Check out the Pitcher Family - we got bored today, so we all dressed up in elf costumes and did a little dance. Aubrey was the best by far.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1269411144

Home Sweet Home, Tennessee

I got to spend 2 weeks over Thanksgiving with my family in Tennessee and it was great. Us girls had lots of fun, especially getting up at 3 am to get to Kohls 4 am after thanksgiving sale. I waited in line for 2 hours to buy our stuff while my older sister Melissa ran around and gathered merchandise for me since I was holding our spot in line. My younger sister Lindsey drove the car around since there wasn't a single parking spot for miles. Seriously, there were probably over 1000 people there. I kept shaking my head at these crazy people. Who gets up at 3 am for some 30% off sale? Oh yeah, me!
My neice Shannon is a hoot! She loves Aubrey but doesn't like her so much when Aubrey cries. My sister is tirelessly working on pottytraining, but Shannon likes to go into her closet at night and poop and then fall asleep, which is what happened in the picture above.

My brother Daniel and I

My parents with Aubrey. They were very patient and helpful with her, even though she probably caused some hearing impairment, or increased it at least in my dad's case.

My dad took Melissa, Aubrey, and I to the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. It was built by the Vanderbilt family and is the largest home in America at 175,000 square feet. Thanks Dad for taking us and for carrying a screaming Aubrey through most of it. I enjoyed drifting babyfree along with the crowd, making comments to the other tourists like, "that guy seriously needs to control his baby". After touring it, I realized that our 1500 sq ft house just ain't cutting it for me. As majestic as the Biltmore was, it had nothing on the McDonalds in Asheville, which according to food network, is the fanciest one in the world. I took a quick picture inside, see below, it had marble floors, chandeliers, a stone fireplace! You could almost imagine you were in a fancy restaurant, until you bit into your reheated millimeter thick ground cowparts burger.

We took Aubrey to the aquarium. As you can see, She is taller then a Little Blue but not quite as tall as a Gentoo. I also got to visit with some girls that I grew up with. We all have kids now, crazy! Or in Tina's case, her third on the way.

So check out this video. This is a true Aubrey fit. The poor girl just gets overtired. Listen for Shannon singing, she cracked me up by singing about how cute Aubrey was.

Thanks family for hosting us for the 2 weeks! I really enjoyed spending time with each of you and hope to come visit soon!

What I did this morning instead of cleaning...

First Attempt with photoshop!

So here is my first attempt using photoshop for digital scrapbooking. I know you'd be more impressed if I'd actually created this by hand, but this way is soo much cheaper and I never could have come up with that flower on my own.

I was tagged!

Tagged
This is a different tag, so here are the rules:
A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player lists 6 little-known facts/habits about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog

1 – I love cheesy quotes, really love them. “Life is not measured by the breathes we take but by the moments that take our breath away” – “And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once” – “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives” - “And forget not that the earth longs to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair” – “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. I could go on and on, getting more teary with each one. I have journals filled with just quotes. In fact, I think I’ll do a whole post on just quotes one of these days.

2 – I’m a wannabe hippie/greenie but I just don’t have to willpower to fully commit. Like if I was a true greenie, I would only use cloth diapers, but I just can’t bear the thought of that. Or I would never shop at Walmart, but it’s just so cheap and convenient! Or the other day I saw a show about how to reduce your carbon footprint. One way was to unplug appliances when you weren’t using them. I was talking to Zach about how we should start doing this when he pointed out that if we unplugged our tv/dvr/dvd player etc, then the DVR wouldn’t record any of our shows, so there went that idea. I also tried to be a vegetarian in college but that only lasted 2 weeks.

3 – Twice in my life I have gone 2 weeks without showering. One time I had a really good reason for it. The other time I didn’t.

4 – I’m a closet hypochondriac.

5 – One time in college a friend of mine organized a climbing contest, and against my will made the prize for first place a date with me. The winner had a fiancé so he passed. The second and third prize guys were both 16, so they were given the option of the date or a t-shirt. They both took the t-shirt. Did I mention the date included a $30 gift certificate to a restaurant? Even free food wasn’t worth having to spend dinner with me. Mind you, I was against the whole thing in the first place. And then for everyone to pass. It was so embarrassing on so many levels.

