Yesterday was the last game day of the season.  Each team had two games to play and this league event was held at the nearby middle school.  Both boys had a game in the late morning and one in the mid afternoon, and their games were overlapping somewhat.  We got geared up and arrived at the fields.  There were probably 6 -7 games ongoing at the same time.  We ran into Kathy and her family first; we quickly cheered Kira on, then went off to find the field for Connor’s game.  His game was delayed due to prior matches, and so the kids were playing on the side for awhile until Stuart took off with Logan to his game.  Connor’s coach could not be here for the day, so the wife stepped up to help out.  She did ok with rotating kids in to the game, but there were not much of coaching.  The team hung in there and I think they tied at the end.  However the game seemed to last a long time, and by the time we finished and rushed to Logan’s field, they were finished too.  According to Stuart, Logan’s team did try their best and was assertive, but did end up to have a loss.

      We headed home to have a lunch and rest for a bit, then we had to re-gear up for the second half.  We switched the pairing this time; I went with Logan to his game to take some pictures.  Logan preferred playing defense usually.  He hardly had any contacts with the ball in this game as his team was more aggressive and the action was mostly in the offensive side.  His team finally won another game.  Connor’s game, on the end, was brutal according to Stuart.  The lack of coaching was really showing there and their team was behind for quite a lot.  Right after halftime, Connor got a hold of the ball and kicked into the goal, then he realized and remembered that the goal was switched after halftime.  When Logan and I came over to see them after our game, scoring the own goal was the first thing Connor shared with me.  Overall the game day was exciting and I bet it was quite tiring for the boys.  We will have end of the season celebration with the teams soon, but otherwise this game day rounded up a fun soccer season for them.

    Stuart and I attended Connor’s conference on Wednesday morning and Logan’s this morning.  Both days we walked to school all together and dropped the boys off at CDC before we headed to the classroom.  Yesterday we spent 20 minutes with Connor’s teacher.  She shared with us what the kindergarteners are learning in class, and we were surprised by how structured some of their writing is.  Connor is doing well in all areas especially reading.  Connor is a chatterbox according to the teacher; he talks to his tablemates a lot and he talks to whoever he sits next to at the rug.  Fortunately he always stops when he is being reminded, therefore the teacher did not feel that there is anything we need to talk to him about.  Overall Connor is doing great.

    Both Stuart and I were worried going into Logan’s conference, but fortunately he is progressing well too.  We spent 30 minutes talking with his teacher.  Based on the computer work and classwork, Logan is meeting his grade level standard and even earned a “3” in reading/phonics.  He is making progress in his writing and did well in the time telling test which was the topic that I was pulling my hair out working with him.  The one thing the teacher brought up was that Logan does not seem to be engaged or focused during lessons at times.  She would call on him even if he did not raise to his hand, and sometimes he was caught off guard and hadn’t heard the question.  She has tried a couple of tactics but has not been successful yet.  We totally understand what she means as we also encourage Logan to be more focused at home too.  Other than this area which we all will try to concentrate on, Logan does fine in other behavior categories.  After the conference, we felt relieved, and felt that we have a direction now for Logan to continue with his progress.

     Stuart purchased a card game a few weeks ago that can be a quick game so we can play anywhere.  It is a Batman themed one and the boys immediately loved it.  It did not take them too long to get the hang of it, and both Logan and especially Connor have shown some good detective skills.  Connor loves it so much that he always suggests for us to play after dinner.  Since both Stuart and I actually enjoy it as well, we have been playing a few rounds almost every night after dinner the past week or longer.  It is a great fun.  We did however suggest to change things up and played a couple of different games the past two nights.

