What My Kids Have Learned From Team Sports

My kids have played team sports now for over 17 years.  

These sports include soccer, football, swim-team, lacrosse and I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two.  
In response to a question from my last post, I thought I would write a post about how beneficial team sports have been for my children, especially my boys and especially playing on Christian teams.  Even though all the teams have not always been Christian.  God has used us as a light and witness on neighborhood/secular teams as well.  In writing this list I was particularly thinking of football since that is the season we just finished.  And while I love individual sports such as running, wrestling and tennis, there are many many things learned on a team sport that can't be learned in individual sports.  The hard work and dedication in any sport is a wonderful lesson in self-discipline and commitment.
So, with my husband's and children's help, here is my list:

 How to work with other people.  This means people who are different from us, who my have special needs, etc.  In a nut-shell, how to work on a team.

Brotherhood, diligence, sacrifice of your body and pain for the benefit of others. 

 Submission to authority. Being teachable and open.  Able to accept criticism. 

 Laying down your life for team mates and endurance.  

Willingness to accept pain. 

 Commitment even when you are losing. Learning the lesson of loosing in life.  Being able to accept loss and move on to the next battle.

Continuing in practice and commitment, even when you may not get to play. 

 Giving to others.  Showing up even when you don't feel like it. 

If our children were able to learn these things at a young age, particularly with Christian coaches, they will be set-up for success in the future. 

Never A Dull Moment

Notice anything different about my Matthew?
My little darling had an accident on the neighborhood
playground and lost a front tooth!  He tripped and amid a good bit of blood and his sister freaking out, the tooth was gone.  I was pretty upset about it too.  He will be 6 in a few months, but with having Down Syndrome, I don't think he'll loose his baby teeth for awhile.  I had to just give it to the Lord, knowing He let it happen for a reason. My natural mind was worried that it wouldn't help his speech situation and that his adorable little smile
was going to be less one tooth for probably a good 2 years.  
In a family of 12, there really is never a dull moment.
But in the mean time..................football season is in full swing!  Let's hope we don't have any more teeth injuries for a while. With 2 boys playing on top of everything, life has been busy, hence why I haven't blogged much lately : )

Christian is in 11th grade playing Varsity and Luke is in 8th grade playing JV.  

Luke is so happy to finally be playing football after watching 3 older brothers play for the past 9 years.  He scored a 2 point conversion on his first game.

The sisters and I love cheering the boys on!
I'll have to do separate post on all the lessons my boys learn playing football.  

God is Cheering for Us

At the moment, we are in the deep-end of swim team season.  I have 4 of my children swimming on the neighborhood swim team and it's going remarkably well.  It's nice to have a sport where they practice either together or right after each other and then all the same competition event on the same evening. Our family never did swim team with my older 4 but after a friend of mine who has 7 kids encouraged us to try it, I have become a fan.  It really is a great large family sport.

Well, this past week at the swim meet I was cheering on my precious children as they swam their hearts out racing to get to the other end of the pool.  As I was yelling words of encouragement with all the other parents, tears welled up in my eyes.  I was so proud of them, whether they won or not, just for going for it and just for getting to the other end of the pool.  I wanted them to hear me and feel me there right along with them.  It reminded me of how our heavenly Father is cheering us on.  How we have angels and "a great cloud of witnesses" cheering us on.  They are watching us on the "side-lines" and they know we can make it.  You know, God is really for us.  He wants us to finish strong.  Just like a loving parent, He is yelling at us not to give-up, to do our best, to push on.  I know the love and pride I feel for my children is just a glimpse of what He feels for us.  I hope this encourages you like it did me. Sometimes we think God is just making things hard for us, or isn't really watching us or has forgotten us. But just as a mother or father rushes to the side-lines to get a glimpse of their swimmer or runner or soccer player and holds their breath as they watch them push to the finish line, God is there with us cheering us on!

My Luke getting ready to swim a main event.  Can you tell he's nervous?
And you know what is the number one thing that slows these kids down, they look at the swimmer next to them to see if they are winning.  Boy, this was a lesson to me last night!  That is what slows us all down......when we compare ourselves to those around us and start "checking" everyone else out.  We need to keep our eyes on the goal, on the Lord, and just push on to the end.  We should do our best and not worry about everyone else.  

So, dive on in!!

