Grace playing soccer

Here are some action shots of Grace playing soccer. She does a pretty good job. She's fast and smart about her playing. Her challenge is being aggressive enough and not just standing on the outside of the pack waiting for the ball to come to her. Her team is pretty different from the boys. Everyone else on the team knows each other (we didn't know any of them prior to this) and they're pretty intense and competitive. The parents on Grace's team are pretty vocal, aggressive and always quick to "help out" by telling the girls what to do. Don't get me wrong, we haven't had any problems, they're pretty good for the most part. It's just really different mentality from the boys' coach and team. She really enjoys it, if only the weather would cooperate. It's 50 degrees right now, cloudy with rain possible at any minute it seems. Another cold night for those little girls!

In other news, we have been keeping really busy. We've had a lot of things going on at church in preparation for Easter, we're getting ready for a garage sale in a couple of weeks and have been spending lots of time with family. (Dale's brother Gary and his wife Natalie are here from Sacramento, so we spent some time with the Niebuhrs, which was fun.) Between that and our normal activities (piano, lessons at the Y, soccer and school) we're very busy. The kids are also practicing piano about 20 minutes a day in preparation for their first recital. They are playing on my piano recital on May 1st, so they've been working hard to get ready for that.

Will had a breakthrough in swimming lessons last week. He FINALLY jumped into the pool without holding anyone's hands!! He jumped by himself to his teacher, who caught him and then he swam back to the side. It was huge, since he has until now been scared to do that. Xander also had a mini-breakthrough when he talked to his art teachers in his class. They had told me last week how he wouldn't talk to them when they asked him questions. So, he and I had a conversation about talking to people when they talk to him and apparently, he did! Overall, they all are getting much more outgoing. They have all talked to people at church, school and other places (Will  had a big conversation with the guy fixing our garage door two weeks ago and again with another guy fixing our air conditioner last week. Mostly he asked a ton of questions about what they were doing) Grace went to the child watch at the Y by herself last Thursday while the boys had their classes. And apparently she enjoyed playing there by herself with the other kids. I think we're on the right track here!!

We're looking forward to Easter next week and lots of family time. I'll post pictures of that next week. Here's hoping the weather improves for Easter egg hunts!