Steamboat vacation 2016 - part 2

Friday morning, we brought Blakely to childcare and sent Delainey to ski school. That allowed me a day to go ski some different areas of the mountain that were too intense to do with D.  We skied some lovely runs on the other side, had lunch at a restaurant at the top of the mountain, and I turned in early around 2 to get the girls. (Keep in mind every time I was not skiing with Dave he was off doing the crazy black diamond runs so he got plenty of time to do his own thing when we weren't around. That boy skied from 9 am to 4 pm all 3 days.) I made it back to ski school in time to see Delainey to do one last run on her own. She had learned the pizza wedge and show to point her belly button to where she wanted to go to turn. She had also learned how to stop! She loved the school and kept asking to go back the next day.

That afternoon we took the girls sledding and let Blakely enjoy a little bit of the snow. She hated her snowsuit because she couldn't crawl well in it. She did enjoy the sledding though. That was until I tried sledding on my own and fell out and Blakely started crying hysterically. Sweet girl didn't want her mom to get hurt. From that point on she cried every time someone got on the sled. Lol

We headed back inside for showers to get ready to go out to eat. We went to a steakhouse where you season and cook your own steaks on a large grill. It was a cool concept and the steaks were good, but if I'm going to pay $30+ for a steak it better be cooked to perfection and I am no professional chef lol.   We ended the night with ice cream and candy from the local candy shop and headed to bed.

Saturday Blakely went to daycare again and since she was the only one, we decided why not just put her in the chest pack and ski her down to the childcare area vs driving in the car. What a disaster. Dave had her on his chest since he is the best skier, but what we didn't think about was who was going to handle the harness for Delainey. I tried, Emily tried, Will ran into Gammoe as we we were trying to pick Delainey up off the ground since she was throwing a fit because she wasn't skiing right. Just a total nightmare. Dave finally just put D between his legs again and bent down and skied with both girls. What a champ. Delainey finally calmed, I dropped off Blakely and we were ready to rock.

We found some new green runs the were awesome for Delainey including a little ski school area with tepees and forts you could ski through a t-bar lift the kids could be dragged on by themselves. She was in heaven!! Singing, yelling faster Daddy, trying to beat everyone, loving every minute of it! Until, we decided let's head back for lunch and on the way back, she fell and bit her lip. All she wanted was Mom, blood was all in her mouth, it was so sad. Dave carried her home where we ate lunch and she calmed down some. I was positive she was going to be done skiing for the day, but when I asked her if she wanted to go back to that fun area she said yes and that's just what she did. She skied a few more runs after lunch and called it a day. I went and picked up D and we had some quiet time before everyone came back at 4.

That night we had a date night with Emily & Will at a delicious restaurant called Laundry. It was all small plates of food you shared and it was heaven. Voted #1 restaurant in Steamboat. After dinner we went to a pub where a live band was playing and headed home around 11:30 to go to sleep. (We are old!)
Sunday morning we packed up, headed back to Denver in the van, and then flew home. Blakely got a stomach bug and threw up on the car ride so that made things interesting, but overall we all made it back in one piece and were so exhausted and ready to go to sleep by the time we got home a 12:30 am.

Monday was spent doing literally 9 loads of laundry, playing with our toys we missed, and bedtimes at 7 pm. It was all worth it though. Glad we could keep the annual ski trip tradition alive! Can't wait for next year!!! Here are a few professional pics to leave you with!

Steamboat Vacation 2016 - Part 1

We are back home and finally getting back into the swing of things. That two hour time change is no joke! We had so much fun though and I loved every minute of being in the snow and cold weather. I took about 500 pictures so I'm going to break the trip up into a few posts so there aren't a million pics in 1 post. Here we go...
Wednesday morning we headed to the airport for an early morning direct flight from Jax to Denver. I was nervous since it was a 4 hour flight but both girls did awesome! Delainey watched a million Disney shows on the free tv and Blakely slept some, ate, and just looked around and played with toys. After we arrived to Denver, we had to take  3 1/2 hour shuttle ride to steamboat. Again thinking it would be horrible and the girls were phenomenal. We finally made it to steamboat around 4 where we settled into our condo, went to pick up our ski rentals, and enjoyed dinner at home with the Fam.

