Won't You Be My Neighbor?

While here in Pittsburgh, my little family has been so blessed to be surrounded by good neighbors and friends. Our little neighborhood has 16 LDS families in it now!
(I think, I can't keep track anymore)
My, how it's grown. And I love it. If I am out in my yard or on my front porch, I am bound to see a friend.
Pretty awesome.

However, I have to say that we, the McBrides, are the luckiest.
Not only are we surrounded with friends in the hood, but we are nicely sandwiched smack dab in the middle of two marvelous families!
We listen to each other through the walls.
Not in a creepy way.
It just happens.
Anyway.
My long drawn out point is, all of Brinkley's little best friends live within walking distance. And that just makes me happy.

My girls love having such great friends so close. And today was one of those grateful days. I hope that Brinkley remembers her friends when we leave Pittsburgh in less than a year.
*sniff*

Pretending they are kitties.

Ah, a classic favorite game they play when they all get together:

"CPR"
Only Brinkley and Paisley say "PR, PR, PR!"
And Isaac says "PI, PI, PI!"


This kills me. They are all playing dead.

Darcy is waving goodbye to a dog.

But she makes me way to nervous playing out on the sidewalk with the big kids, so I trap her up on the porch. She doesn't seem to mind in the picture, but she does in real life.

Nauvoo

I have no idea why this post has been so difficult for me to do.
I do have a theory...
1. We did sooo much I knew it would either have to be a gigantic post or many small ones. Both seemed daunting.
2. Also because we did so much, I am not sure whether to try and squeeze it all into my blog or just write something simple. Even as I write this I'm not sure how it will turn out.
2. I don't exactly know how to put into words how wonderful this trip was. I seriously loved every single minute. For me, it was perfect.

Okay, so here goes my daunting task.

I loved Nauvoo.
I loved everything about Nauvoo.
It was probably the best vacation I have ever been on.
I'm not kidding!
Yes, it was a 12 hour drive there and a 12 hour drive back. With two kids.
But it was so worth it! I would do it again in a heartbeat.
October was the BEST time of year to go. We practically had the place to ourselves. We got all chummy with the cute senior missionary couples. And the weather was perfect!
The girls were good.
My mom was there.
Josh got his fill of churchy stuff which turns him into the church history geek that I love so much.
We got to do just about everything we wanted to do. We could have used just one more day to do some shopping. But whatdya do?

We saw all the little sites, Carthage was incredible, loved the small feel of Nauvoo, enjoyed the view of the Mississippi, and got to go to the temple!
Speaking of, I think have a new favorite temple.
I got to do a session with my mom and my husband. Which means I got a 5 hour break from my kids! While in the temple! :)
Who's the church geek now?
It was beautiful. And the feeling there was amazing.
And I got to hang out for like 30 minutes in the dressing room with all the lady temple workers.
(while I was waiting for my mom)
It was like watching Steel Magnolias - LDS version.

We took a walk around Nauvoo at night. It was peaceful. Except the little sounds we kept hearing but didn't know what they were. That was a little scary.

We stayed in a Log Cabin. That was like a vacation in a vacation!

My appreciation for the Saints grew so much while in Nauvoo. They sacrificed so much - including their beautiful temple - to do what the Lord asked them to do. I got a glimpse of how they may have felt as I walked down Parley street and looked back at the temple on the hill. How did they do it? Incredible. I am so grateful that temple was rebuilt, and that I had the opportunity to spend time in that little town.

Well, that was a little bit hodgepodged and sporatic. But I hope I conveyed how I felt.
I love Nauvoo. Hope I get to go back again.

Countdown

My mom was here last week.
I still need to write about our awesome trip to Nauvoo... but I don't know where to begin, which is why I'm putting it off. So watch for that at some point in time.

Anyway. After my mom came, inevitably she had to leave too.
On the same flight as Josh.
He is doing an away rotation in Utah this month. Which is awesome and sad for me at the same time. Because the girls and I are staying here. Lonely, right?
But it really is such a great opportunity! I hope he knocks their socks off so they can't say no.
We had to stay because of preschool, gymnastics, and Super Saturday! And the Holy Ghost told me to stay. That's kind of a biggie.

Anyway. So we took dad and grandma to the airport. That was the saddest trip to that blasted airport yet.
Brinkley was bawling. Saying
"but grandpa needs me!"
"but I want to go to Utah!"
"but I want my grandma!"
(she starts a lot of sentences with 'but')

So, they had to get in line anyway and walk away while Brinkley was bawling. And I too had tears streaming down my face because I knew I was on my own for a month.

Sad.

Well, to cheer ourselves up, we made a countdown chain. It started with 24 days until we go to Utah.
I think we are down to 20 links now. It's already going so fast!
And not to sound totally cheesy, but Heavenly Father REALLY has been looking out for me.

The girls are sleeping great, and going to bed at night with ease.
I was miraculously able to wake up on time to get us all to church at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday.
Our neighbors have been looking out for us - feeding us and helping us at church and so many offers of help.
Darcy was actually better at church than she has been in a long time.
My new committee is awesome (we play the Relief Society weekday meetings) and Super Saturday has not been as stressful as I had anticipated.
We have stayed really busy, which keeps our minds off the fact that dad is gone.
I haven't gotten scared at night.
And either the girls are being extra good or my patience has miraculously increased by 1000% but I haven't had to get mad at anyone in 4 days. Whoo!

