Team Laughlin Twins March For Babies

 On May 5 we participated again in the March of Dimes March for Babies!  This was our third year to have Team Laughlin Twins and it was another great year.  We had 16 adults and 13 kids who came to support us and walk for such a great cause.  The best part is we raised about $1900 for babies who are born too soon and their families!! Way to go Team Laughlin Twins!!  Adam and I were again overwhelmed by all the love and generosity of our friends and families.  We cannot thank all of you enough.  We had a beautiful day for the walk and enjoyed lunch at the park together afterwards.  Here is our only family pic we managed to get.  Reagan's glasses become sunglasses outside so unfortunately all of her pictures have dark eyes.

 Renna playing with Ava and Natalie.

 All the kids were so excited to see that Mickey Mouse stopped by before the walk.  Renna shook his hand but Reagan only wanted to watch from afar.

 What kids benefit is complete without a visit from Elmo!!

 I managed to get a picture of all the cousins together.  Isaac, Avery, Reagan, Renna, Gage, & Sara.  Can't believe we got all of them to stand still that long to get a picture.

 Here is Team Laughlin Twins ready to Walk for healthier babies!

Renna and Reagan strolling during the walk.  Thanks again everyone who walked with us or donated to our team.  The walk further reminds me every year how lucky we are to have these little miracle babies so happy and healthy.  Stay tuned for more pictures of our first ever family vacation!!

March of Dimes Walk

 My little happy ladies sliding together outside!  Seeing these happy healthy faces makes me so happy.  I cannot believe how far we have come in almost three years. For those who don't know our story you can read the beginning of the blog, but in short our girls were born prematurely at only 28 wks gestation.  So basically 3 months early!  Renna Ann weighed 2lbs. 15oz and Reagan Kate weighed 2 lbs. 10oz.  Renna went on to require heart surgery at about 3 wks of age and Reagan had some GI issues requiring rectal biopsies and both received countless blood transfusions and other life saving treatments. I am proud to say they are doing really well and are two perfectly healthy happy little girls. We will be doing our third annual Team Laughlin Twins March for Babies at the March of Dimes walk this weekend.  We are walking to celebrate our healthy little miracles and to help raise money to support the research that saved their lives and continues to save babies lives' each day.  If you can help support us in any way visit our team website at: http://www.marchforbabies.org//team/t1740252.  Here are a few pictures from their almost 3 month stay in the NICU.

 Renna at about 1 month of age

 Reagan about 6 weeks old

My little ladies at about 6 weeks old, getting to wear clothes for the first time!! Look how huge the preemie outfits were on them.  Please help us support the March of Dimes and their cause in anyway that you can.  We are so blessed to be the parents of these wonderful children and we want to help out any other parents who may be going through the same health struggles.  Visit our team page:http://www.marchforbabies.org//team/t1740252

April & Easter Fun

 Here is our Easter/April catch up. It took me forever to load all these pics and now somehow they all loaded in random order....so here they are in all their randomness.  We have had a fun April playing outside with lots of friends and of course animals too!  This is Renna last week riding Banner, one of the ponies at my parents house.  This girl loves to ride!  We have to drag her off to let the other kids ride.  She looks so big right here.

 On Easter Sunday after church we went to some of Adam's cousins ranch to hunt easter eggs with all the cousins.  We had a great time and the girls again got to ride horses and hunt eggs in the pasture!  What a fun day!

 Only family pic we managed to get on Easter.

 Reagan riding Dinky.

 Me and the girls getting eggs.  I had a lot of fun too!

 The Saturday before Easter we colored eggs at my parents house with Berkeley.  We had a great day and enjoyed a little fishing too.

 Reagan doing Easter eggs at Grammy's

 Renna doing Easter eggs at Grammy's

 Easter morning surveying the Easter Bunny treats

 Reagan was excited about candy in her eggs!

 Renna had been asking for a carseat for her doll and she was overjoyed with the baby princess and carrier.

 Showing off our Easter dresses, Reagan cheesing it up!

 Renna before church

 Adam took about 100 pics before church and this is the last one he took and of course it turned out to be one of the only ones where they were both looking.

We spent a day visiting two of my friends from high school, Chandra & Shelly.  We colored easter eggs with 7 kids all 4 and under!! It was a crazy day but we had a blast and our hubbies got to go Turkey hunting so it was a fun day for everyone.  Thanks so much for having us over Chandra.  Shelly bought all the girls hats, don't they look cute?

 Reagan had to get glasses last week.  She is so grown up in them. Doesn't she look adorable?  I was so worried it would be a battle to get them on but she asks to put them on and keeps amazing us with the little details she now points out....I guess we didn't realize she wasn't seeing them!  We are so proud of how well she is doing.

My parents are having baby goats now so we spent a couple of days out at the farm and Renna loved carrying them around.   Several of our friends came out too and the girls were so proud to show off the animals.  My little farm girls make me proud!!  That is a quick wrap up of our month.  We have been enjoying the great weather and are looking forward to more spring fun.

Baby Chickens!

