Zoo with friends

Some awesome ladies from church decided to hit up the zoo this afternoon. It was a little on the hot side, but really not as bad as it has been (although I did keep a rag handy to wipe the "glistening" from my forehead...*sigh* embarrassing), so we jumped on the opportunity!

Sarah was bouncing off the walls with excitement to be out of the house

 and playing with friends! (BONUS!)

My poor child, cursed with her hermit of a mother. 

Anyway... here are some pictures of the fun day. I started out doing great with taking pictures... but then I got tired and slacked off... which I am bummed because I never got a shot of us moms, the whole gang or of an another cute baby that was there. Darn it! 

Next time...

Climbing... there was plenty of this going on. 

Playing on the Panther... and feeding it leaves? Random.

Poor Mr. J... I'm not sure how long his hand (or arm in this shot) will take to recover from all the excessive hand-holding it received from Miss Sarah today. It was pretty cute though. 

It was kind of funny how much Sarah was wanting to hold everyone's hands. Sarah has never really been into hand holding until today... go figure. She would ask the other moms there to hold her hand and at one point the group had gotten a head of us and Sarah ran up to some random boy thinking it was one of the gang and tried to hold his hand. 

She surprised him and they ended up toppling over one another... 

it was pretty hard not to chuckle about it. 

The Elephants walked right over towards us and started spraying each other with water.

Lil' Abby after her nap... check out that hair! Sweaty mess. Blech!

Having a tickling war. 

It was very adorable, and the mom's were just grateful to be standing still in an air conditioned building. 

Abby was really good. Just sat quietly the whole time in her stroller eating snacks... except for when some stranger let her baby walk over and poke Abby in the eye. Kids these days. Just kidding. 

Lil' C

Miss A

Mr. J

I didn't get a cute smile picture of two of the other kiddos there or even of my own two daughters for that matter... but these were too cute not to share! 

It was great to make use of our Zoo membership and to go with friends! What a fun day. 

PS - I hope you moms don't mind me posting pictures of your cute kiddo on my blog.

Let me know if you do. 

Randomness and a few Quacks

On Sunday Abby had a bloody encounter with an oversized book in the Nursery (No, Abby is not in the nursery yet, but her mom is... so she is usually in there with me until Ryan is done playing the postlude). Here is a picture of her fat lip... it is blurry... but it is all that I could snap. 

But she is a trooper. She cried for just a bit and then was fine.

On Monday morning Sarah discovered her breath on windows. 

Through her nose... can you see her breath marks on the picture on the left. *sigh* 

Where's the windex?

Abby is becoming quite the little mooch at the dinner table. Ryan and I are quite surprised at the different foods she likes. Sarah has been such a good eater we were sure that Abby would be Lil' Miss Picky, but so far she is open to pretty much anything (although she did spit out some watermelon that I shared with her this morning... but I think it was because it was really cold). Last night for dinner we had Taco Salads and Abby enjoyed kidney beans, black olives and even green peppers. Way to go Abby!!!

We had an earlier dinner than usual, and even though the weather has been hot, we decided to go for a walk and head down to a little pond in Schenley Park to feed the ducks. It was probably about a mile walk, which we worried would be too long and hot, but it wasn't,  the weather was BEAUTIFUL! It was a little cloudy, and a breeze kicked in and made it just perfect. I am so glad that we went. Here are some pictures of the girls feeding the ducks. 

There were two adorable ducklings... they weren't tiny, but they still had that baby fuzz around their necks... and were a bit smaller than the other ducks. 

There was also this sad little duck that was missing part of his top beak. So sad. 

Abby was just happy as can be to be outside and to have these little waddling things all around with her. 

It was a beautiful outing for our little family.

Thanks love for taking us!

The Lake

This Saturday we decided to drive up to the lake at Moraine State Park (the one we went camping at HERE). The weather was perfect... it was hot and humid, but it was overcast and just perfect for being outside in swimming suits all day. 

The beach area that they had designated was perfect for families. 

They had a cute playground  

and swing set. 

They had a roped off area for swimming that was plenty of space to accommodate the crowd (which really wasn't bad considering it was a Saturday).

Then they had a fun "beach" area that they had made for the kiddos to play in the sand. Abby loved it!

Sarah was mainly content to stay in the water most of the time. Here she is going in and getting used to it. Which took about five minutes and then she was going in all by herself (which sometimes scared mommy).

