Family Home Evening with the McBrides

Yup. We read from the Friend and then played with Photobooth.

Hope you get as big of a kick out of these as we did.

DeLucas

DeLucas.
Can't believe we've almost been here 4 years and have never been to DeLucas.
Well, better late than never.
There are two famous breakfast places in Pittsburgh. Pamela's and DeLucas.
I've been to Pamelas (josh hasn't).
But neither of us had been to DeLucas!
As far as I know Pamelas is famous for pancakes and DeLucas is the greasy spoon. Both are usually very busy.
I'm not into breakfast (except cereal), so I didn't really care where we went.
But, given Josh's love of breakfast food, I thought it would be fun to take him there.
It was part of our Friday night date. Apparently our date would last 3 days.
Friday night: we made the best popcorn on the planet and watched Super 8. We planned on going to DeLucas on Saturday morning.
Saturday Morning: we called DeLucas to see how long their line was. It was snowing pretty bad, so they told us it wasn't busy. So we rushed around getting ready... two hours later I said "we'd better call them again." And they said their line was outside. Yeah right. I'm not standing out in the snow with 2 kids.
So, that didn't happen.
Sunday: Josh realizes the next day is is a holiday and he has the day off of work! Woot!
Monday: we get up early, get to the strip and eat at DeLucas. Finally!
Every bite we took we were nodding our heads at each other like 'yep, this is good.'
Then we didn't have enough cash to tip our waitress. We felt bad. So we mailed it to her later.
AND THEN we had to do our daily workout.
Our greasy, heavy breakfast was still sitting in our tummies. I thought I was going to die. I was sweating bacon grease.
I remembered why I don't really care for breakfast foods. Josh finally realized why I am the way I am. We both wished we had eaten Go Lean that morning.
Nah. I'd do it again.

Snow much fun

(This post is so old. I guess I forgot to post it. Just so ya know)

Oh, the snow.
Remember how magical it was when you were a kid?
I used to stare at the snow coming down out the back door. I would pretend I was in a spaceship flying through space.
Try it one day. If you blur your eyes a little bit, it totally looks like stars.
The next morning I would bundle up and play like all day. We would make trails through the big back yard and play tag in them, and make a snow slide off of the deck.
Oh, and when we were really little we would make these tiny little 1 foot high hills and ride our 3 foot sled down them. Ha ha haha .
My sister used to pull me around in the sled. I would try to pull her too, but she was five years older than me. So, I never got very far. Sorry Rebecca. I'll pull you now!! I know I can totally do it.

Well, it finally snowed here. Enough to play in. I have been so excited. Not for me, for my kids!
We borrowed the neighbors tube and hooked up a rope to the handle
(the rope Josh made in Nauvoo! it came in handy after all!)
So we bundled them up. Josh showed Brinkley the correct technique of tucking your snowsuit into your boots so no snow gets up in there (josh was a professional kid).
I put Darcy in her marshmallow suit. Totally reminded me of 'A Christmas Story.'
("I can't put my arms down!")
And we headed outside.
Josh pulled the girls around; back and forth in our tiny yard for an hour and a half.
He even made a 1 foot high hill to pull them over.
Nothing beats seeing your kid smile that big. Or giggle that loud.
I just handled the camera. Oh, and giggled a lot too.
Didn't even know Darcy was having fun until we tried to take her inside. She threw a fit!
I guess she does like the snow. Even though she hardly cracked a smile.
(I did pick out all of the smiling pictures though)
Call me crazy, but I hope it snows more! There just hasn't been enough this winter.
Not to mention we live in Pittsburgh, so already the rain has washed the snow away.

18 months

Darcy turned 18 months!

All that means to me is NURSERY!!

Just kiddin'
Kinda.

