We are so happy to share that, like Daniel Tiger, we will be welcoming a baby into our family in May 2016! We shared the news with our family and friends at Jack’s 2nd birthday party! He opened this sweet book about Daniel Tiger becoming a big brother. It was perfect since Jack is our own little tiger.
He doesn’t really understand what this all means, but he is saying “baby” a lot more and loves pointing out Baby Margaret in the book! We’re so excited to grow our family, but I’m always aware that this will all be so new to Jack and I want to be sure he understands that he’s not going to be neglected or forgotten.
This October 1st marked my five year wedding anniversary with the Ginger. Cliche to say, but I can’t believe how fast it went by! The last five years have been filled with so many important and also mundane moments, but it all happened in a blink!
Our wedding day was so special and I remember so many of the details, as if it all just happened. We really wanted to celebrate the day in the city, not a suburb. We started our relationship while in school, right in the middle of Downtown Pittsburgh and in those dating years we explored so many parts of the city. It felt only right that we celebrate our love (sappy much?) in the city that helped it grow. One of our favorite walks was from our campus on Wood Street over to the North Shore, crossing one of the three sister bridges, the Clemente, the Warhol or the Rachel Carson, and wander in the North Side then back along the water. We were thrilled to find the perfect place for our reception in The Grand Hall at the Priory, and then have our wedding night at the Priory’s Hotel. It’s located right in the Deutschtown section of the North Side, within walking distance of our favorite bridges. Our reception was beautiful and full of so much fun! We danced all night long and laughed with our friends and family! I wouldn’t change a thing about it!
That year, in 2010, we planned on returning to the Priory for our five year anniversary. Back then it seemed so far off! But this was the year and we booked a room with a view of the quaint North Side streets and enjoyed reminiscing about one of the best days of our lives together! We snuck into the Grand Hall to take a look at the dance floor and then we posed for pictures outside of the garden that our photographer set us up in with our bridal party!
We made a short list of future destinations for anniversaries and for year 15 we hope to stay at the Priory again! I can’t imagine all that will happen in the next 10 years, but if it’s anything like the last 5 with the Ginger then it will be amazing!
I’m so glad the Ginger snapped this picture of me and Jack during nap time. Our living room couches are tiny, but comfortable and we’ve been hanging out there for Jack’s nap since it get’s pretty dark in that room. We co-sleep but he’s been doing so well napping on his own lately. (It’s clearly not stopped me from napping too!)
The Ginger has loved the Pittsburgh Zoo since he was Jack’s age and started going to Zoo Camp every summer. To share that love with Jack we’ve gone to the Zoo as much as possible this summer! My father-in-law gave us a Zoo Pass as a gift and what a gift it has been! The pass gets our little family into the zoo for free and we can bring a guest if both parents are not there. We actually live just a mile or so down the street from the Zoo so we really get there quite often.
For us it’s been great, because when you buy a ticket for the day you feel like you really have to see everything to get your money’s worth. With so many zoo trips this summer we definitely exceeded the worth of the pass but could do it on our terms with many short trips. I used to hate the zoo as a kid because it was always so hot and it felt like we never stopped walking. It’s so nice to run in for a couple hours, let Jack play in the Kids Kingdom, see a few of the animals or walk through the PPG Aquarium then go home for lunch and a nap.
Another perk about the pass is that you are invited to Member’s Only Nights. We got to experience the Zoo in the evening after it closed. It was so much cooler once the sun set a bit and we didn’t have to deal with huge crowds. There were food deals, with cheap hot dogs, boxes of popcorn and drinks.
Jack even got his face painted! There were face painting stations all over and after seeing a few young kids getting it done we thought we’d try it with our 21-month old! He did so great! He sat on my lap and the artist moved so quickly! He became our own little tiger! It was so cute…until we had to wash his face. I’ll leave that photo there for a laugh.
We always have such a blast at the Zoo and I’m so thankful for our membership! Next, I’m looking forward to the Zoo Boo in October!
