Kids don’t have to stay up till midnight to celebrate the New Year!  Children’s Museum Houston’s Rockin’ New Year’s Noon is the city’s longest-running New Year’s Eve celebration just for kids! This end-of-year bash rings in the New Year at the stroke of noon with ball drops, just like in Times Square! Artistic talents will spotlight this New Year’s Eve celebration complete with noon countdowns, ball drop, activities, and DJ dance parties!

On Saturday, December 30,  The Woodlands Children's Museum will offer a delightful way to ring in the New Year with a balloon drop, themed art projects and holiday music, all designed for little ones under age seven and their families.

Guests are invited to dance and sing along with Tom’s Fun Band, who will perform classic holiday carols throughout the event. Children and families are provided an opportunity to embellish their own time capsules, containing prompts to record special and endearing information for 2023 and look ahead to 2024. A festive balloon drop will conclude the end of each of the three sessions offered at 9:30am-11:00am, 11:45am-1:15pm and 2:00pm-3:30pm.

I cried 2 times at Lone Star Lights. My family and I started the evening of our Huntsville-located holiday lights experience with the dinner theater add-on, and the play was bring-you-to-tears hilarious. I was not expecting it to be so delightful! Even more, the food was delicious, and the service was top-notch. We had a salad, baked potato soup, our choice from three premium entrées, and a decadent dessert. The experience included gourmet table settings and an attentive wait staff. If you end up making plans for Lone Star Lights, consider this add-on, especially if you have older kiddos!

Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. recently hosted the unveiling of a life-sized bronze, interactive sculpture in The Woodlands of the late Coulson Tough by award-winning Houston sculptor Bridgette Mongeon. Honoring the memory of The Woodlands community leader and art advocate, on his actual birthdate of December 7, Howard Hughes created the interactive sculpture to welcome faculty, students, parents, alumni, and visitors to Coulson Tough Elementary, a K-6 school in the Conroe Independent School District located in the Village of Sterling Ridge. Tough is the namesake of the elementary school, which opened in The Woodlands in 2002.

There’s a wonderful little park in Spring that my family has adored for over a decade! Northcrest Park, located at Root Rd between Gosling and Northcrest, is packed with all the features that make a park memorable and special. Although not huge plus it's adjacent to a busy-ish road and a railroad track, the park is a sanctuary and true delight! I originally wrote this post in 2020, but I'm updating it Dec. 2023 so you can see new photos along with a couple of old ones (when my "baby" was younger), along with the park's new features.

The well-maintained grounds boast a large, lovely playground with updated equipment plus swings (we love swings!), but truthfully, I can count on one hand how many times we’ve visited the actual playground in the past 10 years. My kids love to play, but the oasis of fun on the other side of the parking lot from the playground is the true show-stopper. There are walking paths, bridges, a stocked lake (catch and release fishing is welcome!), a creek, pavilion, playful statues, water falls, a water fountain, picnic tables, and even a butterfly garden. 

 

Often, we visit the park to feed the ducks and geese who are always friendly and happy to receive visitors. Within the past year, we noticed that a Girl Scout troop installed a FREE DUCK FOOD dispenser at the park, and it has been a God-send! It allows us to drop by on a whim to feed the ducks, even when we don't have food to bring them from home. I did notice on our latest visit that the dispenser was starting to get empty, so I hope to see it filled again soon. We actually plan to investigate whether or not we can help with the responsibility of keeping this dispenser full with the approprate type of food.

 

The bridges are fun to walk across, and there are also a couple of small hills that my girls love to walk up, plus there are usually plenty of sticks to gather from off the ground. One year, we even identified a pecan tree and were lucky enough to gather a couple of nuts from the ground.

 

Aside from feeding the birds, the park is great space to sit with oil pastels, colored pencils, or crayons to draw a pretty nature picture, which we’ve done several times.

 

Northcrest Park is located at 6012 Root Rd and is an Editor’s favorite! I hope you can find time to check it out! (Tip: Turn in to the parking lot where you see the Northampton MUD sign.)