Lucky duck.

Last week, before Oklahoma froze, we had a fun evening of playing tag and duck, duck, goose and taking pictures.  

Well, I enjoyed taking the pictures. 

One thing is for sure --  

I'm a lucky, lucky duck.

These guys are too much for me.

I don't deserve the love they give and the joy they bring.

But, by God's grace, here we all are.

Lucky ducks.

You can catch a glimpse into our fun below.

He's my favorite guy.  And incredibly handsome!

Someone should give me a high five or a bonus or something for getting a picture of B!

Um. Benjamin was clearly over me taking pictures.  He loves to be in control, even when I'm not taking pictures of him :)

Oh, how I wish this was not blurry.  There is so much to be said in this picture.  The joy, the love, the father/son bond, the busyness.  Maybe I'm glad it's blurry.

Aaaaaannnnnnd now! The many faces of Andrew! Complete with personality!

You're welcome to come over for dinner and play any time!  See you soon :)

Playing

Watching B and AR has been so much fun lately.  They are starting to play together and it brings undefinable joy to my heart!  This video doesn't do their laughter with each other justice.  Andrew will follow Benjamin just about anywhere {including off of a deck!} and wants to do what he does.  Such is the life of #2, I guess :)

Either way -- I'm really looking forward to the next several years {with my only disclaimer being I probably won't know much of the crazy things they do, just the sweet things}.  I am not, however, looking forward to our grocery budget.  But that's another story for another day.

A random update with pictures...

You know, I've really meant to upload these pictures to my computer for weeks. Thus, if my motivation is lacking in the house keeping department, you can only imagine how awful I am at taking and editing and keeping my pictures up to date. Ah well.

Here is a little glimpse into the McBride house over the last three weeks. I know you're excited! :)


Benjamin wearing daddy's favorite sweatshirt. He's still got a little more growing to do to fill it out :)
For my mom, mainly. 10 week belly shot:
Aaaaannnd my actual belly. There's a bump already, I promise :) But the good news is I can still button and wear my normal jeans (just a size bigger. Glad I saved them!).
Um. Let' see, where do I begin? Benjamin and I shared hot chocolate, he has chocolate all over his face. Patrick was using his ax to chop some things. And here we have a crazy weird picture!
Can you see the chocolate at all? I love these boys...
Playing in the yard last weekend. Is he not incredibly cute?
Hey.
Running. With a bouncy ball. Outside. He's in heaven!
Me and my boy! I love B's face in this picture!
Me and my man! I'm such a blessed woman!

Backyard fun

Benjamin loooooves going outside. In fact, if I even mention the word it's over. He will even repeat "ou-sa" outside until we go. The weather is pretty great here, for now, so I don't mind. Plus, we get to play with Piper.

Piper likes to lick and run over Benjamin. Benjamin hasn't quite got the hang of playing with Piper yet. B just likes to hold out sticks for him and tries to get into his mouth. Yuck.

Benjamin loves to eat sticks. I think this is gross. He does not, obviously, because he'll always find one and starting chewing.

He doesn't hold still for a picture very well anymore.
So most of them are of him not looking at the camera.


Sometimes he tries to grab the camera and I have to squeeze him in my legs to keep him at distance. Then I get cute shots like this:
Another stick.

He doesn't look happy at all about this picture. That is because he was not. But, I like it :)

Pool Fun

My good friend, Meghan, bought a little kiddie pool for her backyard at the beginning of the summer. We've been waiting and waiting to use it! Yesterday, Benjamin and I walked (they only live 2 blocks away)over for a little water fun before the sun went away (because it rained all day today!)

Our little babes are only a month apart (Dylan is older) and we met in a lamaze class during pregnancy. We ran into one another about two months ago and we've hung out often ever since. Having Meghan around has been so great. We're going through things with the babies at the same time. We can share stories and laugh together about weird-o mom things. We're both new at this and it's great to have a partner in crime on bad days! There have been many "I-need-coffee-it-was-a-bad-night" texts and off we go. We've even gone on day trips to various places (Grove City outlets, Greensburg, etc)!