This kid is the King of Selfies. I’m not sure if I should be proud or ashamed. Total millennial…or I guess he’ll be called something else. I need to look that up. Can you imagine anything worse than a Millennial? *Basically no, because we’re the worst, right?
*Note the sarcasm. I really hate all the Millennial bashing that goes on!
This may have to do with the fact that I’m packing up all my STUFF and moving in with my parents because I charged too much of that aforementioned STUFF. But it could also be the fact that it totally shows how we are constantly told over and over that STUFF is good. “Keep buying more and more STUFF. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have room for it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t need it. It doesn’t matter if you can’t afford it. Just get more and more of it. Look how perfect life will look from this very stylized and perfect commercial.”
I’ve been so susceptible to this kind of advertising (including the very cleverly disguised ads called blogs and Pinterest). I know and have known since college that I need to pay off my student loans. That should be priority #1. But it has never totally convinced me that my money should go to those (justifiable?) loans. I always wanted STUFF. New clothes, every Apple device ever created, make up, shoes. As I got older that STUFF became weirder and weirder (which I’m attributing to blogs): recycled organic toilet paper that I special ordered from Amazon, a top of the line juicer, body soap made from organic olive oil, a baby bathtub that is actually the size of our real bathtub. WTF??? Seriously, WTF is wrong with me? Then I see ads like this and it’s like “DOH!”.
I have to retrain my way of thinking. Everyday I need to practice minimalism and think about simplifying life. I need to constantly think about how much better life will be without the burden of stuff (=debt).
After being on my summer bucket list for a few years now, I finally made it to the Fridays at the Frick! It was worth the wait! We had so much fun hanging out on the grounds of Henry Clay Frick’s Clayton house.
The Frick Art and Historical Center is a true gem of Pittsburgh. The home is open for tours, but I knew that would be too much for Jack to handle and not worth buying tickets. Luckily, we could enjoy the beautiful space this summer for free with a kid-friendly picnic! Each Friday of the summer the grounds are open and offer yard games for kids, plus food trucks stop by! Next year I hope we can go for the First Fridays at the Frick when there is live music.
I loved the simplicity of the event. It was just come as you are and do what you want. This isn’t a public park (like Frick Park) so I really appreciated that the grounds were open, allowing anyone to enjoy this amazing space. I kept thinking about the history here and who else picnicked on these lawns. However, I am a proud union member so I can’t forget the history of Frick with steel worker unions but I guess time heals!
The lawn games were so much fun, even for a 20-month old! Jack had a blast playing with the hula hoop and running through the ribbon spider web. And our picnic was just idyllic. We felt thrifty while still being surrounded by such decadence! I hope we can make this a yearly summer event!
My grandparents have been so amazing with Jack. I truly thank God that I’m able to see them interact together, as I know a lot of people, including the Ginger, lost their grandparents long before they even thought of having kids. Every Thursday Jack and I spend the morning with my Nona and Papap. We usually go to Eat’n Park for breakfast then the park or if it’s raining we go to the indoor play area at the mall.
My Papap has Alzheimer’s and it’s been really hard for everyone, especially my Nona. But when Jack is around my Papap is so different. He has so much fun with him and remembers things they did the week before. My Nona constantly tells me how Jack has made such a difference in their lives. I am so in love with this little boy that plays every week with his Papap and take his Nona by the hand just to be close to her. I hope we have many, many, many more Thursdays together.
At the beginning of the summer my sister moved to Chicago. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in May and started working at Yelp in June! What a big transition and an amazing opportunity. Everyone is so proud of her hard work and adventurous spirit. We miss her like crazy, but it’s given us a good excuse to visit her and the cool city!
Instead of a big vacation this year, my family decided to take a few short trips to Chicago to visit Hope. After our first visit in June to help her move in we planned a longer trip for July. Jack and I went up for a few days before the rest of my family arrived and we had so much fun soaking in as much Zia (aunt) time as possible! I’m so glad for the bond that Jack and Hope share. He truly looks up to her and she loves him beyond measure.
