I hope all of the moms out there had a fantastic Mother’s Day!

I actually was lucky enough to get one of my Mother’s Day gifts on Monday after Porter came home from daycare.  He made me flowers!

Aaron brought Porter into the house that afternoon and said, “Go give those to Mommy!”  But instead of giving them to me, he ran passed me and tried to put them in the garbage.  But I don’t care–I love them!

Yesterday as a pre-Mother’s Day treat, we went out to dinner at a place I had heard good things about called Burgatory.  They have amazing burgers (you can even create your own using a checklist with SO many delicious choices) and decadent shakes.  I designed my own burger (holy moley–delicious!) and for dessert I had the most intense milkshake I have ever had in my life.  Let me tell you about it.  Are you sitting down?  Okay…they take a chocolate cupcake made with East End Brewing Company Stout iced with what I believe was Irish Creme buttercream frosting from Dozen Bake Shop and then they blend it INTO A MILKSHAKE. I think they may even add more booze, but I didn’t care–it was ridiculously tasty!  Not something I could have often, but definitely a milkshake to remember!  Between the burger and the shake, I practically needed to be rolled out of there…so full of delicious goodness!  And I supported three Pittsburgh businesses all by consuming one beverage!

That evening with belly full, I got to relax and talk on the phone for 2.5 hours with one of my good friends that I haven’t talked to in months.  It was so fun to catch up.

This morning, I came downstairs to find that Aaron and Porter had gotten me one of my favorite plants–a hyacinth.

I was greeted with cards, hugs and kisses–always nice.  Aaron asked how I wanted to spend the day and since it was nice outside, I decided we should go to the park.  More than anything I just wanted to spend time outside with my boys.  The playground was empty, the weather was just right.  Porter had a blast.  I even went down the slide and rode the swings!  I even got to sneak away and take a little walk by the creek by myself.

After lunch, I took a nap–because I could!

Then we did a little shopping and ended the day at home, grilling out in the backyard and eating dinner on our back porch.  A perfect end to a perfect weekend.

My third Mother’s Day, my first in Pittsburgh, was definitely one I will remember!

You guys, I have to say that Porter’s party was the most fun we have had in a long, long time.

It really marks our first big get-together at our house here in Pittsburgh, it was my mom and brother’s first visit here and it was the first official party we have ever thrown for Porter!

Going into the weekend, I was feeling very behind.  Porter and I were sick the week prior so I had very little energy to prep for the party.  I chose napping myself at naptime instead of crafting Blue’s Clues stuff, which meant that I was scrambling at the last minute.  But at least I was well enough to scramble!

Once Porter went down for a nap on Saturday, we quickly got the house ready for the party.  When he woke up, we put on his very own “Steve” shirt (thanks, eBay!) and let him wander into the living room to see what was in store.

He noticed that Pail and Shovel were there with their pal, Slippery Soap.

Tickety Tock was there too!  And soon Porter started to get what was happening.  I told him that maybe he should check inside Sidetable Drawer…

Inside was Porter’s very own Handy Dandy Notebook!  Porter got VERY excited about this.  We told him to go to his Thinking Chair and he immediately went and sat in his red chair and started scribbling “clues” in his notebook.

Porter had other Blue’s Clues friends around too, like:

Snail!

And…

Mr. Salt, Mrs. Pepper, Paprika and Cinnamon!

We also put paw print “clues” around the house for Porter to find.  They didn’t lead to anything or need figuring out–just little paw prints for Porter to collect…

Porter was very excited about the clues, “Two clues, two clues!”

Naturally, Porter’s big gift from Mommy and Daddy was his very own Blue (thanks again, eBay!)

We had a great time mingling with friends and family at the party.  My family members drove about 500 miles from central New York state on Friday to be with us on Saturday.  Our friend Steven drove up from West Virginia for the party and some other friends came from all over town to spend this special time with Porter.  It was a small party, but it was relaxed and fun.

Soon, it was time for cake!  Porter wanted nothing to do with his booster seat and didn’t want the cupcake, but he really liked people singing to him and he blew out his own candle!

All in all, a really, really wonderful afternoon!

I’m going to do another post to tell you all about how I made all of these Blue’s Clues characters and the notebook.  I am still really sad that I ran out of time to make Mailbox and some letters (stupid cold) but Porter didn’t seem to mind.  He seemed to enjoy his special day just fine!

It is hard to believe that this tiny baby:

…has grown into this little man.

