Toddler

Toddler climbing out of crib

Escape Artists, Thrifting, and Fall Reading

I think Niva’s fence jumping habit is rubbing off on Sadie. I heard her stirring in her crib yesterday morning and checked her baby monitor to find this scene. We have two escape artists on our hands, lol.

Toddler climbing out of crib

Thankfully I caught her before she fully climbed out, but I feel like our crib days are numbered. Fellow parents, when did you switch your child from a crib to a bed?

We’ve been doing some fall-themed reading here in the Zottola household. Sadie really enjoys Biscuit books, so we added a few fall ones to our growing collection. 

Biscuit books

We don’t celebrate Halloween, and I’ve found it tough to find children’s books about fall that aren’t Halloween-related. When I saw Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch, Biscuit is Thankful, and Happy Thanksgiving, Biscuit I was so pumped! 

Do you like to go thrift shopping? I don’t go very often, but every time I do I always wonder why I don’t do it more often. I especially like to thrift clothes for Sadie because she grows out of things so quickly. 

My mom, Sadie, and I went on a little girls’ outing to a local thrift store and found a few great deals.

Thrifted toddler clothing

The bird top was $2.09 and the bunny rabbit jumper was $1.04. 

Thrifted toddler clothes

The red dress cost $2.09 and the adorable animal print sweater was also $2.09.

Penn State toddler outfit

Last but not least for clothing, Sadie scored a Penn State shirt for $1.04 and jeggings for $0.99. 

I couldn’t pass up the book section because, well, books. I grabbed a book that tells the story of Noah’s ark for $0.50 and a marriage book I’ve been eying up for years for $1.99. I’m excited to dive in. 

Love and Respect and The Story of Noah

What was the last item you got a great deal on?

Ten Years of Blogging

On October 12th, 2010 I started this blog. My first post was a recap of my weekend and also embarrassing, haha. I was 18-years-old and just having fun sharing my days as a freshman in college, what I ate, what Jimmy and I did, and things that were on my mind. 

I was swimming competitively, working at Penn State’s athletic center, Jimmy was my boyfriend, and Lola was a young dog.

While in college, I got into running and did everything from 5ks to marathon training, struggled with an h.pylori infection, and Jimmy and I were engaged. I graduated from Penn State in 2014 with a degree in journalism. 

Jimmy and I got married, bought a house, I worked as a household manager and pet sat, began working for my family’s real estate brokerage, and were blessed with our daughter, Sadie!

We’ve gardened our little hearts out and served alongside our church family.

Throughout the years we’ve had quite a few pets: Lola, Ford and Scout, Malcolm, Mavis, and Niva. We did a lot of therapy dog training with Mavis, which was an experience I really enjoyed.

Animals have been such a huge part of my life and blog and I’m continually trying to convince Jimmy to allow me to have a bunch more cats and dogs 🙂

Husky and toddler laying on bed

I have shared about my faith in God, my favorite recipes, books I’ve read, my journey as a new mom, and my everyday life here in Pittsburgh.

The landscape of blogging has changed so much over the past ten years. A lot of people may say blogging is old-school and defunct in the age of Instagram and Facebook, but I don’t care. I love this space.

I have made some incredible friends from around the world over the past ten years and I owe that to this little corner of the internet. The little blogging community here is so special to me. There have been fun posts, happy posts, hard posts, and everything in-between.

Family picture of mom and dad and toddler taking a selfie

Whether you’ve been connecting with me for the past ten years or this is your first time visiting my blog, thank you for reading! I’m looking forward to the future here at Living My Full Life!