I Took The Winter Off!

Eeek! Our Winter is over! I can hardly believe it! We had great family time and made precious memories. 

A is quite the Daddy's Girl. She loved helping Daddy look for deer and playing Mom. This week she folded an entire load of laundry all by herself! 

B learned to walk this Winter and he has new words everyday! Yesterday was "open" and "off". He's doing very well health wise which is so refreshing.

Daniel and I got away by ourselves twice this Winter! Once for a long weekend marriage retreat and once for a week long, all expenses paid Caribbean Cruise! Thanks Potomac :) 

We finished up at the Baptist church Daniel had been leading at and are now attending a non-denominational church. We've been there since the first of the year. We're quickly falling in love with the church and the people there. 

As always the Lord has been, is, and will be faithful! 

Here's to the end of Winter and the sweet memories we have left to remember it by!

October One

I can hardly believe it's October first! I'm sure lots of people are feeling the same way.

What does Fall hold for you this year? What is your favorite event in Fall? 

Fall is one of my favorite times of year. I'm looking forward to it with a little excitement actually. I'm awaiting cooler days, Daniel having more time at home, Fall colors on the trees, Christmas, and hopefully some traveling.

Soon, Daniel will take a break from pools and be able to focus on ministry for the Winter. I enjoy having him around the house and so do the kiddos. In fact I think even the dog likes it better when Daniel is home. I'm so blessed with an awesome man.

I do have to admit that prior planning is not one of my strong points. I have good intentions but get easily side tracked. I'm happy to announce that I've managed to find a couple Christmas presents. They were on sale of course!  Hopefully, I'll stay the course and be done long before December five and twenty. I'll have to keep you updated on my progress. Later I'm going to be sharing with you how we here at The McLaughlin House "deal" with Christmas presents and traditions. We got the idea from some good friends of ours, The Brown's. 

Here's to the beginning of the end of the year! May it be filled with abundant blessings.

Retreat!

All of our days are important but this week holds an awesome (first time) opportunity for Daniel. He will be traveling with a church to to lead worship for them on a retreat! We have met with some of the leaders from this church and are encouraged by the way they are approaching ministry. We were very honored when they asked Daniel to be a part of this retreat. It will be a small, intimate setting (sometimes by a campfire) which I firmly believe is one of Daniel's strongest points. I look forward to the ways that God will speak to people this weekend through Daniel's gift of music. It's my prayer that the music will be a blessing to them, enabling them to truly worship God in a personal way.

This leads me to another thought. You see this weekend wouldn't be possible if Daniel and I weren't completely certain and convicted of Daniel's giftedness. I want to encourage all of you to discover the ways God has gifted you. I think that as a Momma to young children it's often easy for me to forget that God has gifted me beyond being able to change a diaper and make dinner. However, the demands of being a wife and mother don't negate my command from God to use my gifts to His glory. 

If you haven't had a chance yet you should check out Daniel's website too!  His site by the way is a huge blessing from our friend at Steinruck Designs. As far as I'm concerned they make the hottest web designs out there!

My Manly Man

BEFORE 

AFTER

DETAILING

Woo Hoo! Our Garage looks awesome now!! We have also enjoyed the fact that we have a garage but now we like it even more :) For very little money we snagged some good paint at Home Depot off the oops pile, saved some money for the DIY epoxy flooring, and gave D a Home Depot gift card for Father's Day for new, brighter lighting.

Daniel did a great job knocking it out in a short time frame, as always. It seems to have become a local hangout for most men on our street.  Last Saturday when I came home there were numerous men in there and more would stop by as the afternoon went on. 

We're so blessed to have been able to pull this off as it certainly wasn't a have to. I'm sure the Lord will use our garage to allow us to continue sharing our testimony of His blessings and faithfulness.