Olders Teaching the Younguns

"Many hands make light work."  I don't know who first said this, but it really is true.  I have such good helpers now, and though I try not to work them too hard or too much (I want them to have fond memories of growing-up in a large family) they enjoy helping with the younger ones.  One thing that comes in really handy is having the older siblings teach the younger siblings.  This could be school related things, sports, chores, music, etc.  It seems like the past year or so I had forgotten about this great plus in having a large family. Lately, after talking to a good friend with 7 children, I've realized new ways to incorporate this into our day.  It saves time and money and the kids really love it (older ones as much as the younger ones).  Here are some ways we are using this technique at the moment:

I'm having the 13 year old give tennis lessons to the 10,8 and 7 year old.  I had to oversee the first few times, but they are all doing well with this.  Christian is ranked in the state and knows his stuff when it comes to tennis and he's much cheaper than paying a pro.

 Ellie, who is in 2nd grade, loves teaching MK her reading flash cards.  They actually started this on their own and looked so cute with their ballet stuff on that I had to snap a pic.

Will is teaching Patrick how to play football already : )

No seriously, Anna helps the girls with piano and ballet.  

All the kids love teaching Matthew his sign language and flashcards.

Luke helps the girls with their math.

Christian also can lead the Classical Conversations material if I'm away or busy.

So, do any of y'all with many siblings have the olders teach the youngers?  I'd loves some more ideas : )

Homeschool PE

Yes, this homeschool does PE. Not that we are trying to copy traditional school, but my children need physical activity everyday and I want them to be able to play sports their whole lives, be healthy and have some coordination.  I've found that large families see the need to have them outside everyday playing, running around, riding bikes, hiking in the woods and involved in sports. Boys particularly need to get their energy out. I'm not going to go on right now about the positives of sports in general (yes, I know there are some negatives too, but I feel with high parental involvement that the good out weighs the bad by far), I just wanted to give some good ideas we have used over our years of parenting and homeschooling.
We have chosen tennis as our family sport.  I have all my children, beginning around age 6, start playing.  I played growing-up and loved playing with my dad and siblings.  Ron and I decided early on that it would be great to be able to take our kids out as a family and play and that they would be able to play their whole lives if they wanted.  Anyway, I tell my children that if they were in a traditional school they would have no choice, but to go to PE.  So I keep my kids active daily and once a week I take them out on the court myself (I just started this up again) and I feed them balls and teach the scoring.  They hit with each other too.  As they get older I put them in tennis clinics and we do have a homeschool tennis team in our community that has been great too.  We also start our kids in soccer around age 6.  We have a recreation league that practices and plays games right in our neighborhood.  We can actually walk or ride bikes to the field, which makes it very convenient.  We've been involved in this league for 9 years now and have been really happy with it.  One of my sons was/is very talented in soccer so he left the league for a while to do a traveling, more competitive team.  This was just a little too much for us as a family and he wasn't loving it either.  He went back to rec and started playing more competitive tennis.  So I just wanted to encourage all those homeschoolers out there to fit some physical activity into your curriculum...especially something you can all do together.

Luke getting a tennis lesson from his older brother.

Ellie is actually my youngest girl soccer player.  She is doing great and loves it.  I just love watching her practically skip around the field with her bobbing pony tail : )

Wearing Patrick : )

I know this isn't a big deal for you "baby wearing" Mommys out there, but this is really a big deal for me!  I'm loving wearing Patrick!  He's so much more well behaved when he is "on" me : )

 After trying many different baby wearing devices, including the Snuggly, Ergo, Moby, Peanut Shell etc. with all my other babies,  I have found the one that is the best fit for me.  My Baby Bjorn!...actually a friend with 7 kids loaned it to me so it's not really mine, but I love it. It's about 10 years old too, so it's vintage! I guess I was more desperate this time around, because I have two that aren't walking. Just took my 10th baby to figure out how to "wear" a baby so me and baby are both happy : )

Recently, at my son and daughter's track meet, I wore Patrick and he was content for a good 2 hours before I needed to feed him.  We go on walks with it too, sometime with Mattie in the stroller as well.  I can even cook wearing him, but I have to be careful. Now I finally get what all the "hoopla" is over the Bjorn! Doesn't he look cute all snuggled in there and me bossing someone around at the same time.  My husband was taking candid shots of us : )

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year........Football Season and Pumpkins

This is by far my favorite time of year!  I love the cooler temperatures and the leaves starting to change colors.  It's so beautiful in NC this time of year!  But I also just love pumpkins and football.  

First of all..........pumpkins. Are they just not the coolest vegetable?  They just show God's beauty and creativity.  We live less than a mile from a small farm that grows pumpkins. We watch them grow in the field, first starting with their big vines and then the yellow flowers that turn into the pumpkins.  I love getting my pumpkins from them because we have watched them grow and they are kind of "imperfect."  Maybe you can tell from the pictures but they are not quite the pretty, perfect pumpkins that you find in the grocery store, but I just love that they have that "straight from the farm" look.  I love to cook with my pumpkins too.  We already made pumpkin bread a few times this season and I love pumpkin pie and just about anything pumpkin flavored.  I tried my first pumpkin latte the other day and it was great!