I thought this was funny.

Abby got good and dirty. She had sooo much dirt under those tiny little finger and toe nails. 

On the way home the girls had fallen asleep and so Ryan and I decided it would be fun to check out Sarris Candies (which was about a 30 minute drive, so they girls got in a good nap). It is a local candy company which would be compared to Sweet's in Utah.

It was very fun. They had all of these huge chandeliers everywhere. 

They also had some really fun candy... check out these Chocolate Flip Flops!

Sarah thought this birthday bear tea party was fun.

They had the most amazing Chocolate Castle. It reminded me of the gingerbread houses you see at the Festival of Trees.

This place was decked out. The ceilings were even decorated!

We all split a sundae and loved every bite of it.

I'll have to say, they had this marshmallow topping... I'm a fan. Love it!

It was a very fun day... even if we all ended up getting a little too much sun. 

Curious George

They switched out their Traveling exhibit at the Children's Museum to Curious George. Sarah love him {I do too} so we had to go. So after Ryan got done on Friday I picked him up and we headed straight over to check it out. 

They  had this Cute rocket ship right when you walked in. The kids could climb up in it...

and then go down a slide to get out. Sarah went down a gazillion times, which was nice, we could just sit there and watch. 

There was a cute register and play money that Sarah had so much fun with. She would run up to random strangers and give them money or a piece of fruit to buy. It was embarrassingly cute. 

Luckily there are a lot of very sweet parents there who just played along. 

Abby was asleep when we got there and it took her awhile to wake up and stop clinging to Ryan or I. 

When she did she was very cute and gave George a big hug. 

One of her favorite things was opening and closing all of these little doors that had pictures of Curious George characters behind them, and one had a mirror. She was always so surprised to see herself, even if she had just barely opened it. 

This is the part that I felt really old. Sarah was fascinated by this phone. It was like a foreign thing that she had never seen before. Ryan and I have just had cell phones since we've been married, and so a telephone has never been around the house. She kept coming back to it over and over again. 

It was so fun having Daddy along. 

I still can't believe she is toddling around everywhere. She still seems so tiny to me!

Right before we left Sarah decided to get into dressing up. 

Which made it a really hard to drag her out of the museum. 

**Once again, I only had my little camera... so these pictures are less than great... I really have gotten spoiled with taking pictures with my new camera...oh well... got to show the fun.

Argh!

Last Monday evening our local library had a Pirate Party. So Sarah and Mommy decided to go. It was fun. They read a couple of pirate stories and we did some Pirate songs, sort of, they changed the words to songs like "If you're happy and you know it" to include swab the deck, walk the plank, etc... all things I wouldn't do when I am happy. Also they did "The wheels on the Bus" but changed it to things on the beach, like "the waves on the beach go up and down." 

I thought it was cute, but of course, it wasn't up to Sarah's standards. It was really embarrassing to have Sarah sitting through the story time and songs scowling and frequently turning to me and asking loudly "Is it over yet?" "Can we go home NOW?!!!" I wonder why I "drag" her to things like this sometimes. 

Tangent: So Sarah loves to sing. I hear her prancing around the house singing the songs we do in singing time at church, but whenever we are there... and someone is singing them to her... out comes the classic Sarah scowl and usually a tantrum in a range of intensities. She KILLS me! It doesn't help that mom is trying to keep all the other kiddos under control... but can control her own! Grrr....(sorry , it is Sunday... and that was just fresh on my "I'm frustrated" meter). 

Anyway... back to the Pirate party. 

Sarah really loved it {once the singing was over}. We also got to make pirate hats and play a few little games like "Toss the Turtle into the Bucket" for prizes. It was a short fun thing to take Sarah to, just mommy and daughter. 

I had decided to walk to the library {its up hill}, and I didn't want to lug my nice camera so we just took our little one. Don't mind the fuzzy pictures. :)

Argh, she does make a cute little pirate!

Motherhood

**The music player is on the left hand side, so turn it off so you can hear the video**

Okay, I just had to share this video that I saw posted. It was exactly what I needed to hear and so I decided to share it here in case you haven't seen it. I love being a mom, but some days it is really hard not to lose my patience and then I feel so guilty about how terrible of a mother I am. I really needed to hear this and be reminded what a precious gift motherhood is. Hope this gives you the boost it gave me.