So here's what's up with Darcy at 18 months:

I tell her she's crazy about 80 times a day.
She loves to sing.
She is starting to really love books.
Her favorite book is "Old McDonald"
She loves to copy her sister.
She is officially a picky eater. And most of her food ends up on the floor. Boo!!
But she does like shredded cheese, oranges, peanut butter and oatmeal.
Her hair HAS started growing... but she's still pretty bald. There's just some tufts that fluff out around her ears.
She is a screamer.
She still sucks on her left arm for comfort.
But she also loves her giraffe. I dare say the giraffe is a 'lovey' now.
She loves climbing on everything.
She know exactly when she's being naughty because as soon as I catch her in the act of something, she immediately drops it and RUNS!
Speaking of running, she never stops. She runs, runs, runs all day long. She is an incredibly busy girl.
She eats the erasers off of every single pencil in the house.
She loves to look out the window and enjoys playing outside even more (too bad it's cold).
She loves to find my belly button.
She doesn't like to talk. She does know some words:
(mama, dada, baby, Brinkley, puppy, and like 3 more that I can't remember)
But getting her to say them is hard. She chooses when and where she will talk.
Mostly she just babbles.
She does, however, wave at anyone that passes by.
She has a really funny gut laugh.
She loves the tub.
She has started folding her arms for prayer... that lasts about 2 seconds.
We love our Darcy Love. Can't imagine our home without her.

Joshua J. McBride - update

I hardly ever blog about my husband. Which is weird because his life is probably the most eventful out of all us in our little family.

Kids: eat, play, follow mom around the house making messes.
Mom: feed kids, unsuccessfully try to get stuff done while kids play, clean up messes.
Dad: become a DOCTOR, helloooo!?!

It's actually kind of a bad time to update you though. Because at the moment we are waiting in a seriously terrible limbo.

He just finished interviews for residency. Only 3 interviews. Blech. We were expecting like 10. What a bummer. Though, not having interviews saved us money.
(We're trying really hard to be optimistic here)

1st Interview was at the University of Utah.
Remember back in November when he was gone for a month and we stayed here?
Yeah, he did AWESOME in Utah on that rotation. He worked hard, he loved it there, and they liked him too. He interviewed with each of the faculty (like 11 or so interviews) while there. Oh man, we hope this one works out. We don't see how it can't. Everything has fallen so perfectly into place with Utah it is almost ridiculous. Every single prayer has been answered thus far concerning this program. Let's hope these next two months of prayers are heard too.

2nd Interview was at University Medical Center of Las Vegas.
Josh and I spent the weekend in Vegas {no kids!}.
This program is interesting. This will be their first year having a resident in the ENT department. We're not sure how we feel about that. But, beggars can't be choosers. He interviewed with all 4 of the faculty, two went well and two were 'eh.'
Oh, and we ate at the most awesome buffet on the strip. Delightful.

3rd Interview was here at PITT.
He interviewed with 13 of the faculty. Go Josh! That is a long day! Especially for an introvert. Again, not sure what to think about these interviews. Most of them were spent talking about Josh's 'back-up plan' if he doesn't match. Where's your faith people? Can't you make him match here? Come on. Really.
No, they like him. Someone told him they would be sad to see him go if he matched elsewhere.

However, after his Pitt interview, Josh had the infamous Dr. Meyers (an old, well known, renownd, hard-nosed doctor) make a call to the UofU for him to let them know he loved their program. It's like a 'hi, remember me?' kind of a thing only from someone really magnificent.
According to Dr. Meyers they 'remembered him well, and liked him."
So, there you have it.
We have no idea what will happen.

We have to wait until March 16th to find out.
What is March 16th, you ask? Well, it just happens to be "Match Day." Where all those who match go to this ceremony thing, go up on stage, open your envelope and announce to your classmates where you matched. It's kindofa big deal. Especially for us. Honestly, we don't know what our 'back-up' plan is because we don't even want to think about life if he doesn't match.
We just have to.

So, if you are out there and took the time to read this entire post - would you mind just saying a little prayer for us that we will match please? That would be awesome. We owe ya. :)

And GOOD LUCK JOSH!

P.S. The night before his PITT interview he asked me for a haircut. I've done it lots of times. So I don't know if it was the pressure of him having an interview or what, but I could not get it right and I was freaking out. So, fortunately my FABULOUS neighbor Amanda (the one who taught me to cut Josh's hair actually) let him come over at 10:30 p.m. to fix his hair so he didn't look botched for his interview.
Here's what I did. Yikes.

