Black & White Picture Project

So I started a project - several years ago - before Patrick was even on the horizon - to convert some of my many many photographs into black & white photos. With the idea of framing them all and putting them in our family room. So I started in search of just the right photos. But as you all know, I work full-time, so these types of projects don't always come to fruition as quickly as I would like.

Well yesterday I decided to convert a picture of Patrick to black & white as part of a little gift I'm making for his daycare teachers. And I remembered my old project - and found the folder on the computer where I had put some pretty special pictures. And just like that I thought - I can put these on my blog! It's not everything (I'm having some technical difficulties accessing my digital photo files of the Connor baby years) - but thought it might be nice to share these. So here goes....

Here's Adam enjoying some 1:1 with Liam - who is about 2 weeks old in this picture.

And here I am with our little Liam:

People always comment about Patrick's big eyes. Believe it or not below is Liam...

Liam used to love to nap on the family room floor. Being new parents, we used to indulge him and then whisper around him for 2-3 hours. Ok, so we got a little smarter with Connor & Patrick...

Adam took this picture of Connor and I on the way out of the hospital. I'm actually sitting in the wheel chair, making Connor 2 days old!

Adam looking happy as can be at the arrival of Connor Robert below...

Liam holding his new baby brother...

Then about 5 years goes by.... there are good pictures during this time period.... but I haven't sorted through and pulled the select few for black & white conversion.

But... here's Liam enjoying some bonding with little Patrick...

Connor looking proud as can be to finally be a big brother too...

A favorite picture of mine of Liam and Patrick....
And here's the picture that I converted last night that got me thinking of this. This is a photo of Patrick that was taken about 3 weeks ago when we were on vacation.

Hope you've enjoyed this little walk down the McLaughlin Family memory lane....

Beach Time!

With school ending, we've been having a lot of fun going to the BEACH!

In June we spent a long week-end in Ocean City, Maryland. While we were there we also got to visit with Grammy and Grandpa Paul. The boys really had a great time.
Here's Patrick in his beach formal wear!

Patrick has picked up on Connor's old tradition of playing with "beach trains". These are older metal Thomas trains which we reserve only for the beach. Patrick is having quite a conversation with Skarloey below....

Connor & Patrick sharing some brotherly love...

Does Liam go anywhere without a football? The answer is NO!

The 3 McLaughlin boys relaxing in their sand hole...

A week after going to OC, we left for a week long vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. That's about an 8 hour drive for us - and Patrick was pretty good in the car. We shared a beautiful beach front house with my cousin Rick, his wife Helen and their 2 sons Andrew and Mathew. Below is Connor and Mathew enjoying the surf..

And here's Rick trying to catch some dinner for us. No luck this year.

Here's Helen reading with Patrick...

We got to celebrate the 4th of July on the beach this year! The fireworks were right in our front yard! Here's Patrick in his festive flag-wear. This little romper actually belonged to Liam and was worn by all 3 of our boys.

Tough guys...

And finally, here's a nest that is in a tree right outside our back deck. There are two birds in the nest and we've been watching as their momma has attended to them over the past few weeks. When we returned from vacation, the bird had flown away. If you click on the photo you'll be able to see the little birds....

Hope you are all enjoying your summer as much as are!