Happy Birthday to my Sweet baby

I can't believe it. My baby is 5!!! It really doesn't seem like that long ago. 

Except that a lot of the heart ache is gone and instead replaced with joy that I have such a beautiful sweet funny daughter. I love looking at pictures of her when she was small. 

So we had a princess party with some of her church friends. We decided that we won't have parties every year, only on big milestones. Well to me 5 is a milestone. I made hot pink and chocolate cupcakes and I decorated the kitchen. Everyone got to make a crown and the girls got to wear all of Elena's princess dresses. 

 They had so much fun and it was a crazy night. Fun too. 

On her actual birthday I made a little balloon waterfall on her door so when she opened it up....well you get the idea. 

 Then she got to open her presents from Grandma Connie.

Grandma had sent her a very special gift. It was a quilt made from the same fabric as my bridesmaids dresses. I admit. I cried. I was blown away and Elena was very happy.

Thank you Grandma!

Crazy girl

I love that I still have tuesdays and thursdays with Elena. I'll really miss that next year so for now I try and take advantage. I was folding laundry in my room and when I came out I found her in her laundry basket in the tv room. 

 What a smile

First Day of School 2013

Well school started again and now I have a big first grader!! Exciting and sad all at the same time. 

 Look at that handsome boy

And we debated for a long time whether to start Elena in kindergarten or not and one morning I finely felt like I should keep her back one more year. So she started her first day of preschool again. For the last time. 

But look at how at how it made her crash. It was only preschool and it tired her out.  

 I love these sweet kids

Happy Birthday Grandpa

So Dad Moreno had a birthday coming up and he told a story of when he turned 40 and he was told there would be a big party for him but it never really happened so I tried to make up for that. I decorated with black balloons and streamers. We got him a yummy ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. We had as much of the family that was available come to our house for some smoked pulled pork. It was tasty and we had a fun night.

Elena's first game

Elena had her first game and she was incredible. She scored 3 goals and ran all over. And she was adorable!!!

And I found this little gem of a picture on my phone of Elena all dressed up for our ward swim party. Awesome right?

A Texas sky

I have to be honest. I miss Bakersfield sunsets. I think because of all the fumes in the air made all those awesome colors but there is something about the sky in Texas. It really is big and bright. 

 I tried to get a picture of the moon the other night but we have so many huge trees on our street that I couldnt see the whole moon. And the pictures looks terrible. But I always want to take a picture of the moon when it looks cool. 

 Then one day at Patricks soccer practice, we saw these clouds that looked like an explosion. Very cool. 

Alright! Enough clouds! Back to pictures of the kids! I hear your thoughts now Mom :)

A new soccer player

So soccer season started again. And now we have two soccer players! Elena wanted all the fun stuff Patrick got like cleats and shin guards so we signed her up. I laughed during the whole first practice. It was hysterical to see the girls pout and throw tantrums like 4 and 5 year olds do. I see very entertaining games in our future. I love her coach and I think she is so good with the girls. I think Elena loves it so far.

Family Night

Can I just say how much I love family nights?! I love having fun with my sweet family and discovering new places to go around us and spending time together. Jesús found some tickets on Groupon for fun place that had mini golf, go-carts, games and a big slide and bounce house. I think the favorite part was the go-carts. It was a pretty warm day when we went so being outside wasn't all that pleasant but the go-carts cooled us down a bit. The giant slide was a little fun but not as much.

 There was a little kid track that the kids could go on by themselves or they could go on the big one with one of us. I think Patrick was torn because even though he could drive himself on the small track, the cars didn't go as fast. So both kids bounced back and forth in between them. 

 We did play a little bit of mini golf but we got tired and hot pretty fast. 

 So then back to the go-carts it was!