The boys have been busy enjoying the last couple of weeks of summer vacation. Can you believe Will starts Kindergarten on Monday morning? He is excited and ready to go. Henry and I aren't so sure. We are going to miss having Will around all the time.
Our last week of summer vacation is full of meet-the-teacher days, playdates, doctor's appointments and Will's birthday celebrations. He turns five on Thursday and we have a big pirate party planned on Saturday.
In between all this, we have been trying to fit in some of our favorite activities that we won't get to do so much when my big boy is in school five days a week. So we've visited museums, of course!
The boys chose to go to the science museum last week. We spent most of our time in the butterfly center, and for once, the boys actually enjoyed seeing the butterflies fly around and land on plants.
Yesterday, we hit two museums. The Children's Museum was packed (of course), so we didn't stay too long. The boys love the science-y parts of the museum, like this density tester.
When they were done with the Children's Museum, we walked across the street to the Health Museum.
The boys' favorite part (besides sitting on the gigantic teeth) was the screaming chamber, which measured our screams in decibels. Henry's scream was 80 decibels, Will's was 84 and mine was 96. That seems loud but it's no where close to the loudest human scream ever recorded (129 decibels!).
And at home, even though it's scorching, Henry always asks to play outside. He waters the plants with this cute watering can from a family friend in Maine
and nibbles on some rosemary along the way,
while Will sculpts away with Play-Doh.
And look who's ready to play soccer this fall! I found a team at the Y for him. I'm sure it will be hilarious to watch a bunch of 3-year-olds try to play soccer!
If I can coax Henry inside, he still asks to do his Hooked on Phonics all the time. He finished Pre-K Level 1 this summer.
And Gene and I even snuck over to Washington Ave for a date night on Saturday. We hit up Max's Wine Dive for a glass of wine before dinner at Benjy's. Max's take on the food pyramid made us both laugh.
How have you been enjoying the last weeks of summer?
My friend Ally designed the invitations to match the party supplies. She is amazing! We stuffed our goody bags full of pirate pencils and stampers from Oriental Trading Company, a bag of Pirate's Booty and a Pirate Party CD (songs chosen by me, CD design created by my talented husband!).
We had basket of eye patches at the front entrance for the party guests. 
We decorated with lots of pirate gear that we already had around the house. We hung a pirate flag down from the mantel and Gene brought this flag home from work.
The centerpiece for the food table was our pirate chest. 
The food table was full of Fruity Booty (fruit salad), Golden Nuggets (Chick-Fil-A nuggets), Shipwreck Sandwiches (PB&J), Cannonballs (cherry tomatoes), Fish of the Sea (Goldfish), and Pirate's Booty. 
Gene got a collection of pirate-appropriate beers for the grown-up pirates. 
The sweet treats for the end of the party. 
More pictures from the actual party are coming up!
and a super-cool erector set from Daddy!
Our morning was spent baking and eating pumpkin muffins and playing with all the new toys. After lunch, Nana came over with a big bunch of birthday balloons!
Nana stayed with Henry while Will and I headed off to Will's new school for a parent meeting and meet-the-teacher! This is Will's Kinder classroom. Isn't it beautiful? The school was built in the 20s and the architecture is amazing. Will's classroom has a fireplace (!) and its own private porch.
Will met his new teacher, Mrs. Power, and some new classmates. Then he worked on his "all about me" form. He wrote that he likes to "read and eat lemins." 
Then all the new Kindergarten kids headed out to the playground for popsicles. Yum!
After our afternoon at the school, Will and I went out to grab some birthday cupcakes. Can you guess where we went? 
Crave, of course! It is literally at the end of our block and an easy walk on a day that isn't 103*. Beautiful birthday cupcakes!
Nancy and I hummed "Happy Birthday" to Will. Just like last year, he is requesting that no one sing "Happy Birthday" to him. 
He still made a wish and blew out the candle
and dug right into those cupcakes. I'm not sure what this silly face is for. 
And in case our day wasn't busy enough, we headed out to dinner at Tokyohana, or as Will calls it, "The Fire Restaurant." We went there for his 4th birthday too. Fortunately, this year it is only 5 minutes from our house, not 30! 
Will had a great time celebrating his birthday, and the celebration continues this afternoon with his pirate party!
1. Will is curious. He wants to know about everything and if he doesn't understand a concept or a word, he is not afraid to ask. We spend a lot of time explaining things to him, but I love his desire to learn and understand. He also loves experiments, coming up with hypotheses and figuring out how things work.
For a science experiment, of course! 
Henry has a horrible croupy cough and feels pretty crummy, so yesterday morning, the boys and I piled into the guest bathroom with a stack of books and turned on a steamy shower. One of those books was about levers (because, if you don't already know, Will is slightly obsessed with machines and how things work). And at the end of the lever book was an experiment that involved launching marshmallows into the air. Brilliant.
So Will and I created a lever using a paint stick and a pencil and tried launching marshmallows with the fulcrum set at different points. Will loved it and recorded his data into his science journal. One of our marshmallows landed by Weezie. 
Henry didn't care at all about the experiment. But you know he loved those marshmallows. Even when he's sick, Henry is still sneaky. 
And when the science experiment is over and you don't know how you're going to make it until bedtime, which is still seven hours away, you decide to let Will open a birthday present two days early. Fortunately, we picked a good one. Gramma and Grampa got Will this awesome Trio Wizard's Castle. The boys absolutely love it! 
We built the castle together and then the boys played happily with it. And the best part is that we can take it apart whenever we want and build a different one. 
Gene came home last night after work and running errands for me and announced that his car said it was 108* outside. Maybe being stuck at home with marshmallows and a new castle wasn't such a bad thing after all. 
Gene and I got into the space shuttle simulator and tried to land our space shuttles but instead managed to blow them to smithereens twice, even on the easy level. 
Daddy built machines with his boys. Will was in heaven. 
