School Work on Display

The boys' classes both have new bulletin boards and other artwork up on display.

Will's class has been working hard on Valentine letters to a friend.

Will picked Sarah Jane's name out of a hat, so he wrote about her and she wrote about him.

I loved reading what Sarah Jane wrote about Will!

A couple of weeks ago, we had to make this blue man for a unit on art. Each child was assigned a color and had to decorate a paper figure using only his color. Will had blue, obviously. I especially like the blue feather hair!

Henry made a blue man too, but his is an astronaut because his class has been learning about space and rockets!

You know he loved this learning unit! Here's Henry constellation. It looks like a pirate cruncher to me.

5 4 3 2 1 Blast Off!

Henry was so proud of his rocket. He also followed the pattern the teachers laid out for him. If you look at the picture above, you'll see at least one deconstructed rocket.

The kids came up with their own classroom rules too. The best ones? Always go pee pee in the potty, no cutting hair and keep real animals out of the classroom!

And finally, I'll leave you with the amazing totals from the Souper Bowl of Caring Food Drive at Will's school.

In five days, our school collected 28,145 pounds of food to donate to the Houston Food Bank. WUES has given the most food of any school in the US for the past three years with totals between 12 and 15,000, so 28,145 pounds is pretty phenomenal. The food bank wasn't even prepared; they had to call in a second truck to haul away the goods! I have no doubt that the totals were fueled by some pretty intense, friendly competition between the classes but in the end, the Houston Food Bank was the real winner here. And our kids, who are so lucky and don't ever go hungry, got a chance to haul in bags and bags of food to help out those who are not quite so fortunate.

Father's Breakfast

Henry's school held its annual Father's Breakfast yesterday morning. The kids all invited their dads to join them in the classroom for some crafts and snacks, and then they had breakfast tacos and coffee to go. Gene couldn't come because of his travel schedule, so Henry invited Pop to join him!

Henry made Pop a special snack of pretzels, marshmallows, teddy grahams and chocolate chips. Then he ate most of the snack himself!

They played Play-Doh together.

Pop found a pirate hat for Henry to wear

and a more colorful one as well!

Calling Daddy on the phone?

The teachers also asked the kids questions about their dads and posted them on the windows. We had to guess Henry's response to the questions. Some of the answers were hilarious!

Here are Henry's answers: What is your favorite thing to do with your Daddy? make a Henry sandwich (pillows on the outside, Henry on the inside!). What is your favorite thing Daddy cooks? special coffee (duh!) What is Daddy's job? he works in his office Where is your favorite place to go with Daddy? the park

We missed having Daddy at the Father's Breakfast, but Henry was so excited that Pop could come in his place. After all, Henry said, Pop is a daddy too!

More Pictures from the Boys

I have created a monster... or two! The boys are absolutely obsessed with my camera lately. Will is so enthralled with photography that when his teacher asked him to write about what he would buy with $100 (for the 100th day of school), he said he would buy a camera because he just loves to take pictures. (He also said he would buy a blue robot for Henry!)

Last weekend, we spent a very rainy Saturday in Kingwood and the boys used my little red camera all day long. This is what Henry found interesting:

his yellow parrot bottle and a bunch of coloring books on the kitchen table,

Gramma and a box of crayons,

Mommy coloring while Will read Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business,
the box of crayons up close,
looking down at his own tummy and the floor,
and the detritus that comes with our visit.

This is what Will found interesting:

cookbooks,

Henry getting ready for lunch,

taking pictures up close,
play time with blocks,
Grampa's new cabinet doors,
trying to get Henry to smile,
a bug on the window and a wet view,
and Valentine's hearts.
Who knew I could leave the picture-taking duties up to my little boys?

Peanut Butter Bites

It's no secret that we love to cook and eat at our house, and the boys are often willing helpers in the kitchen. So, when Henry and I saw a recipe for Peanut Butter Bites in our most recent issue of our Highlights High Five magazine, we knew we had to try it out. Henry helped with every step.

Crushing the graham cracker with a rolling pin.

Mixing the sticky peanut butter, powdered sugar and honey.
Rolling little balls of peanut butter dough. Fave part!
Plopping the balls into the graham cracker crumbs
and making sure every ball is covered in crunchy crumbs. (Cracker crumb chaos indeed!)
Final product! Ready to chill in the fridge.

Recipe adapted from Highlights High Five:

1 graham cracker

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1/3-1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds

2 tablespoons dried cranberries

Put a graham cracker in a sealed plastic bag. Use your hands or a rolling pin to crush the crackers and pour the crumbs into a pie pan or shallow bowl.

Mix together the peanut butter, powdered sugar and honey. Then add in pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries.

Roll the mixture into small balls. Roll balls in graham cracker crumbs. Chill for one hour and enjoy!

These make 12-18 balls, depending on how big you roll them, and I promise they will not last long at your house! They are a yummy, fairly healthy treat that little (and big) people love to make and eat.

Sweet Treats, School Fun and Some Bike Riding

The groundhog saw its shadow yesterday so apparently we have six more weeks of winter. However, since we've barely had winter in Houston this year, I guess we can look forward to more of the same mild weather!

Henry's class decorated snow globes for their bulletin board last month. I'm pretty sure it's their only chance of seeing snow anytime soon.

Henry's description of his snow globe sounds just like him. He says "guess what?" and "Did you know that?" a lot!

And since the weather has been so spring-like lately, the boys and I have indulged in some sweet treats. They had to have rainbow sherbet after Will read a book about rainbow ice cream.

Henry requested rocket popsicles on Monday. Yum-o!

He also requested homemade trail mix.

We added dried cranberries, goldfish, honey sesame sticks, raisins, peanuts, pumpkin seeds and coconut to a jar and shook like crazy.

With this mild weather we've been outside a lot, riding bikes.

Henry even tried out Will's bike. He's ready for his own!

Daddy clearly needs his own bike too.

Last night, Will's school held Math Night. The theme was Harry Potter and Will had a blast! When we got there, the Sorting Hat sorted all the kids into their houses. Will was put into Ravenclaw, which I think fits him pretty well. ("Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you've a ready mind, where those of wit and learning, will always find their kind." -- the Sorting Hat)

Then it was off to complete a list of math activities. Half of the activities were designed for K-2nd grade and the other half were for 3rd-5th grade, but that didn't stop Will from trying almost every activity!

One of Will's favorite activities was this toad maze. He did it at least four times.

Harry Potter Math Night was a blast. Now if a wizard could just cast a spell to make sure this mild winter doesn't mean we're in for a brutally hot summer, I'd be happy!

The 100th Day of School

Yesterday was Will's 100th day of school!

They celebrated by doing lots of counting, sticking (100 stickers on that hat!) and eating. They made a 100th day snack out of 10 sets of 10 goodies (fruit loops, skittles, pretzels and the like). Will told me all about it as soon as I picked him up from school. I can't believe Kindergarten is more than half over!