Northwestern Spring Game

Sadly, the big event on Yannick's birthday was not a party or other thing for him...it was the spring practice game for Northwestern.  Along with getting to watch the football team run plays against each other for free, NWern hosted a kids football clinic, complete with actual football players running the drills.  Our boys LOVED it.  Kids would line up at stations, participate in the activity as many times as possible before a bullhorn sounded indicating they needed to move to the next event.  It helped that Zachary's best bud, David C. was there too.  His little brother Archie was there, but not interested in the clinic, where Wyatt was very into it, for the most part.  We too tons (too many!) of pictures and videos.


I am also embarrassed to admit it, but we tried to get a babysitter for Nick today.  We thought the football clinic at NWern would go better without him.  Yes, a sitter on his birthday.  We are terrible parents!  However, it worked out wonderfully that we could not find one.  We took him with us and he did great.  He took a nice nap in the Ergobaby for awhile, then played a good bit during the clinic.  Here's some of what we did:

Wyatt missed the ball - this time

Zach makes the catch

Zachary during warm-ups

David, Zachary (yes, he IS wearing baseball pants with a star wars shirt), and Wyatt waiting their turn

OH MY - Art using the baby to get cheerleader attention.  Of course they all fawned over Yannick and he did his part, flirting up a storm.

Oops, Zach missed this one!

Zachary and David waiting in line.  Can you guess which one is the NWern football player?

Z doing a strange victory dance, while Wyatt watches to see what the deal is bf he gets up there

Big boys in the bleachers watching the "game".

Each clinic participant was given a little purple backpack containing a t-shirt, water bottle, and some coupons. At the game, both big boys wanted to put their shirts on.  Yannick did so great at the game, even though he had to sit with us the whole time and not walk around.  He was intrigued by the marching band (oh no!) and was standing in Art's lap, waving his arms like a drum major.  People around us noticed and thought it fun to see how into the band he was.  A constant source of amusement.  We finally left a bit early b/c it was drizzling off and on, and it was getting closer and closer to nap time.

It should be mentioned that Art and I made a parent blunder as we were leaving.  Z was desperate to get a NWern mini football.  I was willing to, since we live in Evanston, and will hopefully start supporting NWern a bit.  Art balked at the $12.  Z was very disappointed, so I came up with the not so brilliant idea that we would go by the bookstore, thinking they would be cheaper there than at the game.  I was wrong, and drama ensued.  We finally, badly, resolved it by saying that if she still wanted it (though was unwilling to share it) and willing to pay for 1/2 of it, then we would get it on Monday.  He never mentioned it again.  

Oh yes, I nearly forgot, the accompanying videos, of which there are several.

Wyatt's videos first:

Wyatt doing a blocking drill.  I believe he was by far the youngest kid out there taking it seriously

Wyatt going out for a pass and throwing it back

The pass fell short, but Wyatt picked it up and ran it back.

Here Z misses the pass and falls over dramatically.  We will not be calling any scouts just yet! 

Z with a complete pass

 

More videos of Zachary