired kids!  The poor coach (a friend) has to spend a lot of the game separating a wrestling Owen and Carson, but I did see Owen score a goal once!  (Owen is in orange or red shorts.)  Still gotta work on his picture smile!

At a friend's request, we also tried out a pre-school gymnastics class.  Owen loved it!  So, now we do that on Mondays, too.  It's exposure to all parts of the gym (rings, trampoline, tumbling, beam, etc.), good exercise, and learning to follow directions.  (Owen is in orange in all the pictures.)

Lastly, Owen got a pedal bike and has been learning to ride it!  It's a little frustrating for him because the brakes are activated if you pedal backwards, which occasionally he'll do on accident.  Hopefully, in the spring he'll be more motivated to really conquer the start/stop on his own.