Third Grade

Having Ethan skip second grade has proven to be a great thing on so many levels! He is still doing wonderfully and from what the teachers tells me is one of the best behaved in the class too. They have done all kinds of neat things this year. They worked on Indian projects in November. He made wampum beads and a longhouse for the Mowhawks. They put on a great Christmas program with other classes too. In Feburary they did a Valentine's program where they performed over different dances like the Virgina Reel. (I forgot to take my camera for that one.) Ethan has also chosen to be on the jope rope team that travels to other schools to demonstrate cool jump rope tricks. The pictures I included were from Bates Elem. I was impressed they handled having such a huge crowd for thier first time out so well. I was really impressed with what he could do with a rope! I even got out there and tried a little double dutch with them myself. (Nothing like being shown up by a third grader!)

Blue and Gold

It seems the only thign I have to write about is Scouts. This last week was the Blue and Gold banquet. Our pack provides dinner for everyone during a cake auction. It is our primary fund raiser for the year. Since I have two boys, I made two cakes. The xbox cake sold for $65. The pack cake (which I thought was better) only sold for $27. We can't ever seem to keep up with the auction, so for the second year in a row we did not come home with a cake. I found it funny that most people bought their own cake, and I probably should have but even though I know the point is to raise money for the pack, I can't bring myself to pay $40 or more for a cake I know isn't worth more than $10. At the end of the night I just wrote a check for my donation. Besides the pictures of the cakes, you also see my favorite baking helper, doing what he does best!

Pinewood Derby Winners!

Well, this has been a different year being the Tiger cub den leader all year. There are 11 boys in my den - usually they divide the dens after there 8 members. Since most of the boys are all in first grade class we decided to keep them together, but they are a handful. At the last pack meeting, we had to do a skit. After the skit, the Cub Master came up and told me that working with the Tigers was like herding cats, and I can definitely agree.

Last year when Ethan competed in the pinewood derby he came in second place in the tiger den. And the first place tiger was the overall race winner. He was very sad he hadn't done better. This year I went to the scout store and purchased both of their help books. We followed every piece of advice the books gave - which included getting online and buying special wheels and axles. I had derby car stuff spread all over my kitchen for two weeks. The boys picked their own car shapes and finished designs. We went to the wood shop at Mt. Ogden Junior High and they watched their dad cut out their car. They did most of the sanding. We actually went and bought a scale to check our weight. We barely completed the finishing touches of the cars, including doing intense wheel alignments, about an hour or so before the race.

While at the race it was my job to come up with an individual award for each car there. There were 37 cars. I thought giving awards would be lots of fun, but it turned out to harder than I expected. There were five or six cars that were just red or blue shaped. What do you do with that? I was okay with one, but five was a challenge to come up with a unique award.

All of our work this year paid off, because Hayden was the first place tiger. Ethan was the first place wolf. The boys were also the first and second place overall race finishers. Neither of them ever lost a race. (They never raced each other.) They were jumping for joy most of the afternoon.

I sort of felt bad however, that we all did all this hard work and the only thing we got besides knowledge and bragging rights was a piece of paper. All my boys were happy and that is the important part.