5 1/2

Will turned 5 1/2 on February 18, when we were in Paris, so my update is a bit late. I've seen tons of birthday questionnaires in the blog world lately, so here's our version.

All about Will at 5 1/2

My favorite food is lemon.

My favorite sport to play is soccer.

The best show on TV is Word Girl.

My favorite thing to learn about in school is computers because we play games!

If I could go anywhere in the world, I would go to Washington to see if it is like Washington, D.C.

My favorite color is yellow.

When I grow up, I'm going to be a scientist that studies chemistry.

My favorite song is "Try Again" by the Imagination Movers.

The book I'm loving right now is Mrs. Mean. (I have no idea what this is, but Will said he read it at school.)

Three words that describe me are happy, smart and curious.

When I was little, I used to go to the science museum.

My favorite season of the year is summer because there are cherries in the summer.

The snack I like best is apples or cherries. (It is funny that Will keeps insisting that he likes cherries because he really did not like them at all last summer!)

One food I really dislike is blueberries.

My best friends are Chloe and Karis.

If I had one wish, it would be that I could live in a shell.

My best memory is taking an elevator in Washington D.C. to a spooky hallway (in the subway system?).

My favorite toy is Candyland.

At night I like to sleep with my music on.

I really like to go to the science museum.

Will has changed so much in the past six months. He's blossomed at school, loves to read chapter books and play freeze tag with his friends, and is fascinated with numbers and science. He is curious, asks lots of questions and has a definite goofy streak (usually at bad times like when we're getting ready for bed or school!). Will is getting better at trying new activities, but it still takes him a few sessions to warm up to the new change and start to enjoy himself. He continues to love soccer and has recently started enjoying art class. At home, Will has a great imagination, loves to build with Legos, and is usually a good helper for me, especially when we play "Blood." The basic premise of this game is that I am the heart giving instructions and he is the blood, racing around the body (picking up toys, etc). Will seems so grown-up already but I know he is still my little boy when he holds my hand tight and gives me three hugs and three kisses whenever we say goodbye. I love my big 5 1/2 year-old-boy!

Living on the Edge

Okay, so we're not really living on the edge around here. There's nothing exactly dangerous or unusual in our daily lives. Well, unless you count water bottles perched precariously on the edge of the table. Yeah, we're edgy like that.

Our weekend was busy but in a normal soccer-mom-kind-of-way. Will started his second season of soccer with the same coach, two friends from last season, and three new friends. We missed practice last week (jet-lag!) but he made it to his first game on Saturday and loved it!

We also took the boys to see King Tut at the MFAH Saturday afternoon. They had been begging to see it since before the exhibit even opened, but once we got there, they were less-than-enthralled. Actually, Will started to enjoy it about 3/4 of the way through and now claims to LOVE King Tut. Henry was not a fan and has decided that we can skip all art museums when we go to Paris (because he is convinced that we are taking him the next time we go!).

Will doesn't normally have homework on the weekend, but all the Vanguard kindergartners are working on big research projects about one state. Will picked Maine (thank goodness because it's an easy state for us to do) and we spent time picking photos, reading up on Maine and writing down our favorite facts (did you know that moose don't have teeth on their upper jaw? Me neither!).

Henry's school is gearing up for a big Children of the World festival, so Henry had homework too! His big project was decorating a puzzle piece from his country of origin. Since his ancestry is very mixed, we picked Portugal. Daddy helped him find lots of pictures.

Final product: my favorite picture is the tank top on the left that says "You bet your linguica I'm Portuguese!"

Edgy? Not so much, unless of course you consider the shirtless, one-sock look edgy. We've got that one covered.

Go Texan Day

It's Rodeo season in Houston and yesterday was Go Texan Day, so the boys donned cowboy shirts and hats for school. We don't have cowboy boots or real western shirts, so this was the best I could do for my two cuties.

My littlest cowboy...

and my big cowboy...

Take a look at Anubis, outside the MFAH, wearing a bandanna, belt and lasso!

Henry's teachers had a new bulletin board up for Rodeo season too,

complete with collage boots

and WANTED signs for each child. I love "High Hat" Henry's mean face and the fact that he was last seen with Baby (of course!).

Now I just need to convince the boys that Go Texan Day is all about the Texas spirit and getting ready for Rodeo, not cheering on the football team and shouting "GO TEXANS!"

A Walking Field Trip and Art Night

As soon as we got home from Paris, Gene and I were thrown back into our busy daily routine with two little boys... with one big exception: Gene was off (mostly) from work and got to join in the fun!

On Wednesday, Henry's class took a walking field trip to see the Sam Houston statue in Hermann Park.

Such an excited group!

We ate lunch on the steps (Gene got us sandwiches from the French bakery in the Village to recreate our Parisian lunches!) and then the kids ran off some energy in the grassy circle.

