Volleyball Season 2012

Another season has come and gone.  I had a really great season. It was a hard season, but a great season. This year changed a lot because the 8th grade coach that I worked with in the past retired...aka...had a baby, so a new coach was hired. I wasted the whole first half of the season by being frustrated with my co-worker thinking that everything that she was doing was wrong, then I had an epiphany, she's not the problem, I AM!

 

She wasn't doing things wrong, she was doing things different, and just because it is different doesn't mean that it is bad. So, I sucked up my pride, spilled my guts about how I was feeling, apologized , and began to learn from Laura. She is inspiring and very very good at coaching! I missed out.

 

So anyways, I had the 7th grade team and they were very green. Typically, here in Shelley, the girls start in 5th grade and so they know all the basics by the time I get them but this year I had a few girls make the team who had never ever played before. They just worked really hard and showed alot of promise, so it was a year of learning by girls and coach.

 

Right here I am telling the girl smiling that I know she can get her serve over if she just wouldn't start freaking out about stepping on the line. She has a great serve, she just looses her confidence sometimes...silly girl.

 Our last cheer of the season, go Lady Russets!

 Sometimes I will overhear the other coaches and think that they are super mean and a little too intense for 7th graders. So I always wonder, Do I come across that way and I just don't know it. I ask my Mom-in-law and Sis-in-law, who came to watch me coach, if I seemed that way and luckily, they both responded that I seem to be more encouraging and semi-stressed but not mean. Phew!

 I was explaining that if you get a serve that comes high and fast that a set off the serve is your best option verses tomahawking it....less control as to where the ball will go. (Any friend who knows more: Dess, Mags, anybody, feel free to correct me on this. ) 

 My fans: Libby, Alexis, Lainey, Kenzie, and Eli

We do have to bribe them with candy to sit still and actually watch my game but nevertheless, I love having people there for me even though I am not playing.

 But they can handle only so much before they start going crazy and Jared has to take them home.

 This picture is skewed but Grandpa Jerry is entertaining Eli at the game with his phone.

 And when the kids completely stop watching the game and start climbing all over the benches, you know it is time to head home.

This season was very challenging but I wouldn't trade it! I think I grew alot this year and hope that my newly gained coaching skills from this year along with all that I have learned from my previous mentor, Pam, will enable me to help the girls that I have in the future!

Kenzie's Bugs

Three weeks ago we got a paper from Kenzie's homework folder indicating that we needed to start catching bugs for a display. At first, I thought, "Great, we're gonna have to go digging in deep dark crevices to find some bugs." But in actuality, they came to us.

 

We caught 3 different kind of spiders who were creep crawling in our house, in plain view. One morning, we were having scriptures before school and out crawls a hobo spider from under our couch and so he got put in a jar and froze to death in our freezer. In fact, we killed all the bugs that way. I wasn't sure how to kill them quickly without squishing them so we froze them. I realized after that doing rubbing alcohol in would be a happy "high" way for them to die...but instead they just got cold and fell asleep and died.

 

The kids searched outside for some bugs and caught a few more bugs and then when I was watching over Sarah Turner's kids, Isaac and Kade, we managed to catch a grass hopper and a bumble bee in our garden.

 

Jared attempted to catch a butterfly one evening after coming home from work and ended up in a wheat field just looking like a crazy man  flailing his arms around...imagine being the neighbors watching him but having no idea he was following a butterfly around...I laugh just thinking about it.

 

Here is Kenzie gluing on her bugs to her cute insect scrapbook paper from Grandma Betty.

 

 

So everybody knows that it is Mackenzie's collection.

 

Can you read what they are?

 

Bumble Bee, Spider, Lady Bug, Spider

 

Moth, Grass Hopper, Fly, Spider

 

Kenzie was so happy with her bug collection presentation.

( I am glad because secretly, as a parent, I stress that maybe the other kids collections are going to look a lot cooler and then Kenzie will feel bad about her own collection and be mad at me for not helping her make it better.)

 

But she said that the other kids at school really liked it too!

 

We had more bugs than this but 2 days before we put it together, a few jars fell out of the freezer and the bugs were all broken apart, the carnage was horrible, body parts everywhere, legs, antennae, thorax, heads, and abdomens everywhere! I am seeking therapy to try and forget the horror!

Scraggely Cut-off Shorts

It's September Sewing Month! Make Sure To Check Out My Sister Sharon's blog!!Here

 

Sharon will be sharing sewing tips all month long so get inspired by her blog and start sewing!

This is the post I did as a guest on Sharon's blog.

 

 Howdy fellow sewing friends! Glad you could join me today! I got this tip from my sister, Shaina, who got this tip off of pinterest. I think it is genius and so I felt that it needed to be posted again with my creations. If you would like to see Shaina's creations then click Here.

 

Everybody has jeans with holes in the knees right? I do and my kids definitely do. So what do you end up doing with them? You cut the bottoms off and make shorts for your kids. Well, as nice as they are for play clothes, sometimes you have a cute pair of jeans that just make your kids look like rag-a-muffins. (Yes that is a real phrase, my family uses it all the time so it therefore, is a real phrase! If not I may need to create a wickapedia section for it.)

 

Anyways, you have a cute pair of jeans that get the cut and then they are scraggely and stringy. So...you go to your scrap material and find a few pieces of fabric that match your shorts.

Depending on how frilly you want your bottoms to be you make your fabric strips.

 

 I did 2 4x15 inch strips.

Fold the fabric in half wrong sides together.

Sew ends together.

 (Don't sew the 2 stips together! Just one end of one strip to itself.)

 

If you have a serger, it might be nice to serge the bottom of your shorts...but not detrimental if you don't...I didn't.

Make sure your seam is facing out because once you flip your ruffle over, it will be hidden.

 Also make sure that your non folded edge is lined up with the bottom of your shorts.

Evenly pin right sides together

Sew together.

Flip and iron ruffle down.

 



 

Viola...cuter than just plain cut offs.

 



 

 

My girls had fun picking out their own material for their shorts. This is a good project that doesn't take much time but makes a big difference in looking together and finished. I hope you'll try it.