Happy 1st Birthday Blakely!

It is so crazy to think that this time one year ago we were laying in our hospital room snuggling the most precious little baby that God could have ever blessed us with. It felt a little different with Blakely than it did with Delainey, just because we had to go through so much more to get our baby Blake. Like I always say, I think the longer you have to wait for something, the more you appreciate it when it actually comes. It was such an amazing feeling to see it all come to fruition and hold her in our arms.

She truly has blessed our lives in ways that are unexplainable. She is such a sweet little girl who loves her family (Mommy especially), always wants to be with her big sissy, and has a smile and laugh that can bring tears to your eyes. There is nothing more fulfilling than to watch my 2 girls laugh and play together. She is as sweet as they come, but does have a little sass to her. When she wants something she will absolutely let you know. She loves to eat and loves her milk. As long as she's not hungry, she is the happiest baby on the planet. 

This year has flown by, but I know the years to come are going to be just as great if not even better as Blakely continues to get older. Here are some pictures of my sweet 1 year old girl from 1 year ago to today! 

 Eating her birthday pancakes

The birthday girl! 

Happy Birthday Blakely! We love you so much!!

Blakely's Birthday Week

Poor Blakely got the short end of the stick when she was born right around Easter. Since it is one of my favorite holidays, there are so many traditions and things I like to do,  that her birthday has taken a backseat. Throw on all the fun with the houses and poor girl isn't even getting a present from Mom. 

This past week we have done lots of furniture shopping (not buying, just getting ideas). Delainey wants a bunk bed, but was obsessed with the carriage bed, and Blakley just wants to climb around on all the furniture. 

We had a chick-fil-a picnic in the back of the car, before doing some shopping at the mall. 

 We made resurrection rolls to discuss Jesus' death and him rising from the dead and him no longer being in the tomb. Blake helped too! Well really she just helped eating them after since they tasted just like cinnamon rolls.

 We went to Good Friday service and the girls did really well!

 And we spent a rainy Saturday at Chuck E Cheese for some birthday week fun! This one is fairly new so it hasn't gotten all rundown and gross yet. Both kiddies loved it, but it will be nice when Blakley can walk and just follow you around.

Saturday night we had a date night to Kickbacks in Riverside while Gammoe watched the girls. Not my top choice of restaurants to go to, but the 2 I tried before settling, were fully booked for the night. It was just nice to have some alone adult time with dad. The food was fine, but more of a bar atmosphere than I would have liked. Oh well. At least we went out to dinner and are keeping up with our resolutions!

Happy Easter from the McLaughlin's!

Happy Easter from the McLaughlin's! We had a wonderful day of celebrating that Jesus is alive, today and always. How precious are my twinning girlies!?!?

We woke up and opened Easter baskets and had a nice relaxing morning since we went to the 11 am service. The girls found all their Easter eggs, ate some candy, and watched 1 of their movies before church. 

After church we headed to Gammoe's for a late lunch and family time with Will's side of the family. His sister Cassie came and brought her 2 kids, Katie Jo (3) and Nattie(11 months). It was so nice having the kids there to entertain D & B. We ate around 4 and then just hung out at the house for the rest of the day. Blakely and Nattie kept stealing the paci from one another it was hilarious!

I hope everyone had a great Easter and remembers the true reason for this wonderful holiday everyday of their lives! Jesus!!

Our House is for Sale

Well, it WAS for sale! We currently are under contract and are awaiting a home inspection on Saturday and an appraisal to be done. If all that goes well, we are scheduled to close on June 10th!! 

It was quite the whirl wind the past 7 days. Last Thursday morning, we officially put a sign in the yard and put our house for sale on Zillow and the MLS listings. I had my first call by noon that day for someone to come see it that afternoon. So I called Grammy, asked her to come grab the kids after school, did some last minute cleaning and away we left for the afternoon. I had a feeling there were going to be a few showings on Friday so I was nutso not letting the kids or David touch anything that could dirty the house. I even made him shower in the girls' bathroom. Friday morning, we had a showing scheduled for 10 so when the girls woke, we got dressed and left the house for the day! We had breakfast at Burger King, took naps at Grammys, had Tropical Smoothie for lunch, and then I passed the girls off to Gammoe while I headed to St. Augustine to set up for Shannon's wedding. We ended up having 4 showings that day and 2 on Saturday. Saturday morning I got a text from my realtor saying we had 2 offers, so he got back to them and anyone else interested and said give us your best and final offer by 5 pm on Sunday. And thats what happened we had 2 offers, both over asking price, by Sunday evening and had to choose which one. We had to do a little negotiating with the offer we wanted to accept, but they accepted the deal and here we are! Under contract in less than 4 days!! Woohoo! I am praying it all goes through, because it was not easy keeping the house clean with the girls running around. 

We did put a lot into getting it ready over the past month or so. Dave did a great job tidying up the landscaping, he pressure washed the whole house, repainted the patio, repainted the door and shutters, organized the garage. I decluttered all the rooms, took out some furniture and toys, cleaned the house from top to bottom, changed all the lights so the rooms were nice and bright (it made a huge difference). We also changed all of our fogged windows out for new clear windows, had our carpets professionally cleaned, and upgraded our appliances from white to stainless steel. I would say we did a good job!

The professional pictures of our house were dynamite too. You can see the listing here of our house on Zillow. Please pray everything goes smoothly this weekend with the inspection and appraisal! Thanks guys!!

Living Waters Easter Egg Hunt & St. Patrick's Day

Thursday, Delainey had her school Easter Egg hunt at a nearby park and it just so happened to also be St. Patrick's Day. So of course we had to dress in our green. It was a pretty low key day. All the kids played on the playground for quite some time, did the egg hunt, and then had a picnic in the park.