A Knight to Celebrate

Holy toledo am I glad it's February 9th. I've been waiting for this day for the last three months. Today is the day after the Blue and Gold Banquet, and today is the day I take a big sigh of relief.

The Blue and Gold Banquet is the kickoff of the new cub scouting year. It's also the birthday of the cub scouting program. It's the biggest event of the year, dinner is served, family is invited, and stress levels of certain cub masters skyrocket.

This month we were supposed to focus on the core value resourcefulness. One way or another that led me to a Renaissance theme? After I was halfway through planning I realized nothing I planned really had much to do with resourcefulness, but it ended up being a fun theme anyway. Here's Eli (cutting 5 teeth) trying on the king crown I made:

I thought it would be fun if we had everyone eat with just their hands, so we served a bunch of finger food. I originally thought this fit the Renaissance theme, but I'm again left second-guessing my understanding of the Middle Ages. Oh well. Eating with your hands is fun and different so it worked well enough.

We served our birthday cake in cupcake form.

My biggest stress of the evening was wondering exactly how much food one needs to feed 100 people. Other than having to make an emergency call to the nearest grocery store for 75 more chicken legs, my food guesses were pretty spot on. We served chicken legs, french bread, grapes, strawberries, celery, carrots, cupcakes and cookies. 

Waiting for our Lords and Ladies to arrive.

I set up a little picture area which ended up being my pride and joy of the night.

I meant to have someone take a picture of me and Jeff in the photo area, but I forgot and we were busy. So here is a darling family who attended the banquet. Notice the castle in the back. I impressed myself with a sudden surge of architectural skills.

The pinata architectural skills impressed me, too! I asked the den leaders to have each of their dens make a pinata so we could "Slay the Dragon." I told them to just make a circle pinata and draw a face on it. Then the Bear leader walked in with this stunning paper mache creation. Wow!

The Webelos also provided an impressive design with this knight:

The pinatas hung peacefully from the basketball hoop as they awaited their fate.

The Wolves also went above and beyond with their pinatas. They all made one! Such crafty scouts we have.

Each den created a coat of arms. I loved them!

In no time we had a full gym and a mighty cute leader conducting the meeting.

Each den did a skit, we handed out awards, and then we busted open some pinatas.

I did not fully think through the craziness of 25ish kids running after a candy explosion.

Until next February, Blue and Gold!

Folded Arms and Fire Safety

We have been trying to teach Eli how to fold his arms for prayers for the past two months. One day I handed him his lunch and he did this before he would eat:

 Now he "folds his arms" on demand!

At Pack Meeting Eli was walking around and getting into trouble. He had his back to the front of the room as one of the scouts started the opening prayer. As soon as Eli heard the prayer start, he whipped around to face the front and immediately folded his tiny arms.

And yes. I had my eyes open during the prayer.

I guess I'll do a Pack Meeting update because it went so well!

The theme of the month was Responsibility. Several websites recommended talking about being responsible around fires and discussing fire safety. That seemed like a good enough idea so I went with it.

After much planning and replanning, I finally decided to have them do a fire safety relay. The first race was to find a safe exit. I had four leaders standing behind the boxes marked "Exit." The leaders would alternate which one of them had a fire behind the box so there would be one safe exit and one exit with a fire behind it. The boys had to crawl through the safe exit.

The second race was to stop, drop and roll in a designated area. One boy misunderstood the directions and rolled all the way back to his team which was very amusing to watch...but might have cost his team the win.

The third race was to go to the family meeting area. I had hula hoops there and they had to hula hoop three times and then run back.

The fourth race was to call 911 at your neighbor's house.

And the fifth race was to put out the fire with water from the fire extinguisher. I didn't really want to deal with the mess of actual water so Jeff had the brilliant idea to fill balloons up with flour and call that water. Those balloons are sitting on the chair with the fire extinguisher and then there were fires in the middle that they had to hit with two balloons.

I bought firemen hats at the dollar store for them to wear when it was their turn.

It was so much fun I'm tempted to do a relay every month. You don't think they'd mind, do you?

PMS

Well. It's that time of the month again.

I'm crabby, stressed, and my face is breaking out.

I've got a major case of Pack Meeting Syndrome.

Oh. Did you think I meant the other PMS? I'm pregnant you sicko.

This month -- Fire safety. We're doing a relay. This might just be my most boy related activity yet. I hope it goes over well. And I hope I can apply the classroom management skills my sister tried to teach me last night. Heaven help me.

My New Tan

I always wanted to have a cute couples calling with Jeff. So I guess you can say being called as joint cub masters is kind of my dream come true.

Except that I don't know the first thing about the scouting program, 8-year old boys or tan shirts.

My only memorable encounter with cub scouts is the one time my mom made me go to a pack meeting where they held my little brother upside down. And the only reason I remember that is because there's a picture of it.

Oh well, take away the awards, ceremonies and cheesy cheers and you're just left with a bunch of enthusiastic 8-year olds, right? That doesn't seem so bad. Until I realize my comfort range with children is limited to the ones that are 16-months old and younger. If Eli hasn't been there, I don't know how to deal with it. And whenever I try to think back on what I was like at that age, I'm reminded I have spent the majority of the last 15 years trying to recover from and forget that time of my life. Plus I've never been a boy.

And as far as the tan shirts go...

I just don't have a lot going for me with this calling. To say I'm overwhelmed by my once-a-month-thirty-minute calling would be an understatement.

Because I spend the week before pack meeting lying awake at night second guessing all my plans. I spend the night before pack meeting counting and recounting handouts, treats and napkins. I spend the hour before pack meeting pacing the whole house telling Eli to cooperate if he knows what's good for him. Then I spend pack meeting realizing it's not really that bad.

 (Chocolate covered pretzels I made to look like crayons for our back to school pack meeting. Big hit.)

The boys are cute and energetic. They are happy to be doing whatever girly activity I planned for them. Like, for instance, tonight's activity of making cookies. It would be a lot easier for me if cub scouts were girls. If only.

Jeff did a great job conducting the awards portion for the first time, and the boys managed to stay somewhat interested in my activity for them. It's nice to have another pack meeting under our beltloops, and I'm already stressing about the next one. This calling might just be the death of me.