Just so many little things have added up to let me know that Heavenly Father cares about us and is keeping a nice little watch over us. I seriously feel so blessed (ha!)

The only sad thing is that Brinkley misses them both so much, and she gets mopey. She'll start whimpering randomly saying she wants her grandma or wants her daddy to finish the dinner she doesn't want to eat. I guess today at preschool she cried for like an hour. Sorry Amanda.

All right, enough of that. We're fine. Everyone is fine.
Love these girls!

I promised Josh I would blog a lot while we were apart. So, if you are annoyed or overwhelmed by my massive posting... sorry. But not really.

Our Happy Halloween

Okay, so here was our list of to-do's for Halloween.

Costume photoshoot - check
Halloween Crafts - not yet, but it's only 10:15... I still have time!
Play a Halloween Matching Game- check check check (because we played it 3 times)
Paint/Carve a Pumpkin- check
Dance the Monster Mash- check
Eat Chili and bones from a pumpkin- check (though I was the only one who ate chili)
Trick or treat- check

Plus we went to the store! AND read every Halloween book in the house.
We have like 20. What the?

Not bad! huh? Completely tuckered out my girls.
(Not to mention we had a TV free day! woot woot!)

Brinkley really caught on to trick or treating this year.
We were walking along and she would keep saying to me:
"we're not going home yet mom?"
And I would say "nope. We can trick or treat as long as you want!"
Which made her happy.

Then, all of the sudden, one block later, she refused to say trick or treat anymore. And two houses later - she was DONE.
Whiny and sad and just done.
Fine by me. The less candy there is in the house the less I eat of it.

Here she is stealing candy from our bag to give away!

Darcy wants some too!

This pumpkin has a story too. She got it at the pumpkin patch (to which I forgot my camera. Duh!). She headed into the patch, looked around for a while, and then picked out the ugliest pumpkin there was. But she was so excited.
I myself, love a perfect, cute pumpkin. And being the control weirdo that I am almost traded it in about 15 times for a better looking pumpkin. But I had to keep telling myself that it was her pumpkin and she specially picked it out and loved it.
{internal battle raging}
In the end I resisted the temptation to pick out a new one that would make my front step look pretty.
Instead the warty, bumpy pumpkin sat happily by the nice one I got from the grocery store.
Isn't that nice that she can love something ugly?
:)
Oh, and then she painted it.
That didn't help the poor thing either. Oh well.

The ONE downside to our Halloween?
That Daddy wasn't here to share it. :(
We miss you! Do good!

I'll post where he is in another post... but right now I have to do my Halloween craft before Halloween is over!

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

I really wanted Brinkley to be a superhero for Halloween.

She would not have it.
She wanted to be a princess.
She's a princess everyday. BORING.
She and I finally both settled on her being a butterfly fairy (whatever that is) instead.
I was going to be an awesome mom and make her costume.
That completely flopped.
Never again.
Never again will I attempt that. I can sew and create... but apparently not that well.
So then I got stressed.
But then the clouds parted and my mom came down from heaven... I mean Utah.
What do we do when we get together??? Thrift of course.
And we happened upon this $4.00 witch costume. Brand new. I think.
She tried it on and wore it out of the store. And was excited everyday to be a witch! We all loved it! Hallelujah!

Now the standard has been set... I can only spend $4.00 on a costume from here on out forever more.

Now, about these pictures.
When I started editing them, I did them in what I call "bold and bright" because I am a geek.
But then I thought I would just try them with a different effect. More "antique-y."
This presented a problem for my indecisive self. I couldn't decide what I liked better. So I posted them all. Sorry. I have a tendency to over post pictures. And words.

Here's our little witch.
Of the good sort.
(she even got to wear purple eyeshadow, she was so excited)

And the second set: Which do you like better?

What a little Ladybug

Darcy was a ladybug for Halloween. And a stinkin' cute one to boot.

I will admit, I was having an off day as far as photography goes. This is honestly the best I could do. That and my camera battery died within ten minutes. I was just so mad at myself. She was not cooperating and the shoot was cut short. Ah well... Find joy in the journey, right?
In most of these pictures she is drinking water that was dripping from a rock.
???
Don't ask me how she finds these things. She's just a one year old I guess.
And we were tromping through mud.
I didn't think this through very well, did I?

Anyway. Enough of my ranting and complaining. The purpose of this is to show off how cute of a ladybug Darcy is!

Happy Halloween!

Hey! We're zombies now.
Zombies that also want to suck your blood. Cool huh?
Hope you have a spooky day!
Love, the McBrides


We sure have a full day planned:
Costume photoshoot
Halloween Crafts
Play a Halloween Matching Game
Paint/Carve a Pumpkin
Dance the Monster Mash
Eat Chili and bones from a pumpkin
Trick or treat

Will we have time for ALL of that? I do not know.