Mashed Potatoes and Wooden Cars

January 20, 2012 By 4 Comments

“But Mom, I think I have stage fright.”

If you’re reading this and think my kid ACTUALLY had stage fright, raise your hand.

I don’t see any hands. Ha! That’s what I thought.

Last night, the first grade sang at the PTA meeting at Henry’s school. It was a very crafty way for them to get parents to fill the cafeteria for the PTA meeting, I must say.

All week, Henry had been telling me they were singing about mashed potatoes. Obviously I didn’t believe him because WHAT?

But dang if they didn’t really sing about mashed potatoes. TWO SONGS, in fact! The other was about noses.

He hammed it up (hahaha ham and mashed potatoes) and boy, does he have some rhythm!

*insert maniacal laughter*

So tonight is weigh-in for the Pinewood Derby. It’s a scouting tradition where dads kids make these little cars out of balsa wood or something and make sure they weigh the right thing so they can go spend a testosterone filled day racing the cars to see whose is the fastest.

Well, the boys spent all day last Saturday putting this car together. Hopefully it’ll be up to snuff and won’t get disqualified or anything.

Tomorrow, we will go hang out at the school to race these little suckers.

I’m pretty sure it will be alcohol-drinking-inducing AND adorable at the same time.

Filed Under: Henry, Scouting Tagged With: , , , ,

Star.0

January 17, 2012 By 2 Comments

HL: Hey mom, did you see that rapper on Toshoo (tosh ewwwww if you want to say it like he did) last night?

Me: Excuse me? Do you mean Tosh.0?

HL: Yeah. He was hilarious wasn’t he?

Me: You were watching Tosh.0 upstairs? You know you can’t watch that, Henry Love Anthoine.

HL: But I looked for the channel for so long I HAD to watch it. It was hard to find. But he was funny, wasn’t he?

Me: ::falls down dead::

That’s my star student, y’all.

Each week, his class has a star student. I’m not sure what this means other than I had to print some pictures and put them on the poster board for him to take in today.

They consist of things like this (complete with HIS captions) (and my commentary):

Me at a wedding with the pretty bridesmaid I met. (you mean attached yourself to and thought you were really on a date with her?)

Me on a {speed something} at Jedi Training (I've still yet to see a full Star Wars movie. They're going to disown me.)

Me with my eighth bass. (you mean FIRST, Henry?)

Maybe he won’t mention the unimaginable things he heard and saw on Tosh.0 and will keep it classy by talking about the bridesmaid he wanted to bring home with him. Aah… that’s my boy!

 

Filed Under: Henry Tagged With: , ,

Join The Club

January 11, 2012 By 8 Comments

Clubs. I’m sure at some point we’ve all been in one (or a dozen).

They come in all shapes and sizes. I, for one, have been in many over the years.

It all started with the Paint Pen Club. We met and painted stuff like acrylic boxes, awesome visors and other {totally un-} necessary items. Our parents bought us $9 a piece pens that you had to shake to death and then prime by pushing the tips down on paper before being able to use them. They smelled amazing — and by amazing I mean you could totally get high off of it.

Then there was the Friendship Club. This was a few neighborhood girls — Amy, Katherine, Rachel… the club was great. We had membership cards, an oath and agendas. We were 100% amazing. Well,until one of us decided we didn’t like one of the other members. Then it wasn’t so friendly.

Middle school brought the Junior Beta Club. High school brought the Beta Club and some other club I can’t remember the name of. It had greek letters and we totally thought we were a sorority. I remember nothing about it.

Then there was the sorority at Auburn. That was fairly short-lived. And then the Junior League. Also short-lived.

And the last club I joined was The Club. The one nobody wants to be a member of.

I think it’s obvious that I don’t do clubs well.

But my kid does.

Henry came home the other day asking for a pedometer. {WTF?}

I told him we weren’t buying a pedometer… why did he need one anyway?

Because he started a Pedometer Club and he needed one or he would get kicked out of his own club.

So curious me, I asked what they were going to do in this club and WHY ON EARTH a pedometer club. He said they were going to see who could have the most steps by the end of the day. I’m imagining boys in a classroom like asking to go to the bathroom every 14 seconds to get 20 more steps. Oh, the humanity.

But Twitter came to the rescue. My friend Dawnie is sending a few pedometers from a (her words) “failed health and fitness event.” Henry will have a fit I’m sure and his club will be up and running.

Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting jerseys with Greek letters on them.

Update: Henry’s going to flip his lid when he gets home and sees these that Dawnie sent:

Filed Under: Henry, Just for Fun Tagged With: , , , , ,

I’m Determined

November 21, 2011 By 4 Comments

If I’m nothing else, I’m determined. I WILL succeed at making my kid an Auburn fan if it kills me!

This past weekend, Jason was off camping with his friends from college. I decided early in the week that I was going to ride over to Auburn to at the very least hang out and just “be” in Auburn. I talked to my friend Jana (Yes, I know WAY more than one Jana… another blog post coming about that soon.) and they were going to be hanging out, too. She looked for tickets for us all and we decided to just play it by ear.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tear up when I pulled into town.

We made our way to Big Blue Bookstore and purchased a real jersey. You know, to compete with the one Jason bought in Athens a few weeks ago. After heading to Jana’s house and getting ourselves regrouped, we headed off to campus with kids in tow.

