We went to a new restaurant we’ve been meaning to try for a long time. Barnaby’s Cafe in the Montrose area. It is instantly the new fav. Never mind the rainbows. The food here is awesome. And huge portion sizes. I’ve gotta find a copycat recipe for the cumin vinaigrette. Yum, I’m craving their salads right now. Fernando had to endure the wrath of Diane as I had a monster headache both Friday and Saturday night. I guess I’m not pleasant to be around when I have a headache. Too bad that happens all too often.

We went to a farewell party for some friends of ours who are moving to Utah. We are so sad to see them go. They were one of the few families at church who own a house by us and are non- students/residents. Which means they were supposed to stay for a long time. Our heart aches every summer when our good student friends move on to start their residencies or further education.  Which means we lose a lot of friends and get to meet a whole lot of new faces fresh from BYU. Very few friends have decided to permanently settle in downtown Houston. Actually I can count them on half of one hand. If they are going to settle in Houston, they usually move to the burbs.

We headed to Hermann Park Sunday afternoon (along with the rest of Houston) and enjoyed the beautiful weather that we’ve been having here lately.

I made a paint chip garland. (hung it after Easter, but such is life these days).

It’s been a crazy two weeks at our house. We’ve been busy hosting Fernando’s family. Over my birthday weekend, Ferd’s brother Carlos and wife, Darlyn flew in from Pennsylvania along with his sisters Carolina and Gloria (Massachusetts & California). It was their first time meeting the babies and they got plenty of quality baby time. (I was relieved to have some extra hands). The weather was pretty terrible and rainy while they were here so we didn’t get out much, but we did manage to briefly do the rodeo. We got standing room tickets at the door (it was so crowded due to spring break). After checking out the petting zoo, I desperately needed to nurse the babies so we sat way up high in the nose bleed section in somebody else’s seats, hoping they wouldn’t show up. We arrived so late we only got to see the calf scramble. Note to self next year if we go, it is way too loud for babies. Just as I finished the people came and kicked us out. Instead we walked around the carnival and ate some great fried food. This years goodies: deep fried Snickers and deep fried Red Velvet cake. The verdict on the cake: so good! The Snickers was pretty good as well.

Next up, Fernando’s brother Mike and wife Jessica drove in from Chicago with their kiddos to stay for the weekend. We walked around the park. Right now Hermann Park is featuring Chinese Zodiac animal heads from now until June. They’re pretty cool.

We decided to hit up Hermann Park and the rodeo again. The rodeo on a Saturday during spring break is not a good idea. We got separated and didn’t find them until a few hours later when we wanted to leave. But I did get one picture of everybody together:

We of course had to get our favorite food item at the rodeo: the Cowboy Burrito.

Great grandma Gloria has been staying with us for the last six days. The babies are going to wonder what happened when everybody goes home and they are no longer being held all the time. She helped me cook batches and batches of homemade baby food. Now our freezer is ready for when they turn six months!

Here are the babies monthly onesie picture (taken late as usual).

Lucy rolls over like a mad woman. But only one way. Its so frustrating. Now I have to pin her down on her belly until she falls asleep. Gone are the days when I could lay her in her crib awake and walk away. She’s also starting to sit up by herself. Evan continues to be the most easy going child ever, although he can cause some trouble if left alone…

With a double baby shower last weekend, I was forced to get back into crafting. I’m sure you’ve seen the Mila baby shoe from fleetingthing.com. I have been making more seersucker ties and loved the shoes here, so I copied them.

With a couple of matching hairbows

I’ve been making tons of felt roses for headbands. I couldn’t find a tutorial for the flower, so I made it up. But if you downloaded the Silhouette free shape of the week last week, its the same template as the rolled rose.

I went to Joann’s last week and was shocked at the cute flannel they had. Plus it was all 50% off! Loved the whales in pink and blue.

I’ve had just as much fun making things for boys as well. Lots of ties (I’ll post them later) and a couple of freezer paper transfer onesies. Like the aviator one above (thanks to a Google image and my handy Silhouette), it was a piece of cake.

Four months is a great age. I feel like I can actually catch my breath. They really started noticing each other and hold hands whenever possible. It’s sweet to watch. Evan rolled over one week after Lucy and both enjoy standing up.

For Valentines we had some friends baby sit for us while we went to Chinatown for some Dim Sum. Unfortunately the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed for the night, but we went to another favorite of ours instead and ended the night with some Gelato. We made Creme Brûlée french toast for breakfast on Sunday. Recipe courtesy of Foodgawker (of course).

Here are the other Foodgawker recipes I made recently:

Fish Tacos from bakedbree – most flavorful ones I’ve made. I used Tilapia and added cabbage and a zesty mayo sauce (mayo and a tiny bit of vinegar). This one’s a keeper.

Spinach and cheese manicotti

Courtesy of teacher-chef

Its hard to mess up a recipe that contains ricotta cheese. Yum!

I also made the Biscoff cookies from Picky-Palate that I mentioned last post. So good! I need to buy me more Biscoff.

I’ve been trying to figure out what to have Fernando make for my birthday. What do you think? Cake or pie? …or red velvet cupcakes?

