Happy Birthday to Me!

     As a mom you start to focus on everyone else's birthday instead of your own and this year Hubby was supposed to have some work stuff to do and was going to miss my birthday. This didn't happen though because his schedule changed and so we had a nice dinner out even though the kids had already picked out a gift for me a few days prior (a stuffed Toothless from "How to Train your Dragon" and a Starbucks card), hubby showed up with some truffles and more Starbucks for me and I got to pick out a Pittsburgh Pirates Jersey since I had been wanting one.
     We had a cake and the kids sang to me at work which is always a blast! Some of the preschoolers also made me cards in the morning which was adorable!

Blowing out my candles!

Froggie having some of my cake!

Big Brother showing off his icing face!

     It was a great birthday and I have (less than) 365 days until I'm 30 - at some point once I'm feeling more caught up I will post my list of 30 things to do this year!

Resolutions 2014

     Now that we're 15 days into the new year I suppose I could discuss my resolutions. I'm not resolving to be more organized, lose weight, cut anything out, etc. I'm resolving to run a half marathon by the end of the year. Today I busted out my Christmas presents for the first time, loaded up iPod, new running shoes and my watch and headed to the gym. I had a nice, but short, run since it was our first time at the Y and we needed to get the kids dinner.

Christmas gear in action

After my first run of the year.

     It was nice to be running again, it's been since my 5k on Thanksgiving that I've been running. On a sort of related note I signed Hubby and I up for the Pittsburgh Pirates 5k Home Run AND a box full of running gear showed up on my doorstep today as well!

New Gear!

Beautiful Weather, Pirate Baseball, LBM's and Government Shut Downs

     With the temperatures in the low 70's I'm starting to wonder if Fall decided to take a vacation. I'm not going to complain about it though and it makes for beautiful afternoons.
     So I decided to walk the kids to the park furthest from our house so that I could get in some exercise and they could play. It was a nice walk and Froggie fell asleep while Big Brother tried to point me in the direction of the park every couple minutes. Hubby met us there and we enjoyed the park for a little while. I decided that I also wanted to take pictures of the kids.
     Big Brother went first and I had to bribe him with the offer of a new cup to get him to participate. Luckily I pulled his camel back bottle out of the cupboard and he doesn't remember the 1 other time he used it so he was really excited about his new water bottle.
     Froggie was up and she really liked playing in the grass and trying to eat it. Hubby and I were pulling her hands away from her mouth the entire time and she would crawl a little then sit back up with a handful of grass. At one point she found a mushroom, an LBM to be exact. LBM stands for Little Brown Mushroom and covers any small brown mushroom since they all look the same. This is good and bad. Good because they're common so we were able to find another very close to the one she grabbed to have. Bad because not only did she find a LBM she was chewing on it... LBM's range from harmless to poisonous and after 15 minutes of searching for the type of mushroom on the internet I found a site about LBM's.
     After reading a little I decided we should probably take Froggie in to the ER to be checked out since I didn't know which type of LBM she had chewed on and I wasn't sure if she'd actually swallowed any of it since I had nearly gaged her trying to get all the little pieces out of her mouth. Big Brother didn't want to leave the park and, honestly, we were pretty abrupt in our decision to go. Once we got in the car I had Hubby call poison control (I didn't immediately think about poison control for a mushroom, but I'm glad we called).
     The woman was really very calm and nice. She was patient when Hubby asked to put her on speaker phone so that I could hear what she had to say. She was very insistent that we didn't need to go to the ER (yet) and that observation would be suitable for the time being. We were instructed to look for vomiting, diarrhea, signs of nausea and abnormal behavior. If we noticed any of these things in the next 24 hours we were directed to contact her doctor/head to the ER.
     When we started unloading the car at home Hubby tossed my picked mushroom into the yard (I almost strangled him!) and then started kicking around the grass for it when I explained that we should keep it until we know that she isn't going to have to go to the doctors. I was pretty angry that he hadn't even thought about keeping it until we knew Froggie was ok (it must have been a mom moment) but after asking where he had thrown it from I picked up something of a similar weight and tossed it from the same spot and TADA mushroom found... It's now in it's own little bag in the fridge until about 6:30 tomorrow evening.
     Froggie has been fine so far but I will probably still not sleep much tonight since I'll be in observation mode... At least now I have the blog to work on and Pirates baseball to watch while Froggie sleeps in Hubby's lap. The Pirates are in the playoffs for the first time since I was 11 and they're holding strong so far! I wore my Pirates gear to work today and if Hubby didn't have to wear his uniform and I wasn't afraid that Big Brother would ruin his Jersey EVERYONE would have had pirates gear on today. Big Brother did sport his Pirates hat, which is amazing since he rarely wants to wear anything but his Lightening McQueen hat.
     Speaking of uniforms... Hubby is still heading into work though some of his civilian co-workers have been sent home. If you weren't aware the federal government shut down today it has... lots of things are closed or have lost funding/priority. If Hubby's school schedule wasn't up in the air before it is now and we're back to waiting to see what's going to happen.
     Ok... That's enough for now, I'm off to obsessively stare at Froggie for the rest of the night!