All the kids picked flowers. Henry gave one to Daddy, who promptly put it in his lapel.

I *think* the kids are looking at roly-polies here.

The walking field trip was so fun and Henry really loved having both Mommy and Daddy along for the ride.

Last night was Art Night at Will's school. The theme was "Art Night: Under Construction" so the boys decorated hard hats and then colored boxes to hold all their art goodies.

Dinner was "artsy" too: Bernie's Burger Bus and MMM Cupcakes! The lines were long, but the food was a yummy treat.

Inside, the boys made paper tissue cities, metal sign art, and stone bugs.

The boys had fun at all the stations, but I think their favorite was making wire sculptures.

Daddy helped Henry make some cool glasses

and helped Will make a wire man.

It's been a long week for two parents with jet-lag but it's also been great to get back into the swing of things with our very busy little boys.

While we were gone...

the boys had great fun with Nana and Pop during the week and with Gramma and Grampa on the weekend. They played hard, ate well, read lots of books, made it to school early with big smiles on their faces,

did all their homework, went to a birthday party, made us "Welcome Home" signs, enjoyed ice cream, watched a new Mickey Mouse movie, did puzzles,

made a picture diary of what they did each day, smelled the roses, were mostly on their best behavior and created a panda bear at art class.

Their adventures with the four grandparents were so fun that they boys barely missed us. But we did get the biggest, best hugs on our return. And what a welcome home it was! Besides seeing our favorite little people in the whole world, we came home to a spotless house with cut grass and trimmed rose bushes and a refrigerator full of dinners for the week. Thank you so much, Nana, Pop, Gramma and Grampa! Clearly we should go on these little getaways more often!

Paris, Part 4 (Our Last Day)

Monday was our fifth and final day in Paris, and we chose to do more walking (of course!) to see churches and wander around the Left Bank. We started out on the Metro, taking it to Ile de la Cite. This Metro sign is one of only a few original early-20th century Art Nouveau signs left in Paris

and it is just steps away from our first stop, Sainte-Chapelle. This Gothic cathedral was built in only six years (1242-1248) for King Louis IX to house the Crown of Thorns.

The stained glass windows inside are amazing! 15 separate panels, more than 1100 different scenes, over 6500 square feet of stained glass. Incredibly beautiful.

Next we walked over to Notre Dame, which took almost 200 years to build! Work on this Gothic cathedral began in 1163 and it wasn't finished until 1345.

Beautiful.

After Notre Dame, we did a walking tour of the Left Bank, and saw the houses of George Sand, Richard Wagner, and Eugene Delacroix as well as cafes where Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon, Picasso, Hemingway, Jim Morrison and others drank coffee, wrote novels and plotted coups.

We ended our walking tour at the Cluny Museum where the famous Unicorn tapestries are housed. The museum is located on the site of a Roman bathhouse, built in A.D. 200. This room has a 40-foot high vaulted ceiling.

Besides the Unicorn tapestries, we also saw more original stained glass from Sainte-Chapelle and these stone heads of the biblical Kings of Judah, originally from Notre Dame. In 1793, an angry mob of Revolutionaries beheaded the stone kings, believing they were the kings of France. A schoolteacher gathered the heads and buried them in his backyard, where they were accidentally discovered in the 1970s and are now housed at the Cluny Museum.

We ended our last day in Paris with a lovely dinner in the Rue Cler neighborhood. Gene and I had a wonderful time exploring Paris together and hope that more getaways for just the two of us will be in our future!

Paris, Part 3

On our fourth day in Paris, we got up early to walk over to the Eiffel Tower.

It was 36 degrees and we stood in line for about 45 minutes before getting in. It was a very windy day, so the top of the tower was closed and we only made it up to the second level. I hate heights, so the second level was plenty high for me!

View from the Eiffel Tower

Looking up at where we didn't go!

The gears and pulleys are amazing.

Next we walked to Les Invalides

to see Napoleon's Tomb. There are six coffins inside this tomb!

Les Invalides is a former veterans' hospital built by Louis XIV. Now the complex has been turned into a series of Army Museums set up around the courtyard. We saw lots of cannons.

And I thought these horse sculptures on the top of the building were amazing. We actually did see Napoleon's (stuffed) horse inside too!

Beautiful view of the dome of the church from inside the courtyard.

After lunch, we continued walking on over to the Musee d'Orsay to get our fill of Impressionist art. Even though it's crazy-crowded, I think the Musee d'Orsay is my favorite museum in Paris. I love standing in front of so many works I studied in college! This is the view from the clock on the 5th floor, overlooking the Seine.

We literally walked all over Paris on Sunday, only to go back to the hotel to rest for a couple of hours before heading out to dinner on the Ile St. Louis and more walking! Paris is such a great city to explore and we loved being there.