Our first little family (of four!) date happened on Friday and it was such a fun day together! Jimmy took Friday off of work and we headed to one of my favorite places in Pittsburgh: the National Aviary!

Sadie and I talked all about birds in the weeks leading up to our visit, so she was excited. We listened to a recording of a kookaburra laughing, looked up pictures of flying foxes, talked about owls, vultures, penguins, and toucans.

We headed to the Aviary right when they opened and had a great time checking everything out. The whole facility was decked out for Christmas, which was beautiful!

There are a few areas where the birds are free to roam around the visitors and one large bird walking around sounded its (loud) mating call and Sader Tot was alarmed 😂

After seeing all the animals, we headed to the gift shop and Jimmy let Sadie pick out a stuffed animal. She chose a swan and kept pronouncing it as “swamp” which still makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Anyways, how about some pictures?

We headed home for lunch and Jimmy and I both snuck in a glorious nap while Sadie watched an episode of Strawberry Shortcake on TV and Mordecai dozed on my chest. It was just what we needed!

Sadie and I got groceries together in the afternoon–yay for one-on-one time with my girl!–and I introduced her to Fruit Stripe gum. That was a childhood favorite of mine! She wasn’t impressed with the gum (it basically loses its flavor in 15 seconds 😂) but loved the temporary tattoos on the wrapper.

Our big plans for the evening included a stop at Millie’s Homemade Ice Cream (they had a gingerbread flavor for the holiday season!) and checking out a house near us that has Christmas lights synced with music.

We love visiting this house each Christmas season. We just park in front of the house and tune our radio to the station they have the lights synced up with and watch a little light show for 10-15 minutes. Sadie is finally at an age where she really enjoys this type of thing and it’s a joy to watch her delight in it!

We capped off the day by watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie. Well, Mordecai and I went to bed about halfway through and Sadie fell asleep on the couch near the end, but Jimmy finished it 😂

Everyone falling asleep so fast was the sign of a good day! I am excited for more special family days and nights in the future. We planned on doing gingerbread houses that night but time got away from us, so it looks like we are going to have to have a family night soon to do them!

What was the last fun thing you did?