You Win Some....You Lose Some...

This post is for Joshua's scrapbook when he gets older.....

Joshua is one determined and driven child.  If someone challenges him to do anything, he is always up for it - even if he loses!   Anyways, this past month he has won some and lost some.....just a little glimpse into his life....

1.  Personal Narrative at School.

       Joshua has been having me help him with some of his poetry and writing at school.  Writing is really not my best thing (obviously), and so some of Joshua's writing reflected his mother's help.  :-)  BUT, I got a phone call from his teacher this past week wanting to know if he had my permission to send Joshua's narrative on to the district contest.  I guess they pick 2 fourth graders "personal narratives" to go on to district and his writing got chosen out of the fourth grade to send.  Who knows how it will do at the district level, but he was so excited to get chosen at the school level.

2.  Basketball...."The Mighty Aztecs"

     You guessed it -- it is basketball season again and YES, the team name is the Aztecs, again!  Ben is coaching a team of cute boys all from our stake.  Half of the team is Logan's age (third grade) and the rest of the team is Joshua's age (fourth grade).  They are playing in a fourth grade league - so they are experiencing challenging teams.  The first game - you guessed it - they LOST.  But, last Saturday was quite exciting with a big "W" - yes a win for the Aztecs!  Joshua takes these games SO seriously - he is determined to find a way to win.  We shall see how next week's game goes.....
3.  Student Council Elections....

Fourth graders can only run for one student council position - HISTORIAN!  So, of course Joshua wanted to run.  This is his poster - he had fun burning the edges of the posterboard to look like an "old document" - he gave a speech to the 4th, 5th and 6th graders....a cute speech tying Abraham Lincoln into history and Franklin going down in history....anyways, thanks to help from Ben - it was a great speech.  But, you guessed it!  He didn't win.  The girl that won "rapped" her speech.  Joshua got in the car after the elections and said "he had a lot of time to work on his next campaign."  I had to laugh - of course he would run again.  A few days later he ran for room rep of his class - and this time he WON!  He is pretty excited about this position because he gets to go to the younger classrooms and "explain the rules to them".  Who knows if that is what he will do???  

4.  Running Club...

        

Joshua & Logan have been in a running club at school.  They have been keeping track of all of their miles and then it finished with the kids running at the "Kids Rock" race the day before the Rock and Roll Marathon.  This race was just a fun race - not timed "officially" - but of course Ben and Joshua had to time his run.  Joshua is sure that he ran a 6:50 mile - he is determined to beat that time this year at the Turkey Trot. 

Here is an action shot...

5.  Pinewood Derby...

   This is supposed to be a fun activity where boys get to work with their parents on building a car....well this is a most dreaded activity in our home.  I don't have an idea how to build a car, we don't have the "correct" tools, and Ben has always hated pinewood derby.  Well, last year, you guessed it - Joshua lost.  He didn't just lose, he came in dead LAST in EVERY single race.  So, this year I told him we would make a cool looking car and not really care about how fast it went.  Well, Ben took the boys over to a friends home that has the "correct" tools and they came up with a plan for the car.  Both Logan and Joshua were excited about their car's design.  Well, the two nights before the race some major investigation on the internet happened....the boys sanded and tested and sanded and tested their wheels and axils (?) - they even propped the kitchen table up on an incline and ran the cars over and over again until they ran perfectly straight. 

Well, the big race happened and boys boys did great!  Joshua won for the the Webelos and got 3rd overall.  Logan also got third in the Wolf den. 

Here is a picture of the "iPod Racer"....

Here is a picture of Logan's skateboard...

The greatest WIN about this race was that Ben said afterwards, "It really was fun working with the boys on their cars...

(Who Knew?)