Cotton Boll and Consumer Judging 2013

Since we began homeschooling last year we have been extremely involved with our county's 4H program.  Trey has participated in almost every activity to come down the line...robotics club, poultry judging, volunteering at the fall festival at our local nursing home, CPA, DPA, chicken show, camp, and the list goes on and on.  This year we had a Cotton Boll and Consumer Judging team for the first time in several years and of course Trey wanted to participate.  Our consumer judging team was small...only four students, three of which were on the junior high team, and the fourth made up our senior team.  Despite their small number, they represented our county well in district competition.  There were eleven junior teams in our district, most of which had six to ten members.  In the team category, each member of the team competes and the judges take the highest three individual scores to determine the highest team winner.  Our team came in 7th out of 11, but with only three team members that is awesome!  Overall there were 63 fifth through eighth graders competing in the junior high division.  Trey received a perfect score in two categories and overall tied for 2nd with a total score of 343 out of 350 in the Junior High Individual.  He tied for 7th in the reasoning competition which is where they have to rank products from best to worst and orally present their reasons for their ranking.  This year the reasoning category was t-shirts, and when Trey found out what the category was he got upset and told me that that was his worst category, so I'm especially proud of him for calming down and putting forth his best effort and tying for 7th place!  In addition to the consumer judging competition, each junior high individual also presents a 30 second commercial promoting cotton.  Trey came up with his idea all on his own and I must admit I was very skeptical.  His plan was to dress up like a cat and his opening line was, "Cats go nuts for catnip, but what should we go bonkers for?  Cotton!"  He went in there with his usual high enthusiasm and received a perfect score which put him in a six way tie for 1st place!  I am so proud of Trey for how well he did at competition.  I am even more proud to know that he learned so much about looking at products, reading their labels, and knowing which is the best product for the money.  That's a life skill that will serve him well for years to come!

 

 

 

 

 

My Little Cowboy

Trunk or Treat 2013

Fall is always busy around here and this year is no exception.  I love all the fun family times that this season brings.  Here are a few photos from the 3rd Annual McRae Fall Festival & Trunk or Treat!  We had a great time, as always!  Trey won the pumpkin carving contest for the second year in a row!  He carved the owl pumpkin and while he did use a stencil, he did everything from cutting out the top to cutting out the design all by himself.  I am so proud of him, although I do hate how fast he is growing up!  This was Jesse's first pumpkin carving contest and he mostly did his on his own too.  I thought he did a great job on his vampire jack o' lantern!  And I was tremendously proud of my "trunk" and both boys loved helping to spray paint our pumpkin!