Let me begin by saying the girls have had RSV and double ear infections for the past two weeks! Having said that we might have been a little sleep deprived and made some crazy decisions!! After going to the doctor 5 times in 11 days you tend to get a little loopy! Anyways when the girls were feeling so sick we decided to take them to a short trip to a store close to our house to see some baby chickens! I am sure you can guess how the story goes. We did discuss before going in that we may be open to the idea of bringing home a few...we came home with six baby chickens!! The plan was to keep them while they are little and then send them to live with my parents chickens...oh how plans can change! This is the girls loving on them when we got home.
Remember how much Renna loves chickens? She wants to play and hold them all the time. The girls even help me clean their pen everyday. This girl is a natural at holding and catching them! Maybe she will grow up to be a poultry vet!
Renna loves letting them sit on her lap!
Reagan is obsessed with these little princesses and she insisted on bringing them out to show the chickens! It was so cute because she sat there and talked to the chick and said "See the princess, its okay!" So precious! I think the chicken was a little interested.
Our little brood of Rhode Island Reds! Great looking chickens aren't they? Too bad we don't know if they are hens or roosters! We may have a surprise if Henryetta starts crowing like a Rooster!!
Reagan giving one of them a kiss. They all now have names and colored bands on their legs so we can tell them apart!
Playing with them in the garage the first day.
A little fun in the sun!
Reagan playing in the grass with the chicks. You have to look closely but they are there. They love to run around the yard with us pecking and eating bugs! They really have been good pets so far.
Since you likely know where this story is going, we decided to keep the chickens since we live on an acreage and have room for them. Yep!! We are suckers!! But we are really excited to have fresh eggs sometime in our future. So Adam is hard at work on building a handy chicken coop that we can move around the pasture. Renna is his little helper. Here is Daddy teaching Renna how to measure.
Adam's building process can take a lot longer with two two year olds helping! Since taking all these pics we actually purchased two more baby chickens today! Crazy I know. I will say it was all Adam's idea. We read up and realized we bought some that weren't pre-sexed so now we bought two that we know are going to be hens...hopefully! So we will keep you posted on our little chicken farm. It may be smaller than we think if we have more roosters than hens. Let us know if anyone knows anyone in the market for some roosters. I will post the finished pics of the coop when it is all done. Off now to clean the chicken pens! Did I mention how awesome they are at catching bugs? They are amazing. I must leave you with a list of the now 8 chicken names....Whitey, Peep, Peck, Thomasina, Henryetta, Cocci, Halle, and Whoopi!! The last two are the new Barred Plymouth Rock babies!

Boats, Bulls, and Ballet

Well, February and the first half of March have been a blur. We had a lot of illness in Feb. with stomach bug, croup, 104 fevers, ear infections, and even me having pneumonia!! Ugh! Oh and Adam and I even managed to fit in a trip to Vegas for a Continuing Education conference and a little vacation for the two of us. We had a fantastic time but it was the longest we had ever left these sweethearts and we missed them so much. We wanted to say thanks to the grandparents for splitting up the time with them and watching them. The girls had a great vacation too and I am not sure they even missed us. Right now we seem to be doing better with only one ear infection currently. These little girls sure are tough and we are so happy to be soon entering spring so we can spend all our days playing outside. This picture is from Valentine's Day. We were just getting over an illness so we stayed home and made purple scrambled eggs and painted cards for the grandparents and daddy. It is so fun to see them starting to recognize the holidays and even look forward to them.
Showing off their hand print cards.
Love this picture of Reagan as her face lights up seeing stickers in her card. Stickers are a huge treat at our house as we use them as rewards when the girls take a "big girl nap!" This sometimes happen rarely but they go in cycles and the rewards seem to be helping.
Reagan doing her Valentine's card painting. I discovered that the highchairs work great to put them back in for art projects so I may be keeping them around a little longer.
Renna doing her artwork.
We recently took the girls fishing for their first time with their own poles and out on a boat. We took them last year on the bank but this time they seemed to be more excited so they got their own poles, life jackets, and we took daddy's fishing boat out to my parents pond. They had a great time. Here is Renna with her first fish she caught officially by herself. Daddy let her reel it in all by herself and she was so excited about it that she kissed the fish!! We have since taken them fishing one more time and Reagan also caught a big catfish.
First time out on Daddy's fishing boat. They really enjoy it, but after about 30 min-1hr out there fishing they are ready to get out and run. Not a great picture but we are all squinting into the sun. The girls touch all the fish and the worms and the minnows themselves. Reagan even sweetly said to one of the minnows as I was putting it on the hook "Oh...it is okay little fish!"
We also went to Bullnanza with my family. This used to be an annual tradition with my family but we haven't been since the girls have been born so it was fun to start up this tradition again. Funny enough the first time my family met Adam was when we all went to Bullnanza in 2002...funny how much things change in 10 years! Here are all the cousins enjoying the bull riding show! They really were excited to see all the bulls and even wanted to go down and touch them.
Gage and Reagan having a loving cousin moment.
Renna & Papa

Reagan and Papa

We started dance class the first week in March. The girls love it! It is a pre-ballet class and they are loving every second. It is a 2 & 3 yr. old class and it is a hoot to watch. Renna is on the left and Reagan on the far right. This was the first class that we went to try out and now we have progressed to actually having real ballet shoes! Thanks for recommending it Amanda.
You can see Reagan really well here and Renna behind her in the mirror!! So proud of my little ballerinas. They are teaching them the proper ballet terms which they are surprisingly remembering. It is so priceless to hear them say the words as they dance around the living room.
Here are the girls before their first class. You can tell how excited they were!! Don't they look so grown up? Renna and her little bashful sweet smile.
Reagan doing her new excited face!!! This face makes my day! They ask everyday now if they can go to dance class and it is only once a week. Anyways that is our long catchup. I would like to say I will post more frequently but life always seems to get in the way and we are enjoying every second!