I love you, buddy!  It is hard to remember what life was like before you were here!

My in-laws are amazing people.  Not only did they create my husband, who I happen to find pretty swell, but they are also incredibly kind, generous and fun.  If you have been following the blog for a while, you may remember Thanksgiving 2008 during which they hid various baby toys, clothes, items all over our house for us to find days, weeks, months later!  See?  Fun stuff!

So the fun has started AGAIN–but this time through the mail!

During the last week of February, Porter received a card tightly sealed with a big “Do Not Open Until Feb. 25th!”  It arrived a few days prior, so we only had a couple of days to wait.  I’m not going to lie, it drove me nuts not knowing what was in there!

Quite honestly I was expecting to open the card for Porter and find a card that said, “Porter, Tell your mom to pick us up from the airport at 2pm!  Love, Mamaw and Papaw.”

BUT Porter got this instead:

February 25th was National Cuddle Day (mark your calendars for next year!) and Mamaw and Papaw gave Porter a gift card to Target saying that he needed to spend it on something cuddly to wear, or to hold or to even eat while cuddling.  It was the cutest and after many, many laps around Target we settled on this:

Porter became so instantly attached to this Thomas cuddle pillow that later that day he had a HUGE meltdown when we told him he couldn’t take it with us to his haircut.

A few days later, Aaron received a card in the mail with the instructions not to open it until March 1st.  We discovered that March 1st is…

I don’t know if I have mentioned this here on the blog, but my husband loves bacon.  A lot.  So his parents sent him a gift card to the local grocery store telling him to celebrate the holiday by purchasing some pork products!  Coincidentally, I was already planning to have Slovakian pork kielbasa our dinner that night.

So at that point it became obvious to me that I was next.  Which holiday would come my way?  I hoped it wasn’t the Ides of March!  I turned to the interwebz for help.

To my surprise, March is FULL of wacky holidays.  Knowing my mother-in-law’s hope of us giving Porter a sister sometime soon, I thought that maybe March 18th, Goddess of Fertility Day, was going to be the holiday that my in-laws would choose to celebrate!

Yesterday I received my card in the mail with instructions not to open it until today.  This morning, before I took Porter to daycare, I opened the envelope:

March 3rd is I Just Want You To Be Happy Day.

Sparing no details, they even included the gum wrappers and lint!

Normally, I would take that money and NOT spend it.  And that was a very tempting option considering our resources as of late.  But Aaron is gone so I am parenting solo right now, today was the only time I have really had to myself all week so I took that money and ran!

Very simple things make me happy.  Here is how I spent my present and my morning:

After I dropped Porter off at daycare, I headed out to have a cup of coffee and a danish which I quietly enjoyed while pondering my next stop: Target!  I treated myself to a box of hair color and some eye cream–two things I had cut out of my budget when I ran out of work (and I used a coupon because I did feel a little guilty spending money on myself.  Actually I cut going out for coffee and baked goods out of my budget too, now that I think about it…)  I have been feeling a little tired and haggard lately and I think it is showing.  Coloring the grey out and disguising those under eye circles would do wonders for my mood and outlook for sure!

I continued to wander around the store and I noticed that at 9am I was the only woman of my age in there without a child in tow.  It honestly felt a little weird to not have Porter by my side.  I couldn’t help but think about him and then it hit me:  I knew what to spend the remainder of my money on…

A picture frame.

This turtle is my favorite piece of art that Porter has created at daycare.  It was one of his first projects he made when he started there only a few weeks after the move to Pittsburgh.  Not only do I love turtles, but I really, really enjoy the placement of the green squares.  It has been on our fridge for months and I have told Aaron probably more than once that I wanted to frame it.  Behind it the turtle is another one of Porter’s daycare drawings.  This one is just scribbles but I really think it works well as a place for the turtle to live!

I will treasure this–this frame AND this gift–for a very, very long time.

Thank you Jackie and Randy for being so good to us and to me!  Love you both!

Since September or October–I’m not sure, it has been such a process–we have been slowly working out the details of selling our home in Florida.  We listed our house, the first home we have ever purchased, on June 1, 2010.  There were several offers, but none of them worked out.  We even had an offer shortly after we moved to Pittsburgh, but that fell through only a month later.

We felt defeated.

And broke.

Rent AND a mortgage?  Not fun.

However, with this last offer we decided we weren’t going to get our hopes up.  We figured low expectations would guard us from hurt feelings if it didn’t work out.  And we had people renting our house, so we felt good about that at least.