All this talk of food reminds me, I’m looking for that perfect pair of skinny jeans. I don’t want to go all out with designer ones since my post pregnancy shape seems to be ever changing. But I need a solution to my stretched out saggy butt pants for now.

• Lucy rolled over
• I sewed something
• Fernando watched the kids alone for 3 hours. That’s a record!
• I took the kids grocery shopping all by myself. (yes it took 4 months)

Season 1 is on Amazon Prime Instant Video as well as Netflix; Season 2 is on PBS.com for free.

The cast is phenomenal.

Anybody else wondering why hasn’t O’Brien been sacked yet? I mean, what she did with that bar of soap is horrible!

Who else has the Downton Abbey fever?

On another note, lets talk about food.

Ginger Snaps

Soft and chewy. Not overly sweet. Delicious.

And I’ll include the recipe because I haven’t found one that compares to this one.

And last but not least:

You know those cookies you used to get on the airplanes? Well, they turned them into a spread. Spread it on toast, eat it with a banana, in a crepe, or eat it straight out of the jar. Just like Nutella but better. Way way better. Picky-palate has some amazing recipes with this stuff. I’m dying to make these cookies. Yet another thing on my to do list.

You’ll be lucky if your grocery store carries it. HEB has it in the PB isle. And now they have crunchy spread. Wish HEB sold that too…

We went to Seattle this year to my folks house. I decided at the last minute to stay for a month so I could get some help with the kiddos. Fernando stayed for 10 days, then had to start his new assignment with Exxon back in Houston. He enjoyed being baby-less for the remaining weeks although he was a bit lonely.

We got to meet my sister Crystal’s new baby Megan (on the left) born 6 weeks before the twins. Such a cute little chunk. To get an idea of their difference in size, Megan wears 9 month size and the twins are in 3 month.

Some of the things we enjoyed over the holidays

It was so nice having help with the kids. Even with the help, I think I left the house on average twice a week. My parents babysat one night and treated us with tickets to go see Annie Get Your Gun, which was a super fun musical. We went to my favorite breakfast place: The Original Pancake House a couple of times and got the amazing apple pancake and bacon waffles.

Unfortunately we all caught a never ending cold. Mine turned into the flu, which let me tell ya, it stinks being sick when you have babies to care for! Thankfully my mom was there!

1. My sister Crystal made this amazing rainbow birthday cake that was to die for!

2. Grandma ice skating with the grand kids.

3. Everybody watching Cassidy play Angry Birds of the iPad. (You’d think the other kids would find something more interesting to do).

4. Story time with mom

My nephews got a puppy for Christmas. Lilly is such an adorable and well behaved puppy. Maybe she’ll finally convince my husband to get a dog…

As I was leaving, a great snow storm was hitting Redmond. I loved it! But we high tailed it out of there. My mom flew with me, and thankfully a lot of people missed the flight because of the snow, so we had empty seats next to us. The babies did surprisingly well on the flight.

Free time is obviously hard to come by. (Obviously, since I haven’t updated the blog in practically two months.) But I do have little moments here and there. And what do I do with it?

Pinterest.

Thanks to my latest obsession, my sewing maching and kitchen are collecting dust. Instead of making things and being crafty, the to do list is growing and growing. And thanks to Pinterest, the list is organized and I know where to find it.

Hopefully someday I’ll actually do some of these things:

Isn’t it beautiful? Anybody else have a pretty to do list?

Another site encouraging my Pinterest addiction is Foodgawker . What more could you want? The top food blog entries all organized on one site. Did you  know that they have Craftgawker too? And dwellinggawker and weddinggarker! It’s ingenious.

They’ve decided to start sleeping through the night! That’s right. From 10 to 7 hallelujah!

It almost makes up for the fact that they only take 10 minute naps during the day. Anyone know of a cure for acid reflux? Don’t tell me Zantac. It doesn’t do a thing.

For Thanksgiving, we headed up to my brother’s place in Austin to be with his family and my other brother Mark and his wife Sara. It was tons of fun to be with family again. We miss it.

The kiddos on turkey day

Ryan carving his masterpiece smoked turkey masterpiece. Suzette’s rolls and stuffing were to die for.

The kids decided to have an air soft gun war in the backyard

I’m not sure who won

Mark grew this for Movember. We all thought he looked a little pedophile-ish. sorry Mark.

My favorite part of the weekend was all of the help we got! Thanks guys!

We even got to shop the Black Friday sale Thanksgiving night at the outlets. It’s starting earlier every year. I gotta remember next year to show up at 9:30 pm.

Insert random cute picture of baby.

The end.

We headed on our first road trip with the babies 90 miles away to College Station, TX

Fernando thought it was tons of fun. Although we were a little disappointed that the car had a stock engine. For some reason I thought it was going to be a Shelby. Oh well. Its not often that you get to push a car to see just how fast it can go. He maxed out at 110 and had a fun time drifting on all the curves and turns the course offered. I didn’t even get to see him drive since I was stuck with the babes.

I was a little jealous.

The babies did beautifully on their first road trip. Slept all the way. While we were there we managed to meet up with some of Fernando’s college friends, and check out the bonfire memorial at A&M. Oh yeah, we fed, burped, and changed babies diapers four times x 2. And before we knew it the day was over.