Pictures in my camera...

So my mother tells me that her favorite thing about blogs is the pictures, and since my mom truly does always know best, here is a post for her! Keep in mind, I have not downloaded pictures from my camera since Halloween!

Our Halloween was a fun spectacle of non-stop candy, various parties, and lots of fun. Here is a pic of me and the kids right before the candy begging began:


Linc was a soccer player (I believe that he just scored a goal in this picture, thatta boy!)


Anna was the lovely Giselle from Enchanted


Our sweet little Blondie was a Purple Princess (a tad generic, but purple is a lovely color right??


Moving on to Thanksgiving now, we drove out to Gold Canyon to spend thanksgiving with Randy's family. It was a great day of yummy food, lots of family, and a few wild games of Spoons. The kids were busy all day playing...we had a great time.

Randy and Linc with Mom & Dad McBride


Grandmother reading to the kiddos...this is the only time they sat still all day!


That evening after the Thanksgiving fiesta was over, we drove to my parents cabin in Pine. The kids (ok, mainly my "little" brother Dennis) were insistent on finding snow. Much to my surprise, we actually found a lot of snow and managed to take pictures and do a bit of playing.

Hallie had a great time building this lovely snowman...


Hallie had an even better time pushing the snowman over...poor snow guy


My brother Dennis had the best time trying to throw the snowdudes body on Hallie...


A poem for my honey-I love to hug you in the snow, in the rain, or on a train...


A poem for my baby sister............. Just kidding, I only write one poem per day. However, it would be fun to be a cute 16 year old again, for maybe just a day.


And lastly, a pic of my cute, chubby, baby with sweet little cheeks that I love to smooch...

This is Linc tuckered out after playing in the snow. I use the word playing very loosely, it appears that our little guy doesn't like to be cold...so he was passed from warm adult to warm adult the whole time. Its a rough life. Oh...and Linc's New Years Resolution is to get rid of his Paci...pray for us people!!!

Gratitude....

I am thankful for 3 little faces to kiss each morning. I am thankful for chubby little toddler hands, for the opportunity to teach those hands how to hold a spoon, a crayon, play pat-a-cake. I am grateful for the sounds of my babies playing, and singing, and laughing. I am grateful to be home all day to cook, and clean, and kiss, and hug. I am grateful for dirty hands, feet and faces that have enjoyed the beautiful earth we have been given. I am grateful for bath water splashed everywhere in the bathroom, and the sudsy smiles that greet me. I am thankful for the memories I make everyday with these little souls who will only be little for an instant.

Family Pictures Fiasco

I love pictures of my family. Everyone scrubbed clean in new clothes, hair just perfect, pretty little smiles. I love fun pictures all over the house that remind us what a cute happy family we are. However, I don't always love the road that it takes to GET family pictures. Figuring out what everyone will wear, going to a million stores to find just the right outfits, doing the girls hair in a pretty soft hairdo and then stressing about them not ruining that pretty soft hair before the photographer even takes the first picture. In my life there is always a baby in the picture...which means an inevitable runny nose and lots of effort to get said baby to look reasonably happy and to stay in one place without crawling off (or walking off, or running off). There is always a grumpy toddler (and sometimes a grumpy husband!). There is always bribes of candy, fun, McDonalds, Saturday afternoon football (for Mr.Wonderful of course)...whatever it takes to get the joys of my life looking joyful at the same time. There is a litany of NO's on the drive over....no fits, no fights, no crying, no fussing, no whining. So I finally got all of my ducks in a row. The outfits, the hair, a fun new photographer. My bribes were in place, and my happy little campers came through in the end. The girls were great (ok, one pouty face picture from little Miss.Drama hardly counts right?). Mr.Wonderful came through wonderfully. Linc was our little bump in the road but we managed to get a few shots of him smiling whilst running away from the camera (what else would make a little boy so happy?). A big thanks to our awesome photographer Steve Watson who I highly recommend...a man with 4 children of his own and plenty of patience to deal with my crew. Also a huge thanks to my darling husband who puts up with my high-strung personality and perfectionism at picture time every year...he was a gem (and he even got to watch his Saturday afternoon football!). Enjoy the pics...there are more at stevewatson.smugmug.com.