6 – I used to ice climb, whitewater kayak, rock climb, mountain bike, canyoneer, etc. Now I go on walks with Aubrey and wear makeup and 4 inch heels.

I tag Melissa Hodgen, Libby and DJ Jones, Ashley and Ty Jensen, Sarah and Ryan Darby, Rachel West, and Gina Jensen.

Quick Stats...

Today was Aubrey's 4 month appointment. She is 12 pounds 1 ounce (50 percentile) and 24.5 inches long (75%). How did a short fat mom end up with a tall skinny baby? Her head size is also in the 75 percentile. And she is apparently off the charts for lung capacity/screaming ability. After the nurse gave Aubrey her 4 shots, she (the nurse) said Aubrey was one of the louder babies she'd dealt as she dashed from the room - probably to save her eardrums.

The doctor said I could start feeding her that baby cereal if I wanted, but I'm not ready to deal with the mess yet, so maybe next month.

I promise I didn't take may camera to the doctor's office to take a picture of her crying. This picture is from a few days ago, right after church. She doesn't sleep at church and is one mad munchkin by the time we get home.

Go Big or Go Home!

It's recently come to my attention that my family was making fun of the brown hat with the big flower that Aubrey was wearing in one of my previous post. So in response to that, I promptly went out and bought flowers and made some flower headbands for my little girl and let me tell you, they are AH-dorable!

BIG

BIGGER

BIGGEST

MAYBE A BIT OVERBOARD?

Just some Aubrey Pics

Teaching her the essentials early, how to operate the TV remote.

Aubrey's Dr. Evil laugh

"Step"ing back through time

“Pittsburgh is undoubtedly the cockeyedest city in the United States. Physically, it is absolutely irrational. It must have been laid out by a mountain goat…and then the steps-oh my, the steps!”
Ernie Pyle, 1937


















































As much as we have complained about Pittsburgh from time to time, there really is no place like it. It has a culture of it's own. I love the diverse ethnic neighborhoods, the cobblestone streets, and the steps! They are everywhere and tell so much about the history of Pittsburgh as a steel town. Pittsburgh has the steepest street in the whole world! How did Zach and I get so lucky? From what I found on the internet, officially the steepest street in the world is in New Zealand (35% grade) but Pittsburgh actually has the steepest street with a 37% grade. That's almost as steep as a black diamond ski run! Zach doesn't believe me that Pittsburgh has the steepest street in the world though. He says that he walked up way steeper streets in Brazil, so steep that they were only for pedestrians, cars couldn't use them. Hmmm....a paved walkway only for pedestrians....we call those sidewalks where I'm from!




















Steepest street in the world! I drove up it!

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More Fall Fun

Last weekend we went to the AutumnFest at the Seven Springs "Ski Resort" (the whole resort is about the size of Snowbird's bunny hill). Other then the hot chocolate tasting booth they had there (where I spent most of my time!), I liked Triple B Farms better. Below is a picture of us at the top of the ski resort - I don't think their season is going to start anytime soon. I forgot there was such a height difference between Zach and I!

We also had a fall party at our church. Zach entered the pie eating contest to defend his title as the champ from last year's party. I have to say, this was not one of my proudest moments as Mrs. Zachary Pitcher, especially when he started eating the table cloth. Gotta love him though! I think Chris Derrick cheated by storing half the pie in his beard.

Aubrey say's "HAPPY HALLOWEEN"! (That's her laughing face!)

One of the grossest things in the whole world to me is loogeys. I don’t know if that's how you spell it, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever written the word loogey down, what I mean by loogey is the phlegm that people hack up and spit out. Could anything be grosser? I think I’m pretty tough, I don’t consider myself a girly girl, but hearing someone hacking one up will always make me dry heave – always. The only thing grosser then hearing someone hack up a loogey is seeing one…or so I thought. So I went to Kuhns the other day and was getting Aubrey’s carseat out of the car. That parking lot is super tight and crowded, so tons of people drove right past me while I was doing this, including some people on motorcycles. So I straightened up with the carseat and noticed there was a huge fresh loogey on the ground right next to my foot. Just as I was thinking how lucky it was that I didn’t step in it, I realized my left calf felt warm and very wet. It took me a good 30 seconds before I could bring myself to look and yes, I had loogey on my leg! The only thing I can figure is that someone driving by, probably one of the motorcyclist, spit a loogey at me while he was driving by. I’d like to think they weren’t aiming for me, but maybe I’d cut them off or something, I doubt it but who knows. Anyways, thank goodness for a well stocked diaper bag. I used at least 10 wipes to clean off my leg and then another 10 layers of hand sanitizer on my leg and my hands, with me gagging and shaking the whole time. I mean, who does that? There’s been a lot of talk on blogs about rednecks and I think spitting loogeys out your car window is definitely redneck. But spitting loogeys out your window into a crowded parking lot full of people? That goes beyond redneck - that’s just plain white trash! So I now realize that the grossest thing in the world isn’t hearing someone hock a loogey, or even seeing the loogey, but having the loogey on your leg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This picture has nothing to do with my post, but I didn't

