Fall Holiday

Today was HISD's Fall Holiday (it's Rosh Hashanah), so Will didn't have school. We were so excited to be able to spend a lazy morning at home. Between school, early soccer games, and Sunday school, relaxed mornings are rare around here! The boys were excited to help make cinnamon-apple pancakes for breakfast.
The boys played together all morning until we went to see Houston Grand Opera's Opera To Go performance of The Velveteen Rabbit at Miller Outdoor Theatre. There was plenty of seating, but we packed our blanket and a picnic lunch and sat on the grassy hill. The show was really good! Even Henry was completely entranced by it and sat and watched the entire thing. We've read The Velveteen Rabbit several times, so the boys knew the plot, but Henry was still very concerned that the Velveteen Rabbit was going to be thrown out. He could definitely understand the little boy's love for his special bunny and how a stuffed animal could become "real." I think there may be a new believer in the Nursery Fairy at our house. After the show and our picnic lunch, Henry wanted to race up and down the hill at Hermann Park. And then no one was ready to go home, so we took a quick trip through the MFAH. The big King Tut exhibit is coming!And we ended our adventures with some yummy frozen yogurt at Tutti Frutti.
I have to say that it's weird to have a holiday in the middle of a week, but it was really nice to have Will around on a weekday. We had the perfect fall holiday, even if it was pushing 90* and didn't feel particularly fall-like at all!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

I snapped this picture of my sweet tired Henry outside his classroom after school yesterday. He loves the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom wall and wants to look at the letters (with his friends' names on them) almost every day.
Do you remember Henry's fascination with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom when he was almost 2? His love of letters started early. Chicky boom boom!

Pirate Henry and Other Happenings

September has been a busy month for us, with school, soccer and five birthday parties in three weeks for six little girls. We had two birthday parties last weekend. One was a pirate party for Henry's new friend Baily. I thought Baily was a boy (pirate party, anyone?). I was wrong. Baily is a little girl who just like pirates! You know Henry had to wear his pirate costume to the pirate party. Cutest pirate ever!And this video is from last November, taken in our old house. Blogger has been giving me fits with uploading videos so I hadn't been able to post it until now. But check out Pirate Henry dancing away. So adorable!

On Sunday, we had a birthday party at WonderWild. The boys bounced and sat in the ball pit and created a dinosaur puppet show for me to watch. A T-Rex and a bunch of herbivores were involved. You can guess how that all ended. With Will's goofy face, of course!
And in between all these parties, we've all been reading.
Henry is so proud of himself!We've spent time with Nana and Pop.
And Gene and I even celebrated the 11th anniversary of our first date on September 26. We opened a bottle of champagne.
And while we're on the topic of celebrating, our next celebration will definitely have to be for Gene as he is now officially an adjunct professor in the law department of the University of Houston and will be teaching a course there in the spring! We are crazy proud of him!

Henry Reads

On Sunday, Will decided that it was about time for Henry to start reading books. He's been sounding out words for several months, but I guess that wasn't enough for Will. Will grabbed his first set of BOB books and got everything all set up for Henry. Henry is pretty excited to be reading *almost* just like his big brother. The rest of us are pretty excited too!

The End of Summer

It is officially fall! Although it's still plenty warm here in the afternoons, the mornings are cooling off. Yesterday, when Henry and I were up in Kingwood, we spent a good 45 minutes outside, enjoying the park across the street from my parents' house, and we didn't even break a sweat!

Henry ran across the playground bridge over and over,teetered while I tottered, balanced on the beam while saying "no pictures, Mommy,"climbed this rope ladder contraption, swungand swung,found poky pinecones to add to my collection,climbed up the curvy slide,and ran across the bridge some more.

Goodbye, summer! You were long and hot and dry this year, so we are more than ready to say hello to pumpkins and fuzzy jackets and lots of outings to our favorite parks this fall. Maybe it will even rain again.

