The month started out with Anthony having his first court of honor. He received the Boy Scout joining award as well as his Polar Bear Patch. He is just a couple of requirements away from getting his Tenderfoot and a few away from getting his Second Class. He is really enjoying Scouts and the leaders are enjoying having a scout who is enthusiastic about scouting. Anthony was also called to be the Patrol leader for the eleven year old patrol. To say he is excited is an understatement.
For the past six weeks Spencer has been going to a soccer clinic at the rec. center. For the most part they play around and have fun playing soccer and learning the rules and some techniques to the game. Spencer really enjoyed it and for him he thought was really playing soccer. Grant and I were okay with this as we are selfish and don't want to give up our Saturdays for soccer games. While Spencer would be at his soccer clinic, Grant and I would walk the track. Spencer had fun waving to us as we would pass. It was fun to watch him and see his excitement. You could definitely tell when he was bored. The only downside was the coach had the kids kick the ball one at a time, and when you have several boys you do spend a lot of time waiting your turn; hence the reason why Spencer would get bored. On their last class they allowed the parents come and watch. We thought they would play a game, but it was just a regular practice that we had seen the previous six weeks. It was kind of weird being in the room and watching the parents of the other kids busy on their various electronic devices. I decided something needed to be done, so Grant and I started cheering every time Spencer kicked the ball or demonstrated a skill. We definitely got some looks from the others parents, but we didn't mind Spencer knew we were proud of him. I think we might have embarrassed Anthony, but Madeline enjoyed cheering for Spencer.
At the beginning of April, I got a call from the school principal telling me that Anthony was awarded Outstanding Student of the Year. This is only given to fifth graders and there is one boy and one girl selected from the school. The fifth grade teachers nominate one boy and one girl from their class (so in Anthony case he was one of four boys nominated) and then the rest of the faculty vote. Anthony received 16 votes and the second place boy received 7 votes. Anthony didn't barely one he kicked it out of the park. There is a special banquet to celebrate and award those who won from each of the elementary, middle, and high schools. A few weeks prior Anthony found out he had been nominated and he was secretly hoping he would win. I knew he would because he has a high reputation at the school. Everyone know who Anthony is and those who know him our impressed by him and his character. When the principal called me I had to fight back the tears so I could make it through the conversation. I wanted to be there so bad to give him a hug, but had to wait until after school. He was all smiles when he came out to the car that afternoon. On the day of the dinner, Madeline and I decorated his room to show him how proud we were of him. Apparently this award is a big deal!
Easter this kind of snuck up on me. We did do our count down week and it was nice to go through the last days of our Savior's life. We really enjoyed the Bible Videos the church has put out on the Internet. Those really helped and made things easier for me. Spencer had his Kindergarten Easter Egg hunt so Madeline and I went up to the school and watched him. They take the eggs and spell out Happy Spring and the kids then find all the letters in Happy Spring along with a flower and that makes 12 eggs. When they find all 12 then they sit down. The teacher then checks the eggs. It is a simple egg hunt. This year they did the hunt at the park across the street so after the hunt the kids got play at the park. I love to see Spencer's smile on his face when I come up to the school to participate in his school activities. On the home front I decided to dye Easter Eggs this year. I think the last time we did this Anthony as a 18 months, so it has been awhile. It was a little nerve racking with Spencer but we made it out a live without spilling the dye. We do our Easter Egg hunt on Saturday as well as presents. We save the spiritual and most important side of Easter for Sunday. This year everyone received a small Lego set as a Easter present. Knowing that our kids are not that big into candy I took all the Lego pieces out of the boxes and used those to fill their Easter eggs. To keep the sets all together each kid had their own color of Easter eggs to find. To spice things up even more we did a glow in the dark Easter egg hunt. I just had small plastic eggs so getting the glow sticks in the eggs was a bit challenging, next year I will make sure to have the large plastic eggs. For Madeline's safety we hid them inside the house and turned off the lights. The eggs acted as night lights so the kids were able to see their way around. After all the eggs were found the kids then opened their eggs to reveal their present. I thought it was a pretty ingenious way to handle things.
Of course you can't have April without mentioning General Conference. In years past I would spend time getting packets together for the kids to fill only to find a lot of blank pages at the end of conference. This year I gathered a few games we had around the house that the kids could play during conference and called it good. We did decorate the office for conference as well as setting up a cupcake bar. I kept things simple by just having a conference party and the kids enjoyed the conference the same as they did when I spent all that time printing things off for them to do. In between sessions on Saturday we did go for a family bike ride where Spencer learned the importance of slowing down when going down hill. I was busy holding onto Madeline so she wouldn't crash, Grant was putting his bike away because it had a flat tire, and Anthony was out ahead. I was yelling at Spencer to slow down as he went down the hill and he is yelling back I don't know how. Well anyway he had his first hard crash, but the good thing was he got back on his bike and rode. When we got back to the point of injury he got off his bike and walked with it. He now knows how to apply the brakes.
This concludes April for the Cooper family. I will make sure to record Anthony's experience with fifth grade camp. Hopefully progress on the bathroom will be done, and Grant and I will be celebrating 13 years of marriage, it doesn't seem like we have been married that long. April has definitely been good to us.
We decided to follow Sister Dalton's suggestion for putting a scripture in a secret spot. Since we are doing our shower we thought we would put own on scripture up to be covered by the tile. Now every time we take a shower we will remember to not only be physically clean but spiritually as well.
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