Second week of school

First of all I'd like to say I used to be really particular about the pictures I'd post on here.  I'd made sure only to put on the best, each one painstakingly cropped and edited to perfection.  2 kids later I don't have time for that.  I'm lucky to get pictures of anything, and if the lighting is half decent and the kids aren't blurry- bonus.  

This week the local church had it's Bazarre.  I'm sad to say we didn't make it- I think it involved blow up toys, chocolate dipped oreos and raffles.  A sort of fund raiser for the church and the school, St. Raphael's. (they pronounce it Ray- fulls. weird.)  The best part of the whole thing was that there was a tiny little parade that went right in front of our house!!!!  When we heard the bagpipes we ran outside just in time for fist fulls of candy.  As a parade lover I was in heaven, it was great!
    Sunday night there was another parade of sorts, the Priest led a precession with a band and a statue being carried around the neighborhood.  I would have taken a picture, but we stood out enough being the only non-Italiens following the Priest around the block.  Look at us getting all diversified!

Tyler has been learning how to do exams in school.  This week we got our our eyes, ears, head, nose, throat, lungs, lymph nodes and hearts checked out.  Tyler also made it home every night for dinner!  I tied Alex's hair up in rags one night and the next morning she was a little Shirley Temple!  She put on her skinny Jeans and a headband and I thought for a minute my 5 year old was all grown up!  Then when I asked to take her picture, she told me to wait a minute and ran upstairs to get some toys.  I breathed a sigh of relief that she was still my little girl for at least another day.

A new friend from the ward invited us to Phipps Conservatory one rainy day.  It's a huge building full of beautiful gardens!

Quinn even loved it.  She has been wanting to sit a lot but she is so tall she bends in half.

There was a butterfly garden at the conservatory and we visited that room twice.

There was a cute kids garden, but even with all the amazing plants at this one, I still love the one in Cheyenne better.  Heidi is growing up too fast.  She has started to insist upon dressing herself, and wants to wear skirts all the time like Alex.

Our ward is growing as summer comes to an end.  I think it's a mix of more people moving in, and regulars returning from vacations and rotations.

We visited the Zoo again this week.  This time just me and the girls.  We chose Heidi as our leader and she took us to visit the Gorillas.  We sat and watched the elephants for about 30 minutes and actually saw the snow leopard move.  We also saw the baby tiger.

Quinn has become a bit more predictable.  She takes a nice long nap in the morning, so we have to interrupt that if we ever want to do anything fun.  She will also take a couple short ones in the afternoon  and likes to be held and played with.

Friday we visited Costco again.  We came home with chocolate muffins which we naturally had to then eat for dinner.  This worked out well with the game of the day- a mix of princesses and superheroes.  My favorite line of the meal was "Princesses help each other out." followed closely by "Princess eat with their hands!" and then suddenly "Princesses eat with forks so their hands don't get dirty."  

We found the opposite of giant square Costco milk at Rite aid, miniature milk!  These things might exist elsewhere, but since I've only ever seen them here, they are new and foreign and Pittsburgh.

Quinn is SOOOOOOOO drooly.  And she loves to bite.

The only thing she loves more than biting, is Alex. She does the cutest things for Alex.  She equally loves Heidi, but Heidi is a bit rougher and therefore Quinn is on guard with her.

Heidi and I have taken up baking again.  Cherry banana smoothies and peach tart are some of our favorite things.

We are starting to get Alex's school supplies for Kindergarten and I'm a mix of excited and nervous as we look forward to the schedule change.  Tyler will have a week off before 'real' PA school starts and this 2.5 week mini session ends.  I noticed the leaves starting to fall at the Zoo and it made me sad to think the summer is already over!  I'm so proud of us for getting out and doing new things and seeing the sites.  I wonder if we would be so aggressively adventurous if we knew were staying longer.
     My goal is to do something new every week, even if it just means a new grocery store.  We are happy.  And want visitors.