Labor Day Weekend

We are back in the school routine around here, but we all enjoyed having a long three-day weekend to relax and spend time with friends. 

Here's a quick snapshot of my boys after school on Friday. It was College Colors Day and they were decked out in their Notre Dame shirts.

Another Friday highlight was the arrival of new magazines. Will especially loves Muse.

On Saturday, we went down to Galveston for the afternoon and evening to spend time with our good friends Jonathan and Julie and their kids. We splashed in the water, made muddy holes in the ground, watched shore birds, and most of all, enjoyed the company of old friends.

Gene and Jonathan have been friends since law school! There's something special about old friends -- even though we hadn't seen them in over a year, we just picked right up where we left off. We had such a great time with them and the kids played so well together that we are already looking forward to another adventure in Galveston with them!

 

On Sunday, we had another set of old friends over for dinner. Candice and Andy and their crew came by and we were so busy cooking and catching up that I never managed to get my camera out. It was a fun time as always with them.  

Monday was a very relaxed day. We cooked and read and played games. The boys played a rousing game of wiffle ball in the backyard. It was the King Crocs (Henry and Will) vs. The Flours (Gene). Team names at our house are always based on the t-shirts worn at that particular time.

After a lovely pizza dinner in the backyard, we broke out the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. The boys have been so anxious to try them! Will's container was full of the most disgusting flavors -- vomit, ear wax, dirt, earthworm, soap, rotten egg and pepper with only a handful of tasty treats like candy floss and green apple.

 

I hope your weekend was full of sweet adventures!

The Letter Z

We made it to the end of the alphabet! Do you remember when we started this journey with the letter A back in October? It seems like it was ages ago!

Last week was all about the letter Z. Z is for zebras, zucchini and the zoo! We started off with a trip to the zoo. We got there right at 9am. It was hot but uncrowded, and the boys loved it. We always have to visit the kookaburras first, but no one sang for us on Monday. Next up were the zebras, of course! The boys needed a snack almost immediately. These kids eat like no one else!The zoo playground was empty and Henry crawled right into the lion's mouth.In the children's zoo, we found this sculpture of a bison, which was perfect because we had just finished reading one of the Magic Treehouse chapter books (Buffalo Before Breakfast) and had done some supplemental learning about bison! The boys found a friendly orangutan. Another day, we turned two CSA zucchinis into zucchini bread. The boys always help me in the kitchen! They are actually really good helpers. They couldn't wait to try the bread. Yum-o!We also turned our Zs into zebras and zoos and read Animal Strike at the Zoo. It's True! by Karma Wilson, 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo by Eric Carle and Bruno Munari's Zoo. The boys and I have had so much fun exploring all the letters of the alphabet and it laid a fantastic foundation for Henry, who, at the age of 3 years and 3 months, now knows all his letter sounds, is slightly obsessed with Hooked on Phonics, loves to try to sound out words and is even spelling words with his magnet letters!

The Letter Y

Y is for yarn and yogurt and the color yellow. Last week, the boys were super excited to go to our favorite frozen yogurt spot, so we choose a hot and sunny afternoon (which not hard to do as they are all hot and sunny!) and headed out to Yogurtland.
Yum! It's really the best frozen yogurt around -- creamy, self-serve and cheaper by ounce than the other self-serve spots! Delish!For our craft project, we decided to make a yarn egg. We followed the instructions to dip pieces of yarn in glue and wrap them around the balloon.It was a very sticky project but Will had fun doing it. After the glue dried, you were supposed to pop the balloon and the yarn would remain in the shape of an egg. Our yarn collapsed with the balloon, so we had no egg to show for all our work! Fail!We kept the yarn out all week, though. Will liked playing with it. Henry covered his lowercase y in yarn and we read Keith Baker's Just How Long Can a String Be?! And to celebrate yellow, we covered the capital Y with yellow stickers and read In My New Yellow Shirt by Eileen Spinelli. I loved this book because the main character is Will! In his new yellow shirt, the little boy can be a firefly or a banana or a submarine underwater. Will's favorite color is yellow and, like the little boy in the book, he has an amazing imagination. What a great story! We had a wonderful Y week! And now we're on to Z!

The Letter X

X is for xylophone and X-ray and X marks the spot! We can hardly believe we are so close to the end of the alphabet.

This week, I made alphabet soup for lunch one day. Gene even came home from work to join us!

The boys had so much fun finding letters in their soup.Here's the letter of the week!We also turned our capital X into a xylophone.

Goofy boyEven goofierWe read Jessica's X-Ray by Pat Zonta and made an x-ray x. Henry thought the x-ray x was the best project ever.

After he finished it, he used it as a Jolly Roger flag (of course) and ran around the house waving it wildly.

Henry's two projects

The last X activity was a little scavenger hunt for the boys to do after quiet time. They were hunting for their snack, so I put the X to mark the spot on the box of Pirate's Booty in the pantry.

The clues

First clue -- a monkey's favorite food It led them straight to the bananas, of course! They found a box in the pantry. X marks the spot! Eating the Pirate's Booty. YUM!!! Arrrgh! We had a fabulous X week!