Children's Museum of Pittsburgh

While we were in Pittsburgh we made a long stop at the Children's Museum.  The boys have been to several children's museums (Brownsville, Fort Worth, Minnesota) and this one definitely ranks towards the top.  This museum was 3 stories with multiple things to do throughout. On the first floor, the boys really, really liked the hands on garage exhibit. They were able to build their own "cars" and race them on a skateboard style ramp. They also made tracks to race match box cars. Luke particularly enjoyed launching parachutes to Andy below. 

Another first floor exhibit that they seemed to enjoy was Clifford the Big Red Dog.  The boys like to read the books and watch the show so it was fun for them to play in that area.  I didn't realize that Luke knew all the characters so well...

 

The second floor was the nursery area which I suppose is for the smaller kids.  This is where the train table was and for a while I didn't think we were ever going to make it out of there.  My boys REALLY love trains right now and this was a perfect spot for them!

 

 This is Benji stopping to say "cheese"

 

The third floor was the water floor.  It lots of water activities and even an area that was made for actually playing in the water.  They did have smocks to put over their clothes, but I didn't exactly think that this would stop Benji from getting completely wet.  Since I didn't bring any towels I figured we didn't need to spend much time up there.

Lastly, we headed back down to the first floor to end the day in the art area.  I think that this was my favorite part of the museum.  There were art easels for painting, a coffee filter painting activity, string art, a station for making art by cutting out shapes and a clay table.  The boys were in heaven and immediately got to painting.  After painting 2 masterpieces each, as well as a little bit of each other, we had them move on to something different.  Benjamin set up shop at the clay table and spent a long time there just tearing it into smaller and smaller pieces.  Luke hit the coffee filter art station and then also made it to the clay table.  By this time we had been there for hours and it was time to call it a day. 

 

We had such a great time at the museum and would definitely go back if we ever go back to Pittsburgh -- especially since it was free with our FW museum membership!!!!

Pittsburgh Zoo

What do you do with when traveling with a 1 year old and a 3 year old??  Why go to the zoo of course!  Last year Luke really enjoyed checking out the Minnesota Zoo, so we figured we would check and see what Pittsburgh had to offer while we were there. Things got off to a great start.  We checked out the flamingos, tigers and the red panda, but it all went south when we got to the lions.  While we were at the exhibit the lion started roaring.  This was exciting for Luke, but pretty much scared the pants off Benji -- poor guy.  Needless to say, the rest of his zoo day was ruined.  He cried/whined at most of the other animals and pretty much wanted to be held the entire time which was exhausting.  We saw all different kinds of animals, but some of our favorites were the elephants, sea lions, penguins, gorillas and the polar bear.  The polar bear was neat because you could walk through a tunnel in his pool and watch him swim from below.  Ben did manage to enjoy the camel and the llama (while clinging to me), but mostly because he thought the llama was Mama Llama from the children's book.  Towards the end of the zoo there was a little log ride for little kids.  I was proud of Luke when he decided to ride it all by himself!!  He has gotten so big.  Before leaving the zoo we rounded out our afternoon with some ice cream and playing on the playground.  This made Ben happy again!

 

He climbed up on some rocks and felt big!

Climbing on a termite mound

Check out the black bear over my shoulder

 I love it when they are sweet to each other :)

 Being brave with brother checking out a fish tank

Evening at the Park

Since riding the Duquesne Incline was kind of a bust, we had a lot of time to kill before dinner.  The weather in Pittsburgh was in the 70's so we knew we wanted to be outside.  I was able to pull up some local parks on my phone (what did we do before smart phones?) and we headed to the nearest one.  It was just a little city park nestled in the middle of a Mount Washington neighborhood.  It wasn't the newest or most extravagant parks we had ever been too, but my boys did not care.  We were outside playing!!!  I love that they soaked up going down the slides while we were there.  It is pretty rare for us to spend much time at park in the Texas summer due to the excruciating heat, but even more rare for the boys to be able to slide down a slide!!  One touch and they realized it was not going to burn them and that is all they needed.  This was an unplanned stop on our trip that ended up being one of my favorites.

Duquesne Incline

Last week the boys and I flew up to Pittsburgh, PA to meet Andy (who was there for work).  I must take a second to brag on the boys for a moment.  I spent a decent amount of time worrying about how the airplane ride was going to go with 2 boys and only 1 mommy.  I am happy to report that the trip was great!  The boys were on their best behavior and we had ZERO meltdowns on the plane!!!  At the end of the flight at least 4 different people commented on how well behaved my boys were -- SCORE!!  My mommy confidence was definitely boosted a bit that day :)

The evening we arrived in Pittsburgh we decided to take the boys to ride one of the inclines.  They are super interested in trains right now so we thought that riding a cable car up the side of the mountain would be fun.  We chose to ride the Duquesne Incline.  While the boys enjoyed the ride up and down, I was slightly disappointed.  I was hoping there would be something fun to do at the top, but I was wrong.  We did get a nice view of the city and the rivers converging, but that was about it. If we were ever to go back and ride an incline again, I would probably choose a different one.  Regardless of what I thought, the boys enjoyed the ride -- and that is all that matters to me!

July Photo Dump

Here are some random snap shots from the month of July.

Showing off his taco face

 Chalk, chalk, chalk!

 This is the best one I could get of the both of us.

 My little Picasso!  He is getting more and more creative with his drawings.

 Eating some popcorn while at the hospital visiting Papa.

 It is pretty rare for one of my kids to fall asleep on the couch.

 He definitely marches to the beat of his own drum!

 Making some homemade ice cream on a Saturday morning.

 One of several recent Woolleys trips

 Enjoying a banana while watching cartoons

 The boys are really loving the bubble forts lately

 Take my picture!

 Reading the blog book I finally got printed.