Whoosh

How does a week fly by so fast? I mean seriously...I can remember starting the countdown to when my mom would be here about 53 days ago, and now it has come and gone. I won't lie, I'm a little sad... okay that is a lie... I am really sad! I miss her so much already. I wish we lived closer, or at least somewhere that flights were cheaper to come by. Oh well. Just keep swimming right? 

I was a big slacker during my Mom's visit. The entire day would go past without me pulling out the camera. 

Dang it!

Anyway, here are some rambling of her visit (with some pictures at the bottom). I don't have the energy to make it transition in a cute and witty manor... so just read the little snippets... if you want. 

I was really bummed that I forgot my camera the day we went to the Zoo. We went to an area that we hadn't been to yet. There was a deer yard where you could pet them if they were close, one licked my hand and then turned around for Sarah to pet his bum. She thought touching a deer was pretty cool (even if it was on its bum). We also got to go into a kangaroo yard and one hopped right in front of Grandma and Sarah, she even got to pet its tail. There also was a better little play area for Sarah to play while we hung out and ate some lunch. We caught the Sea Lion show on the way out, very fun. 

I could really see a difference in how happy my little kiddos were. Just beaming all of the time. It didn't matter how sleep deprived they were, they still giggled and laughed with Grandma. I wish I had a camera constantly on them so that I could cut and post all of the darling moments to share.

We did lots of shopping and errands, and you know, it isn't nearly as painful as doing it by yourself. Quite fun actually, and I just loved how enjoyable working hard in the yard was. I used to love going over to my mom's house and help her weed, plant or work on whatever project she has going on. I enjoy yard work, when it is cool outside. But this hot, humid weather that is hitting us is hard, and it was so nice to have someone encourage me to get out there early in the morning and totally give my yard a makeover. 

See HERE for pictures. 

After working hard in the yard for a good four hours, we decided that a calorie evil dinner was warranted. So my mom took us out for some authentic German food at Max's Allegheny Tavern (did you know that my Grandpa was German, so yeah, I am a 1/4 German... random Liz trivia). It was very good. Not something you could eat everyday because I think it will take a couple of weeks to undo the artery clogging damage I did that night, but it was very yummy. 

One morning we went to a Baby Play story-time thingy at the library. I have been meaning to go since we moved here, but just never got around to it. I am glad my mom gave me the extra push to go. I'm going to have to put it into our schedule from now on. It was really fun. It was more like a singing time where they did finger plays, and nursery rhymes. Abby was enthralled and Sarah even cracked the grumpies for a smile or two. Sarah got to check out some books with her library card and we even picked up a few books at the book sale they were having. 

I loved watching Abby and my mom together. I was a little nervous because Abby has really entered the shy "danger-stranger" stage, but she instantly ran into my moms arms and cuddled with her. 

This picture is blurry, but you can see how sweetly Abby looks at Grandma. 

Oh, I just love it!

Sarah got to pick out these little finger puppet monsters. I think I need to write a children's book about A Princess and her Monsters... it is such a weird combo... only Sarah. Anyway, here is the latest random toy that Sarah loves to play with night and day. 

Sarah loved having Grandma there to "play" with her. She has really gotten into the pretend play and is constantly begging for someone to play with her. 

(Thanks mom for being so sweet and patient... it was a nice break)

Here is just a cute picture of Abby

Notice the cute crocheted flower in Abby's hair. Grandma Lisa sent it to me in the mail (Thanks!) and my mom decided to show me how to crochet so I could make some myself. So we picked up some hooks and floss/yarn and I've been crocheting them left and right to practice. I am still terrible... but I'll get there. It sure is fun to do. I want to learn how to do the headbands and beanies too! You'll probably see them a lot in the girls hair in the near future. 

Here is Grandma snuggling with the girls during a movie.

Oh I just love this one. Cuddle buddies. Abby is just at the best little snuggling age. She has really started giving kisses and hugs. Heart melting. 

My mom was really sweet and watched the girls so Ryan and I could have a date night. It was really nice to go out and not stress about having to rush back to get the girls. We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, it was good. I have never been there, I didn't realize what a nice restaurant it was... we felt a little under dressed in our jeans... but who cares. Then we went and saw "Knight and Day." Ryan and I enjoyed it, and loved the evening we had to ourselves. Priceless!

Here we are at the end of Grandma's visit. It was so sad taking her to the airport. It didn't feel near long enough, but we'll take what we can get. 

I love you Mom! Thanks for the wonderful visit!