Hope took us to some of her favorite new spots, including a vegan cafe to get THE BEST chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever had (sorry, Mom). We also go to visit Hope’s office in the Merchandise Mart, right in the middle of the city! (Fun Fact: the Merchandise Mart was so big when it was built that it was given it’s own zip code!) It was awesome to see the Yelp offices, which give their employees free breakfast and lunch everyday, as well as barista-made coffee! Jack loved checking out Zia’s desk and hanging out with her co-workers!
Since, Hope had to work while we were there, Jack and I got to explore some of the city on our own. We used our Carnegie Museum pass from back home to get into the Field Museum for free! We saw the dinosaur bones and explored the Africa exhibit. Jack is still a bit young to really appreciate museums, but I want to get him used to the spaces and it was also nice to get out of the heat! The next day we went to Lincoln Park and saw the working farm right in the middle of the city as part of the Lincoln Park Zoo! We even got to feed hay to the cows!
For the weekend, the rest of the family arrived. Hope took us to some hip restaurants and showed us around her new city. On our final day we spent some time at Lake Michigan to cool off and then we were on our way back to the ‘Burgh! It was such a nice little family vacation and I’m excited for many more trips to Chi-Town!
I’m starting a new series of the some of the cool places that Jack and I go to with my mom group. Ok first off, is it weird I’m in a mom group? It sounds weird. But it’s hard being the first out of my friend group to have a kid and I needed to hang out with other moms! I found the group on Meetup.com and was initially a little worried about meeting people online. But the group I joined, Hip Mamas (eye-roll at the name, I know), has a really good plan in place for accepting new members. There’s a questionnaire to fill out and before you can see the group events with times and locations you attend one intro event so that the group can meet you and be sure you’re not a creeper without a kid. There’s also a small yearly fee for group parties and to maintain the page.
We’ve had a lot of fun so far and have tried out some cool places that I might not have taken Jack to otherwise. I am such a shy person so it’s not been easy to make any close friendships with the moms yet, but it’s still good for both Jack and I to be around other families. This summer we went to an event at the Warhol.
If you didn’t already know, Andy Warhol is from Pittsburgh and we have a whole museum (and a bridge) dedicated to the famous artist. Recently, the museum opened an exhibit geared towards kids. I have taken Jack to the Warhol before,using our Carnegie Museum pass, but it was before this new exhibit and we were excited to see it. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I was overwhelmed with excitement after experiencing it. The kid room had a bunch of stations with toys, mostly from Ikea, around the room. There was a dress-up station, coloring station, block station. Jack did have fun with the other kids in our group. It was actually one of the biggest group events of the summer with at least 10 kids. The staff in the room seemed a bit overwhelmed with all of us.
The toughest part of the exhibit is being so close to the real Andy Warhol work hung on the walls. They were all put at kid level, but anytime the kids went near the walls the staff would tell us to keep them at least 2 feet back. That’s a bit tough with a 20-month old (as you can see above)! The exhibit is a neat idea and I hope the Warhol continues to try to be more kid-friendly, but this wasn’t a total win in my book. The big thing that Jack loves in the Warhol, though, is the silver cloud room. We could have spent all day in there. Same with the other kids, from the youngest in a stroller to the 7-year-olds.
Before we left we grabbed a snack from the cafe. Is it weird I completely love museum cafes? They always have the best food! I mean look at that sugar cookie shaped like Andy! Anyways, we did have fun, despite a little worry about ruining priceless artwork.
Jack is such a water baby! He loves to swim, play in sprinklers, and best of all, take baths! This might not be the case when he’s like 10, but right now he’s all about bath time! Also, he just started saying “Duck” and he gets SO excited when he sees his rubber ducky so he can shout “Duuuuck!”. It’s ridiculously adorable. When he starts quacking I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it!
This past summer, my sister and I started a new Instagram account together,@HousesOfPittsburgh. We’ve always admired the cool houses in our hometown of Pittsburgh, so one day while walking around the city we just started taking pictures of every cool house we saw and decided to start a gallery. A lot of cities have their own Insta pages (@HousesOfChicagoHouses Of London, etc etc etc) and we thought it was about time for Pittsburgh! And who better to do it than us?!
