Preschool Program

Will's preschool open house and end-of-the-year program were a couple of weeks ago, but I completely forgot my camera and had to get pics from my parents and Belinda.

The open house was first. Will showed us all around his classroom. His class has been studying Texas and Will was so excited to show us his boot! Here is Will's paper-plate self portrait and adorable painted Texas shirt.

Next up was the program. Unlike last year, Will sang and gestured through every single song!

Cuties!

I loved the open house and program but it makes me so sad that we're leaving Second next year. We've been there for four years and I'm going to miss everything about that school!

Portuguese Sweet Bread

It wouldn't be Easter without a few loaves of Portuguese sweet bread at our house. With Gene's travel schedule this year, he just didn't have time to make any, but my sweet mother-in-law spent last weekend baking away in the kitchen and she delivered three beautiful loaves of bread to our door this week. The boys were so excited to discover their beautifully packaged sweet breads. The best part is that they each got one, so they didn't have to share!

Nancy always bakes a hard-boiled egg into the top of the bread.

Henry uncovered his egg!

Nancy always sticks an American flag in the sweet bread because that's what Gene's nana did. Will saw the flag and decided to pretend that he was an astronaut landing on Mars and leaving the first American flag in the soil. He also decided that the egg was a giant asteroid that left a huge crater in the middle of the planet.

Thanks for the sweet bread, Nancy! We are enjoying every single bite of it!

Monkeys and Prairies and Paintings, Oh My!

Wednesdays are my favorite days! We don't have school so the boys and I are free to do whatever we want. Yesterday, we went to Safari School at the zoo with our friends Amanda and Adam and Kate and Henry. Safari School was all about monkeys, like this mandrill, this week.
The boys learned that monkeys have tails but that apes do not and that only monkeys who live in South America have prehensile tails because they live in trees! We met a couple of mandrills and their zookeeper Rachel. She fed them worms in a paper sack, which they loved! After Safari School, we like to go have lunch with our friends but no one could join us this week, so we headed over to Cafe Express at the MFAH. Yum! The boys love the art museum and we hadn't been there in months, so we were due for a visit. I was so impressed with how well behaved the boys were, especially since we had already spent an hour and a half at the zoo! We looked at all our favorite paintings and sculptures and even found our way back to some Jackson Pollock paintings, which fascinated the boys. Will kept walking through the museum saying, "I just love these paintings." That's my boy!

My main reason for visiting the museum was to see my friend Jaime's exhibit, Coastal Prairies: Houston's Heartland, which is up in the lobby of the Law Building for only three days as part of the museum's Florescence flower show. Jaime and some other dedicated volunteers have worked so hard on this exhibit for an entire year and I knew we couldn't miss seeing it! We were looking at all the prairie plants when guess who showed up? Jaime was bringing some laminated cards to the museum after his original set walked away and we just happened to be at his exhibit when he arrived. He had hidden prairie birds in the exhibit and the kids were supposed to look at the cards and find them all. The boys had so much fun finding all the birds and I'm so glad our timing worked out so that we were there when Jaime was around. He truly brings nature and the prairie to life and he is so passionate about what he does! Plus my boys absolutely adore him!Jaime's exhibit is amazing but today is the last day it will be at the MFAH before it starts traveling around to schools to teach about Texas's prairies. Check it out if you have the time. It is well worth the visit!

Easter Parties

The boys had their Easter parties at school yesterday. Fortunately, Will's was at 11:15 and Henry's was a noon, so I was able to be at both of them!
The boys loved their Easter egg hunts. Will was supposed to find eggs numbered from 1 to 6.

He finally found that elusive number 1!
I can't go to school without getting a picture of Will and Chloe together!Here's his whole, adorable class.After the egg hunt, they had their class party, which is really all about eating!

After Will's party, it was on to Henry's room. The kids all lined up and waited patiently to head out for their Easter egg hunt. Henry is with his best buddies, Ben and Caleb. I love that Ben stuck his Easter basket around his neck!

And he's off!

Found one!

Eggs!

Ooh, I think there are more in here!

After the Easter egg hunt, the kids went back inside to decorate their Easter cookies. This is how to do it if you are three. First, dip your stick into the icing.

Next, sample the icing to make sure if is good.
Then spread some on the cookie.

Finally, let Ms. Erin help pour some pink sprinkles on!

And then it was naptime. Henry is the navy blob in the middle. And yes, he really does sleep at school!

We all had so much fun at the school parties but after all the sugar and running, I had two exhausted boys at the end of the day!

The Letter S

Last week was all about the letter S at our house. We studied spiders and snakes and spent lots of time in the kitchen!
The boys made their capital S into a slithery snake. Will painted his lots of different colors
but Henry chose to make one big red snake.
We also went to the reptile room at the zoo to check out some really big, really real snakes while we were there last week! We made our lowercase s into a spider and read The Eensy Weensy Spider Freaks Out (Big Time) by Troy Cummings and The Bugliest Bug by Carol Diggory Shields.

We saw a tarantula and some ground squirrels at the Natural Encounters exhibit at the zoo.

Will took a long nap one afternoon last week, so Henry helped me make swope bread, which is a hearty whole wheat and buttermilk bread that my parents made ALL the time when I was a kid.

Yummy!

We also made lots and lots of spinach smoothies.

It is CSA season again and we are loving our big weekly box of local produce, but we had so many greens and I didn't know how to use them all, so I decided to throw some spinach into our smoothies, and let me tell you, they are delicious!

Here's my recipe for a green smoothie that you'll love:

one generous handful of spinach

1 very ripe banana

about a half a cup of milk (any kind)

a handful of ice cubes

1 generous tablespoon of nut butter (any kind)

Blend together and enjoy! You don't even need any sweetener because the banana is so sweet. This makes enough for one adult, so add a little extra of everything if you have to share with your kids, which I always do. My boys love their green smoothies! It's also a great way to sneak in some greens if you have picky eaters (which fortunately I do not have!)You can't even taste the spinach but it turns the smoothie a beautiful color!

We had a super S week!

More Safari School and Tadpole Troopers

The boys and I went to our second round of Safari School and Tadpole Troopers classes this week. Safari School at the zoo was all about lizards. The boys played lizard tag and made a lizard craft. The zoo was insanely busy for a Wednesday but we had fun in our quiet corner, learning all about lizards! I didn't take many pictures but I did snap this shot of Henry touching the lizard. Our Tadpole Troopers class at the arboretum was about butterflies. The boys already knew the basics of how caterpillars turn into butterflies, but we all learned that butterflies form a chrysalis that is actually their outer skin whereas moths spin a cocoon of silk. Love it! The boys painted some butterfly wings

and we glued them to sticks to make the butterfly bodies.

The tissue rolls are the chrysalises that the butterflies emerged from!

The boys played on the rug in the classroom while waiting to go on our nature walk.

Our first stop was the butterfly garden at the arboretum.

Will looked for evidence of caterpillars.

"Look, Mommy! These leaves are nibbled on!"

Henry waited patiently for us to catch up with him. Henry's shirt says "Team Leader Bug Exploration," which was perfect for our butterfly hunt!

We traipsed through the meadow, looking at bluebonnets.

We only found one butterfly (it was a little chilly for them to be out!) but we did see and touch this super cool box turtle who happened to be crossing the path in front of us!

We are loving our nature and zoo classes this spring!