Thursday morning came and the weather ended up being gorgeous and Delainey was dying to go ski. I had only paid for child care for Blakely though for Friday and Saturday. Luckily (well not so lucky for Will) Will was able to babysit Blakely for a few hours while the rest of us went out to watch D try skiing for the first time! Will pulled his hamstring on Tuesday skiing so he was pretty much out of commission for the entire week :(

After taking what seemed like 30 minutes to get Delainey dressed, we walked out to the slopes to try things out. David started by holding her between his legs so she could get a feel for how things worked. She kept wanting to lean back so that want working. Dodaddy and Dave kept telling her to make a pizza pie, which wasn't working (she's only 3 silly boys). So Mom stepped in and explained a little better about bending her legs and leaning forward with her arms out like she was flying. Worked like a charm. After 2 times down the bunny slope, we went up the chairlift and strapped on the harness where she could ski on her own and Dave could control her speed. She did fantastic!!! I was so proud of her! After a few more runs she got tired so we headed in for lunch and to relieve Will from babysitting.

That afternoon we went to the Old Town hot Springs, which looked like a pool with hot tubs, but easy spring fed and it was lovely! Blakely especially loved it because it was like swimming in a huge hot bath. After the springs, we shopped around the downtown area, had a gyro from a Greek restaurant, and had root beer floats from an old time soda shop! That evening we ate at home again, put the girls to bed, and went to the hot tub for a while.

Be back soon for a recap of the rest of the trip.

Heading out for Vacation

It's finally here! Our annual ski trip has arrived and we head out in the morning to eventually get to Steamboat. I am a little nervous about the actual getting there part, but once we are there I know we will have a great time. We have a straight 4 hour flight to Denver and then about a 4 hour shuttle ride from Denver to Steamboat :/ It's going to be a LONG day! Prayers that the kids cooperate would be greatly appreciated.

Dodaddy sent a picture this morning from our condo balcony of them grooming the slopes. It looks like a great location! The whole McLaughlin side is going including the newest addition (well soon to be official to the family addition, Will). I can't wait to watch Delainey try to ski. I hope she loves it! Stay tuned for ski pics and videos on Instagram. I am going to try to bring my computer so you may get a blog post while on vacay, we will see.

Today we had My Gym for Blakely and then a follow up appointment for Delainey to see if her ear infection went away. Thankfully it did so flying shouldn't be a problem with the pressure! Phew!
Blakely loves her my gym class and she seems like she is growing up so fast when I see her in there playing with other kids. Thankfully neither of my girls had separation anxiety issues and love to play with others! Here are a few pics I snapped of her today at Gym.

I'm off to do some last minute packing and hit the hay. I hope everyone has a good week! 

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day Guys! Sorry I have been such a slacker this week on posting things. I don't even know what I have been doing that has made things seem busy! We have had a fun countdown to Valentine's Day. Each person has a little mailbox set out that you can put notes, treats, or little presents in, so every morning Delainey wakes up and runs to check her mailbox. She has been making lots of pictures and notes to put in everyone else's mailbox. The girls got some matching pj's from Mom that they were very excited about. D also got a new Minnie valentines shirt that she got to wear to school for her V-day party. She came home with Valentine's from everyone in her class. She was so excited!

Dave and I don't really celebrate V-day since our anniversary is the week before. We usually celebrate our anniversary and beat the crowd  by going out the week before for a date, but that didn't happen this year. Our 9 year anniversary was Wednesday so the girls and I decided to do a family date night on Wednesday at the house and cook Dad fondue. It was great in theory until both kids hit a wall and lost their minds. Poor Delainey would not stop crying because her ear was killing her and she couldn't hear and Blakely was sick and so tired. We pushed through though and had our dinner by golly! It turns out Delainey did have a bad ear infection and Blakely had pink eye. So we laid low the rest of the weekend and skipped our Date night with just the 2 of us to celebrate the anniversary. I told Gammoe we were going to have a date night while in Steamboat and she could watch the kids. She agreed!

