Family Portraits 2011

Every year (since last year), we get our family portraits done in August. Last year, Brady was 6 months and we did the formal shots in blue, then did Penn State and Pitt shots. This year, we went with seafoam green (anyone who's seen our wedding shots knows we like seafoam), and then did some solo shots of Brady in his Steelers gear. We have to be careful with the colors we choose because of Andy's coloring, so it's pretty safe to say I'll never put Andy in red, but if I wear red, I would put him in black. Brady did much better than the last shoot of him in the sailor suit. There was no crying and since we did the family shots first, he got comfortable. He did get a little crazy when it was just him and I swear he was going to tear the background down. Below, I'll put a few of this years pictures and some from last year to compare. The rest will be on Facebook tomorrow.

Last year's formal shot

Penn State

Pitt Family

"You Wanna Hit It?"

Andy's Uncle Buks loves to go to the Pizza Hut lunch buffet. Whenever he asks one of the boys if they want to go with him, he says, "You wanna hit it?" They know it's code for the buffet. We've gone with him several times in Pittsburgh before we moved and Andy's brother, Pat, always tells us when Buks asks him to go.




We have a Pizza Hut less than a mile from our house, so we decided a while back that one day we would go to lunch there. Since it's only offered during the week, we would have to meet Andy there on his lunch break, something we only get to do occasionally now that we live in SC. Today was that day.



Brady usually doesn't get to see Andy until he gets home from work, so he was pleasantly surprised when he was there to meet us. Only problem was that whenever Andy tried to go up to the buffet, Brady would have a complete meltdown because he thought Andy was leaving. This meant I had to get Andy's food, which wasn't a big deal. Brady ate at least one piece of pizza and a good portion of a bread stick. He even ate some shredded cheese Andy brought back from the salad bar. It was really nice to get out and have a nice lunch as a family.

Our Healthy Eater

Andy and I weren't the thinnest kids in the world and as both of us are on weight watchers to help us lose weight, we have no idea where our skinny little boy came from. He weighs just under 24lbs and is a week away from turning 18 months, which would put him around the 25th percentile. He loves fruit and veggies and often his snack consists of grapes and cheese. When we go out and get him a kids meal in a restaurant, it always come with a side of broccoli and a fruit. When I put his chicken and pieces of broccoli and fruit in front of him, he will always choose the fruit and veggies over the meat and ask for more before he finishes his chicken. Just last night, when he had both green beans and chicken on his tray, he only chose to eat the green beans.

This past Tuesday, I was having back problems which prevented me from going to a Mom's Night Out with my mom's group. We were going to meet at someone's house and play board games. I had bought a veggie tray to take and when I didn't go, we broke it open to eat ourselves. It had peppers, snow peas, tomatoes, celery, broccoli, and baby carrots. Brady grabbed a stick of celery and went to town. He only has about 6 teeth so we figured he'd just gnaw on it and not really get any pieces off the stick. We were wrong. He broke it up really nicely. Hopefully his love for fruits and veggies will continue through his childhood and into adulthood.

Brady Tries Gymnastics

Today we went for a trial class at a gymnastics studio in Greenville. This was something I wanted to try with Brady since he's so active and does well with the climbing at Gymboree. The class was for walkers up to 3 years old and required parent participation. There were four other kids in the class and they were all at least a year older than Brady.

The first part was stretching and then going around a little obstacle course. There was a small trampoline, which Brady enjoyed, and he was even able to hold onto a bar and lift his feet up onto the same bar and hang like that. They had wedges that were for forward rolls, but Brady just wanted to run up and down them like at Gymboree. We tried getting him to do a roll, but he wouldn't cooperate.

The next part took us out into the main arena, where there was a long trampoline, which the kids were supposed to bounce down with their hands at their sides. Brady just wanted to run down it to the end. He's so fast now that I have to run to keep up with him. It wasn't long before I was sweating. They had a vertical ladder and he climbed all the way up, which was about 6 feet and that's something he learned from Gymboree.

The final activity was going over to this pit filled with large foam squares. The older kids use it when practicing new vaults so that they don't get hurt. They set up a slide for the little kids and they would slide down into the pit. It very much reminded me of the scene from A Christmas Story where they go down the slide after visiting Santa and are immediately stopped by fluff. Brady thought it was funny, but he wasn't able to get over to the side himself, so I had to go in after him every time. It was almost like quick sand because the squares are constantly moving, which makes it hard for you to get to the edge and even harder to pull yourself out.

One of the other moms was saying that her daughter wasn't grasping things until she turned about 2 1/2 and there was a 2 year old there who just wanted to run around like Brady. Since Brady is still young, we decided that we'll wait for a bit before signing up for something long term. By the time we get back from Germany, he will be much better at communicating and following directions, so that might be a good time to get him started again.

