Once upon a TOON!

We had a lot of family fun during the weekend.
The family concert by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz hall was wonderful. The concert targets children age 3 to 6. Sophia is a little too young to enjoy all parts of the symphony. But she did get that we were sitting in the hall for music. She was sitting on mom's laps very quitely from beginning to the end, about 45 minutes. She liked the music song and Fiddlesticks (Friendly, Feline Ambassador to Young Children). We'll definitely go again next year. I can't wait to see Sophia dance with the music.
Saturday was cold and wet. Can you believe we start to turn on the heater in September. A lot of people put on down jacket already. No wonder the mall was crowded on such a bad day. When we got Ross park mall in the afternoon the parking lot was 99% full. This usually happens around thanksgiving. Now Christmas shopping comes earlier and earlier every year.
Sunday was beautiful after a long cloudy and rainy week. I dressed up Sophia with a little powder pink cord dress and white floral tights. She looks cute in pink as always.
Our first stop was the National Aviary. Sophia started to talk like a duck "ga! ga! ga!" when we arrived at the parking lot. How could she know the National Aviary is about birds? Then I realized that there were a couple trucks in the parking lot had giant bird pictures on them. I was amazed, she knew the little cute ducks in pond, the bright red flamingo in the zoo and the ugly owl printed on big trucks are all birds and all makes the same noise "ga!ga!ga!". We never told her, she figured all by herself. When we got inside the building Sophia started to say "WOW" whenever she saw a bird. Her favorite was a big bald eagle, don't ask me why, I have no idea. She wasn't so interested in those colorful and good looking birds, she just liked bald eagle, she even got out of her comfy stroller to get a closer look.
Around noon, the temperature was just right and it was very nice to take a stroll in the park. Sophia was very lazy sitting in her comfy stroller all morning. But when she saw the playground near the park, her eyes sparkled, she almost jumped out of the stroller. Watching her run in the playground, get up and down, slide again and again, I felt I'm a kid again. When wzg asked us to leave, I told him, "one more", just like a kid doesn't want to leave the playground.
After lunch we headed to the Children's museum of Pittsburgh, which is next to National Aviary. This was our first time to the museum. Usually 12pm-3pm is Sophia's nap time. So I didn't expect much for an afternoon trip to Children's museum. To my surprise, the Children's museum is a giant indoor playground. Sophia loves it, I love it, everyone has fun in it. We can play in it forever. Now there is another reason that makes me love Pittsburgh.
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was our first stop. It is colorful and fun. Sophia loves to open and close those lighted alphabet windows. We took a ride at the trolly, too. Then we (I mean me and wzg) played at the funny mirrors, Sophia played at the hunted doll house. The huge 3-story wooden doll house is my childhood dream, now it came true, I can play with Sophia at the museum. Then we joined the crowd in Garage and workshop. Who says Garage and workshop are for boys? Sophia loves this room. She was facinated with the ball running at the ceiling, she kept watching that ball when she was totally exausted at 2:30pm without closing her eyes for one minute. There were so many other attractions in that room, huge car track playset, real mini cooper for children to "drive". I decided to save all other fun activities for our later trips because Sophia was too tired. We finished our trip in the theater, stroy telling show. The teller was so funny, he drew and talked the story of how turtle got cracks on his shell. Sophia laughed out loud at the end of the show. I don't know if she understands the story but I know she had a lof fun. Sophia fell asleep in one minute after I put her in the carseat.
What a weekend!