It’s been a blast to explore new parts of the city that I might not have ventured to otherwise. And the best part is that we made it really interactive, starting our own hashtag (#HousesOfPGH) so that others can share their favorite houses in the ‘Burgh. I really love seeing all the photos that people are sharing and admire how people take care of their beautiful, historic homes!
There are just so many benefits to having this little account for me. It’s very motivational to get out there in the city, especially when it’s too hot or I’m tired and don’t feel like doing anything, I can remind myself that I need a few new photos! Also, I love showing off Pittsburgh. It hasn’t always had the best reputation for being pretty city, but it is seriously drop. dead. gorgeous. now! I’ve been so inspired by the @SteelCityGrammers and wanted to be an additional source of pride for our beautiful city! And it’s a good reminder of Pittsburgh for my sister while she’s living in Chicago, post-grad. There’s also a very personal reason for maintaining this account…it’s motivation to become debt free so that I can manage to buy my own house in Pittsburgh. I really want to own a home and make it mine, but I can’t do that realistically with the debt I have. I need to look at this account every day for the next 18 months (while living with my parents) to encourage me to pay down debt and save, save, save so that I can enjoy a beautiful home of my own with my little family.
I’m ready for a fresh start. I need it for so many reasons, the first probably being the most relatable, a new season. Autumn has always been my favorite season and I’m eager to jump in to colder weather, sweaters, hot apple cider, pumpkin spice whatever and all that jazz. But, September also brings some big changes in life and so I’m trying to soak up the last bits of summer in the city.
Right now we’re living in Lawrenceville, an area that has been completely revitalized and has become beyond hip. There’s a movie theater, bowling alley, pinball shop, too many bars and restaurants to count, several playgrounds and parks all within biking distance to work. But all of these amenities, plus renovated 100-year old houses comes with a price tag. With a husband in grad school and a baby to take care of at home (equaling less freelance work) means we can no longer afford that price tag. So after a year in the coolest part of town, we’re moving into a new place with my parents. Luckily, our lease is up and my parents are getting a townhouse, further outside of the city, with enough room for us. We’ll still pay rent, but it will be quite lower and we’ll have built in babysitting. It’s a good plan. I know it is, but it’s hard at 28 years-old 27-years old (for another week) to move back in with my parents. I’ve been on my own since college. I never went back home like a lot of people do to save money…so I’m doing it now, just a bit later.
I’m also ready for a new work schedule. I’ve been on a weird rotation of 3-11pm and 11pm-7am shifts. It’s been completely wacky and hard to manage with a family, but we’ve made it work up until now. Fingers crossed, I’ll have a consistent 3-11pm schedule starting in October with regular days off. I think it’s going to make a world of difference in my happiness level.
So with my favorite weather, a solid plan to get out of debt and a better work schedule I’m ready to rock this fresh start!
We are so lucky to live in such a diverse city with neighborhoods full of different cultures and nationalities. This weekend we explored Bloomfield on the East Side of Pittsburgh for it’s annual Little Italy Days. It’s a great street festival along Liberty Avenue full of Italian foods, music and games.
We watched a round of the Bocce Ball tournament and made plans to learn one day! We ate Italian Ice, which Jack thoroughly enjoyed. And we even sat down for an Elvis impersonator concert. The best part of the day was riding the little train that traveled the length of the festival street and back again. I love showing off my city to this little boy, hopefully instilling in him a love for Pittsburgh even stronger than mine!
Kennywood is a summer tradition for PIttsburghers. The Ginger and I took Jack for his first visit this year and he loved it! True Pittsburgher!
Kennywood is an amusement park that opened in 1898. It has so much history and so many memories for me and my family and I was thrilled to show it off to Jack! We did all of our favorites, stopped by Cowboy Joe to say hi, ate corndogs and Potato Patch Fries and rode as many rides as we could handle!
We spent much of the day in Kiddie Land where he rode almost everything! He didn’t want to get off the rides so he rode a few rides more than once! But he had so much fun and never stopped smiling!
