Purple Bears

Makelle has been playing in another season of soccer this fall.  We had our last game on Saturday and so I figured it was probably time to take some pictures of her playing.  This year she had a girl on her team that was older and far more skilled than everyone else so Makelle's team won every game by a dozen points or so.  The girl's chose their own name and decided to call themselves the 'Purple Bears' which is highly intimidating :)

It was fun to watch her grow and improve her skills over last year.  She has gotten a little more aggressive about fighting for the ball and she is best at controlling the ball with small movements and can pass like a pro when she wants to.  The problem at this age is she never wants to pass because she says that when she does they never pass it back to her and sometimes her own teammates even steal the ball from her, so she got a little frustrated with that aspect.

To encourage teamwork and get her to support her teammates we tried to get her to pay attention to the game and cheer for her friends during the time she spent sitting out.  This resulted in her either screaming loudly or completely distracted playing with her brothers.  The last game she finally found a way to do both when she decided to talk for Jefferson:



He clearly enjoyed the experience as much as she did :)

One week the coach was sick and called Caleb to ask if he could fill in for him.  Makelle loved having her dad coach her team and even scored a goal that game, so I think that week was definitely the highlight of her season.