Friday night, Ella made her debut as a cheerleader. Their group of gals cheered at a basketball game. At the beginning of the game, they dimmed the lights and introduced the cheerleaders and the teams. The girls made a “tunnel” that the players ran through as they shook their pom poms in the air.

Before the game, I waiting with her as the team gathered. After taking a selfie with her, she said she had an idea for a pose. She gave me “hair” and that is funny enough, but her face in this pic is priceless.

In total, I think the girls have learned four cheers. One of them is a variation of one our high school cheerleaders used to do. It is a call and response cheer. “When we say fire, you say up” “Fire!” “Up!” I was not about to let the lame crowd ruin their cheer…so I made sure to yell, “up” as loud as I could. Now we weren’t that far from them, so after they finish the cheer, I can hear Ella say to her teammate, “That’s my dad. He’s loud!”

She did such an amazing job. I took a few videos, but the crowd noise drowned them out.

Andrew caught Sam and I both off guard. At the beginning of the game, they played the national anthem. I took off my hat and placed my hand over my heart, as did everyone. In the middle of the song, Andrew asks why we are standing. Sam says “This is how we honor America” or something to that effect. As the anthem is about to end, he asks in all seriousness, “What if someone doesn’t like America?” That kid is always thinking!

He can make some great faces, too. His teachers posted a few pictures from their classroom recently. Andrew is working on spelling his name. He was spelling it out with what looked like those magnetic letters. This cracked me up.

There is never a shortage of material to blog about as long as these two keep it up.