We are going to welcome a little girl to our family in May!! We waited to tell the family on Christmas day! We wrapped up a Christmas dress for our baby girl and had our whole family open it, not knowing whether is was a suit or dress inside! We made everyone tell us their guess before opening it and the unanimous thought was a girl! Everyone was right and we couldn’t be more excited to add to our family!
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.