Cute little stinker

Blondie being sweet

My favorite family pic...love the corn!!

The Princesses

Very Vintage

Isn't he handsome??

How did I get so lucky with those 3?

Anna is great at posing for the camera...

And last but not least...Miss.Drama decides to pout! But not to worry, with a promise of candy she snapped right out of it on the next shot (I am a shameless briber on picture day).

Today...

What I DID do:

1. Excerised with a girlfriend
2. Took the gang to the park, and even gave a few pushes on the swings!
3. Did 3 loads of laundry (washed, dried, folded, put away!)
4. Gave Mr. Wonderful a big hug and kiss before work!
5. Put Blondie in time-out once and Linc down for a nap twice
6. Fed all the munchkins and even got lunch myself!

What I WILL do:

1. Make a million spiral curls in the girls hair for their big Halloween night debut
2. Let them pick whichever lipstick their little hearts desire for the big night
3. Take a bunch of pictures of the princesses and little buddy
4. Take the gang trick-or-treating until exhaustion sets in
5. Haul them home, baths, kisses, prayers, bed
5. Read my scriptures, say my prayers and then...
6. Snuggle with Mr. Wonderful on the couch!

Sticky, sticky...

Tonight for FHE we went to our friends and had some fun. We had hot dogs (oh yes, what better dinner for a crowd?). Then the Dad's carved the pumpkins (the vegetables, not the kids). The kids were running around with slimy hands. I am so glad that I have Mr.Wonderful to do the pumpkin carving...I don't have the slightest inclination to get in on that! Then we made Caramel Apples and let the kids decorate them with sprinkles, m&ms, chocolate chips, etc... The kids were SO STICKY by the end of the evening...I had to really let go of my desire to take them outside and hose them off. They had such a good time!

I forgot my camera, so here is a random pic of them before church a few weeks back!!

CouponSense success...

So recently I took the plunge and joined couponsense (my sister-in-law has been doing it for a while and I was getting envious of all of her good deals!). For those of you who aren't familiar with it, CouponSense is a service that tells you how to use your coupons. They do all the research for you and have a great website, so that when you go shopping you end up buying things for much cheaper than you would normally pay. They also help you get multiple Sunday papers (I get 3) so that when there IS a good deal, you get a lot of it! I have been doing it for 3 weeks now and have had fun shopping, stocking up, and getting things for FREE (or nearly free). Here is what I did today!



What I got:
4 boxes of cereal- FREE
5 small chocolate milks- FREE
4 packs frozen veggies- FREE
2 packs TP- FREE
3 cartons Blue Bunny ice cream- 85 cents each
3 childrens cold/allergy medicine- FREE (actually, I made $4!!)

Call me crazy, but it is fun to save money!

Apparently we aren't the crazy ones....

Not at the fair anyways! We went to $1 day at the fair last night. It took a lot of planning to leave as soon as Randy finished work, to bring all of our baby/kid gear and to feed everyone BEFORE going in. I have a love/hate relationship with the fair. Let me share it with you.

Reasons NOT to go to the fair:
1. Every freaky person in Arizona is there in full freakiness
2. Parking is either expensive, or far away, or expensive and far away.
3. Trying to keep 3 little kids together at one time is next to impossible, avoid this at all times
4. Fair workers are oddballs
5. Too many people in too small of spaces
6. Everything is overpriced...before you realize it all of your grocery money is spent on 2 fry-breads and a funnel cake!


Reasons TO GO to the fair:
1. The smile on my kids faces when they go on a ride
2. The smile on my kids faces when they see the stinky cows/bunnies/hamsters/chicks/horses/goats
3. The smile on my kids faces when it is dark outside and all of the "cool" lights are lit up
4. The way my kids talked about it all day today, and will be talking about it for months to come.

