Pittsburgh Children's Museum

Here's another gift idea for you to give to the "littles" in your life.

Memories.

We've all been there. If you're a mom, you know what it's like personally. Kids just have so much stuff. And parents have so little space. And it's just so hard to shop for that kid that has everything. It really is.

So why not give the gift of a year long pass to make memories?

We ask for gift cards every year to various places to take the kids. Have since before even having kids! It's such a great gift for the whole family! Especially while the children are so young, they don't' really keep track of the amount of gifts they get, but they love to play as a family and luckily, in this digital age, parents can take millions of pictures to cement these memories for when they're older.

Yesterday, we took the girls to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. It's a favorite of ours. Snowflake technically got it as a birthday gift last January, so a renewal is on our Christmas list this year. We've gotten gift cards to go on an individual basis, and Pumpkin really loved it then, but this past year is the year they both truly got involved in all of it. I think the favorite part is the waterfloor. It's what it sounds like. An entire floor dedicated to playing in water, so bring a change of clothes!

There's also a room dedicated for the real little ones, but don't let that stop you from going if you have slightly older kids. There's a giant Lite-Brite (remember those 80s kids?) and lighted sand art, too.

Right now, in the one changing exhibits room is TapeScape (until January 19). It is basically a giant tunnel esque area made up of 168 rolls if packing tape. I so wanted to go in there! They even had a smaller one for the babies to crawl through, although Snowflake tried to play with the big kids.

Memberships start as low as $95, but if that's even too steep for you to gift, you can buy individual gift cards at Giant Eagle and get those fuelperks and let the recipient decide if it's worth a full membership. No matter what though, it's a great place to take the
kids when you just need out of the house.

And if you don't live near Pittsburgh, check out your closest city and see about their Children's Museum. I know there's others across the states. If you've gone to this one or any of the others, what's your favorite part?

Take the Walk

HANSON! Squeel!

I know, my inner 90s kid is coming out! We bought the tickets back in April, the first minute they were released for purchase for non-members, and still didn't get the greatest seats. We've definitely had better. But at least it's aisle seats, if it wasn't going to be front row.

I'm so excited! This will be our 4th concert in 6 years. We missed the last time they came because it was a month after Snowflake was born. And we'll be missing the walk this year because of work schedules, but that's ok. My ticket purchase donated $1 each towards the charity.

Yes, charity. This boys (men) are amazing. They started up a "Take the Walk" Charity Walk before nearly every concert. It's a mile long barefoot walk with a stop halfway where (usually) Taylor does some amazing encouraging speech that no one hears because everyone's still 13 years old in spirit. They take the walk with you and donate a $1 for everyone that walks towards their charity. It's quite awesome, and it's free if you're in the area for one. They're usually around 3pm before the concert.

I'm bummed we won't be walking this year. Pumpkin took the walk a few months before turning 1. That was awesome! I know she won't remember it, but it was nice to get her involved.

You can see from my photos of past concerts and walks that this isn't a small thing. It's huge! And it's a good thing. So if you're in town, take the walk for me please. And I think they're sold out, but check out their newer music and try to get to a concert! I know I can't wait for tonight!!!

Loova

I'm gonna tell you a little secret. I have strange skin. I mean really strange. Lotion does not soak in. It never has. Worse thing about that, I'm incredibly fair skinned and burn at the thought of going outside, and sunscreen just flakes right off.

Yes, flakes off. I rub lotions on, and it pills right off like lint from a sweater. It's weird.

They started reinventing lotions and creams the past few year, which has been a skin saver, but about 6 years ago I stumbled into a local store called Loova.

It's smells like Heaven in there. It's all handmade and they have samples of the scrubs for you to try! It's a bit amazing.

Customer service is wonderful, too. There's been many times that we would go in there for a specific item in a specific scent, and they wouldn't have it. What do you do then? I know one particular instance we wanted an oil spray for Pumpkin's eczema and we didn't want a highly scented one. They were out of the "Milk & Honey" scent (which smells like it's named) so she ordered it to be made and sent to our house, for free. And without losing the price savings of buying a certain amount. That's amazing, in my opinion.

I can't get enough of their oil sprays and soaps. They aren't overly perfumed, and they actually soak into my skin. They don't' just sit on top. I use their scrubs a lot too, but it makes the bath super slippery so i'm a little scared to do it when i know the girls will be in there next.

And it's done wonders for Pumpkin's eczema. We're still battling it a little bit, but she's normally ok unless she  gets sick. But for a long while we couldn't come near her with lotion because her skin was so raw and opened, it would burn and she would just scream. Until one night, I decided to just sneak in a quick spray of my stuff, and nothing. No screaming, no fighting, no tears. So now when she has a flare up, we scrub her down with the sugar scrubs, and spray her with the oil, and no fights. And she smells good enough to eat.

I can't rave about it enough. Unfortunately for you, this is not a sponsored post, so no freebies. I'm sorry. But they do deliver.

There's 2 locations here in Pittsburgh. The one I go to is in Station Square, and the other is in Castle Shannon. Definately go in and take a look around.

And for those of you not nearby, my favorites are "Kiss Me All Over" and "Raspberry Lemonade". They're both light on, but the lemonade one smells like summer. I love "Full of Oats" and "Milk & Honey" for the girls though. 

So if you need any Christmas gift ideas for the lucky lady in the house, or for yourself, check them out. They even have a monthly soap subscription where they send you 3 seasonal scents of the soap by a slice every month. (There's different length of time periods for it so you don't need to be locked in for a whole year.)

I think I've tried a sample of nearly every product in there at some point, so if you want to know about my experience with any certain product, just leave a question in the comments and I'll let you know.