It was only necessary to take many, many pictures of the boys and us in the pool. Benjamin enjoyed the water (after the initial shock of it's coolness) and fussed if he wasn't close to me. I didn't mind :) My sweet boy loves the water and I have a feeling he's going to like the pool more than bathtime! They splashed and such for about 30 minutes before enough was enough! Having fun in the pool will only get better and more frequent, I'm sure!

Me and Benjamin after the pool, drying off..
Cute us :)
Meghan and Dylan playing in the water...
Benjamin chilling in the floater thing....
The boys before we got into the pool. We're trying to get them to interact more :) In two months, I have a feeling they'll be all over the place together! FYI- Benjamin has on a little swimmer diaper. He's not naked (although, he probably wishes he were as he loves nudity already. Do all babies like being naked?)

Weekend timeline of good times...

Patrick's little sister came up to visit for the weekend. For her high school graduation present, we gave her a "use any time weekend getaway with the siblings" pass. She decided to cash in the pass before she started the spring semester of her freshman year. She goes to school at Tufts, in Boston, so we were a great "pit stop" before she went back to school.

Patrick, Kent and I all drove to the airport to get her and then went back to Morgantown for the night. We ate at Black Bear, went grocery shopping, hung out at Kent's place, watched the Flight of the Conchords TV show and laughed a lot.

Side note:
A Favorite moment: at Black Bear...
Ashley: (eating a burrito) I don't know how I'll be able to fit this monster in my mouth!
Kent: -cough, cough- that's what she said.
Oh. I lost it. There were several "that's what she said's" throughout the weekend and they were so perfect! It seems as though I set myself up for them without even knowing! (end side note)

On Saturday, we made a great breakfast together and hung out in Morgantown for a bit. Before heading to Indiana, we spent some time at Dorsey's Knob. It's a little park/rock that you can climb on and see a lot of Morgantown. It was fun and we got some cute-o pictures!

Kent, Kate, Patrick and Ashley...

Ashley and Kate...

We got here(as in Indiana) on Saturday night and had dinner. We then proceeded to watch more Flight of the Conchords and played "Hot Dice" for about four hours. We had way too much fun! We woke up Sunday morning and went the farm. It was really fun to show Kate around. We decided the best way to see the farm was on the four wheelers. Kent took Kate and Patrick took me and off we went. It was a lot of fun and we were all freezing and bright red by the end!

After the farm tour, we headed back into Indiana for a late lunch before Kent had to leave. It was nice to hang out and spend some quality time together. After Kent left, Patrick, Kate and I watched The Departed (whoa. intense and interesting.) then played Scrabble before bedtime.

Monday was a showing-Kate-around day. We had lunch at one of my favorite little shops, stopped by Patrick's work and hung out at the coffeeshop for a while. We ordered pizza for dinner and then went back to the coffeeshop with Patrick (he had a meeting). When we got home, we talked about random things and tried to learn French and tried on a lot of clothes (except Patrick did not do that).

This morning, Kate and I left Indiana early so we could get some serious shopping time in before her flight took off. We stopped at Robinson and spent most of the time in Forever 21, trying on outfits and such. Then off to the airport and she was gone.

We all had such an awesome time together. What a blessing to love your siblings-in-law and have so much fun together. Patrick, Kent and Kate are a lot alike. Sometimes, it's weird how they think/act/speak the same, but I certainly appreciate their relationship. I'm so thankful to have a sister in Kate and love how we all "click". Did I mention that we had a ton of fun?

Fall fun outside...

We have two huge maple trees in our backyard. It's great for the scenery, but terribly annoying to rake up all the leaves! I love our backyard. It's just the right size! I have big plans for it, but until then, we'll just play and run around in the open space.

Patrick, Piper and I spent some time outside the other day and here are some fall fun time pictures that I took....

From the back door...
From the back side of our yard...
Patrick aiming for the target with his new bow...
Arrows to be shot...
A lone leaf...

The colors of the leaves in our backyard are vibrant and unique to each leaf. I've had so much fun taking pictures this fall!