The Cotton is High

Bria starts school on Tuesday, so I'm just gonna call it: summer is over. Here's a recap of some of the fun we had. We didn't get out as much as in year's past mostly because we moved and I'm getting rather pregnant. Excuses, excuses.

Early in the summer our niece Amanda graduated from high school, so we got to help her celebrate with graduation, senior dance recitals, and a graduation party. We also got to hang out with some more of the extended Mangum crew, including making them meet us in DC for Truckeroo and taking them to our rec center spray park.

This coincided with my sensitive skin deciding that pregnancy hormones should initiate an allergic reaction to my makeup. I wore sunglasses everywhere (even indoors) for several days, and my eyes itched so bad I wanted to claw them out even after day four, so I've been completely makeup-free since the initial incident. This doesn't help me not look like a teen mom, but at least my bedtime routine has fewer steps.

We went to a lavender farm to snip lavender stems with friends. Bria mostly hated all the bees, so the highlight was stopping at Red Truck Bakery on our way to the farm and then playing in the playhouse on the farm. Basically everything except picking lavender. (This picture was staged well away from the lavender bushes.)

We moved! To a house!

We went to a Nats game. This was during one of the very few unbearably hot weeks we had this summer. Bria almost threw up she was so hot, but after a bathroom break and guzzling some extra water, she was back to her perky self. Seriously, this summer has been so mild I'm starting to wonder how we're going to have to pay for it . . .

Bria took swimming lessons! This was both disastrous and amazing. It was like two steps forward, eight thousand steps back. She did two back-to-back sessions of swimming every single day for two weeks, and at the end of the month, we needed a break. THEN, a couple weeks later, we went to the pool with friends and it all clicked. Suddenly my girl was swimming! HURRAH!

 We went to Rehoboth Beach. I can't believe we only made it to the beach once this summer (Bria won't stop reminding me how disappointed she is), but at least we tried a new one. The sand and water quality is the same as our regular standby, Ocean City, but the surrounding town is definitely classier.

Bria was dying to have a lemonade stand. I had no idea how it would fare, but she made $7 and was thrilled.

We went to a friend's birthday party at the new National Harbor carousel. That place is awesome! And such a great idea for a party-- unlimited rides, a playground, and snacks. What more could kids want?

Sam and I sneaked away for a babymoon to Virginia Beach. Bria stayed with her cousins while we lounged on the beach, slept in, got massages, and refilled our energy reserves-- just in time for them to be depleted come this November ;)

Sam ran a 5k obstacle race with Jenn, Amanda, and Myles. They rocked it.

We returned to Great Waves with our friends where Bria conquered her fear of water slides. I kept reminding her that two years ago she went down both water slides on her own and she didn't believe me. Last summer she wouldn't do them at all, and this year, she decided only the straight slide was safe. My cautious little girl sure does make my life easier.

We've been watching my friend's little girl twice a week since last November, but once I started school, I had to stop. We'll miss our little buddy!

We have done some exploring of our new neck of the woods. Ok, very minimal exploring. That might be my winter task once the baby is here, Bria is in school, and I am feeling itchy for adventure.

Bria's new school had a couple Welcome Activities throughout the summer, including this where they gathered bugs from the school garden and inspected them with a microscope. Then all the kindergarteners got to ride the school bus around the block. I'm really excited about her school-- it seems like it's a really great one.

Fourth of July

We had another great 4th of July this year. We had just moved into our new house about five days before, so I dug out our pans to make our first real homemade meal: crepes for Sam's birthday breakfast. 

That afternoon we headed out to the middle of nowhere with Sam's brother's family for some patriotic festivities. It was kind of set up like a fair, so we waited in an eternal line for Bria to get her face painted. Obviously this was the highlight of her year.

By the time we finished with the face painting, we were ready to grab some food and wait for the fireworks to start. It was very hot. There was a certain pregnant someone who may have complained a lot about that heat. 

The fireworks were fun, of course, though it was the most random and choppy music compilation I have ever heard to accompany the display. After waiting in the parking lot for an hour or two, we made our way home with this sleepy and spooky gal.

But of course my favorite part of the 4th is always celebrating Sam's birthday.  I'm wild about the guy-- beard and all.

here comes the son

Because I suppose things like this should be documented for the blogs, it's about time to post about our sweet little boy who will be joining the clan in early November.
Of course Bria is so excited for her baby brother to come, and I know she is going to be an excellent sister. And considering the age difference, I think she will be quite the efficient little helper.
I'm closing out the second trimester here in the next couple weeks and am starting to feel huge. It's a scary thought, since I know 26-week hugeness is nothing compared to 40-week hugeness. Yikes.

his sweet face! I can't believe how far ultrasound technology has come even in the last 5 1/2 years

My 24+ week pregnant glory. We McPhie women don't hold back when it comes to creating very comfy and cushy homes for our babies. 

Run or Dye

Several months ago Sam and I bought Groupons to Run or Dye, one of the many 5k color runs coming through DC this summer. I kept forgetting about it, and when I would remember, we would say "oh, we better start running, huh?" (Yes, I did run a half marathon in November.) When it finally came down to it, neither of us had gone running, and I never made a plan for what to do with Bria that morning. So we decided to just make it a family affair! I'm so glad it was such a low-key family event, because we had a blast! We brought the stroller, but Bria walked/ran well over half of it, just taking quick breaks here and there. We were absolutely covered by the end, and I can attest that not all of the color washes out of your clothes. To prove how much fun we had, Bria keeps asking if we can do a color run every day.

Before

. . . and after

Mothers Day in Luray

For Mothers Day weekend, we took a tiny family trip out to the Shenandoah Valley in western Virginia. We left Saturday after soccer and drove west to Harrisonburg where we explored the town before grabbing dinner and heading to our hotel.

In the morning, we enjoyed the hotel buffet and the hotel pool before heading out. We drove by a pretty awesome looking playground, so we let Bria run around like crazy for about an hour.

 Then we navigated some of the most beautiful country roads (crossing the Shenandoah River-- you can bet we were all belting John Denver) to arrive in Luray. We went on the tour of the Luray caverns. I was a total sucker for all our guides jokes and just soaked up all the information about the amazing stalactites and stalagmites. Virginia had very heavy rains for about three days before we visited, so the caves were very wet, dripping all over us, with puddles everywhere. We just tried not to think about how deep we were underground.