Today was Anthony's first Cub scout event.  We went to the Civil war reenactment in Corryton, TN.  Anthony and I woke up early and then picked up Aunt Kim. We didn't see our pack at first but we found Kaden and his mom Jamie. We met Kaden's dad, Darren and his little brother Coen.  Anthony got to shoot a bb gun, he got two bulls eyes when he shot a bow and arrow. Today he earned archery, bb gun, and his music loops for his belt. Then we got to see the Civil war reenactment.  That was so much fun.  After the first battle one of the confederate soldiers came over and I asked Anthony to pose for a picture with him.  Anthony told me no, until the soldier offered to let Anthony hold his gun.  Then he was a happy camper.  The second battle, they shot off cannons and attacked Fort Sanders.  After the reenactment, they let the kids go thru the trench.  We had such a great day.  On the way home, Anthony kept asking, "How much longer Papa Smurf?"  He kept changing 'Papa' to other adjectives so we played a game where we had to go thru the alphabet for different words to replace 'Papa'.  How much longer now adorable smurf?  How much longer now  Bossy smurf?  How much longer now crazy smurf? That kept him pretty busy and laughing the way home.  We dropped Aunt Kim off and went to Grandma's to pick up Anthony.  Grandma and Grandpa had company in from out of town and Emily took a liking to Grandma's Aunt Bashe.  They played catch with a ballon and where's Emme for hours.  Emily kept bringing her toys and I heard they shared oatmeal tickets.  Anthony did puzzles with Uncle Eric and neither of the kids wanted to leave.

Emily and Connor had fun playing together today.  Then we picked up Anthony, Christian, and Carysa from school. Anthony got his first report card for this year.  He got all A's.  Tonight he's going to the Seymour High School football game to watch Corban play.  He went with Celina, Christian, Connor and Caleb.  Emily and I were planning on going, but with all the excitement today she missed her nap and was getting cranky.  She was so cranky, she refused to get in the tub....until Daddy got in.

Last night we went up Bluff mountain to get pictures of the sunset. This afternoon the kids and I watched The Jungle Book together.  We're reading Anthony's wolf book for cub scouts.  It says that the man who originally started the cub scouts based it on a story from the movie.  We read the short story from the book and then watched the movie.  Then Anthony called his den leader to recite the cub scout promise, part of his requirements to earn his bobcat badge. We only practiced it twice so I was surprised he learned it so fast.  I'm so proud of him.  Tomorrow I'm watching Connor.  I'm sure Emily will be excited.  Our first event for scouting is Saturday morning.  We're going to a Civil war reenactment and then Anthony should be earning loops for his belt by shooting bb guns and bow and arrows.

Junior

Playing the "as if" game.  Pretending to be seagulls

playing in the dirt instead of listening to the fireman

Spring 2010 - when Anthony first met Junior at the pet store

Helping build Junior's cage

The picture we buried with Junior

Today has been a sad day for our family.  Anthony's pet rabbit, Junior died.  We found him this morning right before school.  We let Anthony stay home from school. He joined Emily today for library day.  It's fire safety month so the Seymour fire department brought a fire truck for the kids to see.  Later we had a small funeral for Junior and buried him in the back yard next to our garden.  Anthony built him a wooden cross and put a picture of himself and Junior in his box.  It broke our hearts to see him cry.  He handled it better than we would have expected and we couldn't be more proud of him. This on top of finding out recently that our neighbors Carysa and Connor will be moving away in a few days has made him pretty sad.  It's made all of us pretty sad actually. 

We made a craft today to try to help keep his mind off of things.  We made owls out of paper plates and later went to his first den meeting for cub scouts. He had a lot of fun there.  The boys got to play on the playground.  Then they played 'the name game' while playing catch.  The parents played too.  It was actually kind of fun.  Then the boys had a snack and one of the mothers (Kaden's mom, Jamie) brought in instructions on how to make different paper airplanes.  Most of the boys took off with ones the Jamie had already made as examples. A few attempted to make their planes while their parents either helped (did most the work) or made made them instead of the boys.  Not Anthony, he didn't need or want help.  A few minutes later he was off to join the other boys, with a plane he'd made himself.  At one point in the meeting, he sat back on a bench and said, "This is the life."