    The school has a week of minimum hour days this week due to parent-teacher conferences.  Connor gets out of class at 11:40am while Logan’s class dismisses at 12:45pm.  Since Kathy was busy on Monday, I volunteered to pick up Kira and keep her for the afternoon.  Connor was quite excited with the plan.  After I picked him up on Monday and a quick lunch at home, Connor and I headed over to Kira’s school while Stuart picked up Logan.  We did not want to be late, and ended up arriving at Kira’s school quite early.  Connor patiently waited while watching the children play at recess but was thrilled to see Kira soon after.  Finally their bell rang, Kira quickly spotted us and walked over.  She gave me a hug and talked to me as I asked her questions.  Connor and Kira were very quiet with each other and did not say anything all the way home.  Neither of them had homework to do, so they ran off to play.  Shortly after Logan was done with his, he joined them in the game room.  For the rest of the day, they played a couple of board games, had a sword fight, made some nice drawings and played in the backyard for a bit.  They also used the toy money and played selling and buying snack for some time.  All three of them played very nicely and quietly together the entire time. They had snack and kept coming back to get refills.  Finally they watched some TV while I cooked dinner.  The boys did try to be fair and chose some girly show for her too. 

   At dinner time, both boys wanted to sit next to Kira and she was happy to be in the middle.  With the good influence from Kira, all of them were eating quite well and fast.  Just when we were ready to choose the desserts, Kathy arrived to pick Kira up.  Kathy ended up having a plate of dinner and chatted for a bit before we said goodbye to our little guest. 

    The boys woke up quite early on Sunday despite going to bed late on Halloween night.  With the time change (fall back), their wake up time became unreasonably early, but they stayed quietly in their rooms.  Since we had the morning to relax, we hung out playing video games and playing table tennis.  Logan is doing well learning this new game; he can play a nice rally with Stuart now.  Just before lunch, we got ready and headed over the Merons for a gathering with several families.  The host cooked a lot of food as usual and it was nice chatting and eating as soon as we arrived.  They also prepared a jumpy house in the backyard; all the kids immediately crawled inside to play, and spent quite a lot of time with it.  They climbed around and did some silly things around the jumpy house; fortunately no one really got hurt.  All the kids ended up running barefoot in and out of the house all afternoon, and they actually played mostly together as a group.  They seemed to have a great time.  Five hours later, we thought it was time to head home to end the day earlier to try to catch up on their sleep.

The boys were Captain America and Ultron this year. 

     On the morning of Halloween, the boys had their soccer games as it was Saturday.  By the afternoon, they started to get excited for trick-or-treating.  We expected lots of trick-or-treaters, so we unloaded many bags of chocolates that we purchased.  We had an earlier dinner, but we did not put on their costumes until it was close to getting dark.  By 6:30pm, Logan, Connor and I were ready for our mission while Stuart stayed behind to hand out candies.  We decided to start by climbing up the hill next to us to see our upper neighbors.  Then both Logan and Connor could not wait to visit the Ricchios as they were hoping to get a big candy bar as they had last year, and they were not disappointed.  Then Logan and Connor happily led the way through the neighborhood to visit other houses.  They knew to skip those without porch lights on and they properly thanked people for the treats.  After over an hour of walking around, I suggested checking out our nearby neighbor who had set up a haunted house.  We could see a crowd of trick-a-treaters gathering at this popular spot.  Connor immediately got nervous and declared that he did not want to go inside.  Logan, on the other hand, was quite interested.  I did not really want Logan to go alone but did not want to leave Connor by himself.  So I suggested that Connor could hang with our neighbor Sam who was in charge of opening a built-in door to let the groups in one at a time.  Sam asked Connor to sit on the rocking chair next to him and Connor liked the idea.  Logan and I went in to explore and spent approximately 20 seconds walking through the looping hallways with lots of decorations.  They were moving bloody hands, scary masks, a pop-up ghost and a treasure box with dry ice.  The neighbors did a great job and it was scary enough for me; Logan kept his composure the entire way.  He was rewarded with a full size candy bar at the end.  Afterward the three of us returned home.  Logan told Stuart that he should check out the haunted house; initially Logan did not want to go in again, but with some convincing, he accompanied Stuart.  While they were out, Connor was happy to take over the task of passing out candy.  He was so excited to wait for each door bell.  He carefully gave one candy to each kid, and we went through so many groups and some had over 10 kids at a time.  By 9pm, the trick-a-treat event finally ended; it was peace and quiet on the street again.  We must have given out 13 to 14 bags of candies.  Connor claimed that passing out candies was his favorite part of the night.  The boys also enjoyed a few bites of their biggest gain; then we slowly winded down for a late night.