Tadpole Troopers and Safari School

The boys and I have had a busy week and it's not even over yet! On Saturday, we went back to the Tadpole Troopers class at the Arboretum. You may remember that Will went to these classes last year. He was not a fan, at first, but they eventually grew on him. This year, Will only wanted to go if Henry could come along, so now that Henry is three, the boys are all signed up. Our first class was all about fish. We read books, learned the names of all seven fins, did a fish craft, and even got to go fishing for mosquito fish! They were so excited to carry their net down the paths and try their luck at the pond, but they didn't catch any fish. Next time we're going fishing with Jaime. He's already giving me tips on how to catch mosquito fish. (Apparently vigorously swishing 8 nets in the pond at the same time is not how to do it!)Yesterday we went to the zoo for Safari School. We got their early and explored a bit. We spent a lot of time inside because it was COLD out and I didn't dress us appropriately at all! The boys loved this tunnel in the Natural Encounters exhibit. We even counted the fish fins and did our best to remember all their names. Safari School was all about anteaters this week. The boys learned about anteaters and then made an anteater craft. They also got to pretend they were anteaters by using blowouts as tongues and picking up bug stickers. The boys LOVED this. Then we got to meet an anteater! This girl is not normally on display, but she made a special appearance at Safari School! The zookeeper fed her yogurt and pureed pears. Apparently this anteater doesn't actually eat ants. She has a sensitive tummy and eats a special supplement. Who knew? I love that my boys are finally the right ages to enjoy all these fun activities together!

Henry

Henry is such a riot! Our little goofball says and does so many things that just make us crack up on a daily basis. Lately, Henry has been fascinated by pregnant ladies, probably since he spent a ton of time with Aunt Jess over the last few months. Sometimes he likes to pretend that "Baby" (Brown Bear) is in his tummy too.
But usually he just pulls up his shirt and says, "I don't have a baby in my tummy. That's just my food." And he does indeed get the cutest little round belly ever, after a meal! And here are some of our other favorite Henry-isms of late:

"That wasn't a yawn. I was just letting my air out."

And at church: "Why don't I have my pirate hat on?"

Love this kid!

The Letter P

Some of our favorite things begin with the letter P: pirates, pizza, and parties! We had so much fun with the letter P that we spent two weeks on it! Pirate Red Beard was by far the best part of P week. The boys always ask when Pirate Red Beard is going to come for a visit. I think he made three trips to our house and told many a tall tale, using the letter P of course!

SO excited to see Pirate Red Beard! Pirate Henry stole the treasure. But Pirate Red Beard got it back.

The boys got new pirate hats (which they wear all the time!); we listened to tons of pirate songs, including our new favorite CD, Emphatical Piratical by Captain Bogg and Salty (thank you, Laura!); and read our favorite pirate books (Pirate Cruncher by Jonny Duddle is the best!).

When we weren't pretending to be pirates, we were eating popcorn, and pain perdu,

and making pizza. We read our favorite pizza book, Pizza at Sally's by Monica Wellington, and caught a rendition of William Steig's Pete's a Pizza on Between the Lions.

We celebrated Henry's birthday with a great partyand had a pre-party with my parents the night before. And of course we visited the penguins at Moody Gardens. Will made a P out of his popcorn and then we turned our capital P into a piano (which kind of looks like a zebra!) and our lowercase p into a peacock. We had two perfect P weeks!

Spring

Spring has sprung in southeast Texas! My azaleas are in bloom

and baby birds are hatching. We found an eggshell in the backyard last week.

The boys are spending tons of time in the backyard, playing with Play-Doh

and the colored bubbles

that Henry got for his birthday.

Colored bubbles. Sounds like a great idea, right? It is, except that the bubble solution STAINS everything. So not worth the trouble.We'll stick with regular bubbles from now on, but the boys did have fun with the colored bubbles while they lasted!And now that the weather is warmer, the boys are requesting frozen yogurt quite often! They loved Tutti Frutti up by our old house, but we have so many more options down here! So far, we've tried out Berripop,

Swirll,

and Yogurtland, where Will was disappointed that the entire store was not made out of yogurt. It is called Yogurtland after all!Our mission to enjoy spring is off to a great start!

More Birthdays!

Our family celebrated three birthdays this week! Henry turned the big 3 on Monday and ate his favorite Swedish pancakes for breakfast.
My sister's birthday was Thursday and my dad celebrated his big day with a lemon meringue pie yesterday!

My poor dad keeps breaking his front tooth, so please excuse the gappy grin! Happy birthday to all my favorite March babies out there!

Loving It

Henry is loving his new big boy bed.

And I love a sleeping child! Doesn't he look so peaceful? So deceptive!

Some New Favorites

Who doesn't love new things? We are awash in new toys here after Henry's birthday party, but we also have a whole stack of "new" books. I recently went through a box of books from my teaching days and pulled out about 25 books for the boys. One of their favorites (and the one that prompted the search) is The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. I thought about the book because Henry loves stinky cheese and both boys love fairy tales and "remakes" of fairy tales. The Stinky Cheese Man is a hilarious take on traditional fairy tales. For example, the gingerbread man becomes the stinky cheese man, whom no one chases because he is just too stinky.The boys absolutely love the book, and especially the fact that this is the only time they are ever allowed to say the word "stupid" because it's part of the title!
Will's new favorite toys are the TRIO building block sets we have. He got a police station set for his birthday and we just gave Henry a dinosaur set. Even though the dinosaur blocks were meant for Henry, all toys at our house are "sharing toys," and Will is absolutely enamored of this set! He built THREE dinosaurs this morning, and let me tell you, these are not easy to do (at least they aren't for people who aren't spatial-learners!). I had to help Will with this T-Rex. There were 28 steps. All had visual cues. All 57 pieces were used. Will is way better at it than I am.

Will really studies the diagram and follows each step perfectly!

He did the stegosaurus all by himself! And here's the pteranodon (or maybe it's a pterodactyl?), flying and swooping through the playroom!

I know this is a toy designed for 3-5 year olds, but I am still completely impressed that Will will sit down and follow all the steps in the diagram and create these awesome creatures!

Galveston and Birthday Fun

Gene had Monday off, so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and head down to Galveston for Henry's birthday. We started off at the Aquarium at Moody Gardens.

The boys loved it, of course! I can't believe we haven't taken them there before. It's only 50 minutes from our house and they boys had so much fun! Who doesn't love penguins?

All three of my boys got in this cage in the shark exhibit.

After the Aquarium we had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. It's not fantastic food but it is a fun experience for the kids!

We couldn't visit Galveston without going on board the Elissa.

The boys both pretended they were on board a pirate ship.

Arrgh!

The gift shop at the Elissa/Texas Seaport Museum had these adorable pirate hats for only $4.

Both boys are slightly obsessed with their new hats. Henry even slept with his last night!

After the Elissa, we found our favorite ice cream parlor on the Strand and had a very yummy treat! Henry had chocolate chocolate chip.

Will chose apple pie ice cream, and it really did taste just like an apple pie! YUM!!

After ice cream, we ran around on the beach,

looked at seaweed and washed-up jellyfish,

threw rocks into the sea,
and watched the waves come up to shore.

We had planned on having dinner in Kemah, but everyone was exhausted and a bit cranky, so we headed home instead and Gene made pizza for us.

And of course we had cupcakes to celebrate our little pirate's birthday! What a perfect way to spend Henry's third birthday!