The Weekend: Parties + Fathers and Flashlights

Our weekend was full of fun! The adventures started Friday afternoon with early dismissal from school and two parties to attend. Unfortunately, Henry woke up with a low-grade fever on Friday and had to stay home and miss all the planned fun. (Don't worry, though. Gene made the day special by making pizza and playing Henry's favorite games with him!)

Will was my sidekick Friday night. We had a lot of fun together.

First up was Heather's Chemo's Over party. I gave Will my old camera and he went to town taking pictures of everything.  

The party was so much fun. We celebrated the end of chemo with good food and drinks and a whole crowd of people. Best of all, though, is the fact that Heather is cancer-free! This gal is just amazing and inspiring. She has had such a positive attitude throughout this whole ordeal and I have been so lucky to spend a lot of time with her lately.   

After Heather's party, Will and I headed to the Health Museum for a members' preview party of the Bloodsuckers exhibit. We learned all about leeches, mosquitoes, and ticks.

The big excitement this weekend was Fathers and Flashlights. It's an urban camping adventure that takes place on the elementary school grounds and is a huge fundraiser for West U's parks. It only happens once a year and the boys absolutely love it and look forward to it. Check out Henry's smile here. He is joy personified! He woke up Saturday morning with no fever and feeling great. He was incredibly thrilled to get to go camping, as you can see by his massive grin!

We got lucky this year with mild temperatures in the low 80s, which makes for a much more comfortable camping experience. Henry was feeling brave and climbed the rock wall.

Here's a video of my little climber, with some appropriate background music:

The boys went "fishing" in this huge tank, which happened to be where I was volunteering. After my volunteer shift, I hugged my boys and was off to enjoy dinner and drinks with some of my favorite neighborhood friends. I might love Fathers and Flashlights as much as my boys do!

After running around and playing hard for hours, the boys crashed hard at 9:30, just in time for the rain to start. We spent Sunday at home, playing games, baking and cooking, doing some school work, and just enjoying being together after a very busy, very fun two days! 

The Weekend: Baseball and a Half Birthday

Our weekend was full of baseball fun and celebrating Henry's half birthday.  

On Saturday night, we went to our first baseball game of the season (now that the season is nearly over!). Tiger Cub Scouts go on five field trips, or Go See Its, during the year, including one to a sporting event. Since we love baseball, we invited Henry's den to go with us to Minute Maid Park for the second-to-last-home game of the year. And boy, were we in for a treat! We watched as the Astros hit FIVE home runs against the Seattle Mariners, winning the game 10-1. Holy Toledo, what a game!

We were a small group, but the boys loved watching the game and rooting for the Astros.  

We did have some work to do over the weekend as well. Will worked hard on a science experiment for class (his question was: Why do boats float and rocks sink?) and Henry finished his Cub Scout scrapbook. Last month, a nonprofit organization called Unbound came to our church to talk about sponsoring children living in poverty. We jumped at the chance to sponsor two children. Will and Henry picked out two boys their ages from Guatemala and this weekend, they wrote their first letters to their sponsored kids.   

And finally, Henry turned 6 1/2 on Sunday! Half birthdays are a pretty big deal when you're young, so we try to make them extra special and fun. We celebrated with a half-birthday dinner of skirt steak, coleslaw, caprese salad and Gene's sourdough baguette. Best of all, we were able to enjoy our meal outside! It wasn't too hot and the mosquitoes were nowhere to be found.

One of our favorite birthday (and half birthday) traditions is getting cupcakes from Crave Cupcakes. On Sunday afternoon, Henry and I walked down the street and picked out four cupcakes to share.   

This is what 6 1/2 looks like.

Happy half birthday, Henry!

Lately: Open House, Popcorn and Art

School is back in session and our days are full. Between after-school activities and homework, the boys are busy, and this year, Gene and I are volunteering more than ever, so we are going non-stop too!

Open House was September 11. The kids had so much fun showing us (and Nana!) their classrooms and all their work.  

Gene and Henry checked out the hallway work.  

The kids all wore masks and wrote a couple of paragraphs about themselves and the parents had to see if they could identify their child. I took all the photos for our class, so I had an unfair advantage and let Gene play the guessing game.

He found Henry right away!

School work: Happiness is....  Henry's first one is "Happiness is hiking with my family." I couldn't agree more!  

Here's Henry with his sweet teacher. 

Will was so excited to show us all his work too. It was all over the classroom and in the hallways and stairwell. 

