The First Sledding!

Breaking news! It finally snowed enough last night (although just barely so) to go sledding this morning! Fortunately the schools complied and we had a two hour delayed start (although they still get out at the regular time.)

Of course Grady, being the expert that he is, had plenty of advice to offer to Alice! HA!! HA!!


The snow was pretty sticky so we had a hard time getting started. Once we did there was no going back!! Later on, I moved us to a different part of the yard. If the children dropped their sled, it scooted down through the trees almost to the storm drain and creek below.

Alice and Pryor took off their mittens so they didn't last long although we were very busy!!

They decided this snowman looked like a girl so they named her Suzy. Not sure where that name came from. Grady gave her his hat. They added more rocks for buttons later on, but it's snowing right now and I don't feel like going out and taking another picture! :)

Pryor loved taking snow, putting it in his shovel and throwing it!! We spent an exhuasting hour or more outside, raced inside for a second (or in Alice's case first) breakfast and made it to the bus stop right as it pulled up. PHEW!

Pryor Sings

Pryor wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas-y Things

We decorated the tree while the Arnold's were here over Thanksgiving. We had a great time cutting it down and putting up the ornaments.

This year, I'd say the children did over half of the ornaments. Since I'm a big-time control freak when it comes to my Christmas tree, it was an incredible release and act of love for my children that I let them hang so many. I didn't even re-hang that many - ha ha! This tree is so much smaller than our ones in years past that there were many ornaments that are still in their boxes.

Stephen's Aunt Kathy gave us this singing, jingling snowman and barking dog several years ago. It is one of the children's favorite Christmas decorations! Pryor "discovered" it this year and loves it so he is into hugging it while it plays. He laughs and laughs!

Grady and Alice had "Holiday Shoppe" at school today. The PTO buys items from the Dollar Store for $0.90 and sells it to the children for $1 as a little fund raiser for the children. I gave each of them $5 to get things for our family. Well, they both were so excited - and it was really cute to see what they bought! I won't give away the surprise but suffice it to say they loved the whole experience. When they got home they wrapped them and put name tags on them. They carefully put them under the tree - they thought they were so big! I thought Holiday Shoppe would be a waste of time and money - but the experience has been great for the children!

Science Museum, Part Two

We went back to the Science museum last Sunday and came upon a HUGE crowd. I guess everyone had family in town and went to the museum on Sunday morning. We went upstairs to the 4th floor which was the only level we hadn't seen the previous visit. They had all the basic elements of a basic children's museum and the children had a great time.
Grady of course enjoyed the ball area where they have a series of pulleys and buckets to bring all the balls to a large container up above which periodically empties out. They all played in there for a while.

Alice decided to make a room with these large blocks.

Pryor LOVED the water table and spent the most time there. They did have bibs, but he still got sopping wet.

Pittsburgh Creche

While we were downtown we walked to visit the Pittsburgh creche that I had read about. They had Handel's Messiah playing. The "stable" was huge and really breath-taking. I just looked up info about it and thought I would just cut and paste it below:

The Pittsburgh Crèche is the world’s only authorized replica of the crèche erected in front of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. First erected in 1999 through the work of the Christian Leaders Fellowship, the Crèche features larger-than-life-size renderings of the Holy Family, the magi, an angel, shepherds, animals and a stable, along with a professional sound and lighting system. Pietro Simonelli, sculptor of the original Vatican crèche, created the figurines, which have lifelike hands, feet and faces made from clay and weather-proofed papier-mâché placed on a wooden frame. The stable design is also taken directly from Vatican blueprints.

Macy's Pittsburgh T-giving Parade

We had a fabulous (albeit cold) time at the parade on Saturday!

Pryor was transfixed by all the activity! Unfortunately we were sitting past where the TV crew was - so we had lots of gaps when groups were performing at the Macy's.

Alice was wearing her new Christmas outfit that I got in January. She was wanted to wear it all year and so did not want to cover it up with a coat (although it was 25 degrees! ) She did not want to wear a hat to cover up her bow or gloves. Needless to say she was cold! A slave to fashion at 5! She was the one who requested to go to a Christmas parade.

A brush with a celebrity! For those who don't know, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood was taped in Pittsburgh. Mr. McFeely (the mailman on the show) was in the parade! Not sure who the panda is supposed to be, though.

We loved seeing all the floats and big balloons. They also had several dog breed clubs - interesting. The children had a great time looking at everything! We got really cold sitting outside for 2 1/2 hours, so we decided to go into the Macy's to get warm. I was trying to get a better view of the parade by getting close to where all the action started. Well, while we were in there we heard that the parade was over!! We made our way out of the building just in time to see the big man himself! Phew!!

The day was saved by an official viewing of Santa!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

We had an unpleasant surprise - Grady got the stomach flu Wednesday night! He ended up feeling better by lunch but still didn't eat much.

Stephen's parents arrived Thursday afternoon while I was in mid-meal preparation. Patti brought a bunch of sides and I did the turkey, dressing and both potatoes. The Oeders, family friends who live nearby, were unexpectedly unable to join us so we had enough food to feed the masses!

I got a fresh turkey from the local farm and reserved a 19 pound turkey since I wanted to be sure to have leftovers. Well, I guess they were all really big this year and I ended up bringing home a 21 pounder!! We ate it all weekend, gave some to the Oeders, made turkey soup and just put some leftovers into the freezer!

We had a great time with the Arnolds: hit the mall early Friday morning, cut down our own Christmas tree Friday afternoon and went downtown to the Macy's Pittsburgh Thanksgiving Day Parade on Saturday morning. I'll post pictures of that later. They babysat for us Saturday night so we could go downtown and see Spamalot. It was excellent!!

The rest of the story is that Patti ended up with the stomach flu Saturday night, so she was out of commission on Sunday! So sad! We ended up going back to the Science museum with out them just to give the Arnolds some space. I've got some good pics I'll post later.

It was the first day of deer hunting today so the children had the day off of school. Of course! We actually had a very pleasant day and the children enjoyed watching White Christmas for the second time in two days. Gotta love Christmas movies!