football and lego club... busy fall!

last message for today... (don't worry, it won't be anything like this usually) since i've been thinking a lot about my mother-in-law today (praying for her a lot lately too!), i wanted to pass along some more pics of the boys.

here is most of our fall - drew & noah played football for the first time this fall... practice EVERY night for three months (6-8 PM... totally convenient) and games that went on forever on saturdays or sundays. no comment. actually, i LOVE football and i'm glad they played. it was great for them to be part of the team and have a responsibility to their teammates. and i love that they learned about football. they also got pretty good workouts (usually exhausted when they came home). when they did get to play, they did well. the coaches commented quite a bit about noah's ability and great attitude. there was question as to whether drew was "mean" enough to really get in and tackle hard... um, do we want to make him mean? i don't think so! they had fun, looked great in their uniforms and i think we're all glad the season is over. (i've already confessed my bad attitude... football was just a little more than i could handle in the first few months of married life. i survived it. i just hope i didn't discourage the boys too much!!)

before we even got to the end of football, we started into lego club with taylor. this is a really cool thing that he's been into for two years (drew did it a few years too but quit this year. he really needed a break after football!). anyway, the middle school team isn't sponsored by the school (like the elementary team was), so our church ended up sponsoring the lego team and "hosting" practices in the basement of the henning house (our youth building). the boys build "missions" out of legos and then take a lego robot and program it to accomplish the missions. it is a great project that builds up teamwork, problem solving and computer stuff. plus, taylor gets to build with legos - one of his very favorite activities! again, because we didn't have teachers to lead this year, parents were asked to help coach... so, there's ed - "lego team coach". (yeah, we're back to the goatee... it's starting to grow on me. good thing he's so very good looking!!) this was the competition on dec 3rd. taylor and his friend, ben (holding the robot), did an excellent job on their turn! we were so proud of taylor! (we're working on the wardrobe... and hoping he doesn't get confused for a "charlie's angel" with that long, beautiful hair!!)

now that we're done with football and lego club, we're on easy street with only evan's soccer right now. ed's asst. coaching that too. so far, the team struggles just to score (we don't even worry about winning the games!), but ev's having fun and gets to play with his best friend, daniel. i'll try to get pics of the soccer star soon. tonight is the middle school band concert. we'll go to hear drew play trumpet and taylor play sax. should be great! and friday is taylor's 12th birthday! should be a busy weekend!