Where to begin….  We have a very fun group of friends from college that we have been lucky to keep in touch with and visit often. There seemed to be a wedding every year so we could all get together, but now that we’re all married with kids we needed a new excuse to meet up….  New Orleans!

What a fabulous excuse. New Orleans is one of mine and B’s very favorite cities! It’s a blast. So much more fun than Vegas. Sadly I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but I can assure you a lot of fun was had by all. This is a really fun group! I’m missing them already.

Mr. Don is traveling for work so we got the pleasure of having Andrew and Hanna over for a sleepover. Annabelle missed out on some of the fun because she had to head out to dancing school. The evening was super easy, but for some reason these kiddos just never want to go bed when they’re together. Hmmm….I guess it’s just a little too much fun!

my sweet Gwyneth Grace

Baby Hanna….not so much a baby anymore. Looking more and more like her Momma. I swear, she has this annoyed/exasperated look that almost knocks me off my feet. She’s a little Jess from head to toe.

We have wanted a shuffleboard table in our house for as long as I can remember. We love shuffleboard. Love, love, love shuffleboard. We were even in a league in Chicago. Yep, that’s where team Shake N Bake was born. We never had the right space for a table….

We are raising these girls right! Keep your eyes peeled for the 1st Annual Shake N Bake tourney. It’s going to be a good one!

Colorado is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. The weather is crazy – 85 degrees one day, 30 degrees the next – but it’s an amazing place to live so you just gotta deal with it.

I thought it was going to be 80 degrees today… at least that’s what the forecast said. I’m beginning to think that Yahoo will hire me to do the weather forecast. If I’m accurate 15% of the time, I do believe I have a future in meterology in this grand state. I digress, it ended up being much, much cooler so it put a kink in our plans to hike at Estes Park.

The girls cried and clung to their daddy. BUT, we saw animals. Lots of animals. And we paid $20 to give them a “Jurrassic Park” style tour of the park from our SUV. No power outages, no wild dinosaurs…just a lot of peaceful, beautiful animals, and a lovely day in Colorado.

Annabelle and Andrew had their very first piano recital tonight. Poppy & Melissa arrived in time for the event. Miss Annabelle was the first on the program — and was NOT having it. She got stage fright and wouldn’t let go of me. I was disappointed for her because she had been practicing her song and was very excited to play “Old MacDonald Had A Farm”. I think the crowd and the pressure of being first took its toll. She got very shy and nervous. Annabelle is very outgoing and loves being the center of attention, so I was pretty shocked she didn’t want to play. We didn’t make a big deal of it though, we’ll keep up with the lessons and give it another try next year.

You can never believe the Colorado forecast. Never! We planned an afternoon at the Butterfly Pavilion because it was going to rain. Quick change of plans because it was sunny and gorgeous — we met the Carlson’s at the zoo. No complaints here. It was a great day to be outside.

Here’s a shocker — we had to leave the zoo early because Gwyneth had a major meltdown. Gwyneth??? Yes, Gwyneth! Annabelle had to use the restroom and Gwyneth was determined to head straight to the concession stand for a juice. There was no reasoning with her. She took off running and then had a meltdown while waiting for Annabelle. Oh.my.goodness.  Not that I’m surprised that chidlren have meltdowns – I’ve lived through my share with these girls already – but Gwyneth is usually so mellow. So relaxed. So go-with-the-flow. It was a shocker. We sadly apologized to Jack and Ben and told them we would have to leave because of Gwyneth’s behavior. As Annabelle was drinking her juice in the car, Gwyneth said “I don’t have juice, because I was soooooooo NAUGHTY”. Little miss smartypants knew what she was up to. She also said it with a huge smile on her face. Oh my!

This week was all about Annabelle. With Gwyneth in Chicago, Annabelle got to pick what she wanted to do and it was absolutely no surprise when she screamed “Little Monkey Business with Andrew!!”. This girls love Monkey Biz….and she loves Andrew. She informed me that her and Andrew are going to get married. She really wants to get married before she turns 5 and she wants a long, pretty white dress. Perhaps watching the Royal Wedding with her has put a few crazy thoughts in her head….perhaps?

Gus joined us too (yes, the bribe of beer aftwards was used!). We had a great time going down the slides….over, and over, and over, and over….

YaYa was very pursuasive and convinced me to leave Gwyneth in Chicago for a few days. Gwyneth got lots of Yaya time — she was there for 4 days all by herself. She was spoiled rotten. She had pancakes for dinner, watched a duck lay an egg in YaYa’s front yard, and had YaYa all to herself. Gwyneth is a big, big fan of YaYa so this was heaven for her!

Although we missed Gwyneth terribly, we had lots of one on one time with Annabelle! One kid feels so easy to manage when you’re use to chasing after two. We had a “Welcome to the Neighborhood” dinner on Monday and Annabelle was so sweet. We treated her to ice cream aftewards. I think a little girl could get use to this.

If you’ve never been to the American Girl Store you are missing out on quite the experience. The store in Chicago has a theatre, a doll hospital, a doll hair salon, a sweets shop, and a cafe. It’s three stories of pure  girliness!

We enjoyed lunch at the cafe where the girls were able to dine with their babydolls. Of course, there was plenty of shopping done after lunch. Oh my! That place is a black hole….just sucks the money right out of my wallet.