a new sheriff has come to town...

and that sheriff is soccer.  we have been taken over by soccer practices, soccer games, soccer gear, and soccer schedules.

this is a whole new world to us rutherfords.  you see, we're sort of homebodies.  content to hang out without much of an agenda.  man, has our world been turned upside down!  not only does the new school year have us busy, we felt a little overwhelmed more than once this past week with this sport called soccer.

now don't get me wrong.  we're excited to join the ranks of soccer moms and dads around the world.  and we did have fun cheering our boys on both in practice and at games.  what we have to adjust to is being gone two nights a week and no longer having a lazy saturday, and did i mention the paraphernalia that has invaded my home?

we've been quickly schooled on soccer shin guards, socks, shorts, jerseys, water bottles, balls, back packs, cleats, mid-game snacks, post-game snacks, chairs, blankets, sunscreen, bug spray, and ice chests.

but all of that is worth it when you see the smiles on burrito's and noodle's faces: priceless!

between both boys, we had 3 practices and 2 games within a 4 day period.  burrito is on the little monsters team and noodle is on the tigers team.  burrito plays 4 on 4 with a goalie and noodle plays 3 on 3 with no goalies.

noodle's first game was on saturday at 10am.  we didn't know what to expect with a team of 4 year olds and this is our boys' first experience EVER with soccer.  so you can imagine our surprise when noodle made the first goal for his team in the first 30 seconds of the game.  he then went on to score 4 more goals!  his team won 7-4.  yay noodle!  he's number 5 if that helps finding him in the pictures below...

burrito's first game was on saturday at 12:45.  again, we didn't know what to expect with his team either.  several players on his team have played before and played together, so we may be at a little disadvantage starting out this season, but burrito is a fast learner and really LOVES to run around!  his team did great and won his game 4-3.  burrito had several opening kick-offs and at one point, kicked to score a goal but the goalie caught the ball!  nevertheless, he had lots of fun!  burrito's number 4!

we have practice this week but no games this weekend due to the labor day holiday.  i am partly sad and partly happy about this!  ha! 

john's impressions of the games:  the soccer fields are like putting greens! 
my impressions of the games:  i realized (too late) that i yell (loudly) a lot!  i'm a little embarrassed and will have to tone it down a bit! :)  i just love cheering on my little men!

go tigers and monsters!