Baby Showers, Christmas House, and the Shrine

I can’t get the horrible taste of my orange-flavored chewable prenatal vitamins out of my mouth. The strawberries I just had made it worse :(. Last time I take them while not eating. Yuck.

As for my weekend update, there really isn’t much to say at all about Friday. Friday sucked. We were home, kids were at school, little ones got picked up, Mario made burgers on the George Foreman, picked up older kids and were bored for the remainder of the day. It was terrible. Mario and I sat on the couch most of the day just staring at boring crap on the TV. NEVER have we been THAT BORED in our LIVES.

I cleaned a bit on Saturday morning and Mom watched Eenan while Jaylen, Mary, Yazmin and I went to one of Mary’s co-worker’s daughter-in-law’s baby showers. We first went to the new Target on Shary Road, where I desperately needed to purchase The Little Mermaid before it became a ridiculous $29.99 (I got it for $15.99). I got it with my credit card of course, because we’re so incredibly broke right now (Walmart had it for $14.86, but I don’t have a Walmart card).

Not only is the new Target closer to home, it’s so pretty and there’s a Starbuck’s in it! Yazmin wanted to order something so I went with her and ended up ordering my favorite: a Caramel Frappuccino. OMG, I love those things. Jaylen even got a few sips, though I was careful because the last thing I needed was for him to be jumping off the walls at the shower. I got him Play-doh (it’s Tuesday and they haven’t let it dry up yet!) and Mary got him a coloring book and Crayolas so he was actually very well behaved.

Except for three little outbursts he had.

1.) After being at the shower for an hour and a half he suddenly freaked out and yelled, “This isn’t a baby SHOWER! It’s a house! THERE’S NO SHOWER!”. It took a good 5 minutes to explain to him what a baby shower was (for the second time) and that sadly, no, he wouldn’t be able to take a shower there.

2.) He asked, “Do all these people live here?”

3.) And the cherry on top… There was a gift for the mom-to-be and baby from a couple named Tanya and Louie. Jaylen jumps up happily from his seat and yells, “Louie!? Louie the dog? Louie’s a dog’s name!” He yelled “Louie’s a dog’s name” about 10 times while I tried shushing him and even directed a shout to the girlfriend when she asked her friend, “What did he say?”. That’s why I don’t like naming pets people names LOL.

But he did really good. And I even won a game! Nobody could tell what baby food was in the Guess the Baby Food game and I answered 2 of the answers right, but in the wrong place LOL. So they gave the gift to me for being close. Yazmin won the Punch in the Baby Bottle game and won dish towels so she gave them to me LOL.

We got home and watched The Little Mermaid while I made dinner. That’s my favorite Disney Princess movie of all time and I have the whole thing memorized. So of course, I was quoting like, the whole movie when I finished cooking and sat down on the couch. Jaylen got annoyed and ended up putting his hand on my mouth to shut me up LOL.

Knowing very well that I had an early day the next day Mario and I stayed up late. It sucked so bad having to wake up the next morning, but I got up because we were going to the Christmas House in Falfurrias! I hadn’t gone in over a year. We had to drop Eenan off at CFF class and I gave John instructions on picking him up (he wasn’t working and was watching the boys for me since Mario had to work) and then we left. It’s a two-hour drive but we (Mary, Mom, Sonia, Yazmin, Angela and I) spent it talking; mostly about weight loss and the news. We got to Whataburger around 12 and ate lunch and then we left for the Xmas House.

The Christmas House is a place where it’s Christmas year round. Three sisters, Janie, Esther and Dorothy, own the home and land they live on and started doing this 20-some years ago. People from all over go to the Christmas House to see what theme they’re doing each year and how they’ve decorated their lovely home and the story and history behind each “room”. At the end of the tour we go to the gift shop, which is called Santa’s Texas Workshop and everything’s just so pretty (and expensive!).

This year, their theme was “Christmas Then and Christmas Now”. All the decorations were things that were popular back then and again now. It was really nice. They have the best decorations and the songs they sing and book they read are so cute. I can’t wait till the kids are old enough to go (8 years and above only).

This is a picture of one of my favorite things, one of the Victorian theme’s displays:

We stopped by Don Pedro Jaramillo Shrine on the way home, where people go and ask for him to heal them or someone they know and light candles. There were so many pictures and wishes stapled and pinned to the walls. I even read one where a woman was asking for help with infertility and there were so many asking to keep soldiers safe while at war.

We went outside when we were done looking around and there was an adorable, screamy, black and white kitten outside. I pet (petted?) him for a while and then we left. He was so cute. He mustn’t have lived far (or lived there at the shrine) because he happily stayed behind and played in the grass :).

I’ve tried adding as many pics as I can to my Flickr account, but of course I haven’t upgraded so not many fit. I have put my most favorite up, though. That’s one thing on my Xmas list though, going Pro! I’d buy it for myself but I have to save up for Mario’s b-day present :).

Yesterday was just as laid back as I thought it would be. The kids didn’t have school and I didn’t have to babysit anyone so I cleaned in the morning, spent some time fixing my site in the afternoon (darn thing) and then went grocery shopping with Mom. She was generous enough to offer to get us a few things, so that helped out a lot since we’re on an extreme budget.

And today, we’re back to the usual. I’m so not looking foward to watching Matthew tomorrow…I can hear him screaming already. Mary ended up taking today off of work to watch him since there was no way in hell I’d be watching him 3 whole days this week, uh uh. I was going to drop off a package for her at the post office before picking up Jaylen and Brianna and in the 3 seconds she was gone he started to pitch a fit. A loud one. And that’s because Mom and I were standing right there! If he weren’t so difficult it wouldn’t be as painful as it is to take care of him =\.

The end of November can’t come fast enough. But soon. Soon everything will be okay.