Texas Trip, Houston Leg

We needed to head to warmer climes this spring break, and we had a new niece/cousin to meet in Houston, so the choice was easy to book a trip to Texas again. I've gotta say that spring is probably the best time to visit Texas, and it's always a little hard to leave. (We've already been snowed upon since our return a couple of days ago.) We flew out of Jackson, WY this time, and look what we drove through to get to the airport!

It's becoming our tradition to stop in Brenham on the ranch-to-Houston route for several reasons. I think it's the best spot for early bluebonnets and there is some delicious ice cream to be devoured! We love both very much; there's no better Texas welcome!

...except maybe from this squirrel! (where we picked up some pecan goodies)

Once we got to Houston, we wasted no time in meeting sweet Adeline! She is so quiet and happy most of the time or else she has her eyebrows raised in surprise. She was just past the three-month mark, which is the start of the fun, in my opinion. 

O and H were both newly congested upon our arrival, so we imposed a minimum distance rule to keep Addie away from our germs. (We spent a good part of Saturday afternoon at a clinic with Owen for an ear infection. So sad to be sick on vacation! Oh, and Hadley licked the bottom of her boot after the airport travel, and was not feeling well a few days later. Coincidence? I think not!)

Unfortunately, that ruled out a true "cousins" pic. I think this is the best we got of all 3 of them together!

But that didn't stop them from trying to relive their baby days with some of her stuff!

We made it out to our friends' brewery on Saturday (just one week before their big one year anniversary). They seem to be doing well, and it was fun to reunite with a few old college buddies. Even Addie joined us!

And there are always walks to the playgrounds near D&J's house. Uncky Dan showed the kids how to fly down the path to the park. The "cold front" didn't deter these Idaho kids!

Sunday was for Dim Sum and Discovery Green. Owen ate a fair amount of dumplings; Hadley stuck to carbs and dessert. Can't say we were surprised!

Discovery Green is an interesting, little park in the middle of downtown Houston. They had a unique art installation of spinning tops, "Los Trompos", that the kids enjoyed;

A fun playground where Owen perfected his rope climb and Hadley crossed her first monkey bars;

You can see more of the tops in the background here.

And another large art installation that invited kids to climb and explore.

It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for walking in the park.

We finished up with some shaved ice, which led to a 5-minute public dance solo by Owen in the middle of the plaza.  I recorded the last two minutes of it, but I'll save it for blackmail later. :)

Before we left town, we showed the kids where their Dad lived on Pagehurst and drove around the old neighborhood a bit, though Owen pleaded for us not to show where all of Daddy's friends used to live. Bo-ring!

As always, we enjoyed our Houston visit! Thanks for hosting us, Dan, Jenn, and Addie!

Getting Some Culture

March has been good so far. Owen had another parent-teacher conference with a great report card. He is reading more and more, which is so exciting to watch! The week of conferences though, he only had 2 days of school.  Then we're cutting this week short for an early spring break, so the month will really fly by!

City activities start to pick back up this time of year, so we took the kids to a family concert, which had an "instrument petting zoo" beforehand. Hadley was interested in the flute and xylophone, while Owen preferred the violin and drums. It was a great opportunity for them to get up close and personal with some different instruments. This momma is still holding out some hope to get another musician in the family.

We also ventured with some friends to the local museum where the new exhibit was touted as a kid-friendly take on dinosaur eggs.  They had lots of fossilized eggs and bones, as well as several "please touch" exhibits, which the kids loved! Of course, this spurred Owen to recall and request the dinosaur museum in Houston on our upcoming trip.

Hadley's inside the blue "egg" pretending to be a baby dinosaur.

And here they got to dress up and sit on their own egg nests, although I'm not sure that's quite how the dinosaurs would have done it...

We even had a visit from Owen's good friend Carson when they came back to town. Owen got to repay him a sleepover of his own. They picked up pretty much where they had left off, except there was more Nerf this time.  :)

Lastly, the kids helped put 100 Easter baskets together for kids in need. The little kids (ours among them) were paired with bigger kids and filled up baskets with candy, books, toys, and food. I'm glad they are getting to an age where we can do things like this and spread the love!

Sun and Ski Sports

The snow is nearly all gone!  We have made it above freezing temperatures for the last 2 weeks, and the snow disappeared pretty quickly except in north-facing shade. This was the kids helping me chip away at the last ice on the front walk a few weeks ago. I'm sure we'll get some more snow before summer, but I doubt it will stick around long, so the shovels have been retired for now.

The other day it was 43 and sunny, and the kids declared that they wanted a picnic lunch outside!  Only in Idaho does that qualify as picnic weather. Haha!

A few days after that, it was above 50 and Owen was "too hot" for his shirt and shoes in the backyard.  Guess who else had to follow suit. :)

We are nearly done with Owen's indoor soccer season.  We did two sessions of 8 weeks each at 8 am on Saturday mornings, so almost every week from November-March.  He loved it and did really well, but we are glad to be done with that for a while. He got pretty good at knowing where the ball would be going, defending the goal, and even scored several times! It's hard to get a good picture of their games, but we do like to kick the ball around at the park too. Their favorite is when Dad kicks the ball up really high and they have to chase after it.

Hadley is still doing gymnastics and loving it, too.  In fact, she passed all of the checklist items for her 3-4 year-old class and was moved up to the next level.  That's exciting, but the next level is for 5-7 year-olds, and she comes up to the shoulder of the next smallest girl in her new class.  (She is below in pink, and the girl to her left is in her class (notice she's on a lower beam)!) Thankfully, she is still enjoying it and is being challenged, and the older girls are sweet, guiding and helping her to figure out what she's supposed to be doing.