Second......football.  I grew up in a football family and was raised an LSU Tiger fan.  We never missed a game.  I'm so glad my 2 older sons have played high school football and my younger boys have played flag football and plan on playing tackle in high school as well.  There is nothing like the sound, smell and feel of a football game.  And the best part is when your son has the ball and you are cheering with all your might!  It reminds me of how God, the angels and saints gone before us cheer for us.  It just brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.  Even if my son only gets a few yards, I am so very proud of him.  We always get so sad at the last football game of the season, especially that senior year.  Oh, I can't even think about that now! 

Well, enjoy fall!  I'm so glad God made seasons!

Running Around Crazy!

Does anyone else ever feel like they are running around like crazy?  I love homeschooling and someone told me when I first started that to actually homeschool you need to be at home! These were words of wisdom that still speak to me today.  But, I do love my children being involved in extracurricular activities.  I have learned over they years, not to plan anything during our essential school hours of 9-1pm.  This means that many times I have to turn down "homeschool extracurricular activities" because they make those many times during our school hours.  I always plan things like errands and doctor appointments, as well as sports and music lessons after 1pm, at least.  Actually, my schedule this year has me home Mon, Wed, and Thurs until 3pm.  My mom comes over at lunch time on Tues so I can go workout and do my big grocery shopping.  On Fridays, my kids do homeschool tutorial classes from 9-12 and I use that time to run errands.  But, let me tell you, Tuesday is my busiest day.  Not only do I go and workout and grocery shop, but I have one that has soccer in the early evening and one that has ballet at 3pm and another that has tennis at 4:30.  I also have to pick up Anna from school and then I was silly enough to plan my Mom's group over here on Tues night!  Well, I guess I'll get no rest on Tuesdays and just crash at night.  But my other days are wonderful and I'm so thankful that everything is really close by.  I've learned over the years to say "no" to anything far away (like more than 10 min.) and this has helped so very much.  Like my husband says, "no is a holy word." Oh, and if you are wondering how I am having time to write this on a Tues, well, I'm really not sure, but I needed a quiet moment to drink my coffee and "unwind" :o)

What We've Been Doing Lately

Things have been really crazy lately, so I haven't had much time to blog.  As summer comes to an end and I'm getting children ready for school to start, we've had a lot of exciting things going on.  

My 12 year old played in his first Southern Sectional Tennis Tournament and did quite well!

Anna got her permit and is learning how to drive......kind of scary!

My younger kids got to visit their older brother at work (he's an EMT) and see the inside of an ambulance.  It's great having a cool big brother!

And Mattie did his first climbing wall : )

Soccer Moms Have Gotten a Bad Rap!

Notice how happy the moms and baby look in this picture?  That's because it was the last games of the season!  The end of the season tournament!  And while it was extremely hot, aka heat index of 105, we were just happy the season was ending and our boys were on the winning team.  You know I've been involved in soccer now for 13 years and I think I've run into 1 soccer mom that was pushy, mean and yelled at her little boy.  But I've run into dozens of great moms that sit through hours of hot or cold or windy or rainy games, which can sometimes be rather boring.  These moms get their kids ready for the games, bring snacks, get them to practice and games on time and keep smiling through it all.  It just makes me realize how awesome moms are, you know?  Also, I've been around many football and tennis moms too, and they are just as great (well, tennis moms aren't quite as social :o) Here are some pics of my little soccer champions at their last games of the season.  I had 3 playing in the league this year, which made things rather hectic at times. Thankfully the soccer field is within walking distance!

Something Beautiful!

My 5 year old and 7 year old daughters just had their end of the year ballet recital.  I can't tell you how much I enjoy watching them, not just on stage but getting ready for the "big performance."  What is it about girls that makes them love to dress-up, put on make-up, do their hair and just look beautiful?!  I really believe God made them like this and that God is a God of beauty.  Just look around at the beautiful creation He has made and all the beautiful children around, and you can see that He loves beauty.  There is something so special about the pure, innocent beauty of a little girl.  In this picture above they were so excited to show their Daddy their costumes as he had them posing on the front porch.  I love the femininity of ballet too.  It's classic, timeless and the music is gorgeous.  My sister and I took years of ballet and don't regret any of it.  My older daughter took for over 7 years and then felt it was time to stop.  This was my first year to have 2 daughters performing and it made the night so very special.  Caroline and Ellie, I love you and think you are beautiful no matter what!  I'm so glad God gave me you!