The Letter H

The boys and I have continued our letter investigations amidst the packing and turmoil at our house. We just took a little bit longer than normal with the letter H, which is okay, because it's a very special letter. H is for Henry, after all!

For the past two weeks, we've explored the human body and houses (did I mention we're moving??). We started off last week with a trip to the Health Museum. The boys loved it but we didn't stay long because they were having a special event and it was very crowded. The boys did get to sit inside a mouth, test their sense of smell, and walk inside a brain!

After our short trip to the Health Museum, we decided to kill some time at the science museum before meeting some friends for lunch. It was perfect because we walked through the chemistry hall and explored some body chemistry.

At home, we traced the boys' hands and covered the capital H with their hands. We also read lots of books about the human body. Our favorites were Here Are My Hands by Bill Martin, Jr. and Parts by Tedd Arnold.

Last week, Sid the Science Kid focused on the human body as well, so we watched some Sid episodes and did some science experiments. The best one was our digestion experiment. The boys (with some help) squeezed lemons and poured the juice (the stomach acids) into a plastic bag (the stomach). Then they broke up some saltines and tossed them into the stomach

and mushed them around and around until it was one big wet soggy mess in the bag.

We also added bananas and raspberries to the mix and now the boys truly understand how digestion works! It was a really fun experiment, and Will recorded it all in his science journal!

We have also been talking A LOT about the new house. Even though our house isn't new, we read Building a House by Byron Barton along with many, many books about moving. For a craft project, we turned our lowercase h into a house.

Henry decided to put his windows above the house. Maybe he's thinking of skylights?

Will drew a door on his.

And in the spirit of cleaning out the freezer before the big move, Gene and Will made some yummy garlic halibut for us all to enjoy.

And now, we'll take a short break from our letter studies and focus on moving, getting settled, and celebrating Christmas!

It's Beginning to Look at Lot Like...

Christmas! Actually, it really doesn't look anything like Christmas at our house. It definitely looks like we're moving in less than a week. Full boxes are taped, labeled and stacked in every room of the house. Empty boxes are scattered everywhere so the boys can "help" pack or just play Jack-in-the-Box. I took this picture on the first weekend Gene and I spent "packing." It was mostly a clean-out-and-disassemble-computers weekend.

The boys are excited about both the big move and Christmas. Every day, Henry asks, "Are we moving this day?" Soon enough! We do have a couple of daily Christmas traditions to get the boys into the holiday spirit. They both have advent calendars that we open each night after dinner (notice the empty box behind Will?).

And this year we're doing The Elf on the Shelf too. Our elf is named Frosty. He is Santa's helper and he is assigned to our house to watch the boys and make sure they're well behaved. Each night Frosty magically flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa and then he comes back to our house. Each morning he's in a different spot. The boys love to find him. This particular morning, he was perched on top of Gene's espresso machine. So despite the utter chaos at our house, we are happily counting down the days until Christmas and are looking forward to celebrating the holidays in our new home. Thank goodness Frosty the Elf will be able to let Santa know that we've moved!

Hardtack

All the boys in my house are obsessed with pirates. Will loves to pretend that he is eating hardtack (he even taps his crackers to get the weevils out!) and drinking grog to prevent scurvy (yes, he knows that you need citrus to prevent scurvy!) as he sails the high seas singing pirate songs. So, on Sunday, as we began our letter H week, Will quickly realized that hardtack starts with the letter H and he begged Gene to make some. Gene has a recipe and has made hardtack before, so he quickly agreed and the boys spent some time after lunch making these biscuits.

In case you aren't as familiar with the pirate life as we are, hardtack is simply a very, very hard biscuit made from flour, water and maybe some salt. It is double-baked to get all the moisture out and has a shelf-life of one year, so it was great to have on board a ship.
Even before it goes into the oven, this stuff is pretty hard. The recipe calls for 2-inch square biscuits, so Gene got out the ruler and the boys helped measure and count by twos.Then they had to prick the dough so it wouldn't riseand bake it for one hour. We skipped baking it a second time (because we really don't need it to last a year!). We incorporate science into everything, so the boys had to observe the hardtack first.

