Spring League Basketball

Sarai and Carmen are playing spring basketball. They are playing through the Shamrocks league. Sarai has played for this league for 3 years now. Carmen decided she wanted to play more competitive basketball than was offered through our town.

Spring basketball is played by tournaments only. When each team is entered in a tournament there are 4 games on the weekend; 2 Saturday and 2 Sunday. It does become a challenge when Sarai's team is entered into a different tournament than Carmen. Carmen is also playing travel soccer this spring as well! We have many days where we are traveling the whole state for sports!

Sarai is a versatile player. She can play any position, although she prefers wing. When her coach asks her to play she steps up! He really appreciates that in her. The team played a tournament on April 9 and 10th and won every game. this is what the coach wrote about Sarai when he commented on how everyone helped the team: "versatility, down low and on the wing, taking the ball out, flashing to the middle, dribbling, passing".

She is playing with many of the same girls as she did in the past two years. They are from Northboro, Westboro, Shrewsbury and Worcester. Sarai's team is very good this year. Their record is 5-1.

Here's a picture of her coach and the team. Make note of the contrast when you see Carmen's team!

Sarai's defense:

Carmen plays a wing player too. In her last game she had two great steals! Here's steal number one. Carmen's team is made up of all 6th graders. They are a great team. I believe their record is 5-1.

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This is steal number 2. Carmen was able to get between the other players trying to pass it over the half court line and get the ball. Carmen is being fouled here, but the ref never called it.

Carmen's got control and command of this steal.

In the clear and no one is close to her. She uses her great speed to push the ball down the court on her fast breaks.

This is part of Carmen's team. Her coach and the players she played with last Sunday. Carmen's tournament was on April 17th, and 18th. I loved how the girls sat up on the top of the bleachers while the other half of the team played.

There will be more pictures to come as both girls have 4 more tournaments before the season is over.

Sing Out Play and Costumes

Carmen and I were involved in a play last weekend. The play was called Switching Channels.

Sing Out is a play program offered only to the 5th and 6th graders in our town. Any student who tries out is somehow involved in the play. Each student is given a minor role exposing them to theatre in a fun way. Linda Gadilauskus, a mother who grew up in Shrewsbury, participated in Sing Out as a kid herself. When her children were of the age she began the tradition again. She writes the plays herself and gives all the proceeds back Sherwood middle school (our 5th and 6th grade). Tobin participated in Sing Out in 6th grade, but I have been involved in these plays since Sarai was in 5th grade. For four years I have made/created costumes for the play. I had also been involved as the costume director. This year, life is much busier and asked that someone else step up to organize the costumes. I was still asked to create some costumes!

My job with costumes this year was to create ones for particular commercials used in the play. I had to create the Fruit of the Loom guys:

Here is the apple: I made an inner shirt so I could stuff fiber fill between the red shirt and the inner one.

Here is the fig character. Here is cut out leaves from felt and sewed them all over the shirt. I only sewed the top of the leaves so they would move freely.

and the grapes. As you can see they are covered in balloons. Each character had a hat to match their costume. My mother had made me a pumpkin costume when I was 8. Somehow, that hat is now in my possession. I used that hat and created my own pattern from which I made these hats.

a Toothbrush costume and a toothpaste costume.

Pepsodine is a made up toothpaste name. Yes, it is similar to Pepsidine, which is for sore gums. The director wrote the name into the play thinking it was a toothpaste from the 50s. The name was wrong, but we kept it this way since most people wouldn't realize the mix-up.

These took planning, searching for ideas on the web and late nights to finish them. The toothbrush is made with 500 straws shoved into a shoe box that I spray painted and covered with white fabric left over from the toothpaste costume. The long pole for the brush is a tube from wrapping paper. The girl who played the toothbrush loved her prop. She was also the fig for the Fruit of the Loom.

Here is Carmen in her announcer outfit. She is wearing a jacket I recently bought for myself.