What a week!! (picture heavy post!)

Last Wednesday evening the girls and I  embarked on a big adventure.  I flew with both girls by myself...with a layover...at 9pm in Chicago...landing in Detroit at 10pm!  It was seriously set up for epic failure, but my girls were troopers!! I wish I had pictures of our traveling adventure, but me by myself with both of them did not provide much opportunity for picture taking.  I felt like by the end we had a really good system, which is good because I have to do it again by myself next month to Las Vegas!
Needless to say when we got to my moms at midnight we were exhausted.  And most of the next day was spent like this:

 But by Thursday evening we had great visitors!!  My neice Kristyl, her husband Jaap and baby Tyce came to play and have dinner!!  We were so excited to spend some time with them!

After a quiet Thursday we had a CRAZY Friday and Saturday in store.  I don't want to go into too many details, but I attended a beautiful military funeral in honor of my grandfather (I will blog about his passing soon), two bridal showers for Vanessa and a fun evening with high school girlfriends.  The reason we headed to Michigan was to celebrate Vanessa.  So here are some pictures of the shower one of the bridesmaids, Megan and I hosted.

 It was an evening shower and everyone got a white mug with a ring on it with their initials.  We drank coffee and had some yummy treats.

 We used my moms chocolate fountain and had all sorts of yummy things to dip!

 Megan has THE cutest little place and it was a perfect spot for the party!

Here are all the cute little mugs lined up and ready to go!

 Vanessa opened tons of really great stuff!

 One of the coolest things she opened was a hand painted picture for her and Evan's new place, which was painted by her friend (and bridesmaid) Megan.



 Here are Megan and I before the party began.

 A super big treat for me was that two of my high school friends, Hayley and Jessie were both at the shower.  Jessie drove in from Maryland just to celebrate with us!!

And the next day was shower number 2.  This one was MUCH bigger and my beautiful girls got to attend! 

 The ladies from the church I grew up in did such a beautiful job decorating and making it such a great event!

 And of course since Clare was present, she had to help open presents and be a part of the day!!

 One of my most favorite ideas ever is that Vanessa is making her bridal bouquet out of brooches.  She had all of her guests bring a brooch that she will have someone in Vegas put together for her.  I cannot wait to see the end result.

 Then after the shower (I know, are you tired yet??) we went to my friend Hayley's house to play with all the babies.  Clare was also there, but by this point was having a slight meltdown and opted out of the picture.  But here is Elle, Roman and Ava!!

 Finally by Sunday and continuing until Wednesday when we headed home we got to play at Grammie and Papa's house, with no interruptions!!

 As usual, the girls love just being outside on the "farm"

 We took lots of walks and made plans for Vanessa's Michigan reception in June!!



 I think my parents home in Blissfield has turned into one of all of our very favorite places!

 And we were so thankful that after an incredibly busy weekend, Vanessa got to stay and play with us too!!

 Both Grammie and Grandma Jackson drove us back to Charlotte....

But not without leaving Papa with lots of goodbye kisses!!!