Our ski trip is finally upon us and I have been packing and organizing for the past few days. We leave on Wednesday and come home on Sunday. I am so excited to let Delainey try and ski this year. I think she is going to love it! I will be sure to take lots of video. It has been quite the feat packing 4 people for the snow LOL! There are so many layers you need to bring!! D tried on her ski outfit the other day and she is ready to rock!

Besides packing and school, we have been to try on wedding dresses 3 times with Emily so far. She still hasn't found "the one," but she has found lots of dresses that look great on her. Hopefully by the end of the month she will have selected a dress. Time is ticking until this wedding happens! Almost only 6 months! Delainey is going to be a flower girl, so every time we go she has to try on a flower girl dress. She is so sweet :)

I'm hoping to be back to do one more post before we leave for our trip on Wednesday so stay tuned.

 I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day with their loved ones. I'm counting my blessings to love and be loved by so many special people especially these gems who call me Mom! XOXO

Blakely's 10 Month Update

 Height: about 28 1/2 inches
Weight: 18 lbs 14 ounces
Head Circumference: about 18 inches
Vision: We are good in this department. Nothing to report
Movement: You are a wild woman in the crawling department. I will set you down in one room and in 5 seconds you'll be in another room. You are pulling up on everything. I think you will be walking in no time. Delainey is doing so great at helping keep dangerous things from Blakely. If she has something in her mouth she's not supposed to, D will yell Emergency! and pop it out of her mouth. She is such a great big sister.
Eating Habits/New Foods: Milk has changed a bit this month. My milk is starting to dry up so I am having to add in some bottles. I usually alternate between boob and bottle so I know you are at least getting 4 ounces every other feeding. I am feeding you 6 ounces at night, but you sometimes don't finish the bottle. As far as food goes, you eat everything! Breakfast: oatmeal, yogurt, pancakes, maybe some fruit. Lunch: deli meat, cheese, smoothie, pouch of some sort, left overs from the night before, cottage cheese. Dinner: whatever we are eating, pork, chicken, rice, noodles...anything we can cut into small bite size pieces. Cheerios are a new favorite snack and you had Chick-fil-a for the first time and are obsessed with it.
Sleeping Patterns: We've had a rough month of sleep. You have been sick or at least congested twice this month so you haven't been sleeping well. You have been getting up once or twice during the night to eat and then go back to bed. We have had quite a few sleepovers in Mom's bed which helped a little bit. Hopefully this month will be back to normal of sleeping through the night.
Sounds/Words: You are trying so hard to imitate us and repeat what we say. No words though just sounds. I will say all done and say Ahh with my mouth open to see if you are all done and you do the same when I do. It's so cute. You can wave, still do your signs well and can do the All done sign now. You are much more verbal when you don't get what you want. You stiffen your arms and legs and yell. It's pretty funny. We usually only see the temper tantrums when Sis takes toys from you.
New discoveries/accomplishments:
-You are a mad woman crawler
-You pull up on everything
-You celebrated your first New Year's Eve with a sleepover at Gammoe's house.
-You met Mickey & Minnie for the 1st time at Epcot.
-You started My Gym classes and love them. The forward rolls and flipping on the bar give you quite the worried face, but no tears so thats good.
-You went to your first circus
Places you went/Adventures: January was a little more laid back than December for us. You spent lots of time during the week at the YMCA. All the workers there love you and talk about what a great baby you are. We went to the circus. We went to Epcot & Animal Kingdom for a little family getaway. Helped Emily & Will pick a wedding venue and have just been laying low at the house enjoying time with each other.
Clothes: You are in 12 month clothes for the most part. Leggings and jeans are 12 months. We are in 12 month sleepers now. You have moved up to a size 4 diaper and have gained 2 lbs this month. Big B can eat some food! I feel like you are always hungry :)
Sister updates: Now that you are crawling, things between you have gotten fun. You crawl to wherever she is and play with her. It is so sweet until Delainey gets upset when you try to take her toy or mess up what she is doing. D is doing really well with you. We have figured out that you only really like to play with a toy for about 20 seconds so we count to 20 and usually by then you are done and D can take it to play with after. I love that I can leave you girls to play together for a few minutes while I get dressed and know you are ok!
Weekly Pictures: