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:

Disney Weekend Getaway - Animal Kingdom

On Sunday, we finished up our weakend getaway with a day at Animal Kingdom. The weather was perfect, not too cold, but not too hot. We started off by doing A Bug's Life 3D and then taking the train out to the affection section (fancy petting zoo). Delainey was very excited to meet Rafiki since we just watched the Lion King this past week. We did the safari next and almost all of the animals were out which was nice.

Then we headed to watch The Lion King performance and then ate some lunch. Dave & I separately went on the dinosaur ride, but decided it was probably better if Delainey didn't go. I went first to see how scary it was and came back saying no thanks we don't need nightmares tonight from D LOL. It was a pretty cool ride though. So while Dave rode the dinosaur ride, we headed to the kids area where we did a dumbo-like ride, dug for bones in the boneyard and ran around on slides and nets.

We headed home around 4 and the girls were beat. They just don't sleep great in hotels so add that on with staying up late the night before and all the activity from the day, they were both knocked out in 3 minutes. I took Dave's jacket and tied it around the carseat so Delainey's head wouldn't hang. Genius if I do say so myself haha.

This will be our last family trip to Disney until we go the last week in April for Delainey's big birthday celebration. I'm sure the girls will sneak in one more day in between then though :) Another great Disney weekend in the books. 

Disney Weekend Getaway - Dinner with the Princesses

 About 4 months ago I started looking into character breakfasts' to take Delainey too. They all seemed so expensive for literally 5 seconds with each character. I at least wanted a good meal out of it and not pancakes and cold eggs. So I started researching what characters were at what places and found out about the princess dining at Epcot at the Akershus restaurant. Apparently it and Cinderella's castle are the 2 best places to meet the princesses (which Delainey would much rather do than meeting Mickey & Minnie). So I booked dinner several months ago and the time had finally come. 

Honest thoughts, It wasn't worth it. I am so cheap and go to Disney so often that meeting the princesses is not that big of a deal. If you rarely ever go to Disney, it may be worth it. We walked in and met Belle right away and took a picture with her (you can meet her personally in Storytime with Belle at MK). Then we were seated and asked what drinks we wanted. Soft drinks were included alcohol or special drinks with fun cups was more. They had a buffet for appetizers that consisted of meats, cheeses, and seafood. Once we ordered our food we were free to go to the buffet as much as as we wanted. I ordered the sweedish meatballs (the restaurant is all based on Norwegian food) and dave ordered the pork chop. The meatballs were actually very tasty. Delainey opted for the kids mac n cheese with an upcharged lemonade since it had a fancy light on it. Dessert was a trio of rice pudding, apple pie, and chocolate mousse. Why I say it wasn't worth is goes back to me being cheap. I have a hard time paying $52 a person to eat some meatballs I could get at IKEA for $4.99. I was most outraged by Delainey's which cost $32 for some darn mac n cheese. Nutso! Next time I am not ordering her anything since she doesn't eat barely any of it anyway. 

 While we were eating all the princesses came by to say hello. They hug you talk to you for a few minutes, take a picture and move to the next table . We met Snow White, Aurora, Ariel, & Jasmine. I know you are guaranteed to meet at least 5 princesses, which ones are not determined though. After they went around to all the tables, the princesses did one last march through the restaurant and the kids could follow and dance along. 

Delainey loved meeting the princesses. She said numerous times that was the best part of her day, so all in all it was worth it.  I think if you are going to do a character dinner this would be one of the best ones to do.

In all my craziness, I already booked lunch at Cinderella's castle for Delainey's birthday after she gets her hair and make up done at the Bippidi Boppidi Boutique. I kind of would rather not waste the money on it, but I paid upfront and it will be nice to compare the two. So that pretty much sums up our dinner with the princesses. A dinner fit for a little princess too! :) 

Disney Weekend Getaway - Epcot Part 1

Who was I kidding in my last post saying I would be back on Sunday with a recap of our trip. This Momma was exhausted Sunday evening and I'm OCD everyone must be unpacked before I can head to bed. So needless to say there was no time to blog.
We had a wonderful weekend away just the 4 of us. I am so glad that Dave loves Disney as much as the rest of us. This was his first time visiting Epcot (or at least that he can remember) so that was really cool for him to experience.
Saturday morning we woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and hit the road to Orlando. We arrived to Epcot at noon, just in time for our first fast pass to meet Minnie & Mickey. Delainey was excited about it, but I secretly scheduled it because I wanted to see how Blakely would do and get her first pictures with the characters. She was not impressed.  As long as Mama was holding her she was ok. When I tried to reach her out to them she would cry. Oh well she will love them soon enough.

After meeting the characters we went off to do some rides. We went on living on the land, Journey through Imagination with Figment and watched a few short films in 3D which were actually really cute!

Then we went on the Finding Nemo ride, explored the aquariums (it happened to be feeding time right when we were there so that was cool to watch), and then D & Dad did the Test Track ride. She was nervous because it was fast, but she came off the ride skipping. She clearly loved it!

We completed most of the rides that D was tall enough for so then we decided to walk the World and look at all the countries before dinner. It really is a cool place especially for those people who have never traveled outside of the USA. I told Dave we were 100% going down to the food and wine festival this fall! We went to dinner at the Akershus palace and met some of the princesses (see separate blog post) then decided to call it a night. The temperature had definitely dropped by the time we finished dinner. We hit up one last ride in the Epcot ball on the way out and headed back to the hotel.

Dave and I were talking on the way home Sunday that we really need to just plan a day to stay and play at the hotel on our next trip to Orlando. Delainey is absolutely obsessed with them! At one point during the day at Epcot she asked if we could leave and go to the hotel LOL. I can't say I blame her, I love staying at hotels too. (well the nice ones that is) She jumps on the bed, takes showers by herself, asks to swim in 45 degree weather, snuggles in bed with her Dad, she just loves everything about it. We finally had lights out by 10 pm and were sound asleep to prepare for another fun day at Disney. This time...Animal Kingdom.