A Little BBall Tournament

March Madness started even earlier this year for the Pierce family with Xander's team taking the 3rd seed in his end of season basketball tourney. His team, the Blue Team (yes, quite original), had only lost 2 games all season so were feeling pretty good about facing the 6th seed in the first game. Unfortunately the 6th seeded team decided to show up and play, giving our guys a tough time.

Thank goodness our team was able to pull out the win and went on to play Game 2 against one of the teams that had beat us in the regular season. I was so nervous for Xander's team; if they were able to win this game they would be in the championship game. But the orange team had not only beat us before, they had beat us pretty soundly. How would we do against them this time?

But once again our guys played tough, were so aggressive, and ended up beating the orange team 26-2! What a great game!

On to the championship game! The league put on quite a show for the big game. Each of the boys was announced before the game started which the boys thought was pretty cool. Xander did the jump ball and the game began. The black team had beat us in the regular season because they have the league's best player. He's tall so he grabs all the rebounds, he's aggressive so he gets lots of steals, and he's an amazng player so he gets lots of fast breaks and points. In the previous game we had absolutely no answer for this guy. But this game we did! Our boys just flat out played their best, got back on defense to keep the other team from getting any fast breaks, and were very aggressive. 

Xander had one of his best games of the season and even got to shoot a few free throws.

Our Blue Team did it, winning the championship game! We were so excited for the boys and so proud of Xander for the great season he had.

We are the champions! Dominic, Ryan, Peanut, Cameron, Jaden, Coach Sean, Savion, Caleb, Drew, Xander, Matthew, and Coach Jim.

Being goofy!

Look at that trophy!

A pizza party to celebrate another great basketball season.

Blue and Gold

The scouts in Xander's troop were asked to bake and decorate a cake in a western theme for the upcoming Blue and Gold Banquet. Considering I have zero baking skills I was a little nervous about Xander's assignment and we spend a lot of time talking about a western design that would be feasible for us to do and finally decided on a tombstone.

We were able to mix up a good gray color for the frosting and Xander frosted that cake all by himself.

X-Man apparently died in the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona in 1881.

We had a great time at the Blue and Gold Banquet, Xander's first one.

Has anyone seen this villainous character? I could sure use the reward money!

After a dinner of sloppy joes, the scouts did some cute skits.

Savannah guessed the correct amount of "river gems" in this jar. Definitely tasty gems!

Xander's cake won "The Deadliest" award.

Noah Bean

One of the goals that Noah set for himself this year was to be ABBY Student of the Month and in the month of January he accomplished that! We often wonder how Noah behaves at school especially since he is so full of life and VERY energetic. Apparently this award shows that he must be behaving himself pretty well.

Noah with his wonderful teacher, Ms. Machovec. The band on his head says "I Survived 100 Days with Ms. Machovec". It should probably say "My poor teacher has survived 100 days with me!"

I absolutely LOVE Noah's expressions, especially his mad or grumpy face. In these pictures his hair was doing some funky thing, like a peacock tail, but when I tried to take some pictures of it he got very upset. Too funny!

Noah has four major loves in his life: knights, policemen, soldiers, and Legos. He will spend hours pouring over the most recent Lego catalog we get and of course a daily question is "Did we get a new Lego catalog?" He even takes them to bed with him.

Noah loves to steal my phone to play games as well as take numerous pictures of anything and everything. It's quite humorous to look through the camera roll on my phone to see what has caught Noah's eye. There are many, many pictures of him!

Noah absolutely loves school but hates to do his homework.

Our little monkey with his three favorite little monkeys.

Savannah

In January Savannah joined the other 5th graders from her school at Harford Glen, an outdoor education program. They were supposed to be there 3 days and 2 nights but with school being cancelled due to freezing rain that was supposed to hit Monday morning but never did, she only ended up being there a day and a half. Unfortunately several of the fun activities they were supposed to do got cancelled but Savannah still enjoyed hiking, being with her friends, and learning about nature. She came home extremely tired due to some of the girls in her room keeping her up late into the night but she was also very excited to show me her "Stewardship Award". The counselors had voted on the student in each group who had the most positive attitude and Savannah was one of the kids chosen.

Another award Savannah earned last month was being on the Honor Roll.

A few weeks ago Savannah and David attended a Daddy/Daughter Dance with some friends at their church. Although she loved the Candyland theme because it meant she got gobs of candy, she didn't like the dancing.

Savannah continues to be involved with her travel soccer team and has even played a couple indoor games with the A team.

Xander's Indoor Soccer Season

Another fun indoor soccer season for Xander. He had the same coaches as outdoor soccer as well as a few of the same teammates so the team went into the season knowing each other pretty well. 

This past Friday night the boys played in the semifinal game that if they won would send them to the championship game on Saturday. Xander's team lost only 2 games the whole season and one of those losses came to this team they played Friday night. Before the game started the 2 teams were standing around, waiting for another game to finish before they could take the field, and the parents of the team we were waiting to play started pointing to the team who had just won and told their boys, "See that purple team that just won? You're going to play them tomorrow in the championship game." Well, there's instilling confidence in your team and then there's just plain stupid comments coaches make. Just because you beat our boys before doesn't mean you're going to beat them again! That's why we play the game. And play our boys did! The game was tied 2-2 until the final 4 minutes when Xander scored what proved to be the winning goal. We were so, SO excited!

Saturday the boys lost in the championship game but they kept the game close and Xander contributed a goal. Xander was really upset with the loss but was able to quickly get over it when we got to the team pizza party to celebrate a wonderful season.

Funny picture of Savannah with her "fangs".

Another medal for the dresser!

Our Niners

Six weeks ago our 49ers met the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl and unfortunately lost. However, we are still so proud of them and enjoyed watching them play throughout the season. It was extremely difficult to watch Alex Smith go down with a concussion and then be benched after the wonderful season he was having, especially knowing that the "Tracie Jersey Curse" was the cause of the tragedy. But they remain our Niners team so we cheered for the new quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, and Savannah fell in love! She even has his picture as her IPod Touch wallpaper, crazy girl. The Friday before the Super Bowl the kids sported their Niners gear to show their support which was pretty brave considering where we live.

Savannah and I even painted our nails red and gold.

When the Niners lost Xander started bawling and it about broke my heart. The poor little guy just cried and cried and was still crying when David put him to bed. But that's what sports can do to you. We have stayed true to this team through the good years and the many recent bad years and we'll be cheering for them once again in the fall. We sure do miss our football!