Steelers Fan Blitz 2015

Melissa and Dennis received tickets to the Steelers Fan Blitz since they are season ticket holders; they couldn't use the tickets and were nice enough to pass them along to us, so we headed down to Heinz Field on Saturday!  We had never been to this event, but we would definitely go back in the future!  First of all, we couldn't have asked for a better day...it was sunny, temps in the mid-70s with a slight breeze blowing all day.  Perfection.

 Also, there was soooooo much stuff to do.  So much that we were there from 1pm-6pm and we still didn't get to do everything!  The first thing we did was get Jake registered for a football skills session they were doing on the field.....he was in heaven:

 

 

Video (he caught it!!):

While he was at the skills session, Liam was on the other side of the field doing his own kind of practice:

 

 

 

 

Video:

After Jake was done with his skills session, we all met back up and Jake and Brian faced off in this thing:

 

And I positioned myself to be the #1 draft pick for next season:

check out that form!

Jake pretended to be Big Ben:

We saw Mr. Rooney coming through the field:

 Then we paused for some selfies:

 

"Mommy, I will only take a picture with you if we make kissy faces...like this"

Selfie break over, time to hit the locker room! (side note-we had to wait in the tunnel area for a few minutes before going into the locker room...Liam took advantage of the acoustics in there and started a "here we go steelers" chant....I'm pretty sure Brian had tears of pride in his eyes)

 

We took a break for a few minutes in the stands:

 

Then we headed inside to check out the rest of the fun.  The kids were ecstatic to find bouncy houses inside:

 

And Brian was ecstatic to find all 6 trophies on display inside:

 

And I was ecstatic to find a photo booth complete with goofy props:

After we checked out the inside stuff, we headed back onto the field to kick some field goals (everyone but me, my flip flops did not seem like a safe choice for field goal kicking).  Move over, Suisham, these boys are vying for your job!!

We decided to call it a day after that, we had 2 very happy but very tired kiddos.  One couldn't make the walk back to the parking lot and then fell asleep within a minute of being in the car:

 

The other kid couldn't wait to tell his friends all about his "big day at training camp"!! 

 Here we go Steelers! :)

Weekend Wrap Up Post

Before I start my wrap up post, I just want to point out that there are now 6 weekends between now and Christmas. SIX, PEOPLE.  

Just kidding.  Kind of.  I'm sticking to the pledge I made last year, where I don't, under any circumstances, panic over Christmas.  I will enjoy the season and continue my mantra of "if it gets done, it gets done...if not, oh well".  We'll see how it goes! 

image courtesy of www.runningwithspoons.com

 On Friday night, I got together with some friends who also happen to be fellow preschool moms....we try to get together once a month or so, but I haven't been able to make it the past few months due to other commitments, so I was super excited to be back this month!  We had a BLAST.  I've posted on here before that I'm a firm believer in taking time for yourself with just friends....of course, I love hanging out with the kids and having date nights with Brian, too, but taking off your wife and mama hat for a night can be so refreshing!

Saturday morning brought another basketball game for Jake (I have some video that I need to sort through, so I'll put those in a separate post) but here is a little picture teaser:

That afternoon, Brian headed out to do yardwork and Liam took a nice long nap, so Jake and I spent some quality time with his Legos.  In case you haven't figured it out by now, Jake is a super active kid with seemingly endless quantities of energy....however, if he's in the mood, he will sit down with Legos for hours!! 

Parents: did you know you can sign your kid up for a FREE Lego Club that comes with a magazine subscription?  Jake looks forward to it arriving in the mail every month...there are always some activities to do in the magazine (word searches, connect the dots, etc), coloring pages, stories, and a few Lego tutorials.  On Saturday, he was working on constructing Santa's sled from the tutorial in the new magazine :)  Click here to subscribe: http://www.lego.com/en-US/club

After Liam woke up, I needed to head to Target to grab a few things.  Remember the little bird I posted about on Favorite Finds Friday??  He may have found his way into my cart.  Something that did not find its way into my cart, but did end up on my head include:

I snapped this selfie so I could show the kids, then came home and told the kids that mommy took so long to shop because I got a terrible headache while in the store because something fell off a shelf and onto my head.  Jake looked horrified and I asked if he wanted to see a picture...I showed him this on my phone and I thought he was going to cry. Oops.  #mommyfail   Liam laughed even before I told him it was pretend.  I see how it is.

Saturday night, Brian and I had an in-home date night....meaning that, instead of doing our usual routine where we binge watch HGTV and fall asleep on the couch, we watched a movie instead. We chose "American Hustle" and it was ok.  I enjoyed it for the most part, though it got weird at times, and it could have been about 30 minutes shorter.  But hey, I stayed awake for it!

Sunday morning, we headed to church/sunday school....Jake is my little yinzer at heart and resists wearing anything that is non-steelers on game days, so I'm just happy to get him into real pants (translation: non-athletic pants) on Sundays.  I consider real pants a win these days.

 

That afternoon, we watched a Steelers game that I don't even want to talk about, then Brian and the boys headed out to do some leaf clean up while I put dinner together.  I went out when I was done, just in time to help for about 5 minutes before we came inside since it was getting dark.  I have impeccable timing.

The good news is, our trees have dropped *almost* all of their leaves.  *happy dance*!!!

The rest of the night brought lasagna, homework, baths, then DVR catch up (Parenthood!) after the littles were in bed.  Hope you had a great weekend!!

What we've been up to....

So what have we been up to lately? A lot?  Nothing at all?  It feels like both of those sometimes.  Let's take a look.....

The kitchen table has basically been taken over as a work station.  Apparently in 1st grade, they really step it up in terms of homework!  In addition to nightly worksheets, Jake also has weekly quizzes for sight words, spelling words, and vocab words (all different sets of words, by the way) and soon he will start having math quizzes, too.  In an effort to be just like his brother, Liam always wants to do his "homework" too, so he ends up at the table a lot working on some coloring or other art.  I need to pick up some workbooks appropriate for him next time I'm out, I think he would get a kick out of really doing a worksheet.

If you watched the last 2 preseason Steelers games, you might have spotted our little celebrity Liam...someone get this kid an agent!! :)  He was featured on the commercials for the Steelers 5K and Kids Kickoff event, which he participated in last year. Here is a screen shot of him in the commercial, pretty cool huh??

We've had to do some shuffling with my work schedule since Brian's surgery, and last week I had an event in the evening on Thursday....with Brian unable to drive, we needed someone to take care of Liam that evening while I was gone so he got to enjoy his very first solo sleepover at GG and Pappy's house!  He had gone over the summer with Jake and did well, but I was a bit nervous for him to go all by himself....turns out I had nothing to worry about, he had a great time!  Here he is on the way to GG's house, resting up for his big day there :)

We decorated for FALL last weekend, hooray!!

Sunday School started back up last weekend (they go on summer hiatus) so the boys put on their Sunday best for that event.  By "Sunday best" for Jake, I mean that he was very upset that I wouldn't let him sport an actual Steelers jersey to church (even though he did provide a valid argument that it was opening day....) so we compromised and he rocked this Steelers polo shirt instead :)  (side note-look at my gorgeous mums in the background!)

Later that day, we tuned into the game of course! Here is our series of Steelers Selfies:

Gracie wanted less cheering, more napping.

THEY WON!!

After the game, we headed to our neighborhood's annual block party, which is always a fun evening.  This year, we had local magician Al-Mazing, who definitely lived up to his name!

Waiting on his balloon sword and shield

Loving it!

some football practice with daddy

sand art ornament station

Jake and his buddy, Elijah, showing off their balloons

:-)