Elections

I don't know where these kids of mine came from!   Youth today seem to have an extra dose of self-confidence!  Three of my kids decided to run for student government.

Ashlyn ran for 7th grade representative.  There are about 100 kids going into 7th grade and they vote for three kids to be on student council.  We ordered a bunch of small beach balls to hand out and wrote her slogan on each ball.

"Make a SPLASH, Vote Ash!"

She had to go before the student body (about 300 kids) and do either a skit or a video etc.  She made this darling sign, ran through it with her best friends and started squirting the audience.  We had music playing and then she talked into the microphone for a minute and invited the students to "make a splash, and vote for Ash!"  And guess what???

She won! 

 Along with one of her best friends Ella!

Student council is an actual class in school.  She will be with the 8th and 9th graders, planning school activities and learning principles of leadership.  

She will be awesome!

Connor ran for the position of Designer at AFHS.  This is an appointed position where you put together a portfolio and interview with members of the administration and the student council advisers.  He had an awesome portfolio and 

got the position!!

 Connor's job will be to help design t-shirts, dance tickets, posters for activities etc.  He is really good with photoshop etc. and will be amazing!

There are about 2,000 kids who go to AFHS, so it is quite an honor to be on student council.  

My Parker boy decided to run for Student Body President at Maeser Preparatory Academy. 

After campaigning for a week, each of the candidates were filmed giving a speech which was shown to the student body prior to voting.  Somehow Parker's name was switched on the video with one of the other lead contenders for SBP.  The voting was so close they decided to narrow the election to these top two candidates and have them campaign for another week.  

What?  

So Parker decided to focus his efforts on the middle school, since they don't know him as well.  He did magic tricks during lunch and campaigned like crazy! 

(the entire school votes for Student Body President, about 700 kids)

Finally the day of voting came.  When I called him to see how the elections went, he said, 

"Oh, mom, I didn't win, I lost by 5 votes!"

What?

He continued, "don't ever think your vote doesn't count".

"Wow, so sorry bud, I'm super proud of all you've done"

Then the phone went dead.

I knew he was still at school and figured he lost coverage, or had to go.  I felt sad for him for the next 2 days!!  I hardly saw him because his play was still going on, and I was involved with Women's Conference, so we just didn't cross paths...until...Mother's Day on Sunday.  As we were sitting at dinner, Parker looks at me with a big grin and said,

 "Mom, you know how I told you I lost by five votes?"

"Uh, yeah..."

"Well, I actually won by five votes!"

What?

"Happy Mother's Day!"

What?

I was totally speechless!  

Apparently he was going to tell me the truth during our initial conversation on the day of the election...just wanted to lead me on for a bit, but then his phone died and well, we just didn't see each other...

It seems all the kids knew and kept telling Parker,

"Mom is going to KILL you!  You better confess!!"

Needless to say, he is still breathing, and truthfully, 

I couldn't be more proud of my boy!

Super proud of all my little Politicians!