The joys of being a mother!!!

Busy, Fun, Crazy!!

We have just been crazy busy with all sorts of good things. Conference weekend was great, we enjoyed all of the talks. Our kids had fun bumming around the house. A family in our ward gave us a bag of dress up clothes for the girls, so that was very exciting! Even Linc got in on the action...

Barbie's 12 dancing princess's...being a little shy


Giselle from Enchanted...lovely


Purple Princess-boy


Cinderella's wedding gown...strutting his stuff!


We were suprised that he had such a great time dressing up. We will definetly have to invest in some BOY dress up clothes for the next time around. Randy, I promise I will never show these pictures of our little dude again!

Today I tried to get a few projects finished. While I was doing things, Hallie stayed busy with her Dora cards.


Here is what I did this morning:

Made 2 new pillows for my red couch (I am getting tired of that couch, but right now all I can do is add pillows!!)



Learned to etch glass. It was SO easy!


Yesterday we had Anna's first Parent-Teacher Conference. She is doing great in school academically and has great behavior. I am so proud of her...it felt good to know that she is doing so well. Yay Anna! Hopefully all of the conferences for the next 12 years go so well!

Updates

I have been a little sporadic in my posts, but a few fun things have happened that I wanted to share!



Our little Hallie girl started pre-school. I (as usual) am trying to save a buck, so there is a group of 5 moms (6 kids, we have a set of twins in there!)and we are rotating houses. So 2 days a week, for 2 hours she goes. She was SO excited on her first day of school, and is quite the student. Hallie has always been my "learner"...she loves to read, write and name her letters, and watches Anna do her homework. I am so glad that she has her little pre-school! It is weird to have a few hours to myself (Linc naps during that time). I think that I could get used to having my kids at school!





On Saturday night we took the kids to the Diamondbacks game. They had won tickets from the library summer reading program (remember that?). They have been over-the-top excited to go, and all day waited anxiously to leave. So we drive downtown, Randy parks, wait in line to get the tickets, haul the gang inside (all the while trying to keep 3 children under the age of 6 together and avoid the mobs of people), take everyone potty, climb up to the nosebleeds with the slow-pokes (they are library tickets, remember?), climb over people to our seats, sit down. Whew. We couldn't have been sitting more than 5 minutes before Anna insisted that she had to go potty. Down we go again, use the potty, climb back up, climb over people, sit down. Needless to say, we only lasted 3 innings. Anna kept asking when the game was going to start. I had to tell her that the game already DID start...this, my dear, is baseball...not a Hannah Montana concert! Hallie was good until we ran out of food to feed her. Linc loved clapping when everyone else did, and wanted to make friends with all of the nacho eating/beer drinking fans around us. Chalk it up to another McBride adventure! I hope Linc likes sports so Randy gets to go to sports and actually stay and watch the game!

Sick days....

So my little Linc has been running a fever for a few days, and thanks to a great doctor friend we don't think that he has an ear infection. On top of that, Hallie girl was quite cranky this morning (tantrums galore, are we still 2? I think not!) finally I realized that she had joined her brother on the dark side with a fever. Anna came home from school (I figured that she and I would team up and nurse our little babies back to health)...sure enough by 3:30 she was laying on the couch with a fever. Talk about wild. This is my first experience of having all 3 of my children sick at once. Lets just say that I was quite glad to have Randy home at 5:15. However wild it was, there are a few good things about the little guys being sick:

- I didn't have to cook dinner...Mr. Wonderful felt so bad for me he bought me Taco Del Mar....yum!
- The kids were begging to go to sleep by 6:30...Randy and I actually got to snuggle and watch a new show that came on at 7:00 (Fringe)
- I got to hold my kids more than I normally do. There is nothing that tugs on my heart like a little warm body in my arms
- The kids didn't drag out as many toys as the typically do this afternoon (lets be honest, less mess is always a good thing)

As wonderful as all of these things are, I am sad that the little munchkins are sick. It was odd not to hear the giggles, to have nobody begging for a snack, to not have to race someone to the phone when it rang...they all just layed around and watched me. Hopefully this setback will be shortlived and we will be back to the normal chaos soon...I will keep you posted!

