Thursday, August 20, 2009

Playground Project

July 7,8, and 9th 2009
Addision Terrace Playground Project


In our church one of my volunteer jobs is the Public Affairs Director for our geographical area. This usually consists of me putting together service projects in our community helping out other community members or groups. This particular project our church was in charge of manning the food tent that fed all the volunteers for three days while they built a playground for an under-served housing project in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. On the third day which was the main building day, some of our church members, including 17 missionaries (our whole zone), even helped to build the playground. Below are pictures of this great day!








Part of the project was to paint a mural on one of the walls and two of our missionaries got involved. The Mormon church forever left their imprint I suppose. :)


Even my sister Stacey got to come and help out. She came into town because of her husband Brad's job with Children Miracle Network, but it was awesome she was able to be there to participate and see what I do with some of my time.

Later that evening, Matt, Carter, Stac, Brad and I went to the top of Mount Washington so we could show off our city's skyline.


Brad and Stacey even got to leave their five children at home. And come out solo... WOOWOO!! What a cute couple.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

And the Baby is...

a Girl!!

Time for Cute and Frilly I suppose. Holy smokes do I have A LOT to learn!!!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Finishing up June

Yes folks, that's right JUNE!!! That is how far behind I am on my blogging. I even skipped over some happenings in May like going to Kennywood, which is the big amusement park here in Pittsburgh and is something Pittburghers view as a MUST DO if you are to live here in the Steel City. But let's just skip right over that and touch on a few small events from June.


I turned 27 on the 23rd. In celebration my friends and Matt threw me a DELICIOUS birthday lunch complete with my mom's Terriakyi Chicken and my traditional Crazy Chocolate Cake. I also had a little birthday miracle: this was the first time I ate a meal in pregnancy and the food tasted really good and I even had seconds and it all stayed in my stomach. That was maybe the best part of my day.

Another great part of my day was being surrounded by my husband, son, and several of my friends that I love so much. Here Heather is helping me out so I don't have a big black thing in my teeth for all my pictures, what a buddy!!

Later that evening, our wonderful friend who we love so much and has sadly just passed away, came over and watched Carter for us so Matt could take me out for a surprise 7 year Anniversary Dinner. He took me up to Mount Washington where you can look down onto the city and see all the lights. We had this great table right by the window. He also wanted to do it specifically on this night so that he could time it so that we would finish dinner right when the Pirate's baseball game ended and they were having fireworks afterward. So after a delicious dinner and dessert we topped it off with a beautiful firework display. Woo woo Matt!!


One of Matt's favorite Pittsburgh things to do is go to a Pirate's game. Their stadium is awesome and you can't beat $4/ticket night either.


We thought since this was Carter's first "real" time at a baseball game we would spoil him a little. So here he is his with his HUMONGOUS drink. I guess at the ball park you go big or go home. Then he got cotton candy for the first time, too. He wasn't so sure of it and did not want to even try it. Everyone around us got a good chuckle out of this little boy that refused to eat cotton candy. Finally, I got him to lick some and he decided it was all right but he wasn't in love with it.

Mr. Tough Guy! He loves to wear mine and Daddy's hats lately.


The Pirate's stadium looks right down into the beautiful part of the city.

The following videos show some other popular things that have been going on around here not just in June but all summer long:


Carter can not get enough of singing this song. Each time it is a little different but always is sung with lots of Gusto!!



We have also been doing lots of waterplay this summer as well. Here we are at Richy and Marie's. When Richy came home from work he couldn't handle watching the kids have all the fun. So we had a slide off between Richy and Carter. I kind of think Carter won because he went down face first and would slide into the water like a sea lion, Richy didn't even attempt that.