A Pinewood First Place

My boy is in cub scouts this year for the first time.  He's a Tiger Scout which is what they call the youngest group of kids (1st graders).  The best part of scouts...are you ready for it?...the uniform.  I cannot begin to describe how I felt when he put on that shirt and little neckerchief for the first time.  It is the cutest thing I have ever seen!  I guess that whole loving a man in uniform even translates to little boys, who knew?  Anyway, I've been meaning to take a photo of him in his uniform ever since that first time he put it on, but he is usually in a rush to get to his meeting after dinner and it's dark outside and I just hadn't gotten around to it. I have plenty of photos now, but I seriously will probably try to take a real portrait type photo this spring outside.

So yesterday was his Pinewood Derby.  I remember it from when my brother was in cub scouts and him and my dad worked on the car together.  Or maybe my dad worked on it and we just watched.  Either way, it made an impression because I remember it.  My brother won the pinewood derby.  So did my husband who still has the trophy to prove it.  We were talking to a friend who did scouts as a kid and he admitted that he won the Pinewood Derby too.  That made us a little suspicious...I mean, where are all the Pinewood losers?!?  Did every kid have a memory of winning this thing?

Well, we got to work on the car after much research as to what design to do.  We google searched photos of cars and got tons of results and proceeded to show them all to our son and ask him what he wanted his to look like.  He really had no opinion which was frustrating us to no end.  I thought a Lego car would be really cool, or one that looked like an Indy car.  He really didn't care, he just wanted his car to be the fastest.  So my husband found a site with a winning car that was not going to win any 'craftsmanship' awards and my boy finally gave his approval.  I tried to stay out of the whole thing stating that it was a father/son project, but I ended up helping, which is fine because now I can have bragging rights on my fast car. :)  We tweaked the design a little with some leftover gold spraypaint from an unfinished project and some decals from Michael's. Then we super glued a weight to the top of it.  Super classy.  But hey, guess what.  It won 1st place!!  My boy is so happy to finally have his very own winning trophy.  That makes it worth all the work. :)

My sweet boy in his uniform.  He keeps doing this really goofy smile and it drives me insane!  I remember my daughter did something similar when she was his age...go check out this post to see.

Before the Derby started they did the Flag Ceremony.  It was my son's Den's turn to do it and he got to carry the American flag with a little help from his dad.

This is before they did the ceremony.  What is with my son's face?!  He cracks me up!

After the race was over he got to carry it back out.  I like how he looks like he's doing some sort of javelin throw. :)

Some of the cars.  The banana car was very realistic.  And someone else did a Lego car!

Ours in in this photo but it's not in focus.  I have to say that I don't think anyone looked at it and thought to themselves, "That right there is the winning car."

Here it is!  Built for speed...not looks.

That's my boy's car in the far lane.

I didn't know this beforehand but they actually have 20 rounds of racing.  With 3 races in each round.  So there was a lot of standing around waiting and watching.  And had we known that the car would have to race that many times we would have taken the durability factor a little more seriously.  I was praying the super glue would hold and that weight wouldn't come flying off mid-race!

Winning again!  He beat the batmobile.

More waiting around.  Why can't he do this real smile on cue when I pose him?

She watched some races and played on my phone.  What a patient big sister.  And I know this is going to shock you (ha, ha), but I really like her profile in this shot. :)

Winning another race...I need to work on my action photography.  It is seriously lacking.

More waiting...

The results are in!  He won first place.  I love the boys all checking out their trophies.  They gave out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for speed and then Best Craftsmanship, Coolest, and a couple others that I can't remember.

They are all so cute!!

But he's the cutest. :)

Thanks for reading!