Gabriela's 2nd Birthday

 

Gabriela has been talking about riding a train for weeks. Every time we go somewhere she asks if we're riding a train, so what better way to start off her birthday celebration than a train ride at the zoo?

Showing off their monkey faces

On the train ride you see emus, and walaroos (cousins of the kangaroo) just hanging out all up and close. It was pretty cool. 

We went straight to the rides before there were crowds and before the kids were too tired to enjoy them.  How cute is it that the ride was practically empty and Chaney and Beau still decided to share a car?

 

What better way to enjoy your monkey birthday than with a ride on the gorilla at the zoo's Merry Go Round? 

  

We enjoyed lots of different types of monkeys and apes at the zoo.  Perfect in keeping with the monkey theme :)

 

The kids ran and climbed and jumped around in the children's zoo play area. Chaney was such a good big cousin, helping Gabriela around! 

Gabriela loved the giraffes with their long necks and calls them "Ga-Jaffs" 

 

Brothers... and an elephant

 

Going to the zoo, spending time with cousins and enjoying the rides was a perfect way to celebrate Gabriela's special day.  More later on the evening's celebration!

Gabriela's 2nd year in photos - by Elena

Gabriela's 2nd Year in Photos - by Lane

Monkey Birthday Bonanza

Saturday we celebrated Gabriela's 2nd birthday with lots of aunties and uncles and cousins and grandparents.  I wouldn't have been able to pull off this Monkey Birthday Bonanza without lots of help from my fabulous family. 

  

Monkey Birthday Banner

 

I made two photo banners of Gabriela with pictures from all throughout the year.  Kristie picked up some monkey ribbon, which was perfect for the banners!

 

I had so much fun with the monkey decor.  See those cups? I just put some monkey stickers on them.  I collected stuffed monkeys from the cousins and placed them all over the room, even hung some from the ceiling. I made monkey faces and glued them to the goodie bags too! I bought some monkey fabric to use as a tablecloth. 

   

What do you serve a bunch of little monkeys? We had peanut butter banana nutella sandwiches, fresh watermelon, strawberries and blueberries, and tropical trail mix. I also made pesto for the adults and Annie brought a delicious green salad. 

 

I asked my sister and brother if they had any tents or tunnels for the kids to play with out front. I had no idea Theresa would bring a whole tent city!!!  The kids had a blast playing inside, crawling around, and claiming their own house. 

 

Here is the birthday girl with her presents and ultimate chocolate monkey cupcakes.  I was nervous about how they would turn out, and pleased with the results!

 

I was determined to make cupcakes that didn't just look cute, but were delicious to eat as well.  So I selected the Cooks Illustrated Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake recipe, complete with chocolate ganache center and 3 full bars of bittersweet chocloate between the filling, cupcake, and to-die-for frosting. 

 

The Birthday Girl showing off her birthday crown and birthday party manicure and pedicure that Nana gave her that morning.

 

Gabriela loved that everyone sang her the Happy Birthday song and she clapped right along with us after she finally blew out the candles on her cake... with perhaps some help from mommy and daddy. 

 

After crawling through tunnels, hanging out in tents, chasing bubbles, lunch, cupcakes, and presents, the real fun began.  See for yourself: 

 

 

What better way to cool off from a hot summer day than to enjoy an ice cream cone inside the kiddie pool, in the shade? 

Baby Caetlin joined in on the ice cream fun too.

Gabriela had been talking about her monkey party for ages. She was thrilled to see so many cousins at once and celebrate with so many family members. I'm glad it turned out so well. Thanks everybody for all your help!!!

The Alameda County Fair

We have been up to all sorts of fun this week.  Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to bring our camera.  The library has weekly performances this summer.  This week we saw the Bubble Lady and all her bubble magic.  We also went to Lake Temescal and hopped around in the water and sand and munched on watermelon. Lucky for us, I remembered to bring my camera for our Friday adventures.  

On Friday we went to the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton.  Ooh, wee, was it hot!  We saw a mama pig with her two week old babies as well as a mama cow and her little calf.  When she saw them, Gabriela said, "I wanna pet them".  Of course we couldn't, but thank goodness we were able to go to the petting zoo.

 

Gabriela totally got a kick out of all the animals at the petting zoo - there were goats, mini goats, deer, sheep, and even a pot belly pig!  Gabriela was chasing after the animals with her food trying to get them to eat.  Little did she know that the lovely deer pictured here decided to take a giant mouthful of the back of her shirt.  We had to remove her slobbery shirt out of the deer's mouth.  Gabriela is still talking about it, "Deer eat my shirt!  I wannit back!"

    

Gravitron!!! Oh, how we loved this ride when we were young.  Chaney thought it was so cool!

Isn't Chaney so cute?!?  He is obviously having the time of his life on the rides with his buddy, Kyle.  Gabriela pointed to all the roller coasters and super spinning crazy carnival rides saying, "I wanna ride that one!" We went to the children's rides and then she said she wanted to ride a strawberry (like at Gilroy Gardens). Lucky for Gabriela, they had a spinning strawberry ride.  Thanks for coming with us, Beau! That was fun!

  

We had to take a break from the rides to enjoy some delicious ice cream. Gabriela is quite the fan of ice cream. And so are the boys!

 

Check out Beau on this big swing ride!!! He had such a great time that Chaney decided to try it out as well.

 Looks like Chaney gives it a thumbs up too!

Beau on Motherhood

"It's like Gabriela's the queen and you're the servant."

They're Back!

We were all excited for Auntie Liss and family to return after their two week vacation.  That whole time, Gabriela would say "Auntie Liss Utah, Uncle Nate, Utah" and so on.  That morning, we asked her who was coming back and she immediately exclaimed, "Uncle Nate!!!!" Later that day, I was in the basement and she heard a noise, she thought Uncle Nate and family were home.  Gabriela was practically giddy and giggling in crazy anticipation of everyone coming up the stairs when they finally arrived.  She happily laid in Auntie Meliss's bed reading stories for a long time that night.

Meliss asked Beau what the first thing he would do was when he got home, thinking he'd say something like play with his basketball or draw or play with his toys.  Do you know what that little cutie said??? He said he was going to give Auntie Elena and Uncle Lane big hugs.  Doesn't that just melt your heart?

Nate told us that the boys were bummed their vacation was over, but they perked right up when he reminded them that they were coming home to Gabriela.

I love that the cousins are so close.  We're so glad to have them back.  We cooked them a giant delicious Welcome Home dinner.  I meant to take pictures, but we were too busy eating our cuban pork roast that was grilled on the bbq for six hours. mmm.