Trying the hardtack...

It's really hard! We decided to soak the hardtack in a bowl of water so that the boys could actually eat it!

And what's a pirate meal without some grog? Gene made the boys rum-less grog, which was just water with a splash of Rose's lime juice. Henry was less than impressed, but Will drank it up!

ARRGH! We're just like real pirates now!

The Boys

I captured some great pictures of the boys in my life recently and wanted to share them. I love these two pictures of Will! What a happy boy!Last week, Gene's folks came up for dinner and we decided to crack open a bottle of Fall Creek wine that Gene had held on to for years. Now it's not a super special wine (it was made in Texas after all!) but it had significance to Gene because his dad gave it to him at a partners' retreat back in 1997. We decided to open it to celebrate one of our last family dinners in Fall Creek, and I'm glad we did.

And here are a couple of shots with Gene and his big boys.

These guys are the best!

The Letter G

G is for grandparents and guitars and the color green. Last week, the boys had an overnight visit with Gene's parents so Gene and I could focus on packing for the big move (thank you, Nana and Pop!). This picture is actually from Thanksgiving, but you can see how much fun my guys have with their grandparents.

We talked a lot about the color green this week. Our first art project was connected to the story Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley. The boys love this book and request it quite often. The book describes a scary monster part by part (big yellow eyes, long bluish-greenish nose) until the monster face is complete. But, that's just half the story. After the proclamation, "You don't scare me!" each part is taken away until there is nothing left of that big green monster.

After reading the book, the boys made their own big green monsters. I had cut everything out for them last weekend and put all the monster parts in a zip-top bag, so all they had to do was glue everything in place. Will didn't need any help with this project, but he did want to follow the order of the book exactly, which really doesn't surprise me. He's that kind of kid!

Here is Will's Big Green Monster. Henry still needs a little help with the glue.

And here's is Henry's finished project. Scary!!

We also read Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and Where Is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox and made the lowercase letter g green by using blue and yellow fingerpaints.

Here are the boys' letter projects. We turned the capital G into a guitar.

Besides making the G into a guitar, we also listened to lots of guitar music by Andres Segovia and "Air Guitar" by Joe McDermott. I couldn't find any great guitar stories, so instead we read one of my favorite music books, Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss. For a math project, I cut out guitars and wrote different numbers on them. The boys just had to lay out their pretzel pieces to make the correct number of guitar strings on each guitar.

And of course, using edible strings is always a good idea with my hungry boys!

We had a busy week, so even though we didn't get to any cooking or go on any field trips, the boys and I still had fun exploring the letter G!

Snow Day

Will keeps asking when it will snow in Houston and I keep reminding him that it only rarely snows down south. Of course, he remembers the last two winters when it really did snow here, so I guess when something has happened for half your life, you come to expect it! Fortunately, our neighborhood holds a Snow Day each December, so the boys got to experience some of the white stuff first hand.

Of course, my kids had to have a cookie before they explored the snow. Never mind that they just had a healthy snack at home. They can smell the food table a mile away!

You can tell it was quite warm yesterday. I think the high was 79 degrees! Henry was very concerned about the snow on his shoe.

At the end of the event, we had to have another snack.

And then it was home for fresh, dry clothes, a cookie-free lunch and naps for everyone!

We Met Santa

My friend Eileen hosts a holiday gathering each November and invites Santa to come before his schedule gets too busy with the Christmas rush. Will found Santa as soon as we walked through the door and immediately asked for a cutting food toy like his friend Adam has.

Later Will actually sat on Santa's lap. Last year, neither of my boys would even be in the same room as Santa, so I was quite shocked that they sat with him this year!
Henry wasn't too sure about Santa at first, but he climbed up on his lap all by himself after we'd been at the party for awhile. I guess he really wanted to make sure that Santa heard his request for CANDY! Yes, that's all the kid wants for Christmas this year!

And finally....

our family picture with the jolly guy in red!