But after lots of paperwork and trips to the Notary, we finally sent in all of the papers last week.  We knew that we would be closing before the year was out, but we didn’t know what day.

Until today.

We got a phone call around 11am that our closing would be at 1pm this afternoon!

And even then, we still tried to cap our excitement–afraid that it still may not work out.

But finally, after not hearing anything else all afternoon, our realtor called us with the good news.

And I cried.

Not because I was happy, even though I am very happy that the house is sold.

I finally let myself mourn the loss of our home.  I can barely put into words how much I loved that house.  I knew that house would be where we started our family, and it was.  We put our heart and soul into improvements.  We made it our home.

And leaving it was the hardest thing about leaving Florida.

But I find comfort in knowing that the next house we purchase, which definitely won’t be for a while, will be even better!  And I hope that the house brings the next owner as much joy and good memories as it brought to us.

A few months ago, we found an amazing deal on Groupon for a membership to the Carnegie Museums–which includes The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The Warhol and The Carnegie Science Center. I have been able to visit the art museum a few times this fall since it was on my from one of my job locations to Aaron’s office.  If I got out of work earlier than expected, I would drop by and just get lost in there.  (Getting lost in museums is one of my favorite things to do.)

The week of Thanksgiving we received a mailing from the Science Center advertising Lionel Train Days.  Porter spotted it, took it from my hands, pointed to the train on the cover and said, “Mine!”

So obviously, we had to go!

We went on Sunday afternoon.  The place was packed but we didn’t care–because everything looked so fun!  The place is full of all sorts of interactive exhibits including roboworld–where you get to see robots in action!

There is an amazing miniature railroad…

..and we participated in a Hobo Sign Scavenger Hunt!  Porter was enamored with all of the “choo-choos.”

There is a whole floor that is just a play area for kids: The Exploration Station–complete with a water table, interactive percussion instrument section, things to crawl through, giant building blocks–all sorts of cool stuff.

In the SciQuest area there are interactive exhibits demonstrating how earthquakes work, the science of light, how birds fly and how sound travels just to name a few.

Here Porter learns about earthquakes:

Here Porter learns about light:

This one is a little difficult to see, but this is Aaron and Porter doing a weather report:

Watch out, Al Roker!

We were only there for a few hours (Porter was exhausted) but we can’t wait to go back.  There are all sorts of shows to see and even an Omnimax theatre!  I know that Porter didn’t understand a lot of what he was seeing, but he loved the trains and the activities.  It was just something new and cool for him to explore.  Not only is it fun for kids, but it is really fun for adults too.  Aaron and I have already talked about having a “date” there one of these days!

I have to say, we had a pretty awesome weekend.  Well, aside from P-Bo waking up at 4:55am on Saturday morning.  That part wasn’t really so awesome, but the rest was!

On Saturday afternoon we had a family playdate sleepover with our friends who live across town.  A friend of mine from college and his wife have a little girl who is about six months younger than Porter.  We had them over in October to participate in a Halloween costume parade in our part of town and last month they invited us all over for dinner and a sleepover–that way after the kids went to bed, the grownups could stay up and play board games without having to make the 45 minutes drive back across town late at night.  We were so excited to do this, but unfortunately our entire family was sick for most of November, so we had to cancel.

We were all very sad about this.

BUT we were able to reschedule for this weekend–and it was so fun!

After the kids went to bed we played quite a few games one of which was Scribblish. I laughed so hard while playing that game that I cried.  More than once–it was SO. FUN.  We stayed up late–1:30am–playing games, drinking beer, eating cookies and talking…

I’m sure that if you don’t have kids, you may scoff at the 1:30am bedtime.  I was like you once.  I remember those days…ah, to be young and without little people depending on you…

Wait, where was I?  Yes, it was fun!  Can’t wait to do it again!

But our weekend of fun didn’t end there–next up, a post about our trip to the Carnegie Science Center!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I’m a geek.  Let me tell you, we were VERY excited for this Halloween.  Unfortunately, we had to change things up at the last minute, but the whole adventure still ranks pretty high on the geek scale.

Porter actually HATED Aaron’s Darth Vader mask (kind of appropriate, right?)  Originally, Aaron was going to be Luke while on Dagobah and have Yoda on his back.  But that didn’t really pan out.  Luckily, Target had plenty of Darth Vader costumes to choose from this morning!  We also had toyed with the idea of Aaron going as George Lucas, but at the last minute, Vader seemed like an easier choice.

