Basketball 2015

It was a long, but fun, basketball season for both boys!

Joey is on a 3rd grade team with a bunch of friends from Waukee. Sadly, none of his classmates are on his team, but that day will come down the road. Joey's team did play in a few 4th grade games, too. Joey had a great season individually and just loves to play. He would play all year long if he could! He loves getting up out of bed on game days! He plays with a lot of passion and he smiles a lot on the court, which I love to watch. He is so happy for his teammates when they do well, and is the first to high five or hug a teammate. He got to shoot three pointers for the first time this year, and saw some success there (and also some horrible misses....). But, he is showing progress in his game overall, and that's all we ask. His team got to travel to KC and Omaha this year for tournaments, and Joey thinks that it is so much fun. We ended his season with an awesome win against a really talented team in Kansas City, with Jeff, Aubree and Gma and Gpa in attendance so that was a lot of fun!

Overall, Joey's team was 43-11 in basketball this year.  Here are a few photos!

Maddox plays on a 2nd grade team with a bunch of friends in Waukee too. There is another 1st grader on the team, as well. They did play "up" in the 3rd grade league a few times, as well. Maddox made a lot of progress this year in ball handling, tough defense, and shot selection. His confidence grew a little this year, I think too. Maddox loves basketball, too but it's close between that and baseball!

Maddox's team was 24-7 this year. And, so that made a grand total of 85 games for Joe to coach and for me to watch! And, no, I probably barely played 85 games in my 4 years of high school basketball! Maddox ended his season with a great win too!

Maddox also got to go to a Drake game with Joe by himself this year to see his friend, Kendall and the Drake girls play. And, we went as a family to a game this year, which was lots of fun- Saylor ate it up! And, Kendall came to watch Maddox play two games this season which was so thoughtful.

As for Saylor, this girl deserves a trophy too. That's a lot of games for her to sit through. I spent the first three months of the season trying to convince her to bring her basketball and dribble during the timeouts and halftimes, like the other kids do. Finally, during the last month of the season, she started to do that. I keep telling myself that all this exposure to basketball may make her love it, too, but it's probably only one game away from making her hate it, too!  So, who knows how that will work out. But, it warmed her daddy's heart when we came home from a game, and she asked to wear a uniform and "draw up some plays" for the team! So, I captured that photo! She spends some time on the bench with Daddy coaching, but knows that comes with rules so she doesn't last a long time there, but she showed improvement. And, she LOVED the Drake girls game (or maybe she loved Spike the Bulldog more!) Either way, next year, basketball season with Saylor will be just a little bit easier than it was this year, I bet!