PITTSBURGH, PA

OK! I am finally getting around to posting. Here is a summary of what we have been up to in Pittsburgh!!

After traveling for 9 hours, the boys and I arrived in Pittsburgh, where Tim picked us up. The boys were super good and the only problem was when our plane landed, all 4 boys were asleep! And, the stroller wasn't waiting for me on the gangway, so all 4 boys were crying and tired as I was trying to herd them (while carrying the car seats and carry-on) down the aisle of the plane. That was hilarious. So, Tim met us and brought us to the extended stay hotel which was to be our home for the next 3 months! The manager of the hotel upgraded our room for free to this awesome 2 bedroom suite.


Christmas was so much fun. We were just glad to be together as a family! Here is a picture of our Christmas Eve "feast". It's hard to cook in a hotel, even when the kitchen is furnished, because they have the bare minimums. We are eating my family's traditional dinner of Clam Chowder. The boys had their first taste of egg nog and loved it.


Andrew lost his 1st tooth on Christmas Eve! So we had the Tooth Fairy and Santa at our house that night!Our family tradition is to act out the Nativity in Luke 2, so here is the cast below.
Mary and the baby.
Isaac our "angel".
The wiseman and the shepherd.
The boys in their Christmas p.j.'s. They all wanted "feet" pajamas, even Matthew, so luckily we found some in size 8!
Christmas morning! Santa brought our presents to the lobby tree and one of the hotel staff took a family picture of us.
Our White Christmas
Our hotel is right across from PNC park where the Pittsburgh Pirates (baseball team) play.

Pittsburgh has over 1200 bridges, and here we are on one of them.
My cute 4 boys at an outside skating rink.
Andrew lost his 2nd tooth a few days after Christmas. My boys are so brave and pull their teeth out on their own. I was always too freaked out to do that and waited until it fell out while eating applesauce or something like that. It is fun to have a house full of boys.
Isaac and Levi being funny while I'm trying to put the pull out bed away.
One of the best things about living in a big city are all the things they have available for kids to do. We bought a pass to the Children's museum (less than a mile from our hotel) where they have 4 floors of fun things to do. Here the boys all built rockets and launched them through rings.
Really the only downer of the trip was that my boys got Strep for 2 weeks. They got it from my cousin who we went to visit in Columbus, OH, just 3 hours away. We spent a week with them and it was so much fun, but we brought back strep. We had to take them in for antibiotics because their fevers were so high, and they just felt awful. Here they are playing play dough since we were homebound.
The best part of living in a hotel is that whenever the place gets a little dirty, the boys and I just leave to go do something fun and when we get back, the place is clean!! Also, I have been able to read a lot. I read all 8 of the Anne of Green Gables series (which I really enjoyed and have wanted to do for some time) and the book Wild Swans by Juan Chang (very different than the Anne series but also very interesting, about growing up in communist China).

We have some great pics from a weekend trip to Washington DC, but that will have to be another time!!!