To end the day we rode the Carousel. It was always the last ride my family would go on when we had Kennywood Days. Even my grandparents would ride! I’m so happy we carried on this little tradition with Jack! I’m so looking forward to the many years of Kennywood trips with this little guy!
One of my favorite parts about living in the city this summer has been the ease of riding our bikes. I started riding to work several days a week and it’s a completely different commute experience.
But my favorite rides are with the family. We have a little seat for Jack on the front of my bike and he LOVES it! He’s all about the wind in his face and pointing out he river and the passing boats. We’ve been taking a great route from Lawrenceville, crossing the 40th Street Bridge to the Millvale Riverfront Park and riding the trail next to the Allegheny River. Then we get to the North Shore, loop around at Heinz Field and turn back for home, stopping for photos, of course!
I really cherish these moments with my family.When we go on these rides I feel like am the parent I want to be. I don’t always do the things I imagined I would when I became a parent. More often than I ever planned Jack is watching Daniel Tiger on TV or on the iPad, he’ll sometimes have crackers and peanut butter for dinner when he refuses everything else, and I sometimes go days without storytime. I feel bad for these things, but that’s life sometimes. I can’t be the perfect parent that I have in my mind and I’m learning the balance. But when we ride our bikes I’m exactly who I want to be, bringing this great experience to my kid. I hope he remembers these trips fondly when he’s older. I love that we’re taking advantage of our city, getting exercise and having fun all together minus screens.
In regards to Jack’s bike seat, we love it! I did a lot of research on which seat to buy and for me I felt more comfortable with Jack in front where I can see him. I have no trouble with balance, but I’m careful getting on and off my bike. He’s getting taller and we already bought a bike trailer off of a family friend for the future. But for right now our little seat for him is great. While on a ride once we had someone comment on how unsafe the front seat is, but families abroadhave been doing this for years and years. I feel safe in my ability to ride my bike and Jack’s temperament in sitting still in the seat.
Watched: Jack play in his newly set up water table outside Listened: to a Rodrigo y Gabriela Pandora station Ate: this trifle Read: blogs rather than my renewed book from the library #fail Drank: half a glass of spiked iced tea (and then realized I’m a wimp and switched to rootbeer) Thought: about visiting Chicago this week!! Wished: I saw my grandparents on Thursday rather than being busy and tired Realized: I will never be able to go camping with my family without using vacation days because my weekend is in the middle of the week Bought: groceries to start a new round of the #Whole30
So ready to celebrate ‘Murica! This has always been my favorite holiday and I’m excited to celebrate it with my family and friends! I’m looking forward to a quiet morning with the Ginger and Jack then a picnic at a dear friend’s house, followed by a low-key evening, maybe watching fireworks…probably watching TV, at my parent’s place! Not an epic plan for today, but awesome none-the-less.
(Also, I love that the only “patriotic” photo I could find involves stuffing one’s face and breast pumps in the background. #honestmotherhood)
I am still getting the hang of this whole parenting gig, and I don’t believe I have much advice to give with complete confidence, except for this: buy a museum pass.
This past January, I bought a family pass (which is really just two adults because Jack is young enough to get in for free) and it has been a lifesaver. On days where I know if I spend one more minute in the house I’ll explode then I can take him to any of the four museums in our area that are included in my membership (the Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum of Natural History, Science Center and the Warhol).
At first I worried that, at 14-months, Jack would be too young, but I haven’t found that to be true at all. He always enjoys our trips, but even if he does get fussy, I don’t feel bad that we might leave after 20-minutes because I didn’t have to pay $15 to get in for the whole day. In the number of times since January that we’ve used the pass, the membership has already paid for itself. And I am in NO way being paid to say this, I just really love my museum pass and felt like sharing!
For the most part we’ll spend about 3-hours in the museum. I usually bring the stroller, but sometimes it’s easy to just carry him in the Ergo. His favorite is the Science Center and I’m sure it will remain that way as he gets older. It’s nice to watch him interact with everything and explore. I’m really looking forward to getting a pass every year and introducing Jack to all the culture and learning that is housed in these places.
This is the pass that I have in Pittsburgh, and it does work at over 300 places outside of city.