Will's "I Am" project

Will's "Buckets of Fun" poster.

And finally, Will's wonderful teacher. Both boys have amazing teachers again this year!

Last weekend, popcorn sales kicked off for the Cub Scouts and we helped man the booth after two masses on Sunday. The boys were an awesome team! Henry approached parishioners and asked if they would like to support Scouts (and honestly, he is so adorable in his uniform that hardly anyone said no!). Will then lead them over to the table and gave them all the details about the kinds of popcorn and prices. The Scouts sold nearly $2000 worth of popcorn in one day, and these boys were so proud!

Check out Gene's uniform! He is Henry's den leader this year. In addition to selling popcorn, the boys both had den meetings this week. It was Henry's first meeting (and Gene and I were in charge of a group of 10 first graders) and it went really well. They worked on learning the Cub Scout salute, sign and law the pack; we did popcorn races (blowing popped popcorn with a straw and racing to the end of a table); and working on their family scrapbook. It was a great first meeting!

Both boys had Hands On Art this week and I helped out with their classes and seven others! The third graders learned about Charley Harper and used oil pastels and watercolors to paint fish. Will chose to draw a female anglerfish, and he told me all kinds of facts about his fish.

The first graders learned about Antoni Gaudi and made mosaics using cut-up paint chips. Can you see his H and his S? The H is in yellows with a purple S below. Henry was insistent that we include an S as there are three Henrys in his class this year!

The first four weeks of school have been jam-packed with activity but it's been a lot of fun and the year is off to a fantastic start.

Cub Scouts

The new Scouting year has begun and we are now a Cub Scout family through and through with both boys in Scouts and both parents involved in leadership roles with our pack. And to think that only a year ago we were signing Will up for his first year of Scouts and not really knowing what all it entailed!

Henry was so excited to officially register for Scouts on Thursday night.

We went to the Scout store Saturday afternoon to get Henry his new uniform and update Will's uniform from Wolf to Bear. 

Henry was so thrilled to get his Tiger Cub uniform that he insisted on wearing it out of the store and for the entire rest of the day. Next up we need to get Gene decked out in khaki as he is the official den leader for Henry's Tiger Cub den this year! 

On Sunday, our pack helped with the doughnut ministry at church and we signed up to help after 7:30 a.m. Mass (thus the need to get new uniforms on Saturday!).

After Mass twice a month, one of the church's committees passes out doughnuts, juice and coffee while providing information about what they do. This year, the Scouts' volunteer slot coincided with recruiting efforts, which was perfect timing. The boys chatted with parishioners about their badges and activities as Scouts. And, our family has recruited three friends to Scouts this year; we are hoping they love it as much as we do!

Cub Scouts has been a tremendous experience for our family over the last year. We have made so many new friends through Scouts, and it has been a lot of fun to watch the boys learn and grown. We are excited to begin a new year of Scouting adventures!

Labor Day Weekend

We had big plans to go down to Galveston with friends over Labor Day weekend, but when the forecast called for 100% chance of rain, we decided staying home might be a better option. We ended up having a wonderful, laid-back weekend hanging out with friends and family.  

Saturday afternoon was Notre Dame's first football game of the season, and we were invited to a game watch with some good friends. Henry and Gene went on ahead first while Will and I joined them later.

Henry spent most of the game watch playing soccer with one of his best friends, Barrett. He was a hot sweaty mess but he had a blast! And best of all, Notre Dame won! 

The rain finally materialized on Sunday, and it was a perfect day for lots of indoor activities. From making ice cream and baking bread to playing Yu-Gi-Oh and making a longhorn out of Silly Putty, it was a great day to be inside.

We even got out our microscope to examine a duck egg shell and cicada parts. 

Henry very carefully drew the eggshell in his science notebook.

Earlier in the week, we found a dead cicada (not the shell!) on the front walkway. We decided to take a closer look, since we hear them singing away all the time. Obviously, we thing bugs are cool and I think this cicada is really pretty!

Gene carefully took off a wing and leg and we all examined him under the microscope.

 

 Science Sunday was pretty fun!

Labor Day Monday looked a lot like this. It never rained, but the cloud cover kept the temperatures comfortable for smoking ribs.  

This boy loves to read.

We ended the weekend with our good friends Candice and Andy and their kids, drinking beer, eating ribs and salads and homemade ice cream. listening to the six kids play upstairs, and reminiscing about Colorado. We had a perfect long weekend!