Lawrence Weekend Rewind!

We had an absolute blast last weekend visiting a few of my favorite people and my alma mater in Lawrence, KS!  We started the weekend off with a drive down to Kansas City Friday morning.  It's only a 4.5 hour drive which is a DREAM compared to the drive to Colorado these days.  Duke napped for 3 hours of the trip which was also a huge bonus.  He's slowly figuring out how to sleep sitting up his new seat.  Love this nugget.

We met up with my friend Lindsey in KC and walked around Town Center, drinking coffee, shopping, and catching up!  Afterwards we headed to meet up with my friend Jenna at her sister's in Lee's Summit.  I was so excited for our babies to meet! She had her son 2 months after Duke so we have been texting each other back and forth for months about life as new moms and sharing some trade secrets.  Eli is the sweetest little boy and very observant.  Duke is much more of a rough and tumble kind of baby so it was hilarious to see the two of them together and Eli's reactions to Duke's overwhelming love...he was constantly trying to grab him and kiss him and smacked him in the face a few too many times.

We relaxed for the rest of the day, ate pizza at a brewery for dinner and spent the night catching up and having a few drinks {water for me of course}.  Saturday morning we headed out to brunch at a local spot that has FREE CINNAMON ROLLS!  They were SO GOOD and I couldn't believe they were free.  Duke thoroughly enjoyed them...

We headed back to the house for naptime and the first hour of Duke's nap looked a lot like this:

I ignorantly thought I could nap in the same room at the same time before Duke was asleep so he kept throwing everything out of his pack n play and then yelling at me with a huge grin on his face.  It's a good thing he's cute.  After successful naps for all, we headed down to Lawrence so we could go to KU and show our boys their future school {we can dream!}.

Always reaching for his buddy!

We went downtown for a deeelicious dinner at Free State Brewery after spending some time on campus and Duke was a champ all through dinner and managed to let his mama snap a few pictures until he was over it.  This expression is my favorite.

After we were sufficiently stuffed, we headed to our hotel for the night and laughed so hard as we tried to think back on all the people and stories we hadn't thought about since college.  I love these ladies and the fact that I can hardly ever see them and always pick up right where we left off, makes my heart happy.

Duke tried to wrestle Eli a few times and this shot is him trying to tackle Eli (in black) with some open-mouthed kisses. 

We put the kids to bed in one of our rooms {we were right next door}  and set up some iPhone-baby monitors so we could stay up way past our bedtimes and let the kiddos get some much needed sleep. At the end of the night, Dennis had to maneuver Duke back into our room and he managed to keep him asleep the whole time!  Unfortunately, once Duke woke up at 5 a.m. and realized we were in bed right next to him, he screamed his little head off until he got to come into bed with us.

The next morning was all smiles when he discovered a cute baby in the mirror.

We had brunch at a favorite local spot called 715 and it was to die for.  I had a breakfast sandwich on croissant with avocado, sundried tomato aioli, eggs, and bacon + I shared some crazy good cornbread with jam with Duke.  So much food. So good.

Another attempt at hand holding. It's a good thing Duke didn't realize just how much Eli hated it.

We capped off the rest of the morning with some walking around Mass Street before saying our goodbyes and hitting the road! 

Dennis, Duke and I drove through campus one more time before heading to my favorite coffee shop.

I worked at J&S Coffee almost my entire time at KU and absolutely loved it and the awesome owners.  The shop has changed quite a bit but the coffee is just as delicious as it always was. I sipped my granite mocha for a good chunk of the drive before switching with Dennis and taking a nap. :)

We stopped a half hour from home to grab a bite to eat and take advantage of a Target location for some errands and managed to make it home by 8!  We bathed the babies {Capone had spend the weekend at the farm with my parents} and collapsed on the couch before heading to bed.  It was one of those low-key weekends that is good for the soul and I feel so rejuvenated for the week!

Happy Tuesday friends! Thanks for reading way too many words and looking through one-too many pictures of our trip :)

-T-