Cheer Competition

Autumn was so excited about cheer competition today, that she woke up at 6:12 am! UGH!  I tried to get her to go back to sleep, but it was useless.  So, we got up and started getting ready.  She wanted me to curl her hair, so I used my flat iron.  We had to be to the middle school by 9:00 am, and we made it in plenty of time.  All the girls got some fancy glitter spray in their hair.

One of the Moms on the team made these super cute megaphones that were all decked out in team colors and personalized w/ the girls’ names.  What a great lookin’ team!

We had an hour to kill before they were ready for the girls to practice in the gym on the mats.  So, they warmed up and did stretches out in the hall.  This is my favorite picture of their warm up, b/c Coach Gayle told them to show her their “sassy pose/faces.”

I am SO PROUD of my Autumn girl and how much she’s grown and changed for the better through participating in cheer again this year.

There were opportunities for all sorts of photo ops while we waited for them to call the girls back to the practice mats.  One girl sat down on the table w/ her legs crossed, and pretty soon they were ALL doing that same pose.

I think they were starting to get a little nervous at this point.  That, or else they were just tired of having to smile for so long with all the pictures we were taking.

The girls were called back to the practice mats, so us parents gathered up all their stuff and headed to the competition gym to wait for them.  We got to see the Division 4 cheer offs and it’s amazing what those 4th grade girls could do!  Pretty soon, it was time for the Division 2 cheer off.  We all started cheering and clapping when our girls walked into the gym!

They had them sit in a line just like they did last year.  In this pic everyone is watching the Irish cheerleaders perform.  They are the team to beat, since they’ve won it the past 2 years and their coach used to be on our super competitive high school cheerleading squad a few years ago.

Autumn had a lot of crowd support, and that sign I made for her did turn out pretty cute if I do say so myself.  I’m so thankful to our family for showing up to support her and make her feel special.  Nick & Nate would have been there, too, but they were both at work.

The girls did a GREAT job on their cheer part of the performance.  Autumn ROCKED.IT.OUT. on her cartwheels!  She looked like she has been doing them for years and you would never know that she just learned how this season.  What a PRO, and we owe that to Coach Gayle for working w/ her one and one and to Autumn for practicing them over and over and over.

However, after the cheer part they got down into this position and waited and waited and waited for the dance music to start.  But, it didn’t start for a LONG time!  I guess there was an issue w/ the CD so Coach Gayle had to run and get her cell phone out of her bag so they could play the music off of that!  I was so proud of our girls for not moving, even though it took a few minutes (which felt like an eternity) to get the music working.  It started really unexpectedly, so they were off on their beats almost the whole thing.  Darn it!

The girls did a great job, but we placed last (5th place) in our division.  The girls didn’t care though, b/c they all got a participation trophy.  The best part of the whole thing was that Coach Gayle got the “Coach Of The Year” Award for our division!  WOOT WOOT!  She 110% deserves it.  I wrote a GLOWING recommendation for her b/c she truly went way above & beyond as a coach this year.

All of us parents were SO PROUD of our girls and all the hard work they put in this year.  Autumn & I were super happy that her team from last year (the Eagles) took first place!!!  We went up and gave her coaches from last year a big hug and told them congratulations.

After all that crazy excitement, it was time for lunch.  I was hungry and realized I hadn’t eaten breakfast.  We had to stop at Hobby Lobby to get some cheer stickers, and Autumn picked to go to Chipotle since it was close.  We drove past the clinic & Papa’s Corvette was out in the parking lot so we called him to see if he wanted us to bring him some Chipotle.  He said it was slow, so he would just walk over and eat with us.  I was planning on paying, but he insisted b/c he said that in exactly 4 months from today, he and Mom will be starting their mission and won’t be able to treat us anymore.  It almost made me cry to think that they’ll be leaving in 4 months!  It was fun to eat lunch w/ Dad, and Autumn especially liked watching the video of her cheering w/ her team that he had on his phone.  I’m so glad that Autumn & Papa have such a close relationship.

I had planned on using the 2 hours between the end of the cheer competition & the beginning of the cheer party to print off pics for the coach’s scrapbooks we made them.  But, I took so many pics that it wouldn’t be possible to sort through them all and have just a few printed off in time.  For the cheer party, we went to Main Event.  I guess one of the cheerleader’s Dad’s is very well to do, and he paid for the whole party even though we all offered to help.  The girls got to do laser tag, they were each given a $20 card to go play arcade games, and all the girls and adults ordered food!  The girls had such a great time.

Coach Gayle had this cake made for the girls.  She also had a gift bag full of goodies for each of the girls!  The girls have been really spoiled this year and I hope they know how much has been sacrificed for them in terms of money, energy, and time.

The girls decided to do their cheer one last time together.  It was the best I’ve seen them perform it, which is funny b/c they didn’t even have music.  They were just counting out the steps together out loud.  There was a group of Chinese businessmen behind us that were bowling and they all stopped and watched the girls (the cheer was LOUD), and after it was over all those men started clapping.  LOL!

Autumn was awarded the spirit stick to keep until next season!  It was a HUGE honor and one that she was so incredibly excited about.  We gave them their scrapbooks of pics from the whole season, and they appreciated it so much and were so touched.  I told them that I’d have to take them back before we left, b/c I hadn’t finished them and still needed to add pics from the cheer competition.  We have just LOVED being on this team this year and I am personally so thankful to Gayle & Marci for all they’ve done.  What great women!

We didn’t leave the party until 5:30 and by that time both Autumn & I were DONE for the day!  We had planned on going to Cowboys stadium to watch our local high school play in the playoffs.  But, that soooooooo didn’t happen.  We went back to Mom & Dad’s house and just vegged out for the rest of the night.