This was Porter’s third time dressing up this week.  Last weekend was the Halloween parade in the park with our friends.  Then he dressed up for his party at daycare on Friday.  It was actually an easy costume to be in and once the head piece went on, he was cool with the whole thing.  However, being that Porter is only 18 months, he really doesn’t understand the whole trick or treating thing yet.  We went to four houses, chatted with our neighbors and headed back to the house to hand out some candy.  We had our first trick or treaters EVER tonight!  Only about 12 kids, but still very exciting!

Full disclosure: this isn’t the first time I have dressed up as a Star Wars character for Halloween.  Halloween ’99, when I was still in college, I went as Queen Amidala.

All in all, a really fun time.  I love Halloween and I can’t wait for next year!

I was going to wait to reveal Porter’s Halloween costume on Halloween day itself, but once he got in the costume this weekend for a costume parade at a local park, I just couldn’t keep it to myself!

I’m so surprised that he kept the ears on the whole time.  The chin strap just barely fit!

Unfortunately, Porter playing in the hay triggered P’s fall allergies (which I didn’t know he had) but we had a great time at the Halloween festivities with our friends and their one year old daughter (a very adorable Minnie Mouse.)

More Halloween stuff for this week:

- Daycare is having a little Halloween party at the end of the week!  The kids are getting into their costumes and visiting the stores down the street for “trick or treating.”  And this is my first time as a parent making a treat for Porter to bring to share with his class!  I still don’t know what I am making…

- Sunday night we will be treat or treating in the neighborhood–all of us in costume!  So now that you know what Porter is being, any guesses as to what Aaron and I will be?  I am really hoping that we get trick or treater’s this year–since we have never had kids stop by for Halloween anywhere we have lived.  Totally disappointing for me, but more candy for us I guess.

If you celebrate Halloween, do you have any big plans?  What are your kids going as?  Are you dressing up?

Our date on Friday?  AWESOME.

Also awesome?  Our friend Stefani who came over to babysit a sleeping Porter!

Aaron has been super busy lately (you know, with the whole new job heading an undergraduate program and all…) so we agreed that I would decide what we were doing for our date.  I had come up with some options and presented them to Aaron.  (That sounded pretty formal–believe me, it wasn’t.  I pretty much sent him several e-mails with links to various restaurants and what-have-you.)  We pretty much agreed that we wanted to go to some uniquely Pittsburgh places and we didn’t want to  go anywhere fancy/expensive.

We ended up heading to Church Brew Works–a microbrewery/restaurant in a former Catholic church built at the turn of the 20th century.  Cool, right?  AND they happened to be celebrating Oktoberfest this weekend!

An altar of beer.  Dudes in lederhosen.  Could it be any better?!

Yes.  Because they served PIEROGI!

It was definitely a fun place to be.  The atmosphere was really cool (I actually wish that I had explored the grounds a bit more.)  The booth we were in was made from church pews.  The pipe organ was still up in the loft.  The windows are still filled with stained glass.   Aaron and I had a soft pretzel, some pierogi and we each had a glass of their special “HOPtoberfest” beer.

I have to say, Aaron and I did a really great job not talking about work.  And we talked very little about Porter.  We put forth our best effort to really make it a date, just about us.

Once we decided that we couldn’t possibly eat another pierogi nor drink another incredibly delicious, and yet potent, beer, we headed to stop number two on our date: Arsenal Lanes.  I’d provide a link for info but the business’ website in no way prepares you for how awesome Arsenal is.

Established in 1938, Arsenal Lanes is a second floor bowling alley with a 2 different rooms of lanes, a bar, food and different specials everyday.  The decor?  It is like The Haunted Mansion (lots of cheap velour) meets your grandparents woodpaneled basement–in a good way!  And the place was decorated for Halloween to and that made it even better! Every night there is a different special/activity.  Friday night was karaoke night.  Now, normally I stay as far away from karaoke as possible–but in the atmosphere of Arsenal, it just seemed to fit.  Unfortunately, the lanes were packed until midnight so we didn’t get to bowl.  But we sidled up to a  table next to the lanes and just watched people bowl (lots of interesting characters)–and we had a BLAST!  We also drank cheap beer from plastic cups, as one does at a bowling alley.

Date night was pretty much perfect.

We don’t have a date night reprise planned for the near future, but I hope that we get to go on another date before 2011 (fingers crossed!)