COH - last installment

 these are from jodie's camera.

 

 

i should have worked on my "proud mom" face, because i don't like what i'm seeing. 

oh well, plenty of time to practice before the next big event.

we've got ourselves a pinned eagle scout!

eagle sighting!

i warned him ahead of time that he had to give me a hug. 

he never does anymore, so that was extra nice.

 the last boy scout pin he'll ever give me. :)

 

i had read somewhere to go easy on him (for pinning purposes) by wearing a shirt with a collar.

 i am so thoughtful. ;)

 his cute speech.

 

i can't remember exactly what he said, but when he was ready to pin his mentors, he was very abrupt about it, like "come here!" it was cute though and he did a good job.

 politicians, right?

 cara with her boy chris. :)

and more food. i wish we had a pic with the food all laid out, but there were lines before they had even put everything out, so no pictures.

and i am happy to report that this concludes the COH saga of 2015.

phew.

COH - 3

grandpa cam:

setting up:

 after tearing a borrowed merit badge poster, this little lady got banished to phone town. 

she didn't mind.

 the man of the hour mingling with his guests. ;)

 sharing my vision with this angel friend. i am so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people! they jumped into action before and after - decorating, putting up pictures, setting out ice cream, fetching, and fetching, and fetching.

 

i dreamed of making signs with each of the boy scout attributes on them. i even collected wood to use and scrapbook paper. but then i realized two things. one, i am not that crafty. and two, i wasn't planning on setting up tables for people to eat at, so there wasn't really a place to even put 12 attributes. i wasn't even going to do this one, but then i was able to talk christian into making it (on sunday) and then he insisted on putting it up.

 pre-showtime.

 this one got banished too.

 while i was looking through pictures i found a movie brother elicio had made from 2011! it was sooo funny! so i decided to set up the tv and have that playing on a loop at the beginning and then at the end of the court too. people loved watching it and seeing all of our little boys that are all grown up now.

 

so many sweet friends came to support christian! i was so happy to see juana there. she's been our neighbor for almost 6 years, such a sweetie.

 sergeant cara grumbles, who looooves chris, came to give him a citation as well. tbh, i kind of chuckled when they said they were giving him a citation, because the first thing i though of was like a traffic ticket. but i guess that's what they (county commissioner and police types) call awards.

 so happy to have so many people there supporting chris. it was such a happy, like, it takes a village thing. and i am so grateful for my village!

 brother moran conducted the evening and he did a great job. he's very official with a nice bit of funny mixed in there too. it was perfect. i wanted to include as many of chris' scout leaders as possible, so brother myers said the opening prayer, he was chris' leader up until a few months ago, and then brother buxton said the closing prayer. chris was the teachers president with wade and he really enjoyed working closely with him. we asked brother davis to talk about scouting, since we expected (and thankfully, had!) many people there that are unfamiliar with the scouting program. jared also shared some experiences of christian's and talked a little bit about his eagle project. it was exactly what i had wanted.

 then the program part of the evening. when we picked up chris' eagle awards several months ago, they told us about the lightbox and how it always brings the crowd to tears. i hadn't a clue what she was talking about at the time, but when i started looking for program ideas, i remembered that she had told me something, so i called, and viola! we had ourselves a program! not sure there were any tears, but i thought it was a great program - short and sweet.

 

the light of the eagle.

 then tony presented chris his eagle pin. tony worked with chris throughout a lot of his scouting career, and they are home teaching companions. he's been a great role model for chris.

 he also told about some of his experience with chris. that boy has had some seriously cool scout experiences! what a blessing! tony did such a good job, seriously, everyone that participated did exactly what i had envisioned.

 after he was pinned, matt got the scarf and twisted it for me, then i put it around chris' neck and put his neckerchief on.

 

then he pinned the mother and father pins on us. 

while i was at the scout shop on friday, i picked up an eagle dad pin for his father too. 

 then chris spoke for a few minutes. he talked about some of his favorite scouting memories, his eagle project, and then presented his two mentor pins to brother mccombs and aina. there were a lot of people there and he did a very good job. proud of him. :)

 i spent a lot of time digging through memory boxes for all of his cub scout memorabilia.

 awards table again.

 and then the food. :) and the helpers. :)

 root beer floats, yo!

only one more COH post, and then i'm done with courts. 

forever.