Fun with Links

Most of you with kids know about the packages of links they sell to help you attach toys to car seats. It's been almost a year since Brady was in his carrier car seat where we would use them, but he still loves to play with them. He chews on them when he wants to teeth and then we play around with them. When my mom was visiting, he wanted her to put them on his wrists and wanted as many as we could fit them on. When he had several on each wrist, it reminded me of bangles when we were kids. Maybe he's channeling the 80s through us, who knows? The other day, Andy was messing around with him and thought it would be funny to hook them on his ears to make it look like earrings. He put up to three on each ear. It was funny to watch because Brady would pull one off, then want us to put it right back on. Who would have thought that baby toys would still be amusing, but they are.

The Wave Pool & Ichiban

While we were in Pittsburgh, we thought it would be nice to go to the wave pool one day. It's pretty much the only public pool in the western part of Pittsburgh, so it's usually a mob scene. We had plans almost every single day we were home and when it came to the free day to hit the pool it was overcast with highs in the high 70s, which to us feels cold. We were going to lunch at Eat N Park and took our pool stuff in case it felt warm enough when we were done eating. It turned out that it was warm enough, even though it was still overcast. Because of this, it was probably the least crowded I've ever seen it there. This was really good for us because Brady wouldn't get knocked down by a never-ending wall of people in the water.



Brady loved the ocean, so we figured the wave pool would be a hit and we were right. The way it works is a bell rings signalling the start of the waves and then the wave cycle goes for about 15 minutes then it's calm for 15 minutes before it starts all over again. We happened to get to the water in the middle of a wave cycle. Brady was laughing hysterically and loving that he was getting knocked down by the waves. He would get up and go where they would hit him in the chest so he could get pushed down onto his belly. The only catch was that the floor is more slick than our normal pool, so when he would start to run, he would slip and fall down. When the waves stopped, he was not too happy about it and all he wanted to do was go out as far as he could. We figured he would stop when it got too high, but he wanted to keep going so he would be deep enough to swim. Crazy baby.



That night was also our last night before our return to South Carolina, so we met my dad after work at Ichiban, a hibachi restaurant. This is a rare treat for us and it seems we go right before every move. We went right before leaving for Michigan (Brady at 5 months), before leaving for SC (11 months), and then again before we head back to SC (17 months). If we weren't so lucky with Bosch letting us stay in the same location for a whole year, with Andy switching positions 6 months in, we would be moving again right now. Hard to imagine, since we're already dreading the moving and packing process around Christmas. Brady was still finishing the last of his baby food the last time we went and he had only 1 tooth poking through. This time, he was more than ready to eat. We didn't get him a meal, since we usually get more food than we can eat. I forgot to tell the waitress that I wanted steamed rice instead of the fried rice they make on the hibachi until the chef was out, so there was an extra portion and he gave it to Brady. He ate the whole thing and wanted more! He was intrigued by the fire they do on the hibachi the last two times, but this time, he was a little more concerned. He didn't cry, but he was definitely moving back. All in all, a great trip home. We'll be heading back in October (by plane this time since it's cheaper with gas prices) and excited to see Pitt football in action!

Phipps Conservatory

While we were in Pittsburgh, we decided that one day we would go into Oakland and visit Phipps Conservatory. It's situated between the campuses of Pitt and CMU and is somewhere that I've been going to since I was younger than Brady. It's beautiful even from the outside, so it was one of the many locations we used as the backdrop for our wedding pictures since it's a stone's throw from Heinz Chapel.






The theme this summer was sustainable gardens. This basically meant recycled items being used as part of the overall greenery. One of the most beautiful rooms had models dressed entirely out of greenery. There were so many cool rooms and the pictures speak for themselves.




Four years ago, the show was Gardens of Glass and it featured all blown glass pieces depicting flowers. It was hands down the best show I've ever seen there and Phipps retained several pieces that are still inside the greenhouse. They're pictured below.













On the way home, we had quite a bit of trouble because of roads closed for filming of The Dark Knight Rises. Bigelow Blvd in front of the Cathedral of Learning was completely closed off and filled with movie trailers. So we went another way that took us past Heinz Chapel and it was backed up and we noticed there were people and police everywhere. We looked and they had Fifth Ave closed off in front of the Mellon Institute (another wedding shoot location) and were filming! It was so cool and when my mom and I went to see Harry Potter the other night, we saw the first trailer and it was obvious they were still filming because there were no location shots. There was also a trailer for a movie called Abducted with Taylor Lautner that's also in Pittsburgh. Very cool.