Adventures in the 'Burgh: Last days of summer...

We've been enjoying the last few days of summer - playing, swimming and exploring town. School starts tomorrow and it's hard to believe, but we're ready. We've had a plethora of meetings, orientations and open houses. We've gotten hair cuts, been back to school shopping and planned out our schedule and route to school. We're as ready as we'll ever be.

Last weekend, we took the kids to the Children's Museum, which was really fun. They had a Wizard of Oz exhibit going on which the kids got a kick out of seeing. They even had a big tribute to Mr. Rogers (Who knew he was from Pittsburgh?) and had all of his puppets, which I now think are completely creepy and his famous sweater on display. The kids didn't appreciate this part nearly as much as I did since they had no idea who he was.

We've been swimming as much as possible since the know the pool will be closing in just a few weeks. Wyatt has been practicing without his water wings in the shallow end. He just loves to swim and is so pleased with himself when he swims with his wings off. He frantically paddles around and can't stay afloat for more than a few seconds, but he's trying. Of course, Hadley insists on doing everything her brother does but she's not as cautious as he is. She doesn't wait to make sure anyone's watching. She just walked right off the steps and sunk like a rock. I reached over a grabbed her, but not before she gulped a gallon of water. She was terrified, sobbing and ended up throwing up on the side of the pool (party's over everyone!) It panicked me to no end - I'm still haunted by it. It scared her too and she has talked about it many times since. We will be keeping our wings on for now until we've had some swimming lessons or I am not holding Tate and can focus solely on her.

Her head stayed above water for .5 seconds.

Walking on water! no, not really...

I feel like Tate is suspiciously absent in most of our photos. Poor third kid. He's always with us - I'm either wearing him or he's hanging out in the stroller, watching the action. He is a sweet, smiling babbling guy who loves to watch everyone do their thing. He's in the 75% on the growth charts - a meatball!! - and eats like a champ. We've yet to find a food he doesn't like. He's sitting up on his own pretty well (although a strong breeze can blow him over) and although he's not crawling or scooting yet, he finds ways to wiggle and roll around and manages to move himself several feet from where he started. No more leaving him on the couch!

He started out sitting up inside the boppy pillow!

Grocery shopping with mommy like a big boy!

We packed a picnic lunch and headed down to Schenley Park, a famous park here, like Pittsburgh's version of Central Park. It's a large park with playgrounds, picnic areas, a lake, pools, running trails, tennis courts, etc. Of course the kids had to check out the playground. Then we headed up to the Overlook area, the highest spot in the park where you can see views of downtown and had our picnic lunch. Afterwards we walked around on the campus of University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. Both are beautiful campuses with so many amazing old buildings. We plan to go back and explore when we have more time but we were losing our window with the kids.