COH - part 2

These are all pictures I got from my wonderful friends that thought to take pictures of my boys special day. (:

Matching sashes!

Troop 1846! (A few of them)

This was the rootbeer float station. My ice cream idea actually started with this and flowered from there. Not that ice cream is especially creative, but you know. I filled mason jars with scoops of vanilla ice cream and stuck red and white paper straws in them, then filled the 2 canisters with root beer for its own cute rootbeer float station. 

*Before pics. I have problems asking for help. I don't know why I feel like if I'm putting on a party I have to really put on a party and not ask anyone's help. 

But I finally got anxious enough to ask Tracy to come early and help me set up. I'd just been thinking about it for so long, I had borrowed decorations from several different people, and I knew I'd need help figuring out where everything should go. 

The scouts were going to come at 5 to help set up chairs, and thankfully Lana and her crew came too. I gave lana pictures and asked her to hang them prettily and she did!

And finally it started!

This is the president of the county commissioners, Randy Guy, presenting a citation to Chris. 

After Christian's speech he told him he did such a good job, he might have a career in politics. (:

Joanne presented Chris an Eagle Scout belt buckle from the council.

Oh, here's one of my pictures. 

Chris with his escorts. (: seabase buddies for life!

We asked tony to present Chris with his award. Home teaching comp buddies!

This is an after picture, but it shows my cute whipped cream canisters. I believe the devil is in the details!

(These pics are all random) this is Chris pinning David with the mentor pin. 

And his cute speech. (:

Josh photo bomb!

Baby boy with his awards table. I gathered every scout picture I could find and used the black frames from my photo wall to put pictures on the table to display. There's the flag we had flown over the Capitol in his honor. His eagle award from the stake. His old scout stuff - scarves, hat, pinewood derby cars, patches, and awards. Then, in the middle is a book of congratulatory letters I requested. My fav is one from the men of Duck Dynasty. They sent him an autographed picture. (: we also had one from the pope, ym General presidency, president Obama, and Mike Rowe. There were several that I requested that didn't make it. I would have requested more, but I read somewhere that of each scout only requests a few, then people won't get too tired of sending them. That makes sense to me. I also put his nice congratulatory cards and notes in there. 

More organized COH pics to come. (:

The day before

The day before the COH was a big working day. The ward had an activity to go see Meet the Mormons at the visitor center, so I talked grandpa and Matt into taking the girls. That left me almost the whole day to gather, buy, prep, and bake. That's totally my kind of day!

One of the things on the agenda was to pick up the cake. I had seen this guy a few months before the court and debated on getting it. Since I kept the refreshments pretty simple (simple meaning just cake and ice cream, as opposed to appetizers, etc) I decided to go for the cake as a showstopper, even though it was spendy. And i rationalized that Chris probs won't let me have a graduation party for him and I'll never pay for his wedding, so there ya go. I love the way the cake turned out! And the badges on the sash are exactly his badges and placement on his real sash. (:

I baked brownie and cookie cups and scooped ice cream in them to make little sundaes, made rice crispy treats, cookie dough balls, hot fudge, caramal (that didn't carmalize), butterscotch (that didn't thicken), and scooped 7 gallons of ice cream (to simplify things and have everything ready). Baskin Robbins worker, I am not. My wrist was pretty sore on sunday!

I also stopped by michaels and the commissary to purchase last minutes, and started packing all the things on my lists. 

I have the bad habit of trying new recipes when I'm serving other people. It's a very bad habit and makes me think I should have more foolproof recipes on hand. But even when I do, cooking for others is risky business. So Chris and brenna actually made these after church on Sunday, but this is a good example of my adventures in the kitchen. 

I gave them directions for these chocolate bowls, and they worked great, except that I forgot the part about spraying the balloon with cooking spray. That one little omission ruined the otherwise cool new recipe. Never a dull moment in the kitchen with me!

I worked up until the moment we left for the COH. I don't think I was so busy or nervous even at my own wedding! But it turned out wonderfully, so it's all good!