**All photos are taken from their site, since mine are all being used and aren't as pretty in the bathroom. And like I said, this isn't sponsored in any way. I just shaved my legs the other day and I always spray them with the oil mist spray afterwards and thought you all should know about this product, especially for the holidays.

Hallmark and ABC Family

I know. Halloween just ended. We're all still planning Thanksgiving. But Black Friday's only 3ish weeks away. You need to start planning Christmas now. While it's less hectic.

And what better way to do that than to watch Christmas movies?

I know, I'm weird.

But don't tell me that the constant from now to Christmas Christmas movie marathon on the Hallmark channel doesn't just tickle your fancy?

No? Ok, how about the list that's out for ABC Family's Christmas movie marathon? You know you're excited to watch them. Especially any of you with little ones in the house watching these for the first time.

Best part about ABC Family's movie list? You can sign up to get mobile alerts and schedule updates for the 25 Days of Christmas! Isn't that smart? Now you don't have to rely on just your DVR of choice to record every single one. You can be reminded to watch together.. as a family.

I'm not signing up. I get enough texts throughout the day. I personally enjoy flipping through channels for the 3 seconds I have before the girls start making their requests. And I like the surprize on stopping on a movie I loved as a kid but forgot about. In fact, this weekend I got engrossed on a Hallmark movie I haven't seen. I've since recorded, watched, and cried with it.

If you want to sign up though, go ahead. I really do think it's a good idea. Click HERE to sign up for the alerts. And the movie schedule is below.

Hallmark's schedule is quite long, so click HERE to go to their site. By the way, they're having new premieres of movies every Saturday and Sunday at 8/7c. That's a lot of new movies to check out. 12 for the remainder of the countdown season.

So let's start watching those movies! Between the 2 channels and my own collection of holiday movies, it's going to be hard to pick this year! Which ones are your favorites? What can't you wait to see this year? Let me know in the comments. I'm always looking for a new go-to holiday movie!

I'm Thankful For: Nighttime Dance Parties

It's November. It's already a few days in, actually. A lot of people are posting a daily "I'm thankful for" thing in their statuses on Facebook. Anyone else doing that? I'm not. I'm not because I don't want to.

However, as I'm trying to just keep the house in order after all of us being sick (and Brian finally got it), the crafting and updates are on a hold for now. We are trying to plan some things out, but really, we just need to get the laundry done.

(The audience.)

So when I can come up with something quick and easy, I'll let you know. If I come across a blog post that you must read, I'll let you know. If I have any planning happening for anything, I'll let you know with an ideation post. But for tonight, I've experienced something that only my kids can remind me of.

Tonight, I came upstairs after the girls' bath to a lot of banging. A lot of it. And it was loud.

And it was mixed with giggling.

I love that sound. It's probably one of my favorites.

I like to try to sneak into the bedroom when I come up, because when they see me they immediately go into the "Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY" mode. Tonight, it wasn't any different. Except they added in "Mommy, let's dance! Com'on!" How do you resist that?

So tonight, I'm reminded that I'm thankful for my kid's ability to enjoy life and have that feeling to just dance.

Recipe Page

So last's week's mini slew of new recipes made me feel like it's only right to set up a recipe page for faster finding. This way you can just scroll through the pictures and the titles to find a recipe. Click on it and it'll open the original blog posting for it.

As I get more recipes on here and play around with the tabs, I'll try to categorize them better. But for now, they're just with the newest recipe on top. That way it's easier for me to just add any new ones that I bring to you.

So what do you think? You like me sharing recipes that we made and liked? Am I branching to far away from the subject matters you've come to love? Is there a particular recipe you would like me to try?

Let me know in the comments what you think and what you want.

Happy Halloween!

This post probably should have been yesterday's, since Halloween was yesterday and everything. But I didn't have any pictures of the girls trick-or-treating for this year yet. In case you can't tell, Snowflake is "Princess Sofia" and Pumpkin is "Red Angry Bird". I talked about them picking their costumes out this year at this post about a month ago.

Side rant...Is there another name for trick-or-treating? It's an awfully long name for describing going to peoples houses dressed up unlike yourself threatening them in hopes of good junk food.

For some odd reason, our neighborhoods staggered the T-o-T (I'm shortening it) times. And when I mean staggered times, I mean other neighborhoods, even within our school district, T-o-Ted Saturday. Because, you know, that was Halloween. They really need to get on the same page here. It was so busy. Since kids were able to double up their locations, and who could blame them, our area was PACKED. My parents had to turn the porch light off after only an hour.

And it was raining. So this is super busy for rainy weather. But at least it wasn't freezing rain like Halloween's of the past.

The girls had a blast. This was the first year I think they really got it. "Trick-or-treat" or any words for that matter just wasn't happening, but about 2/3rd of the way through, Pumpkin even actually said "thank you" to the people and was running up ahead skipping. So I was extremely impressed. Last year we had to carry her to some of the houses. We didn't even take the stroller this time!

Snowflake on the other hand definitely has the gift of gab. She walked for the first few houses, until she got that covetted lollipop then she was happy as can be. Poor Brian had to carry her most of the way. She either wouldn't go to the house because she was busy eating candy, or she wouldn't leave the house because the people kept telling her to take more. And she said everything. "Trick-or-treat", "thank you", "buh-bye", and "boo" (while sticking her tongue out and shaking her head to be scarey) were the more repeated phrases of the night. So proud.

(That bucket's filled, too. So Much Candy!)

It was definitely the best year yet, and I can't wait for more. They'll just get better as they get older. The best part about Halloween as a mother? Now I have candy to eat! I raised good sharers!

So how was your Halloween? Take kids out Trick-or-Treating? Go to a party? Kept it low-key and just handed out candy? Let me know and feel free to post some pictures! I love to see happy sugared up little witches and warlocks (and everything inbetween)!