I’ve been a little ridiculous lately and have been feeling stressed with all my responsibilities at home and work. I’m such a lucky lady because I have wonderful girlfriends who bring me down to earth. I was able to meet Sheila for lunch at Le Peep. Yum! Breakfast for lunch! We talked and talked and talked and then talked a little more and I felt such a tremendous weight lifted. Thanks, Sheila for chatting it up with me and being such a great gal pal. .

This evening I went off to meet Consuelo for our Thursday night gals night. Our plan is to meet up weekly after I get the girls to bed, but it doesn’t always work out. It usually ends up being every other week or so. Lucky for me, despite both our hectic work schedules lately, we were able to meet up and have a great evening. I haven’t seen her since GG’s birthday so we had quit a bit to get caught up on and with us gals there’s never a quiet moment. We never run out of things to talk about it.

Thanks to my great girlfriends for a fun day and to my wonderful husband for hanging with the girls so I could get out for a bit.

I’ve been experiencing some technical difficulties with my home computer and realized I missed posting some very cute pictures from last week. Thanks to my very kind and patient husband for getting me back on track. My computer issues have been resolved and I’m chalking it up to mostly operator error.

I snapped some adorable shots of the girls Friday morning before heading off to work. Fridays are usually a very happy time at our house. I try to keep our weeknights quiet and then jam-pack the weekends with excitement. We start off the weekend refreshed and ready to rock and roll! (Then start the work-week exhausted and in need of serious relaxation and vacations – not sure I’m doing this quite right.)

Perfect example of her before-mentioned smile.

You just can’t fake that….
Looks like her big sister has been teaching her some tricks.
Yep, that’s my girl pouring her bowl of Cheerios all over the rug.

It’s not a party without Miss Annabelle!

This little face just lets me know we are in for a day of mischief.

Can’t deny the dance moves are hereditary!

They are both singing and dancing along to the “backpack” song on Dora although it looks a little more like the Will Ferrill dance from “Night at the Roxbury“.

Melissa was sweet enough to invite the girls and me over for her neighborhood Momma’s Night. There were 5 of us Mommas and lots of little kids. I took both my girls with me and they had so much fun playing with all the little ones. Melissa has great neighbors and it was fun to finally meet them – as I’ve heard so much about them from hanging out with Melissa.

Small world – one of Melissa’s neighbors is in a mom’s group with my sister-in-law Jen and my friend, Molly. I had actually met her years ago when we were living in Chicago and I had come back to visit when I was pregnant with Annabelle! Crazy coincidence – I love it.

The girls had dinner there and we arrived home just in time for them to get a quick bath, quick snack and then right to bed!

Gwyneth’s 52 week photo journey is complete – at least her digital album is finished. Her scrapbook is still a work in progress. It’s hard to believe our little lady is already one. Most days it seems like we just brought her home from the hospital. She’s so sweet – she is snuggly and loving and just perfection!

It’s a bit sad that we no longer have a little baby in the house. We’ve had the presence of babies in our home for the past two years. We now have two little toddlers! No more bottles, swaddlers, burp cloths, jumperoo, or execauser. I’ll miss the days of having little ones crawling under foot, but won’t necessarily miss 3:00 am feedings, formula, baby food, spit-up in my hair, or the screams of reflux. I’m accepting the change and focusing on the highlights, but have to admit that I’m not exactly thrilled about it. The best part about keeping this blog is being able to look back at almost every day of their little lives!

Enough of that, moving right along to Miss GG’s highlights. Here are some fun ‘did you knows’ about our youngest:

~ She’s a great eater. She is not picky and will eat whatever we put on her plate.
~ She snorts through her little nose when she is determined or annoyed.
~ She’s a climber and although adventurous is slow and steady.
~ She hates getting her hair done but is cursed with a head full of unruliness!
~ She is unquestionably a Dadda’s girl
~ She loves giving kisses and we’ve already been warned she tries to kiss all the boys at school.
~ She squints her eyes and squishes up her nose when she really smiles.
~ She likes to dance and she sings “Ba Pack, Ba Pack” while watching Dora with her sister.
~ She looks more like me but acts more like her dad.

Happy First Birthday, GG!

To see GG’s 52 week adventure visit:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/meyermadness/meyer_girls/52_weeks_of_gwyneth

It’s official – any toy/gift that costs $5 or less is a hit. I was at Walmart the other night (Ugh – truly truly hate that store!) and found this little Dora backpack for Annabelle. It cost me $5 and has been an endless source of entertainment. She carries her Shmooze, books, and pacifier around in it and loves it.

Here she comes…
Gwyneth finds the whole thing so silly but hilarious

“Hey GG, check out my new too-cool-for-school backpack!”The race is on.

I don’t think Gwyneth knows it’s a race

usually but looks like she’s pulling off the unexpected win.

” This backpack rules!! I think it makes me even faster and my hands are free to knock toys, books, my little sister and anything else out of my way!”.

We met the Silvermans and the Carlsons bright and early Sunday morning at the zoo. 9 am! Sadly, we weren’t even rushed to get there. We had all been up for a few hours at that point. Between the 3 families we have 6 kids that are 2 and under. We don’t travel lightly – there were two double strollers, one wagon, two baby bjorns, 3 bottles, 3 sippy cups, many bottles of sunscreen, many bags of snacks, and 6 very happy kiddos!

GG just sittin’ back and enjoying the ride.

It looks as though our work here is done.

