Success!

After a decent night of sleep and eating three consecutive meals for the first time in a week, I am happy to announce that the Buckaroo Banquet (Blue and Gold) and Cowboy Chili Cookoff last night was a huge success all around! Like I said in my last post, I have been in charge of this 3 times and the third time truly is the charm.  I got some great advice from my friend Karen Tibbitts while in the pre-planning stages( which means I was thinking about it but nobody else was).  She told me to involve the entire ward in ways that would make them feel needed and want to come.  She suggested a chili cookoff.  It was such a great idea that the cub scout committee, aka the leaders, all agreed right away when I made the suggestion to them.  We had 16 pots of chili and 17 people brought rolls or cornbread. I'm pretty sure the bishopric enjoyed their task of judging.  The kitchen, where the judging took place, was swirling with a spicy chili aroma. 
After the judging was complete, everybody got busy chowing down.  I made a white chicken chili, which I named Cowboy Chicken Chili, and it was really popular.  To be honest, I was secretly, and now publicly, very pleased that people liked my chili since I made something so unusual.  I thought maybe purists would turn up their noses, but my 7 quart crockpot was full when I brought it and empty when I brought it home.  And my mother picked my chili to eat, not knowing it was mine. 

I called my cake Princess Mania

I found these cute princess dolls at the Dollar Store

My girls really wanted me to buy this cake, and Grandpa
almost bought it for them, but once it got up to $45 I
told him to stop bidding . I can make another one,
when the fatigue from this one wears off.

Timothy wanted to make a train for his cake

He had a lot of fun making windows and putting on all
the candy for decorations.

"My daddy bought me a nerds cake because they are small and can't choke me.
I love my daddy!"

Tiburon selling Cooper's cake

Bonita's cake

my mom's cake

Jackson's cake

Caleb's cake

Emily's cake

Tiburon's cupcakes

He took judging very seriously :)

Before dinner the kids all enjoyed making cowboy beaded pin crafts and creating wanted posters, and especially viewing all of the amazing cakes that cubscouts and leaders brought to auction off.  We had 22 cakes.  I didn't get a chance to snap photos of all of them ,but I'm going to post the ones that I did manage to capture.  They were all wonderful!  And we raised about $675 selling them.  That was probably the best part of the night because it was when I got to see everyone's hard work pay off.  We made a huge publicity effort for this event with announcements, invitations, and flyers.  We asked Brother Riggs, who has professional auctioneer skills, to run the cake auction.  We had made our best effort to get people there with the different assignments and the allure of three amazing aprons made by Bonita Buckingham for the chili prizes.  AND IT ACTUALLY WORKED.  I'm really still in shock.  I'm so used to things not working out that I couldn't believe it when the cultural hall just filled up with people, and filled with people who have no current affiliation with Cub Scouts.  We had young, we had old, we had grandmas and grandpas, we had friends and neighbors who are not LDS.  It was awesome!  And it made it all worth it.  And that is what brings me to explain my earlier comment about the cake auction.  A lot of us worked really hard making more than one cake to sell.  In past years, every single family ended up buying one or more cakes because other people didn't come to the Blue and Gold Banquet.  So, we would all make one or two cakes and then spend $40-$60 or more buying two cakes.  It seemed a little bit ridiculous to me.  I didn't like the idea of people feeling obligated to purchase a cake.  Last night, I really felt like nobody felt pressured to buy one.  We had so many people there.  There were people who chose to buy more than one cake, but there were also people who bid on cakes and didn't end up buying one in the end.  And the bidding for the last cake was intense.  It ended up being sold to a group of four families for $68! I was so touched by all of the ward members who came and the several families who bought two cakes and supported our cub scouts.  I know it's kind of sappy of me, but it made me cry.  The whole thing made me cry.  All of my leaders showed up to set up Thursday night and they all showed up Friday and worked really hard to pull off a super event.  I even got to sit down for a little while and eat dinner without anyone needing me.  And the only thing I forgot was the salt and pepper :) Here are some photos.  Unfortunately, many of them turned out somewhat blurry.