Beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Okay - so a few weeks ago, my sister and I took my mother to see a play called 'Christmas Catechism.' This was the second time I have seen 'Sister.' If this EVER comes to your area, buy a ticket as fast as you can. Basically the show is set in a Catholic school room and you learn a lesson. The Sister is absolutely hysterical. She is really big on 'No Gum.' It is highly suggested not to chew it, because she will find you and she will make you spit it out.  Anyways... we saw it at the City Theatre in Pittsburgh and had a great time. We laughed until we cried.

From there we went to meet the rest of the gang at Tavern 245. It's a new local establishment in downtown and it's absolutely amazing. (I have some fun pictures when someone finally decides to download the pictures.) Anyways.. I stole these from my Mom and Sister.
This might be my most favorite picture of the year. This is my mother, celebrating her birthday. I've never seen my mom like this. Ahh made me so giddy! How adorable are my parents. I mean really.

Here's the group shot... after dinner...

From there - my sister's family and Mr. Wonderful and I were going to go Ice Skating at PPG Place. Unfortunately the line was long and we had two small children with us. Soooooo we decided on other activities instead.  However, here's a picture of just the Christmas tree in PPG place with an ice rink around it.

This is Pittsburgh's way of attempting to be NYC. Close, but not really.

Here's Mr. Wonderful and I.. I was all ready to skate... my old skates and all!

Next we headed to the 'Winter Garden within PPG where they have the Santa's from around the world and the most amazing candy houses I've ever seen. They also include a train within the display. Here's the kids checkin' it out.

Seriously. Look at the houses in the background. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

The final activity of the night was the horse carriage ride. Now. Typically a wait out in the somewhat-really-cold-weather isn't terribly bad, however, when you add in two small children... the game changes.

We worked hard to entertain them until Sammy fell and cried... That was almost the end, but she really wanted to ride with the horsey.. So the wait ended up being around 45 minutes, which wasn't horrible. We were the second to last round! Luckily we made it. While we were waiting the kids loved to look at this new Christmas tree displayed in Market Square.

It's these big balls that light up.. They do a light show every 30 minutes in Market Square. Kinda neat to check out if you are downtown at night.

So that was that. This just previous weekend Mr. Wonderful and I finally took the kids ice skating. For their first time. Surprisingly not a single tear showed up. I'll post pictures later for that.

Just in case any of you out of towners wondered, there is soooooo much more to do in Pittsburgh than Steel Mills, Football, and Hockey. I promise!