Brownie Mary was one of the top college bands in Pittsburgh throughout the '90s, but now that singer Kelsey Friday is a little older, she's skewing younger.

She'll be singing about such things as "pig in a wig is cooking spaghetti" when she makes her debut fronting the children's group Kelsey Friday & the Rest of the Week. The group arrives at the New Hazlett Theater having just completed a first album of children's songs.

It's natural to think that motherhood inspired this project. Friday has two children -- 3-year-old Cooper and 16-month-old Mason. But this was actually in the works before they came along.

About four years ago, one of her agents had an idea for a live-action children's show, where Friday would be the musical character. Figuring she had the knack, she started writing songs for it right about the time she got pregnant, but of course, ideas for TV pilots don't bloom overnight.

"The songs and melodies were just pouring out of me," she says. "That's when I thought, I can't wait around for the show to get some legs. I'm sitting on all these great songs right now."

She approached her favorite producer and longtime friend, Rick Witkowski of Studio L in Weirton, W.Va., and they spent three years working on it.

Within a year or so of writing, Friday had a built-in children's music critic -- son Cooper, whose name factors into one of the songs.

"I can't tell you how many of them were done on the changing table," Friday says. "He loved to get his diaper changed, and I would sit there and sing to him. I could tell if he was digging something. If I started something and he wasn't into it, I would just drop it."

The end result is a pop record that Brownie Mary fans will actually enjoy listening to with their kids. The songs capture a range of emotions, from silly ("What R We Gonna Do") to fearful ("Afraid Parade") to grumpy ("Grumpy") to loving ("Ray").

"It's an album of feelings and emotions and love, and a lot of children's stuff out there is about nonsense songs. Not that I don't have nonsense songs on there. But this album has some meat and substance and will make a kid think if he or she wants to, or dance or feel something, whether it's happy or angry, and know that it's OK to feel all those things."

One track that will be special to Brownie Mary fans is the concert staple "Coconuts," a bouncy, tropical track redone as an English-Spanish combo with her best friend and backup singer, Jennifer March.

Friday says they all had as much fun in the studio as it sounds.

"It was such a natural process. I never had so much fun making an album ever. Because anything went -- there were no rules. We figured, 'If it made us smile, it's got to make kids smile.' And there was no pressure. It didn't matter. I was like, 'I don't care if no one hears this except my kids.' "

Oddly enough, after three years of making this record, the only time she's really performed for kids is at the occasional birthday party. On Saturday, she'll be joined by the Rest of the Week -- Witkowski, March, Anthony Rankin, Jamie Peck, B.C. Taylor and Hot Dom -- each wearing a colorful shirt to reflect their given day.

She hopes this first show will lead to many others.

"Can you imagine after all my years of being in a rock band and touring and trying to make it big to all of a sudden being a children's star or something? 'Cause trust me, we have big plans for this. There are tons of people doing children's music, but not like we're doing it."