The Weekend: Pinewood Derby, Farmers Market and Grilling Out

Our weekend was full of Scout activities and enjoying time outside. Will's Cub Scout pack held its Pinewood Derby on Saturday morning. The start time was pushed back a few hours due to Friday's ice storm. The school was closed for all extracurriculars on Friday, including Pinewood Derby set-up, but the scout leaders managed to get everything ready Saturday morning. It is quite the feat!

Here are Will's two race cars: Fireball, for the regular derby,

and Speedy, for the demolition derby.

Gene and Will took the cars in for registration Friday night. So excited! 

There's Will's car, sandwiched among the others from his pack.

Demolition cars.

Will's first race!

His car raced three times: he came in second twice and third once.  

The demolition derby was actually quite fun.

CRASH!

This Cub Scout had a great time at the Derby and all three of my boys have some ideas for next year's race!

The rest of our Saturday was pretty laid back. There was some bread baking, piano practicing, and lots of game-playing going on. 

Henry was wondering when we'd visit the farmers market again, so we decided to head there for lunch after picking up Will from church class on Sunday. I love the Sunday farmers market because it is so very quiet and calm. They don't have a ton of stands, but I was happy to see more produce stalls and the calm of the market makes it worth visiting. 

We grabbed a bag of lemon popcorn to munch on

and then found lunch from Oddball Eats. I love their tag line -- Mobile Purveyors of Round Food! Everything was meatball-shaped.

Gene got the falafel sandwich, I chose the Vietnamese sandwich, and the boys split and order of pork and macaroni balls. Delicious!

After some downtime at home, we went for a long bike ride. It was beautiful weather -- sunny and 70 degrees out! We came home and the boys got the grill all set up for dinner.  

One of Will's Cub Scout requirements was to plan and help cook an outdoor meal. Will chose hamburgers (we had both buffalo and beef burgers) and he did a great job making the patties and helping man the grill!

According the Gene, the the best part of grilling out is just sitting back and keeping an eye on the fire. Gene grabbed a beer and the boys drank lemon La Croix.

New-to-us beer from local brewery, Karbach -- Mother in Lager! They have the best names and some pretty awesome beer. 

That was our weekend in a nutshell -- full and fun and definitely family-oriented.

Lately: More Reading, the International Festival, and Ice Day 2014

We enjoyed a short three-day school week because of a surprise Friday holiday and the MLK holiday on Monday.  

I don't usually take too many pictures during the week, as the boys are busy at school during the day and our afternoons are a fairly predictable mix of homework, activities and dinner prep. This week, I just had to snap a picture of Henry reading while walking because this is something Will has done for years.  

It is so exciting to me that Henry is now a truly independent reader and adores books as much as the rest of us. We visit the library frequently and always have stacks of books at home, but Henry has recently started reading them completely on his own. His current favorite series is Henry and Mudge, beginning chapter books by Cynthia Rylant. We borrowed one from the school library on Wednesday afternoon. If you look closely, you can see Will trailing behind, reading his newest find. I love these little readers and the fact that they get lost in stories.  

I snapped this picture Thursday evening at the International Festival at school. Despite this being our third year at WUES, it was our very first year to attend this festival! The timing worked out wonderfully. We went to Henry's violin lesson, stopped by the library to check out every single Henry and Mudge book they had, and arrived at the festival when it started at 4:30. The boys were so excited to visit the festival, despite the gusty wind, drizzling rain and very chilly temps. It turned out to be loads of fun and much better than I had imagined, even though we didn't stay to see the performances. The multi-purpose room was set up with displays by parents and kids, depicting all sorts of different countries. The boys had passports, searched for answers to questions, learned about all sorts of different cultures, and sampled food at every single booth!

This picture was taken in front of the Lebanon booth, which was Henry's favorite (he loved the baklava) but these kids devoured everything from Australian Vegemite sandwiches and Vietnamese eggrolls to Indian curries and Israeli falafel and hummus, in addition to countless sweets. Everyone was so excited to see the boys try some of the more exotic food and we got so many comments about how "kids don't always like this" while my two gobbled it up hungrily. 

Yesterday, school was closed all over Houston as a wintry mix descended upon our subtropical city. The thermometer only reached 35 degrees, and icy rain and sleet paralyzed the city. It was reminiscent of Ice Day 2011. School was closed and Gene's company told him to work from home. The boys slept til 8am, ate fluffy buttermilk pancakes for breakfast and lounged around in their pajamas for most of the day. We played games, did some work, baked bread and made a huge pot of soup, and kept the fire going all day long.  