want to leave you with something so gross, so here is

something cute, my niece Shannon (almost 3) and Aubrey

(about 2 months here).

Triple B Farms

Zach, Aubrey, and I went with some friends to Triple B Farms this weekend - what a cute place! Pumpkins, hayrides, cider, pies, scarecrows, goats on bridges - fun!

Aubrey insisted on going down the Liberty Tubeslide so I had to take her. She stayed asleep the whole way down, but I still think she enjoyed it.

Zach and I thought it would be really fun to get a picture of Aubrey in the pumpkins - she didn't think it was such a good idea though.

Check out these manly men with their cute pink blankets! I don't think we need to worry about any girls hitting on these two! What good dads.

What a great night!

Last night, for the first time, Aubrey slept all night in her crib. Here's a picture of her in the morning, still asleep! Too bad the flash from taking this picture woke her up, not so smart of me, but it was worth it!

Probably the cutest thing you’ll ever see

Morgan Nelson (born in August), Aubrey Pitcher (born in July), Ellie Smythe (born in April), and Natalie Roberts (born in July). Too bad Molly McNeal (another April baby) was at Disney World and couldn’t be in the picture.

Can you believe all the baby girls born in just a few short months? I’ve really never seen anything cuter then all those babies together. Below are more baby girls that friends of mine had. All the girls will be in nursery together at church for a while but then….we will all be moving shortly after. It didn’t hit me until I was looking at these cuties in the pack’n’play yesterday that our time in Pittsburgh is going to be over before we know it. Zach and I have lived here 27 months and we only have 20 months left until he graduates, and I’m really sad! How great would it be if these girls could grow up together, going to the same church and school (we would have all moved to Upper St. Clair of course). Then they could have joint birthday parties where they would look at pictures of all of them together as babies! But being that we are basically all students of some sort still, we’ll go our own ways eventually and some already have (Kim and Rachel – I’m talking to you!) What a great time in all of our lives though – I know I’m enjoying it. So, all you wives of students, residents, and husbands who have to travel all the time, I love all you guys!

Melanie and Aubrey Pitcher, Christen and Dylan Reid, Stefanie and Riley McMinn

Morgan Nelson (1 day old in this picture!) and Aubrey Pitcher (5 weeks old here)

Natalie Roberts and Aubrey Pitcher at the zoo

I can't believe I'm doing this...

I can’t believe Zach and I have a blog. I have a friend (Brooke) who is a serious blogger and has been for a long time and proud of it. I didn’t really know what a blog was, so I would just make fun of it instead, like “hey, why don’t you go like post this on your like blog or something” or “are you going to go blog about this tonight?” (The bold parts should be said very sarcastically) But once I saw her blog, I realized that I wanted one! But I couldn’t admit this since I’d made fun of blogging, so I remained blogless. Then one day Zach created a blog for us, and even though I was pumped, I had to save face and make fun of him too “I can’t believe you are a blogger, you’re one of them now?” I was going to try and pretend I wasn’t into it and was just updating it for Zach because he’s busy and I’m such a good wife, but who am I kidding? I’ve wanted a blog for months and I don’t care who knows it!

Check out my Slide Show!

Look-a-likes!

Can you guess which picture is me

and which one is Aubrey?!

~melanie

Random Pictures of Places and People

Me and Mel at Fallingwater, the famous Frank Loyd Wright house southeast of Pittsburgh, PA.

Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Maine. Summer 2006.

Most photographed lighthouse in Maine, you can see why. Summer 2006.

Sea-kayaking around Acadia National Park, Maine. Summer 2006