Oh, boy, this might have been cool in the 90's. If it was straight.
Bummer. I can't even make my husband look cool in the 90's.

Lopsided much?


This is the side I was working on when I gave up, exasperated.

Prayers

{Don't mind all the complaining... It gets happy by the end.)

Being a mom is hard.
I think that every single day.
It doesn't help that my kids make me feel like a failure.
Like when they are squirming all around on the bench at church and can't use quiet voices.
Or when they throw tantrums in public.
When they won't eat one single healthy thing all day.
Or when all they want to do is watch movies.
Or when I get one mess finally clean and 5 more were made during that time.
Or when they rebel against our greatest efforts to teach them the gospel.

That last one really gets me.
Everyday, consistently, we have family scriptures and prayers.
But imagine:
We pull out the Book of Mormon...
Darcy is usually running around like a crazy person and flips out with that ever so popular
'back-arch' thingy just to get away. She's happy as can be when I let her go. AND CRAZY.
Brinkley is crawling under the bed to get away from us so she doesn't have to read her ONE verse. Then we finally coax her out (without getting angry because that completely defeats the purpose of what we're trying to do right?) and she says her scripture. Then comes prayers. That's when her body goes completely limp except her hands which can't be pried off her face.
"I don't want to say prayers" is so common at bedtime I don't even hear it anymore.
And it is never her turn.
When we finally convince her it is her turn - it takes 10 more minutes just to get her to copy what we say.
Darcy is still running around.

Whew! Get those kids in bed. I'm done.
FOREVER.

I think to myself,
"will this ever pay off? why do we even bother? will this consistency stuff ever work?"
And then one day... it does.
{enter the phrase 'tender mercy' here.}

Don't get me wrong - still not perfect. Darcy is still permanently on pretend caffeine.
BUT Brinkley did just start saying her prayers
ALL BY HERSELF!
(yes, she's almost 4, I know. she can be so stubborn!)
And it is so stinking cute! And she gets excited to do it! And it fills our hearts with joy.
Josh and I just peek at each other and smile through the whole prayer.

"Heavenly Father.
Thankful for my friends.
Isaac, Paisley, Andrew, Lexi, Claire, Baby James, Asher.
I love 'em soo much.
Thankful for my family.
Daddy, mommy, my sister, and me.
I love 'em soo much.
Bless my family.
Daddy, mommy, my sister, and me.
Bless Aunt Sandi, Jason and Jeromy.
Jesus Christ Amen."


I love my kids soo much too.
Even though it's soo hard.

Writing Practice

Wow. I had no idea how much good joy school was doing for my daughter until she did this the other day when we had preschool at our house:

Look how small she is able to write. I was quite impressed. I'm pretty sure at this age my letters were still big and scrawly and backwards.

That day was fun all around. There were only 2 kids, Brinks and Isaac.
We learned about Goldilocks and the 3 bears. We cuddled up on the couch with a blanket and read all three versions of the story I picked up at the library. Isaac would have let me read to him all day. Afterwards, we made porridge and then acted out the story... 3 times. They were loving it. Isaac even took his turn being Goldilocks, even though she's a girl. :)
At snack, Brinkley and Isaac were placing their oranges in order "big, middle, small!" They were so excited about that concept and I didn't even focus on it - they just picked it up from the story! We also read Red Riding Hood. I wish I had a picture of their faces when the wolf ate up grandma. Classic. A little gruesome, yes. But they wanted me to read it twice.
Love school.

Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas 2011!
What a great year.
And what a great way to end a great year.
I'll be the first to say it: my kids are spoiled rotten.
Santa really outdid himself this year.
Grandma Ginny and Grandpa Steve did as well.
All things were a success. Santa ate his cookie and left a note for Brinkley to say thanks.
Brinkley got the computer she asked for.
Darcy jumped right in and opened many presents. I may have helped her with a few though.
That's a lot of presents to open for a tiny little thing, ya know?
Everyone seemed pretty darn happy.
And why not? It is Christmas after all!
Merry Christmas to all!