Kindergarten Update....

So everyday I ask Anna a few questions, and everyday I get the same answers. This is how it goes:

Me- Anna, what did you learn today?
Anna- Nothing at all Mom.
Me- Well, what was your favorite part of the day?
Anna- Recess.

I would argue, but we all know that recess is wonderful. Who am I to argue with that??

Kindergarten

I have spent the last 4 1/2 years worrying and stressing about sending my little Anna to school. It always seemed that I would never find a school that I loved for her, that I would be worried about her all day, that she wouldn't be ready, that Hallie would miss her....the list goes on and on. The last 6 months, however, it seems like everything has changed. She seemed to NEED more things during the day to stimulate her and I started thinking that I could use one less kid a little bit. So yesterday off she went to start her schooling career.

I have to say that I was more nervous than she was, I woke up with butterflies in my stomach like it was my first day, not hers! I kept asking her if she was nervous, and she always looked at me like I was crazy and would confidently say "No". Upon arrival to her school, she ran into a few little girls that she knew and then ran off to play on the playground. I, of course, stood around...unable to leave, unable to take my eyes off of my little baby that has overnight turned into a little girl. When the bell rang she hugged me and marched right into her class without a glance back. I was proud of myself because I didn't do the one thing that I always thought I would do on her first day of school...cry.

At home we kept busy and happy without her. I was SO ready to go pick her up at 12:20 and hear about her day. She was so happy climbing into the car, like a whole new world had been opened up to her. The first thing that she said about her day? "Mom, it was a dream come true!". I guess my baby is now a kindergartner!

So excited!

I like school uniforms more than I thought I would

Her new Barbie backpack from Grandma

At her school

What happens in Vegas.....

This last week I packed the kids up and went to see my grandparents in Utah. We had such a great time in the beautiful weather, and spending time with them. The kids went on lots of walks, played in the rain, and made lots of messes at their Great-Grandparents house. We had such an enjoyable time...THANKS GRANDMA & GRANDPA!!

Here is Anna & Hallie playing a game with Grandpa

Linc and Grandma on the porch



After a few days we met Randy in Vegas for my cousin Kaylee's wedding. It was so nice to see all of my long lost Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. She looked great, the whole day was beautiful. We didn't do a whole lot in Vegas, but we did take the kids to a few fun places. I will never forget explaining to Anna & Hallie that slot machines were NOT arcade games!

At the Las Vegas temple

The girls

My sisters & I at the reception...Me, Autumn, Jodi & Misty

My cousin Kaylee just after they were married. I didnt mean to cut McKay her groom out...oops.

Anna turned 5 on the trip! It is crazy that she has grown up so fast. She was thrilled with all of her gifts and she even got to get a Happy Meal from McDonalds...what more could a girl ask for? Autumn did her hair in a cute up-do and she wore a princess crown the entire day.

It was a great trip, I was so happy to connect with my extended family again.

Just another day....

Today really was just another day. We have been busy trying to get ready for the weekend and our upcoming trip to St. George & Las Vegas for my cousin Kalee's wedding. Around lunchtime I realized that Lincoln was running a fever, so I spent all afternoon taking care of him.

After dinner Randy mowed the front yard and washed my van. YAY!!! The girls went out to "help" him, and I kept Linc inside out of the heat. He started to cry when they went outside without him, so I put him up on the couch so that he could see them out the window. He stood on the couch for about 20 minutes watching Randy...the poor kid really wanted to be out with his Dad. I snapped these pictures. He is quite the Daddy's boy already.