Aah… Jordan-Hare stadium!

Henry got to get a poster signed by cheerleaders! He was very excited about that.

Henry, Clem and Ollie. Jana’s kids are precious and they all three had a blast together!

There were some military vehicles in the kid’s area. Henry wasn’t shy to just go up and ask “what is this and what does it do?” of the guy.

 

They learned that this thingamagigger could shoot a football from Auburn to Columbus and they were like OMG even though they had no idea what that meant!

 Jana and Jana. While we kinda hung in different circles in college, we’ve become better friends as adults which I just LOVE!

Throwing the football! 

 

At this point, I still had my iPhone. Moments later, not.

But this may go down as one of my favorite pictures of me and my little guy!

 

No phone here. :(

 

Have you ever been to a football game where the opposing team’s coach was honored pre-game? Well, I hadn’t either. But now I have.

Pat Sullivan, Auburn’s first Heisman Trophy winner (1971) is the head coach at Samford University and was honored before the game. It’s the 40th season since his amazing Heisman season. The ceremony was moving as he was very humbled to be surrounded by 50ish members of the ’71 team, including Terry Beasley. Both the Auburn team AND Samford team stood on the field and raised their helmets to him.

And then the only reason I wanted Henry to go… to see the Eagle fly. And fly, she did.

She flew and flew and flew and landed right where she was supposed to.

Bring in Aubie, the band…


 Get us all worked up…

Remind us we’re ALL IN!

 

Bring in the team…

And let’s play some football! 

We made it until halftime. Henry enjoyed every single minute of the day and asked when we could come back. Little does he know, we’re pondering riding over for the Iron Bowl!

But until next time…

Farewell Jordan-Hare.

WAR DAMN EAGLE!

Filed Under: Adventure, Family, Henry, Memories Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Pep Pep PEPPY!!

September 13, 2011 By 8 Comments

I’m a morning person. I’d much rather be up at 6am than stay up past 9:30. I know. I’m an old lady. I’m good with that!

Being room mom (yay me) for Henry’s class, I was invited to the PEP RALLY (use jazz hands, please) to kick off their big fundraiser, the Boosterthon. If y’all have never been to a Boosterthon, well, you’re missing out. I was so excited to be going to a PEP RALLY! Only… it was at 8:15. AM. Yes, AM.

Naturally, by virtue of being me, I was all, “this will be great.” And it was. But boy howdy was it LOUD!

The guys who put on Boosterthon are amazing. They dance around, they say funny stuff, they are basically paid to be total and complete goofballs. What a sweet gig! But it involves hundreds of screaming kids. But what a sweet gig!

Seizure inducing screaming!

Anyway, as I was standing in the gym full of half-asleep parents and screaming elementary kids, I was taken back to days of Friday afternoon PEP RALLIES at my high school.

In high school, I was a Vespidaette. A what? A Vespidaette. We were the Hornets. Our yearbook was The Vespidae. That is the Family of the Hornet in scientific language. So we, the dancers were the Vespidaettes. Makes sense, right?

Anyway, we wore lycra and sequins and danced our hearts out. We had rules that we followed and camps we attended. We could kick high and do splits (why do people say “the splits” I wonder…). We were, if I may say so myself, amazing.

Being a Vespidaette gave me a chance to do some pretty amazing things. At summer camps I won a myriad of awards, as did my teammates. I was chosen to dance in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade not once, but twice. I danced in two Cotton Bowl halftime shows. My whole family went to Ireland so I could dance in front of the Lord Mayor and in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin.

In fact, if I said my whole high school career was wrapped around being a Vespidaette and being Captain and all that, it would be 110% accurate.

Flashback:

Pre-Macy's Parade 1990

Macy's Parade 1990 -- We had just been to the taping of the Phil Donahue Show!

ANYWAY, ENOUGH BIG HAIR — BACK TO PEP RALLIES (see? I get excited talking about my years in lycra and sequins).

Fall Fridays in high school were game days and every game day had a PEP RALLY! The cheerleaders were in charge and everybody else just did what they said — football players, coaches, Vespidaettes, etc. Everything went through them.

If you wanted to be “on the schedule” you had to see them or their sponsor. We always performed. It was all very orderly.

Then the schedule was made and the captain went to see where we went in the official schedule. It usually went something like this:

  • Cheer: BE AGGRESSIVE
  • Cheer: We Are The Mighty Hornet Team
  • Fight Song: Team Enters
  • Stunt Cheer: Go Hornets
  • Vespidaettes
  • Cheer: Blah Blah Blah (I can’t remember these cheers, it’s been like 15 years)
  • Coaches and Captains speeches
  • Spirit Stick!
  • Alma Mater
Those were fun days when you could wear your uniform to school and put cute little spirit treats in the players’ lockers. Days I had forgotten about until today.

And although there were no Captain speeches or cheesy cheers, there were a bunch of kids in one room screaming and hooting and hollering for one main goal.

Their school is a team and even though there’s no win or lose, they all for a good hour this morning were excited to cheer on themselves.

I’ll break out my pom poms if they can promise not to hold another PEP RALLY at 8:15 am again, though!

Now, to start gathering pledges.

*This is not a solicitation to pledge to my child’s Boosterthon goal but he does really want the big giant prize — a light up football. He only needs like 33 billion pledges.*

Filed Under: Henry, Memories Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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