Weekend Getaway

Lauren and I had a really great weekend away. One-on-one time is always so nice with the kids. This chick definitely feels loved when she gets quality time.

Before we left town, we stopped to eat at Smashburger. This was our first time there, and I will say, we give it a "thumbs up"!!

We drove up to Denver and checked in at Embassy Suites.

This is one of our favorite places to stay because of the yummy breakfast

and all the rooms are suites.

We then did some shopping!!

First stop, American Girl Store.

Our room was great!!

We decided after walking around the mall so much that we wanted to have a nice relaxing evening at the hotel. We thought about going for a swim, but the pool was FULL of children. We grabbed some Subway to take back to the hotel with us.
Throughout the weekend we did a thing called "The Question Cup." This is an idea that my friend, Mandy introduced me to, and my other friend, Laura, gave me some question ideas. I added my own in and we spent a lot of time talking about her relationships with God, with friends, and with our family. We talked about love, self-esteem, and peer pressure. We had some really good conversations, and I got a deeper glimpse into her heart and what is going on in her life right now. This made the weekend worth every bit of effort it took. I feel like we were able to pack in months of deep conversations in this one weekend.
We rented a movie, "Marley and Me: The Puppy Years" to watch in bed and had popcorn. We both thought it was really lame and ended up turning it off to go to sleep.

We had a little treat, too!!

One thing Lauren and I have in common is that we both adore yummy food!!

We like to cook it! We like to eat it!

We did some manicures and pedicures with glow in the dark polish

"Charging" her nails to glow.

When we turned off the lights to go to sleep, our nails were glowing!!

We woke up Sunday morning to our yummy breakfast.

We took a little trip to Ikea

We also had some frozen yogurt.

We looked everywhere for a frozen yogurt place on Friday,

and it turns out, there was one right by our hotel.

We ended the day by shopping at the outlet mall in Castle Rock. Lauren needed new tennis shoes. I had no idea that hers were 1 1/2 sizes too small!! I asked her why she didn't tell me, and she said,"If I just curl up my toes, they are fine." That was guilty-mom moment. My child's feet are going to be deformed because she didn't have the proper shoes!

I learned some things about Lauren over this weekend. She really has a hard time saying what she wants. I let her choose EVERYTHING for the weekend. She so wanted to please me and make sure I was happy. I talked a lot about that with her. I appreciate her consideration, but also want her to be able to speak up for herself. She and I have a lot in common. We are both people pleasers to a fault. I am hoping to work on this in her and help her find some balance in this area. She also has a really healthy self-esteem which encouraged me greatly. I so want my girls, especially, to love themselves and their bodies.

When I asked her what her favorite thing was from the weekend, she said,"Spending so much time alone with you!"

That was my favorite part, too, sweet girl. I love you and I love seeing the young lady you are becoming.