The Silverman twins are 6 months old and were very smiley!

Now that’s a zoo crew!

B with his girls on the train ride.

After the zoo the girls took great naps (I did too!) and then we met up with the Carlsons at the Littleton Historical Museum for Gwyneth’s 1st birthday portrait session. It was a great location for the shoot and the older kids enjoyed the petting zoo. I can’t wait for a sneak peek of the pictures – GG wore pigtails, her cupcake shoes and top, and a TUTU! It was stinkin’ adorable.

After the pictures the Carlsons invited us for dinner at their house. It was delicious; GG and Ben munched for most of our visit. Annabelle and Jack played and enjoyed their dinner together as well as lemonade cupcakes for dessert. We took a bit of a step back though – the girls freaked out about the dogs. The dogs were outside most of the time, but as Annabelle would walk by the door she’d say ‘No, no, puppies’. We reminded her it was their house and she was not the boss of the puppies….that’s Jack’s job!

Considering it is a Colorado Landmark, man oh man, the food sure does taste terrible at Casa Bonita! I haven’t been in years so we sucked it up and took the girls. The Fesslers joined us for the evening and Annabelle, Gwyneth and Cade really enjoyed the show! Cade liked the lights, Annabelle liked the cliff divers, and Gwyneth LOVED the ice cream. The food was not good, but we had good company. We can now check it off our “things to do with the girls in Colorado” list.

The girls on their thrones before our meal
Checking out the show Cade got a front row seat

GG was ready for ice creamThe whole gang; B, me and the girls with Melissa, Rob and Cade

We have boxes, baskets, crates, toy boxes, bookshelves, toy bags…you name it, we’ve got it, and it’s filled with toys. Naturally with all these toys to choose from the girls want to play with a $5 neck massager from Walgreens. The draw is obvious…the button lights up, it shakes, and makes a lot of noise when you put it on the wood coffee table. Look out Dora and Elmo this ‘toy’ rocks! Whatever one gal has the other instantly wants and although we have many duplicate toys through out the house we only have one of these unbelievable toys.

Let the battle begin! It’s a fight for the massager and although Annabelle is bigger and just a bit stronger, Gwyneth has been known to fight dirty. She’s not above tackling Annabelle, sitting on her, and can maintain a death-grip on what she wants. You may be asking “Why not splurge and spend $5 and just get another one so they’ll each have their own?”. To which I can only respond “Nope!”. Learning to share is building their character or at the very minimum I’m setting up them up for a future of “ultimate fighting”.

“And by help, I mean let me have it!”I couldn’t tell for sure, but GG seems to be thinking “What the….?”

I had to work a bit late so I got home just in time to kiss B goodbye as he set off to meet Brad, Gus, and Derrick for a much-needed guys night out. As we were running extremely low on groceries, I decided rather than giving my girls mac and cheese for next 4 meals, we would venture off to the grocery store. To most people this seems fairly simple, but as you know I can make anything a challenge or should I say, adventure!

First I thought, Annabelle will hold my hand and walk in to the store and I’ll just carry Gwyneth. I must have temporarily lost my mind!! Annabelle doesn’t walk anywhere – she runs and she is fast! This quickly lead to me walking in with a two-year old on one hip and a one-year old on the other. No big deal except they where playing high five and were getting mighty upset when I wouldn’t play along. (Couldn’t figure out which one to drop to free up a hand to make that happen???). I finally got them loaded in the grocery basket shaped like a huge car and quickly ran through the store. I couldn’t see the girls in the car very well, but I could tell they were up to no good by the reactions of my fellow shoppers. I got a lot of “aren’t they so cute?” which was very kind because most people don’t usually think a 2 year-old with a one-year-old in a headlock is adorable. Dont’ feel too bad for GG, when we were checking out she had managed to wiggle out of the seat belt and was using her sister’s face as a step-stool to try and climb out of the cart. What goes around comes around. It wasn’t too much of a food challenge but it is a heck of a lot easier to just take one when the other is home napping with their dad.

Annabelle is going through a big “Happy Birthday” kick right now. She is always singing the song and usually she’s singing it to herself which means we hear a lot of “Happy Birthday, dear Apple”. As she was putting her pj’s on she requested we sing happy birthday to her bud “My Jackie”. She’s ready to rock the mic for his birthday party next weekend. There will be a mic, (right, Jennifer?) because I promised her there would be!

As I was putting Gwyneth in her pj’s, Annabelle wanted to empty out GG’s laundry hamper. With all the toys, dolls, and books we have scattered through out the house this seemed perfectly logical. I finally had the girls in bed – GG with her monkey-Shmooze (as Annabelle now refers to him) and Annabelle with her….wait, where’s Shmooze? I tore the house apart. Oh no, did I leave it at the store? Is it in the car? Where is that bear? I finally gave up for the night and put her to bed only to remember GG’s LAUNDRY HAMPER! Yep, there he was buried under layers of pink clothes! That bear is going to be the death of me.

I decided to take the rest of the night off and watch the Food Network Challenge and wouldn’t you know it – Sesame Street cakes! Since I’ve become reaquainted with the SS crew I was pretty impressed with how they brought those characters to life — in cake. I was going to save the show on DVR and let the girls watch it but I’m not sure it’s worth the therapy they’ll need watching Big Bird being hacked to pieces and people chowing down on him one sugar feather at a time.

Elmo is Annabelle’s favorite
Oscar is GG’s favorite