Happy Birthday... Again!?

Ahhh... the month of April - you gotta love it!  Well, maybe not you... but certainly Jei & I do.  It just might be our favorite month!  Not only do we get to celebrate, go out, and do something fun on my birthday... and then celebrate, go out, and do something fun two weeks later for Jei's birthday... but we also get to milk our birthday celebrations a little longer than we probably should... until we finally meet up with "The Girls" and once again, celebrate our birthdays!  Of course you certainly don't have to twist our arms to set aside a weekend for the big celebration... we get treated to an incredible meal, get showered with gifts, but most importantly, we get to spend time & celebrate with family.  Celebrating your birthday over a span of a month is fantastic... I highly recommend it! 

Jeilene & I made the drive up to L.A. on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and met "The Girls" (Helen, Joanne, Gema, & Nani) for an early dinner in Pasadena.  Italian was the dinner theme of choice... and there was only one place where we could sit & enjoy delicious family-style Italian food: Buca di Beppo!     

We ate, drank, and were all very merry.  Jei & I even got a free dessert along with half the restaurant singing happy birthday to us!  It was a great meal and an even better time.

After dinner we all headed back to Nani's house for dessert & birthday presents!  Naturally, Gema & Jeilene gravitated into the kitchen and began baking lots of yummy treats!





I of course had to teach Gema a thing or two about chocolate chip cookie baking!  :-)




After all the dust (dough) had settled in the kitchen... it was finally time to open presents!!!

Jei got some very pretty jewelry and some more charms for her bracelet...

While I was just excited to get blue tissue paper!






Actually, I got a couple of my favorite movies on Blu-ray which I was pretty excited about!  

Question: What does a baker give a fellow baker?

Answer: Top Secret recipes from prestigious 'Le Cordon Bleu' of course!

A couple of beautiful picture frames sure was a nice surprise from the Meeker gang!  One for each twin I suppose?

Unfortunately, I didn't end up getting that Key-Den I wanted for my birthday... so I had to cuddle up & play with Helen's instead.

After opening all our gifts and pigging out on cookies all night long... it was finally time to put our birthday celebrations to rest!  An enormous thanks to the Gonzalez Girls for an amazing dinner, hosting a fun night at the house, delicious baked goods, and of course all the wonderful gifts!  I have to say, we truly are blessed and very thankful for all of our family making us feel so special.  We really enjoyed our long birthday celebrations this month and took full advantage!  I figured we kind of had to since it might very well be our last... my guess is that any and all cash saved up to buy birthday gifts for us next year will undoubtedly be spent on random crap for the twins instead!  Oh well, "C'est la vie!"  It was fun while it lasted!  :-)