3 1/2

Henry is 3 1/2 today. He is a preschooler through and through with tons of imagination, lots of energy and definite opinions about everything. Here is some of what our big 3 1/2 year old is up to these days. Henry:

likes cheese and house shows (House Hunters, Selling New York and Income Property top his list) ... even though he asks for these things together when he is supposed to be sleeping

is still infatuated with his name ... even if he tells some people his name is "H-E-N-R-Y, Henry," just in case they wanted to be able to spell it too

has made new friends at school ... even if they are bonding over playing in the dirt and jumping off "telephone wires" (Don't ask -- we don't know what this means either!)

loves to run and kick the soccer ball ... even if he looks for snacks and Mommy at soccer games

gives the best hugs ... even if it's well past his bedtime and it's the 30th hug of the evening

likes to eat ... even if he prefers snacks to actual meals (sometimes I call dinner a "snack" just to appease him!)

is a funny boy ... even if his best joke is "What do you call two bananas? A pair of slippers!"

misses his brother like crazy when he is at school ... even if they still do argue and fight like all brothers do

wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up ... even if he can't pronounce "archaeologist"

loves to climb and run and explore ... even if it means he gets lots and lots of boo boos

is very helpful ... even if his idea of folding laundry is to climb into the basket and fling clean clothes across the room

is very, very loved ... even if he keeps us late at night because his naps at school mess up his schedule

Without a doubt, Henry is one of the best things in my life and I can't wait to see what this sweet boy will be up to next.

Birthdays

Gene's birthday isn't until October 1, but this year (like almost every other year since I've known him), he will be travelling on his birthday. So, we celebrated his birthday with Nana and Pop on Saturday afternoon. And even though we were all together in Castine on my birthday, it was such a chaotic day with a sick child and other house guests that Nana decided a "redo" of my birthday celebration was in order. Saturday ended up being a joint birthday celebration -- one a little bit early and one a little bit late.

Nana was taking test pictures to see if she needed a flash. Henry isn't angry here; he's just showing Nana his running face!Who wouldn't smile for cupcakes? We blew out all the candles! On my real birthday, in Castine, we couldn't find candles so I blew out pretend ones. Gene opened the card. I get to go shopping for new clothes! And Gene got a new dress shirt. Thanks, Nana and Pop, for the fun afternoon, delicious dinner, wonderful gifts and great company!

Soccer and Nature Class

Yesterday felt like a marathon day. From the time we got up to the time we collapsed in bed, we were on the go. It was a great day, just really busy!

We started out with 8am soccer. Henry's playing in three-year-old league with the YMCA and they have practice at 8am followed by a game at 8:30. Will's games are also at 8:30 but the fields are literally a block apart, which is perfect. The boys did great and had fun! Here is Will in his new yellow jersey. Will's team plays three-on-three. He loved it! He ran the ball down the field a couple of times and scored a couple of goals. Both boys are in non-competitive leagues so there is no score-keeping, but Will is convinced his team won. Katy and Jaime even biked over to watch Will (number 3) play. Thanks, guys, for coming out! Will's team: the Avengers! Henry's team is the Phillies. They also have yellow jerseys but somehow the Y only ordered 9 jerseys for 12 players!? We had the perfect color shirt, so Henry just played the game in his yellow t-shirt.
Gene stayed with Henry for his game. He reported that Henry is speedy and good but he was more interested in the snacks and finding Mommy than playing for most of the game. He did make a goal though, which is great because the three-year-olds play six-on-six!
Will's game was so much fun to watch and I am already looking forward to watching Henry play next week.

After soccer, we came home and took baths because the boys were sweaty and dirty. Then we had a quick snack before heading off to our first Tadpole Troopers class of the season. We learned all about Rascally Raccoons! Here's Henry with a raccoon skull.On our nature walk, we looked for raccoon tracks by the ponds but didn't find any. We did see this water snake though. And then we made raccoon masks.
Our afternoon was as jam-packed as the morning. It was busy and tiring but in the kind of way that makes you really feel like you're living a full, wonderful life.

Cooking and a Science Experiment

Henry and I made three kinds of muffins (oatmeal, pumpkin and PB&J) yesterday while Will was at school. Henry has decided he doesn't like sandwich bread anymore and his crackers always get soggy at school, so we chose to make a variety of muffins to put in his lunchbox.
Henry loves to help in the kitchen. He stirred everything for me and then I let him pour the batter into the muffin tin. He did an excellent job!

He sprinkled the cinnamon sugar on top too.
Henry's fave? Pumpkin muffins, of course! I make them with white whole wheat flour and less sugar than the recipe calls for and they are yummy! Plus, I know Henry will actually eat them. Will's fave, surprisingly, were the very dense PB&J muffins.

After school, Will asked to do a science project. He goes to science lab at school once a week, but he loves experiments and wants to do more. We did a lung investigation since we had just watched "Sid's Amazing Lungs" on Sid the Science Kid the day before. The boys blew bubbles into a water cup using a straw, blew a pinwheel and a party blowout, and blew soapy bubbles into the air. And of course we recorded everything into our science journals. This afternoon, I think we'll combine cooking and a science experiment and cook up a tasty after-school snack!