My icy sago palm and

frozen rain on a rose.

Yesterday was lazy and quiet, an unexpected vacation day for all four of us, a beautiful gift from Father Winter.  

The Weekend: Museums, Art and Bikes

Our three-day weekend was the perfect combination of busy and laid-back. Gene was out of town until Sunday afternoon and then had to work on Monday's holiday, but the boys and I got out to two museums and spent a lot of time outside, enjoying some beautiful spring-like weather.

On Friday night, we headed over to the Health Museum to check out their new Microbes exhibit during the members' preview party. My boys are fascinated by microbes so it was the perfect exhibit for them! We learned about good microbes, like yeast,

and nasty ones like germs that cause diseases. The exhibit is very hands-on, with lots of buttons to press, doors to open, games to play, and phones to pick up.

The preview party also included some hands-on activities, like looking at microbes through a microscope. The boys even rubbed their fingers on petri dishes and brought them home. The germs from their hot little hands are growing, growing, growing! 

On Saturday morning, I took the boys to the MFAH to check out two exhibits. Earlier in the week, they had Hands On Art at school, where they learned about sculptor Alexander Calder and made fish mobiles out of wire and "found" objects.  

Henry's fish:

Will's fish:

At the art museum, we checked out Calder's The Crab from 1962, which is right in front of the museum.

Inside, there were two exhibits that I wanted them to see. The first is a digitally animated wallpaper by Christopher Pearson in the Pattern Repeat: Wallpaper Then and Now exhibit. This wallpaper, inspired by a William Morris design, is projected on the wall and is constantly moving and changing. The boys loved it, as I knew they would.

The other exhibit is Antonio Berni: Juanito and Ramona, which I wanted them to see because Berni, an Argentinian artist, used found objects in his assemblages, just as Calder did (and in fact, they were contemporaries). Berni's assemblages are huge and created out of trash and everyday items.  

The boys' favorite part of the exhibit were the 3-D monsters, which haven't been displayed outside of Argentina in over 50 years.

After visiting the art museum, Will requested a trip to the library to find books about diseases -- inspired by the Microbes exhibit at the Health Museum, of course! This child is now an expert on all sorts of illnesses and can tell you your risk factors, should you be interested in that kind of knowledge.

Sunday and Monday were gorgeous days here in Houston, so we took full advantage of the sunny weather to get outside and ride our bikes. 

On Monday, I packed a lunch, and we rode way to the other side of West U for a picnic at Colonial Park. (Will specifically asked if we could ride to the farthest park from our house, and since it was 75 degrees out and sunny, I couldn't refuse!) We spent two hours outside, riding and playing and truly enjoying our day off from school.

I have so much fun with these little boys, and having an extra day off from school is always something I look forward to. The only thing missing was having Gene around for all the fun.

Lately: Books, Bread, and Some Painting

We've been busy lately! Here's some of what we've been up to for the past week:

Henry is such a good little reader! He is finally at the point where he will pick up a book and read it on his own. He can even read chapter books like Junie B. Jones, but he still prefers us to read those longer books to him. 

Gene has been baking up a storm, as usual. I asked if he could make a 100% whole wheat sandwich bread to replace our store-bought loaves, and he found a delicious recipe (from King Arthur Flour, of course!).  

We are so spoiled. 

Will and Gene had a Cub Scout workshop to attend on Saturday, so Henry and I decided to head out to the Arboretum for a hike. It was a gorgeous day -- 70+ degrees and sunny.  

 This kid is pretty amazing. He walked 3 1/2 miles without complaining at all.

His reward at the end of the hike was some playtime at the Arboretum's playground. 

Gene and Will worked really hard on Will's Pinewood Derby race car for Cub Scouts. At Saturday's workshop, they cut and sanded two cars and then came home and painted them. 

The Derby's coming up in a couple of weeks, so I'll post more pics of the finished cars.

And finally, Will is working on a big school project. Each child had to pick a Caldecott-winning book, copy his favorite illustration and then do a creative presentation. Will chose Snowflake Bentley, which won the Caldecott medal in 1999 and tells the story of the life of Wilson A. Bentley. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Bentley photographed snowflakes in Vermont (which is where we first heard about him) using a microscope camera. He is a fascinating figure and it's turning out to be a fun project so far.

Will's favorite illustration shows Bentley using his camera.

I think he did a really good job!

Guess who else likes snowflakes? Henry and I have been perusing Bentley's book, Snow Crystals, which is quite spectacular.

Our weekend was jam-packed, as usual!