Happy Birthday, Pop!

Pop's birthday was last Thursday, but we celebrated a few days late on Memorial Day.

Pop was surrounded by his four grandkids. Next year, there will be one more little one in the picture!

They helped him blow out the candles.  

Mary traditionally gives gifts by finding something around the house and wrapping it up. This year Pop got a stuffed frog.   

Nana got him a tray for his bar. He's had his eye on it since Christmas.

Happy birthday, Pop! 

Wedding Weekend: Heather's Wedding

Heather and Joel got married Sunday evening! The day started earlier for me because I was a bridesmaid.  Whee!!!  

Katy helped hang Heather's dress on the mirror for photos.  

The beautiful bride

The wedding was rustic but still very beautiful.  

Programs

These posters were awesome! Heather and Joe each wrote all the things they loved about each other. It was so touching. Everyone was dabbing their eyes.  

Heather throws the best parties.  

There was lots of beer, including three of Joel's homebrews.

Three of the bridesmaids, in our coral dresses.

My cute date!

We couldn't be happier for Heather and Joel and so enjoyed celebrating with them all weekend long!

Wedding Weekend: Rehearsal Dinner

Heather, one of my oldest and best friends, got married over the weekend!!!!! We started off the festivities with a rehearsal dinner at St. Arnold's Brewery on Saturday night.

If you know Heather and Joel, you know this was the perfect venue for them. Joel is an amazing homebrewer and many of their friends work at St. Arnold's. 

Leigh and Tyler flew in for the wedding from Seattle. We don't get too see them often enough, so this was a real treat!

The rehearsal dinner was at the Investors Pub, but we also got to sneak upstairs to the barrel room, where some beers are being aged in bourbon barrels.  

We even got to try some! 

Katy, Heather, Leigh and I have been friends for nearly 12 years. These ladies are the best!

Beer + fajitas + amazing friends = the perfect start to a fun wedding weekend!

Egypt

We went to ancient Egypt via the Houston Museum of Natural Science's new Egyptian wing on Friday night!

The museum throws the most amazing members' parties, so you know there was no way we'd miss this one! The evening started with munchies among the dinosaurs. 

Hot dogs, veggies, popcorn and ice cream!

After filling our bellies, we headed up to the third floor to check out the Hall of Ancient Egypt.

It was amazing! From statuettes and jewelry to mummies and sarcophagi, the exhibition is full of incredible artifacts. Will was especially enthralled with everything, but even Henry can't wait to go back and explore some more.  A couple highlights:  this mummy still has teeth and hair, including his beard and eyelashes!

 Will loved the tablets and hieroglyphs.   

We ended the evening at the craft tables. The boys wrote their names in hieroglyphs on a cartouche.

Will's name was full of bird symbols!

 Henry's wasn't too hard to write, though!

The Houston Museum of Natural Science has been one of our favorite spots to visit for the past three years and we are so excited to have even more to explore this summer!

The Last Day of Pre-K

Today was Henry's last day of pre-K! Henry has loved being at St. Paul's School for the past two years, so it was definitely a bittersweet day. I know I say this every year, but didn't school just start? How can it be the end already?

We got to school extra early this morning so I could snap one last picture of Henry in front of his school.

Henry also loves his school library, so we stopped in to read a couple of books before class started. 

Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert has been a favorite of Henry's for at least two years. We have a copy at home but he wanted to read it anyway!

Henry's class had an end-of-the-year party at 1:30 today. Henry insisted on sitting next to his best girl friend, Pearl.

The moms who coordinated the party had little chocolate diplomas for all the kiddos, since they are graduating from pre-K! So cute.  

Henry and Pearl again. Such sweet friends.  

After the snack, Henry's teachers passed out the alphabet books they've been working on all year.

This is Henry's scrapbook, made by his teachers and full of pictures and projects from the year. It is huge and clearly a labor of love.  

The party ended with a pinata!

If you look closely at this picture, you will see all the kids except Henry scrambling on the ground for treats. Henry realized he could just hold open his bag and let the goodies tumble in!

Fake lips noisemaker -- so fun for Henry, not so much fun for Mommy!

And finally, here is a picture of Henry with his sweet teachers, Mrs. Twiford and Mrs. Merrell. We were so lucky to be in the Honeybees class this year!

And before we know it, my littlest boy will be off to kindergarten! 

Nine Years

Gene and I celebrated our ninth anniversary yesterday! 

We almost thought we weren't going to make it out to dinner when our sitter cancelled due to illness. Fortunately, we were able to find a recent Trinity grad who was able to sub in at the last minute. We went out to dinner at Brasserie 19 (we are on a French kick of late!), checked out Half-Price Books (an anniversary tradition), and then enjoyed drinks at Sonoma Wine Bar. 

We have had an amazing nine years together and look forward to many, many more anniversary celebrations! 

Lately: Birds, Farmers Market and Summer Fun

Here's a peek into our lives of late:  

I love birds and am so happy to live in a neighborhood that is full of birds. We see cardinals, robins, blue jays, mourning doves, and finches all the time, but Henry and I have also been spotting red-bellied woodpeckers fairly often. Last week, I was so excited to see two small Eastern Screech owls on my run. I had to snap a picture, but this is the best I could do in the pre-dawn hours with a cellphone camera.  

Henry is almost done with school! His last day is this Thursday, so last Friday was his last Friday at St. Paul's. Gene met us for our usual Friday lunch at the Cafe Express at the art museum. 

After lunch, we saw the Picasso: Black and White exhibit and ended up coming home with a new toy and new art shirts for the boys. The toy is called ShapeScapes and it is really fun! The boys love making sculptures with it.  

Check out Henry's "History of Art" shirt (we got one for Will too!). It has yellow smiley faces as they would have been drawn by DaVinci through Warhol. Love it!

Our weekend schedule was fairly empty, but we managed to fill it up with all kinds of activities from car-washing and yard work to seeing a play and visiting the farmers market. Gene was doing some pro bono work Saturday morning, so the boys and I headed to Main Street Theater to see Charlotte's Web. It was fantastic, as all their productions are! 

We have had the most beautiful spring I can remember, but it finally got quite warm yesterday, so we got out our little pool and let the boys splash and play outside while Gene washed both our cars.  

Sunday ended with a visit to our new Sunday afternoon farmers market. We came home with all sorts of goodies, including red snapper for dinner and loads of veggies, but we also got some turkey eggs. Check them out! They are speckled and they are tough to crack. The seller also had duck, quail and chicken eggs.

And we got peaches! These are the first Texas peaches I've seen this year.

The Urban Harvest Farmers Market is located off Richmond, literally five minutes from our house, and has been going strong for years on Saturday mornings, but they just opened up their Sunday afternoon market a few weeks ago. I have to say that I loved it because it was so small and navigable but with everything you need at a market! We treated the boys to a chocolate croissant while Gene and I shared an iced coffee while listening to live music.

We are gearing up for more fun times as summer approaches!