Lately: Exploring, Art, and School

Lately, we have been exploring Houston in the cold and rain and wishing for sunny days and blue skies! Here's a bit of what we've been up to in the past couple of weeks:

Will turned 8 1/2 and we celebrated his half birthday with Crave cupcakes. It's a fun family tradition. Who doesn't enjoy a sweet treat midweek?

Will spent much of one weekend working on his Neptune project (note three small moons on the side before we attached them!). I purchased Styrofoam balls, a stand and lots of wooden dowels, and Will carefully painted them all and made a ring. Along with his visual and five interesting facts, he also wrote a report and is scheduled to give a class presentation this week!

We ventured into downtown one evening for dinner at Phoenicia and a visit to Discovery Green to see Bruce Munro's Field of Light installation. It was spectacular!

Jorge Marin's Wings of the City bronze sculptures fascinated the boys. 

One of Will's after-school activities this year has been the Name That Book club. It's a regular book club with a twist. The kids read thirty books (the 20 Bluebonnet nominees plus 10 others) and meet weekly to discuss them. Back in December, the club members tried out for the Name That Book team by identifying quotes from different books. Will was one of the six students to make the team! I have been helping with the club this year, and I am so impressed with all the kids and their dedication to reading. They have read and reread these books and have been so fun to work with.  It's not easy to identify books from a one-sentence quote, but these kids did a great job!

The Name That Book contest is run through HISD's Library Services department and the preliminary rounds were last week. Our team did a fantastic job, correctly identifying 20 of 25 quotes, but unfortunately, one team was even stronger and beat West U by one point. Still, these kids worked so hard and I hope they're very proud of all that they accomplished.

Here's Will with our very favorite librarian and Name That Book coach.

Henry is my farmers market sidekick and last week we came home with a couple baby lettuce plants. They have joined the herbs and kale in our container garden in the backyard.

Last weekend, we visited the MFAH with our Cub Scout friends. We toured the Cullen Sculpture Garden as well as several galleries inside. 

Despite the dreary gray days, we're keeping busy during the week and enjoying our family time together on the weekends!