Climbing at the playground

My favorite!

Love this little girl!

My cute crawling girl

Chasing my camera

Mushroom Mouth!

Froggie's First Day Trip

*** TONS of photos in this entry!***

Getting ready for our day.

On the road

     Today we did something that we haven't done maybe ever. We took off from work and went for a day trip on a week day as a family. We "slept in" till 8 and got up and packed our stuff up, ate breakfast and loaded the car. We headed south for Pittsburgh to spend the day in the city. Hubby is in the Navy so we took advantage of free Military admission to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. We had a picnic lunch before heading in which was super simple.
     It was a blast! It was a lot of fun for everyone and there was SO much to do. Even Froggie seemed to enjoy it! (The only downfall was that at this point I realized I packed my Camera and extra lens but left the camera battery on the table. So all cell phone shots it was.... I'm kind of a picture snob so this was REALLY hard for me!)

the ceiling in the studio!

Big Brother wanted to paint first!

Mr. Rogers' sweater!

Feeding Clifford

Froggie & Big Brother with Clifford

Froggie having fun

Making bubbles with a new friend

Froggie and I in the garden

Hubby & Big Brother in the water play room

Big Brother found a boat

Filling a bucket

Watching the big kids play in the water

Drying off

Playing with sand

Froggie food break

Big Brother climbing in the wall

Neat video wall with letters

We parked in the fish lot!

     After we left the Children's Museum we had another quick snack in the car so that we could wait a little later to eat dinner at the game. Once we found parking and walked a block or so to PNC Park we strolled around a bit and got some free drawstring bags from the State farm table and headed for the river walk. It was also Free Shirt Friday so after we stashed away our shirts and acquired gear we actually got to check out the Riverwalk. We  were able to walk around there for a bit before the gates opened and even found a playground which was perfect for entertaining Big Brother.

     We had bought standing room only tickets so once the gates opened we headed for the main concourse to get something to eat. After a nice woman and her mother gave us their table we sat down to eat. We had to bribe Big Brother to eat a nugget and some Fries by letting him eat half a jar of Froggie's banana baby food - hey, whatever works right? 

     After finding a nice spot to watch the game we pretty much stayed put. Froggie did great until the very end and Big Brother had a few periods of being cranky that were quickly resolved by a snack or walk to one of the gift shops.

Froggie's finished shirt!

Welcome to the park

Hubby & Froggie

Playing in the park

Watching the Gateway Clipper

Dinner at the game

The Ergo works for Big Brother too

Froggie's 1st game

Family picture time

Cheese face!

Froggie and Big Brother showing off their new bats

Big Brother and his new bat

Froggie and her new bat

Froggie and Big Brother outside of PNC Park

     It was a GREAT day despite our late return home. We'll have to plan another day trip, maybe one including the Steelers 5K in a couple weeks! 

Feeling Crafty

     Because I'm super excited about tomorrow and our outing I decided to get a little crafty.
     We'll be heading to Pittsburgh for the day to explore the Children's Museum and then head to a Pirates game. It will be a long day but I'm hoping it will also be lots of fun. Big Brother, Hubby and I all have Pirates gear to wear and Froggie has some hand-me-down onesies/rompers but I decided she needed something she could wear pants with just incase it's chilly since it's a night game and PNC Park is right on the river. One of our dogs decided to jump on me while I was outlining the shirt and smudged the paint so I'm planning to ad a bow. I was also going to write something on the back but I don't know if it would be possible since the front needs to dry before I can do anything on the back.

     Big Brother decided to be crafty tonight too. He wanted to make a handprint bear. Something I'd done with my kids at school today. So we made a bear and brought out his art box and opened his new scissors. I think he found a new favorite thing to do and the poor kid cried when he had to pack up his art supplies.