for the love of the game......

austen's football season ended last thursday after a very loooong season.

his practices for freshman football began last june, 4 days after getting out of school for the summer.

he had practice and conditioning every day from 2:30 to any time between 5:00 and 6:30.  this schedule lasted until the beginning of august when the schedule changed to 7:30 am until 4:30.  every.single.day. 

 in between football practices, we had to fit in a traveling baseball season.  surmise it to say, it has been a very, very long season.....but we all loved it.

austen's football equipment had to be turned in today, so saturday i wanted to do a sports photo shoot.  

i told him on friday that since his equipment didn't have to be turned in until today, he needed to be sure to bring everything home so i could do this shoot over the weekend.....

well, he's 14.

and a boy....

so of course, he didn't have all of his equipment when he came home on friday.  seems his coach confiscated his shoulder pads before he left school.

curses!!!!

after some brainstorming, i asked around for shoulder pads from all of the boys families in the neighborhood.  no luck. but one neighbor remembered that he had a box of hockey equipment in his attic.  he found me shoulder pads and we were off.

by this time, however, austen was no longer up to doing the shoot and was a little less than cooperative...

well, he's 14,

and a boy....

so i had to threaten to take away his x-box bribe him to cooperate with me. 

i wasn't really successful, but the attitude just adds to the whole sports vibe....

he wasn't smiling here, he was whining....

i figured a few action shots would help..

ooh, a little smile there...

it helped a little....

but he was done.

but i wasn't. 

 i figured as long as we were taking sports pictures he may as well put his baseball uniform on and get some of those too.... 

ooh, not happy with me....(hee-hee...sometimes i love being the one in control)

i love the faces in this set....

i couldn't get a smile for anything....

that's okay...i love them.... and i think that someday he will too!