Sometimes Owen likes to help her practice at home.

When Dad was out of town last weekend, I took the kids to a 'Build and Grow' workshop at the local big box store. It's a fun and free way for the kids to build something and play with hammers. I'm happy to report that we left with zero injuries and two sweet new monster trucks!

And they had to try out the new riding lawnmowers on the way out.  It must be getting close to spring!

I just liked this picture of Hadley making some "stars" out of their fort kit.

The city might be out of snow, but there is still plenty up in the mountains!  I got to go with some friends to ski at Grand Targhee, which is on the westside of the Tetons, a couple of weeks ago.  It was a gorgeous day! We had perfect views of the Tetons and the valley for miles and miles. I hope my kids will do this with me one day.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

I thought I'd change it up for this post to document some funny things that the kids are saying these days.  I have to say that between a 3 and a 6-year-old, we get amusing conversations quite often. And I love it!

Let's start with the threenager. She is painfully shy around new people, but won't stop talking in the car or singing songs during meals. She is learning a lot from her brother and from pre-school, and she loves to voice her opinion (though it's usually whatever Owen said).

Hadley's speech impediments are endearing, and I hesitate to correct her because I love them.  "Hey - fwee rhymes with fwee" - three rhymes with free, which sounded the same in her voice.

Discussing Owen's upcoming birthday party, Hadley said he needed a "cwown". "A crown? Like a birthday crown?" I said. "No. A cwown. A circus cwown," she said. Oh...

Hadley asked if we could go out to eat at "high five mans", aka "Five Guys". She often declares, "I'm firnsty! Firnsty starts with an B!" She thinks a lot of things start with a b, like "b-zert" (dessert) and "b-nastics" (gymnastics).

Hadley at dinner one night while parents were talking about something that happened on Saturday:  "no, no, it was Tuesday." while having no idea really, but so confident in her argument!

She also noticed immediately when I picked her up from school that I had a bandage on my finger.  She was concerned and asked what happened.  I told her I'd cut it making dinner for the crockpot, and she asked, "did you not know what you were doing?" What a vote of confidence!

Now, for the 6-year old who is learning to read, loving school, and asking lots of questions about everything. He currently wants to grow up and be a car designer, if he's not a stay-at-home dad. He doesn't share much about his school day unless he's pressed, and if he does elaborate a lot, then you can assume that most of what you've heard has probably been extrapolated from his imagination. 

Owen's eyes got very big when he selected a frosted Christmas tree brownie for his after-dinner dessert and he declared, "Oh, I'm going to be CRAZY after this!" We have often remarked on how the sugar from dessert seems to hit kids' bloodstreams pretty quickly and make them a little more energetic than usual, and I guess he agreed. 

Owen while volunteering to help me with some yard work, "but we'll probably end up playing behind the trees in the sticks and then asking if we can get out our scooters." Truth!  Let's just skip the pretense of doing work and just play.  :)

The kids were making birthday cards for Dad. After a while Owen looks at both cards and says "I think my card is better than Hadley's." I say, "I think they are both awesome." Owen says, "yeah, you go with that." What? Where does he get this stuff from?

Owen asked me, "how is Daniel Tiger so wise?" (This is a PBS kids show that Hadley loves; it teaches lots of life lessons in cute songs that we reference a lot.) It's true, but I had not thought of the animated pre-school tiger in a hoodie as being "wise" before. Haha!

The Sun is Back!

The sun has made a reappearance this week, and it feels so nice!  This is what we do when it's above 30 degrees and the sun is shining:

It's funny how 35 and sunny feels like spring now!  We had the car windows down the other day when it hit 40. (I've become one of those people I wondered about when we first moved here 5 years ago. The ones that had their windows open when it was 40 degrees in March.)  We've already broken out the bikes, scooters, and sidewalk chalk. Owen has a lot of faith in the groundhog that predicted spring is soon to be here.

The varying temperatures have led to some different scenery, like hoarfrost in the mornings and lots of icicles hanging off of roofs all over town.

These icicles are on our back porch almost directly over the sandbox.  The longest icicle here is probably close to 3 feet long!

And the sandbox could be an ice rink for mice.  Brr!

This icicle formed between my car bumper and the ground over the course of 5 hours or so and actually connects the two! You can also see all of the yucky dark muck, pebbles, and salt that build up under our cars in the winter from the roads. You can imagine what our garage looks like...

On a side note, this week was Spirit Week at school, which basically means that you are supposed to dress with a different theme in mind each day. The first was "Decades Day" where you pick and dress like your favorite decade. Since I'm a minimalist, we went with a cowboy from the 1880's, because that's what we had. The gun stayed at home, of course.

One day at the end of quiet time, I was visited by a beautiful princess and her obliging prince brother. Glad to see that dress is getting some use after all!

I mentioned that Owen has been doing indoor soccer this winter. He loves it! We like it too, except that it's been at 8 am nearly every Saturday since November. It just feels wrong to get going earlier on the weekend than you do for a school day. Hopefully next year, we'll get a later time slot.

Owen and I rented some cross-country skis from the local ski shop this weekend.  He tried them out in the backyard a bit last night to figure some things out.

And this morning, we ventured 5 minutes to a city park and went 1.5 miles around on tracks with friends. I think he enjoyed it, but he doesn't like to fall.  Who does?

I have to mention that all of the snow we've been getting has been great for downhill skiing!  I have gotten to go to our local ski hill a couple of times on their Ladies' Day, which only costs $26 and includes lunch!! That's me in the white helmet.  So fun!