Chuck E Cheese

We had never taken the boys to Chuck E Cheese before, but I had a coupon for a large pizza, 4 drinks and 30 tokens for $20, so we decided to take the boys last Saturday. Needless to say they LOVED it and here are a few pictures:

Once we left, the boys passed out in the car almost immediately so we decided to drive around and window shop a couple of neighborhoods we have been thinking about for when our house sells in TX and we can get our own place here. We weren't far away, so we headed up Mt. Washington to take a few pictures on the way home.

Fourth of July

We didn't have any big plans for the Fourth so we we spent the a.m. washing the cars. We all had a car to wash - even the boys!

Logan and Tolan scrubbed down the Jeep.And Justin had to try out my dad's power washer....

while Tolan tried out his lawn mower.

When we first got married we had 2 cars. When we moved to Hawaii we sold them both and just bought one when we got there instead of paying thousands of $ to ship one from the east coast. So ever since then we have only had one car. FINALLY after a few years we are back to having two cars! Justin was going to blog about his new car, but hasn't gotten around to it, so I'll just post a couple of pictures for him.

Its a 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid and we spent a couple of weeks debating b/t this car and a Prius. But we chose this one and have had no regrets! Justin drives a lot for work (not even counting his one-hour plus commute to work) so we definitely needed something with good gas mileage and it has been great so far. We've only had it a few weeks and he's already put 2000 miles on it.

We tortured Erin with sparklers the night before, but we still had a "Caveman Party" firecracker thing, so we set it off before heading to the real fireworks.

Judging by the name, the packaging and the price, we didn't have very high expectations, but it turned out to be better than we thought!

Then we went to the fireworks in Ford City with my parents and tried to get some pictures. I ALWAYS have my eyes closed in pictures and especially at night b/c the flash is so bright....so this was the best picture we got! And Logan was totally not into having his picture taken that night either.
Hope you all had a great Fourth!

Our 3rd of July

Justin and my dad were both off on Friday, so we braved the weather, the path of the detour on 28, and the crowds - and went to the zoo. The weather turned out pretty well - we only got sprinkled on a couple of times and it was about 70 degrees. The detour on 28 is ridiculous, but what can you do? And the crowds weren't TOO bad. It was crowded but not crazy. However, it was crowded enough that I didn't stop to take many pictures and didn't take any of the kids at all. Lame, I know.

But the animals were happy to see some sunshine after a rainy week and were all out for everyone to see. This lion was really putting on a good show. He came right up to the edge of the cliff and just ROARRRed at the crowd for a couple of minutes. I think the boys thought it was a little scary. But it was good b/c they are usually just sleeping under a tree in the back corner.

I have to give some credit to the Pittsburgh Zoo. It is an excellent zoo and we are glad to finally be living somewhere with a good zoo!

Later that night after the boys went to bed Justin and I went out a little fiesta hosted by Erin and Erin. I know a lot of Erins.

We had to stop at Walmart on the way and remembering that this Erin HATES sparklers, I couldn't resist, and stopped by the tent of fireworks in the parking lot and picked up a couple of boxes. I'm such a nice friend!

Here she is braving a sparkler. And below is April chasing her with one.

She made Justin sample her Caramel Apple Surprise....anything with surprise in the title is risky, but luckily it was a good surprise. It's the same thing as "Sinfully Silly Snickers Salad" which I have made in the past....basically apples, snickers, and cool whip. Yum!

We all give Erin a hard time, but she is a good friend!

Erin and April and I have been friends since 7th grade....what is that? 15 or 16 years or something?? Eventhough our lives are all completely different from eachother now, it's nice to be together again.

Family Time

We spent a Saturday afternoon at Justin's parents a couple of weeks ago. I took a little snooze on the couch while Justin spent some quality time with the boys.

The boys had been waiting to ride the lawnmower with Grandpa Shook, so now was their chance

And there they all are - 3 generations hangin' out. I love Logan in this one!

Idlewild

There is a small amusement park here that designed for little kids, called Idlewild. We had some friends with season passes and on Mondays they can bring friends for free - so my mom and I went along for a fun day for the kiddos.

After an hour and a half in the car on windy & hilly Pennsylvania roads, Tolan puked as soon as we pulled into a parking spot. Off to a great start - so after a little clean-up we hit the park!

They liked the train the most in Storybook Forest

Logan tried the bumper cars. It took a minute but he kind of got the hang of it. He really liked it and Tolan was mad that he didn't get to do it too.

So we made sure the next ride was something Tolan could participate in.
Tolan thought the rides were GREAT and screamed and cried every time their turn was over
Luckily there was no line at the motorcycles so they got to ride 3 or 4 times and one of each color.

We spent at least half of the day in the waterpark area. We got to this huge set up with all kinds of things going on and both of the boys just took off at once. I caught up to Tolan but couldn't get to Logan too. So I kept looking and looking for Logan and after a couple of minutes I saw him sitting, crying, at the bottom of this huge waterslide. Apparently he had climbed to the top and gone down all by himself! I guess he didn't know what he was really getting into!

Logan told me all day that he wanted to go on the rollercoaster. After we were done in the water, he still insisted that he wanted to go. He was tall enough, so I took him. It wasn't a big rollercoaster or anything, but he's 3. So again, I don't think he really knew what he was getting into. He did alright on the first drop but then it kept going and whipping us around bends and up and down hills. I think he was scared, but when we got off he said it was "awesome!" We checked out the picture they take of you and according to his face it didn't look like he was having such an awesome time!

After that he rode the whip with my mom and then it was time to go home!

FuN DaY!

Snack Bags

This post is long overdue. A while ago I posted about wanting to make some bags that I could use for snacks instead of always using ziplocs. I did manage to get some done before we moved, but haven't posted it yet.

Here they are. I went with buttons b/c velcro is too noisy for church, and I wanted the front to fold over so there was something to hold onto when the bag is open.

The other benefit of the big flap is that it allows some room for spillage if the bag gets dropped.

The flap also folds over the front piece a little bit so nothing spills out when the bag is buttoned.

The bags have a nice flat, square bottom so they don't tip over and they fold down flat for storage when you aren't using them.

I used an 8x8 square of fabric for the front and an 8x12 for the back. I used rolled hems and a boxed bottom. I put iron-on nylon on the liner before sewing it all together - this is the only thing I don't like about the bags. The iron-on nylon doesn't hold up in the wash very well. If I were making them again I would find something else to use. But the nylon did make the bags nice and stiff to stay open and stand upright - so you would at least want to use some good interfacing between the layers if you were going to skip the nylon. If you want to try making them and need some more detailed instructions just let me know!

I think they turned out really well and the boys really like them!