A Boy of 6

For every birthday we usually do a special photo shoot but this year with Greyson turning 6 on the cruise we didn't really have time around his birthday and then school started and sports started and well time got away from us.  We did manage to get in a mini-session at the tail end of our Erim family pictures.  But I couldn't let this time pass without putting up some of my favorite pictures of my amazing 6-year old that I cobbled together over the last two months.

Roots

My kids may have a European pedigree but way deep down inside they are Kansan at heart!!

It Begins

Spend 5 minutes with the boy and you will come to learn one simple fact: he loves hockey.  For as long as I can remember he has been a hockey player, in his socks on the living room floor, on the street or in the garage and tomorrow it will be on the ice.

Tryouts for the termite league kick-off tomorrow morning and for the first time Greyson will be there.  He got his equipment in the mail yesterday (on a side note Good Grief is hockey the most expensive sport EVER) and it was like a kid on Christmas morning opening up the box and trying it all on (another side note Good Grief is there a lot of crap that goes along with hockey).

I am excited and nervous for him, hoping he will do well and make a good showing but most of all hoping that actually playing real hockey will live up to his dreams over these last 6 years.  Good luck, little man.

Opening Day

This past Saturday was our first marathon at the soccer field (ah the joy of 2 children in organized sport).


First up was Quinn.  These two pictures pretty much sum up her first ever soccer game...






She scored 6 goals in the first half, leaving the halftime score 7-0 due to a little girl on other team scoring one for us.  Due to a conscience of fair sportsmanship the coach took Quinn out for the rest of the game as some of the girls on the other team were not taking the beating well.  Quinn was quite pleased with herself and at some point after scoring one of her myriad of goals exclaimed to Raif "I am so good. I even scored goals holding up my shorts."  (You can tell the shorts don't fit my skinny minnie).  Oy vey, what a handful.

Greyson's game was a bit more evenly matched.  He scored 2 goals (3 really if you count the one he scored for the other team.  Whoops) and held his own considering he was by far the youngest boy on the pitch.  Oh the curse of the summer birthday.  Our only issue with him is that he DESPERATELY wants to be a goalie.  The problem is that in this age division there are no goalies and so when he would sit back in the goal and make some terrific saves with his hands they would call hand ball and the other team would inevitably score.  He was NOT a happy camper about that.  But all in all a pretty good Saturday.

Family Portraits (Part II)

So I am sure that you remember last fall we did a whole series of family portraits with my parents. And after that I am also sure that you wondered, why didn't you ever try them with Raif's parents. Well we did try, the next time the Erims came. We all got dressed up in our coordinating white, me in a linen shirt I had to iron. Well, that afternoon Greyson got a very 'hands-on' lesson as to why you don't grab an iron. He was a real trooper and tried to do the pictures but considering he would take a couple and then stop to put his blistered hands in ice water we didn't really get any useable shots. But if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. So here are my favorite selections from Erim family portraits, part II.

Why Pink Stinks

Let me start off by saying that I don't personally have a problem with the color pink (not like sea green which I think is a horrible miserable color) - I love pink roses and pink cheeks and a tall glass of pink lemonade.  I own pink skirts, shirts and few pink unmentionables.  I think that pink is a delightful addition to my box of crayons.

So what is my problem with pink?  As I said, I love pink as a PART of my crayon box but I get very frustrated with the corporate merchandisers/powers that be who apparently believe that it is the ONLY color that needs to be in my daughter's.

Last week I took both Quinn and Greyson to the sports store to get them fitted for all their soccer gear.  One side of the soccer aisle had the boys shoes, shin guards and socks...they had red, blue, green and black.  The other side had the girls' paraphernalia....all pink.  Oh, I could choose between light pink and dark pink but it was pink nonetheless.  Why is it that boys seem to get this rainbow of colors to choose from and in most instances my daughter's only choice is pink and occasionally purple?  I don't think that girls are genetically made up to prefer only one color.  And pink isn't the only feminine color out there either. Pretty much any color that shows up on an Easter Egg is pretty girlie in my humble opinion. When given a rainbow of options my daughter chooses a rainbow of colors.  She chose a gorgeous eggplant color for her formal night dress for the cruise and she recently chose purple for her new bike.  And I have a feeling that if the soccer gear had come in other colors we might have seen some yellow shin guards paired with a delightful soft green sock (the whole color matching concept still eludes her!).

Then later in the week we went to the dentist where the hygienist happily offered Greyson a choice of toothbrushes for his visit.  Quinn?  She just dropped a pink one in her bag without even considering she might prefer another color. 

Now to be honest I don't know exactly which came first (the whole chicken and the egg dilemma).  I don't know whether it was higher sales of pink which drove retailers to discard all the other options or the retailers paring down selection forcing everyone into pink and therefore forcing pink to be the end-all-be-all of girl colors.  I don't know and frankly don't really care.  All I want is for my daughter to have a choice and at the end of the day if everything she chooses is pink well at least she had the option.

First Day of School Uniforms

(OK technically this picture came from the second day but on the first day we had a 7AM dentist appointment and getting the kids up and out by 6:30 left little time for a photo-op.)

Soccer Kick Off (Part II)

You didn't think one would do something without the other, did you??

Greyson started soccer this week, much to his dismay, since Quinn started last week but that was due to his team being without a coach until very recently. But he put double the enthusiasm in this week's practice. Good Night does that boy have a boundless amount of energy!! He didn't stop for a whole entire hour. Unlike the boy two years ago, this one played, yelled, kicked and ran. He informed the coach when a corner kick was necessary (don't know how right he actually was) and cheered and whooped it up when his scrimmage team scored a goal. And surprisingly didn't cry when the other team scored. He listened (sort of) to his coach and also had the time of his life.

Yeah, I am that cool.

This kid uses his whole body to kick the ball, windmill arms included. I do not envy the defender assigned to Greyson - he is going to lose an eye.

Positions?? Who plays positions?

Soccer Kick-Off (Part I)

Last week like millions of other school aged kids, Quinn started soccer practice. This was her first time playing organized sport, previously all she has done is dance, so I was a little unsure how she would fare.

At first she was a bit timid, a tortoise could have kicked that ball faster than she was.


Then she felt her oats a little more....


And then the scrimmage started. She has 4 girls on her team, so they played 2 on 2. The coach explained the rules a bit and then blew his whistle. 3 of the 4 girls stood there and one of them took off like a bat out of hell kicking the ball all the way down the field to score an unopposed goal as the rest of the girls looked on. Guess who that was? For the rest of the game it was Quinn the ball hog playing one-on-one with Michelle from the other team while the poor other two girls ran behind them yelling for the ball. Quinn had a blast, now I just hope sometime the coach teaches her how to pass.