Mom and Sara came to visit!!!

Mom and Sara told me last month that they had bought tickets to fly to Dallas and visit. I've been so excited waiting for them. We did so many fun things.
Sara exercised with me every morning.
We went to eat at Babes.

Mom played Super Mario Brothers on the Wii for the first time. It was hysterical.

We did a lot of shopping. We went to our mall by us first and then to North Park Mall.

We went to the Zoo

And saw the penguins

And the Baboons

We actually got to pet the giraffe this time. And she kept licking us. I think she likes us.

Sara was a little tired so she rode in the stroller.

Then I got tired of pushing her so Patrick gave it a shot

The kids played in the kid area and got caught in a giant spider web.

At North Park Mall Sara went into shopping mode and we didn't see her for a while. She did stop finally to eat dinner. She got soup at the soup place on Seinfeld. Remember the Soup Nazi? Yeah that guy. She said it tasted pretty good.

I'm so glad they came. I loved every minute of it. I was kind of depressed after they left and I cried on the drive home from Central Market where we left each other. I'm hoping they come again. Maybe when we have a house and Sara doesn't have to sleep on the couch.

The North Park Mall

We went to the North Park Mall to have dinner at the restaraunt that Raquel works in. We wandered the mall for a little bit too. Its probably the ritziest mall I'ver ever been too. Every high end store you could imagine. The fountain has ducks and red eared slider turtles in it. I was in heaven!!!!!

Grandmas birthday

Jesús' mom had a birthday and so we had a party. I wanted to try out my cupcake stand so I made cupcakes. I made raspberry chocolate cupcakes and lemon and vanilla cream cupcakes. I thought they were pretty dang good. I do want to improve my chocolate cake recipe. I want it to be more moist. I'm excited to try different recipes to find ones I love.

Patricks first Motorcycle ride

Jesús had to move the motorcycle and asked if Patrick wanted a ride around the parking lot. He loved it.

Babes

We had Babes when we came to visit last time. Now we can have it whenever we want. We went with the family to Babes for Dinner and it awesome.

We got to sit by the fire while we waited to be seated

Does that look divine? I know. I'm hungry now too.

Even Elena like it. Patrick only ate rolls and honey then cried the rest of the night because we asked to him to have some fried chicken.

Brahms

We didn't go to Rosemarys or Dewars very often in Bakersfield but in Texas we have been to Brahms probably 5 times. Its sooooo gooood! Elena likes the Birthday cake ice cream. Can you tell?

Brownies

These girls sure love to like the beater clean. Especially when we're making brownies.

Dollar section St Patricks

We had some fun trying on the St. Patricks Day stuff in the Dollar section at Target. The kids laughed really hard seeing each other.

Mommy and Patrick Date

Patrick had been having a hard week so I told him that we would have a Mommy and Patrick date. We went to Mimi's because Patrick loves pancakes and he had a really good time with some uninterrupted Mommy time.

No Nap=Nap

One day Elena refused to take a nap so I gave up. However around 6 she passed out with her toys sitting in her elephant chair. She looks comfy doesn't she?

New Years Eve

I love celebrating New Years Eve because I also get to celebrate the night that Jesús proposed to me. This year was 7 years. I love him even more today. I'm excited to celebrate many more New Years Eves with him. We went to Roxanna and Diegos house for New Years and they BBQ'd a pig and rented a bounce house. The kids had so much fun. We ate all night and then did the spanish tradition of eating grapes the last 12 seconds of the year except we used peanut butter M&M's.

Grandmas quilt

Several years ago, before I was married, I inherited my grandmas quilt. Whenever I used to go visit my grandparents I would always ask to use the same quilt. It was my favorite. One year while visiting, my grandma told me that I should just take it. She didn't know of anyone else in the family that used it as much as I did and it usually sat in a closet. I was so happy to have it. I have loved it and knowing it was passed down to me made me very attached to it. This last summer I took it to a friends party and left it outside. I'm not sure why that was the blanket I chose to bring but I did. That night when their dogs were let out, they tore it to pieces. I felt so awful. I regretted even going to the party because I had made such a stupid decision. I cried for several days. For Christmas I got a package from Sara in the mail. In it was a quilt that looked similar to the one I lost. The card said "A red blanket for you to enjoy to replace the one used as a chew toy. This can remind you of Grandmother too For it was all sewn with love just for you on the the old Bernina of Grandmother Joy" She also took a picture of Grandmas sewing machine and sent that too. I love this quilt because it reminds me of Grandma Joy and now of my sweet sister.

Dallas Zoo

Grandma and Grandpa got a Dallas Zoo membership for Christmas so we thought we would all go. Since its so close we ended up getting a membership too. We figured we could go few times and it would be worth it and pay for itself.
These Parrots were just sitting in the trees as we walked in

Here's the twinners in their cupcake beanies.

Riding the pretend elephants

Checking out the real elephants

The girls got to roll in style

The giraffes were my favorite part. You can stand on a deck and feed them and pet them if they let you. We didn't do either but we loved being so close to them.

The Lion was showing off his royalty

The whole group

Isaac and Patrick have become good friends and played together the whole time at the zoo

We stopped for lunch in this cool picnic area and the kids loved playing in the leaves.

I love turtles, these were huge

Another of my favorites was the albino crocodile. It was so cool looking.

They put it with other crocodiles so you could really see the contrast.

Some random little girl jumped into our photo in the nest

Elena wearing Joey's Perry the Platypus hat

And hanging out in the broken egg shell. We did see everything in the zoo so we will be definitely be going back.