Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas!

This was our first Christmas EVER that was not in Utah surrounded by family.

Sniff. Sniff.

Sniff.

No, I exaggerate. It was still good. Relaxed and chill. Which we haven't always been able to say.

Josh was scheduled to work on Christmas day. But we got lucky... he didn't have to go in! 

Someone at his job loves him.

We spent a nice, slow day opening gifts, playing with them, and eating good food.

Christmas Eve... getting ready for Santa!

Our Tree!!!

Annual Tim Tam Slams before bed.

Darcy woke up earlier than Brinkley and got to go through her stocking. She got goldfish. Can you tell?

Blurry Brinks on Christmas Morning.

Traditional Christmas breakfast. Cherry Turnovers, orange rolls, and bacon!

Merry Christmas Josh. Under your electric blanket. Cozy.

Umm. Hi.

I know you all miss me.

But I still have no way of getting all my pictures onto this here blog. 

Well, that's not true. I'm sure there is some way. But since I like to stick to things I know and am too lazy to figure out something new... my blog remains on the back burner until that darned hard drive gets fixed.

Hang in there. I'll be back. Though I'm going to have to back-post like a thousand things and I'm not particularly excited to do so. 

Things are pretty crazy round here.

Josh works like a mad-man. I barely see him and when he's home he can't even make it through a movie without falling asleep. Boo.

I got put in charge of the ward Christmas party. Yikes. I hope everything works out or I'll feel really dumb. It got pushed back a week because of hurricane Sandy clean up. Otherwise it would have been tonight. I'm glad I had an extra week to work on stuff... but on the other hand it would be nice to just have it over with.  Eh, whatdya do? Glad our ward and stake could help those on Long Island suffering the effects of Sandy. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

We've been trying to be a Christmassy as we can when we have time.

We decorated of course, and it looks so FESTIVE in our house! I love it.

We made a gingerbread house today. 

I also made countdown bags. Each day has a little something in it. It's Brinkley's favorite part of everyday and it has solved the problem of asking every ten minutes if Christmas is tomorrow. Though she does have to wait for daddy to get home to open it. So now the question she asks all day is "is daddy home yet?" 

I am trying out the 'Elf on the Shelf' this year with an Elf my mom made for us. Brinkley named him 'Jack in the Box.'  I think it's fun, though I'm not sure the kids are convinced it's not me hanging him from the mistletoe. And it doesn't seem to be working. Brinkley has been more whiney than usual and Darcy... well. She's 2.

Both of our cars had to go to the shop and get fixed. I don't mean to complain, but $700 at Christmas time spent on cars just makes me so mad. Too bad Santa is not real. It would be super nice to get free presents. Ha ha.

 Though, there was a very kind person on Craigslist who gave me something free because it was the holidays. That really touched my heart. She and I have emailed a couple times since! Awesome.

Anyway, if our little computer problems don't get fixed before Christmas - Merry Christmas everyone! 

 

Adella

Brinkley has this friend, Adella. They love each other. And they are silly together. 

For a couple months, Adella's mom and I were swapping play dates every week. It was fun! But it fizzled for some reason. Hopefully we can pick it back up. 

Anyway, one time when Adella was here, I pulled out my camera and got these gems. 

These girlies just kept posing and posing and posing. The longer I let them go, the sillier they got. I included some of the best ones here.

So silly!

Trunk or Treat

Our ward has a Trunk or Treat every year.

Darcy dressed up as a Lalaloopsy. But wouldn't wear the wig.

Brinkley wanted to be a girl Dracula (Draclia, as she says it).

I'll be honest, my pictures of this event are terrible. But we had a great time. I was most impressed with Brinkley eating a donut on a string. Go Brinks!
Darcy was a little shy to do much, but she did like the pumpkin walk and got most of her candy from that one event. Go Darce!

Sadly, this year I didn't get and really great pictures of my kids all decked out in their costumes OR trick or treating. Sad. I'm slipping. Maybe next Halloween I'll be officially out of my funk.
;)

Pumpkin Walk

Remember how we went to Beaver Lake for a walk?

While we were there we bought advance tickets for a big event they do. 

A pumpkin walk of sorts! 

They have people carve hundreds of pumpkins. Hundreds. 

Then they line their trails with all of them. So, you're walking in the DARK on a TRAIL 

(crowded and slow moving with people)  

lit up by pumpkins! 

It is so cool. 

Sans the people part. 

Wow, I'm getting old. And extremely introverted apparently. 

This shall indeed become a McBride-family-Halloween-while-we're-in-NY-tradition. 

I should find out how to enter a pumpkin into the contest. Maybe I could win next year. 

Or not.

There were some pretty cool ones there. 

Then they have a food tent. Which has more than food. There's also face painting and chairs. 

Blessed chairs.

After we had cocoa and a caramel apple (which the kids ate the caramel off of) we headed back outside to see a kid magician. He was AWESOME! Just kiddin. He was okay. Less than awesome.

Speaking of less than awesome... here's some pictures. 

It was dark and I don't know how to do that with my camera. I should learn. 

My favorite was the I heart NY pumpkin because that's how I feel. 

Tims

AHHHHH!  I love fall and Halloween and all things involved with it. 

We went to this fabulous little pumpkin patch called Tims. 

It was wonderful. 

They had all kinds of pumpkins. Orange pumpkins, white pumpkins, green pumpkins, big pumpkins, tiny pumpkins and pumpkins with wonky colors and shapes.

They had animals, a hay maze, a shop with cider and donuts, a scary witch scene, a random rocking horse, cats roaming around and a fun play area for the kids. We spent a good 3 or 4 hours here. My kids loved it. 

I did feel bad though. We were playing in the play area with this cute little girl and then she got stung by a bee. Poor thing.

Random Halloween Event

There is this monthly magazine that is put out at the YMCA that tells you all sorts of activities going on in the area that month. 

I scour this thing

I circle all the events I'm interested in and then put them on the calendar. So diligent.

Of all the 20 things I find that would be a BLAST to do, we usually end up doing 1... or 2. 

Whatever. 

Still, I have good intentions to take my kids out and about.

And this Halloween... we actually did one! 

The description of the activity made it sound so promising. Bounce houses, games, food, a haunted house... all for free!!!

And it was true. It had all that stuff. And it was free. Just on a smaller scale than I was expecting. The kids had fun, I think. And that's all that matters. They won candy at some games and got to slide one the bounce house. One. Singular. They said the haunted house might be too scary, so we passed on that. 

After we did all 4 activities, we decided to go... to Dunkin' Donuts.

Now, that is a great way to end a Halloween fun-filled night!

Beaver Lake with Mari

I have this fabulous, spontaneous friend name Mari. 

She does fun stuff and invites me. 

I appreciate it. Cause otherwise I'd be perfectly content to sit in my house and read all day. 

I need occasional reminders that I do, in fact, love to be outside and that my kids kinda need the exercise and fresh air. 

I guess.

We headed over to Beaver Lakes on a fine fall day. 

The leaves were crunchy and we just let the kids roam around at their own pace. 

We made our way to the visitor center where we made a mess of the kids room and disturbed all the old senior citizens who were quietly and peacefully bird watching. 

 Eeks.

In our defense, they are the ones who thought it would be a good idea to put a ramp inside a place where kids go. It's just begging to be ran up and down over and over and over.

Kids will be kids. Whadya do?