Little Kicks

The kids finished up another season of soccer on Monday - this summer they each participated in a Little Kicks class! Clare's class would be first - the first few weeks she was pretty shy and wanted Mommy and Daddy close by but by week 4, she was ready to participate on her own :-)

For the last week, her class split in two and they played a scrimmage - Clare was thrilled to get to wear an orange pinney!  She moved the ball up the field and even scored a goal!  She was so proud of herself and we were proud too.

At the end of each class, the coach gives each player a patch to sew onto their t-shirts.  Clare was able to pick her own patch since it was the last week - she picked her favorite patch - a patch with the letter "B" on it for "Bravery!"

After Clare's class would finish up, Sean would take the field:

Sean got a lot of practice this season in advance of "Town Soccer" which will start in September!

Sean picked his own patch at the last session, too - the sparkly gold "A" for a great attitude :-)

I got the kids to pose for a few snaps before the sun went down:

Yay Soccer!

Sharing Ice Cream

We went out for ice cream the other night. Clare got chocolate with rainbow sprinkles and ate it all up - yummy!

Sean got mint chocolate chip with sour patch kids on top - he savored his treat!

Clare gobbled up her ice cream and then started to eye up Sean's dish:

"Please may you give me some of your ice cream, Seany?"

"No Clare! You have your own!"  

"Pleeeease, Seany?"  

"Nooo!"

"Humph! He's not sharing his ice cream with me!"

"It's mine, Clare! You had yours!"

(Sad whiny noises)

"Okay, Clare - you can have a teeny tiny bit of mine."

"Okay!  Yay!"

"Here you go, open wide!"

"Yay! Thank you Seany! Mommy, Seany shared with me!"

"Yeah..."

Phillies Phun

We took the Sooy Kids to a Phillies game on Saturday night - Sean's first Phillies game was way back in September 2009 but this was Clare's first visit to Citizens Bank Park!  We picked a beautiful night for a game and good night to get stuck in traffic on this way into Philly - former manager Charlie Manuel was being inducted into the Phillies Hall of Fame - so that pushed gametime back a little bit.

At our seats - I'm not sure why Clare looks sad in this photo...

...so here's a smiling one of Daddy and Sean:

Ahh, that's better:

We caught then end of the induction ceremony and then watched the first 4 or 5 innings from our seats - Clare was always on the lookout for the Philly Phanatic (or "my friend" as she refers to him).

The kids got a little restless and so we took them on a walk around the stadium.  One of the best things about the Phillies' stadium is that you can see the field from anywhere on the concourse - even in the teeniest little spots:

Right about when the Phanatic came out on the hot dog cannon car with Jim Thome shooting hot dogs into the crowd, the kids were ready for a snack themselves -

Cotton candy!

 
With a belly full of cotton candy, we headed over to the Guest Services office and got Clare her own "My First Phillies Game" certificate:

More shots from roaming around the stadium before heading back to our seats.  We left at the bottom of the Tenth inning but the Phillies went on to lose :-(

That's okay - the kids had a great time and Sean paid a lot of attention to the rules and picked up on a lot of the rhythm of the game!

Touch a Truck

We took the kids to a touch-a-truck event at a nearby shopping center. The first truck we tried out was a Shoprite truck - the kids got to sit in the cab and beep the horns...

...and got to get lifted up and hang out in the storage part:

Then we explored some really neat old-fashioned army trucks:

Of course, there was a fire truck:

And even a stretch limo:

And then we ran into this group of Star Wars characters - Sean was thrilled!  I asked him how he felt about this photo and he said, "I felt like I was Yoda!"

Right after they took this photo, the Star Wars guys all climbed up (quite clumsily, really) into this giant truck - with Darth Vader driving, of course!

After we watched the Star Wars guys a little more, we explored a UPS truck and then saw the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man and this Ghostbusters car:

And then we stopped at the Wells Fargo stagecoach - 

...the kids sat in this two summers ago, too!  Flashback to summer 2012:

Appointment and Playtime

I sprung the kids from camp early and we went to see our favorite dentist! Our dentist and Sean get along like peas and carrots ... they chatted and laughed together all through the appointment.  Sean was extra-happy that he got to have marshmallow-flavored fluoride!

Clare needed a little help warming up but eventually she got brave enough to sit in the chair on her own:

After the kids' teeth were cleaned, they received new toothbrushes, and lollipops(!!), we went over to a playground that I'd seen in a newspaper a couple of years ago and put on our "playground bucket list":

The kids loved every aspect of this playground - the balance beam:

The rope ladders:

The neat slides - especially this twisty one:

There was as see-saw!

The kids found these little cubbies and made them their "bunks":

Consulting the map:

After many rounds of hide-and-go-seek and tag, it was time to call it a day!