What a weekend!

Ok, so I suck at taking pictures of anything other than my babies.  We didn't take any pictures of our weekend in Scottsdale, until Saturday night and that one picture totally blows so I will not be sharing it.  ;)  I just go crazy taking pics of the girls because they are constantly changing.  I will try to be better though.

Anyway, my mom took the girls for us and boy let me tell you... there's no one like Grandma to break a routine!  She got Lydia to sleep without her swaddle!!  We were struggling with doing it gradually to the point that I just gave up and started swaddling her again.  If she managed to pull an arm out on her own she was fine but if she started out that way she was up most of the night.  I guess Lydia got really pissed when my mom tried to put her in it Friday night for bed so she let her sleep without it and she slept through the night until 5:30am!  (had her bottle and went back to bed for a couple of hours) Naps and Saturday night went great as well.  We got home yesterday (Sunday) afternoon so I put her to bed without it again.  Not only did she go to bed without a peep and fall asleep on her own in her crib, she SLEPT THE WHOLE NIGHT!  WOOOO!  Today's naps went without the swaddle again, and again fell asleep on her own in the crib and slept great.  I just put her down about an hour ago for bed and she did awesome.  I can't get over the shock of how well it's gone.  Seriously, I guess it was a cold turkey thing with her.  That or she was just done with it.  Either way I'm extremely pleased!

Back to the weekend. Charlie and I arrived in Scottsdale Friday afternoon.  After some failure on my behalf on being able to use the GPS in our phones we finally found our condo for the weekend.  It was a great place, super clean and right in Scottsdale.  We got settled in and then were off again to go find the outlet mall I was dying to shop at.  We only visited a couple of stores though because we got there so late and we had dinner reservations at 7pm that we needed to get cleaned up for.  We had dinner at a place called Roaring Fork.  It was extremely delicious and we ate a lot!  After that we couldn't really decide what to do.  It came down to just renting a movie and watching it back at the condo.  Neither of us felt up to doing much else.  We watched Moneyball, and it was good but I was so extremely tired that I could barely stay awake for it. My whole idea for the weekend was just to get some sleep and not be woken up 3-4 times.  Which is exactly what I got.  I didn't wake up until 8am the next morning!  Saturday we got up and got ready then went to Dunkin Donuts for some breakfast.  It was just ok, we prefer our local Country Time Donuts though.  After that we drove around Scottsdale to see what it had to offer.  We ended up parking the car and wondered around for a bit. Before we knew it we'd found a huge mall.  This place was ridiculous.  Ok, ridiculous to me because the highest end store we have is Dillards.  This mall had Neiman Marcus, Barneys, and then it also had a Louis Vitton and a Prada just to name a few.  It was CRAZY!  We walked by some kids clothes at Neiman Marcus and a shirt alone was $100!!  I could never even fathom spending that much on a shirt the girls will wear for a couple of months. Anyway, we bought ourselves some clothes at a couple of stores and paid a visit to the Disney Store.  Ours closed a while back so I was in heaven walking around it.  We found adorable Minnie Mouse outfits for the girls and called it a day.  We had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen (a personal favorite) and it was very good.  I always have to find one in whatever town I'm visiting because we don't have it at home. Charlie thinks I'm ridiculous but oh well!  When we got back to the condo we changed into swimsuits and went swimming for a bit.  It actually wasn't that hot down there.  Well, it was hot but we both expected worse.  I think it's because it's dry heat and not humid heat so it didn't feel that bad.  Plus we manged to stay in shade or in air conditioning for the most part.  Our dinner reservations weren't until 9pm that night, so we thought we would try to go to a mini golf course we saw... except when we got there we found out it was reserved for a private party.  We were at a loss for what to do, so we just decided to rent another movie.  This time we saw Drive and it was really good.  Our dinner that night was a place called Sapporo.  It was a Japanese restaurant, but it had sort of a "club" atmosphere.  The music was loud and there were tons of people in groups celebrating birthdays.  The food was really good and Charlie got some really yummy sushi there.  I think it would be fun to have that here to go celebrate my friends birthdays at.  ;)  After dinner we went back and finished our movie and then got ready for bed.  We got up bright and early Sunday morning because we had to get the condo cleaned and sheets washed before we could head out.  Once everything was cleaned up and I had the sheets running we ran to a bagel place and got breakfast.  We went back to the cond packed up made the bed and then we were off to head home. 

I was sooo happy to see my babies.  It was much harder to be away this time then any other time.  I think it's just because I have two to worry about and miss instead of just one.  I don't know really.   I just know every time I go somewhere I come home that much more grateful to be home and grateful for what we have.  ;)  I love my little family!

So there you have it, our quick but nice weekend get away.  While I was typing all this out I've been busy printing out stuff for Natalia's third birthday! Can you believe it?  She of course is having a My Little Pony themed party.  I couldn't find anything on the Internet that was "Friendship is magic" stuff just old school My Little Pony.  Luckily I found a lady on Etsy that made me the files and I just printed it all out.  So now we have invites, party signs, banners etc.  Today at the store I just bought green plates etc to go with it. (this girl is obsessed with the color green)  Then I just need to make cupcakes and a cake, frosted green of course, and order some pizza.  She asked for that specifically.  We're keeping it on a smaller scale this time, so we aren't inviting nearly as many people as the last two parties.  Her first birthday was supposed to be the big one, but with our ultrasound falling on her second bday we went big again for the gender reveal.  I'm determined to keep it small until she gets into school and then we'll do big parties again.  Anyway, it'll just be our parents, siblings/kiddos, and my two grandma's this time. (Sorry to everyone else, but we really have to start limiting ourselves!) It's still going to be a big crowd though so it'll be ok.