Category: Birthdays

John and I went to Kumori and to run a few other errands on Wednesday. We both decided we’d try something new and he ended up getting the Kani Ika roll, which had lots of flavors, including chopped octopus on top, but it was good. Mine on the other hand, the Ridge Roll, was covered in mozzarella cheese! I imagined it just had a bit of shredded cheese on top but nope. The whole thing was cheese. You couldn’t even taste the salmon or anything inside. And the sauce was way too tart.

Yes. So weird and unappetizing I had to post a pic LOL.

I wanted to visit Aide at the hospital because she’d had their little boy, Ezael, that day! She had a quick 5-hour labor and he weighed 5 lbs. 13 oz.! Aww :). I didn’t get to, though, because by the time we got out of Kumori it was time to pick up the boys from school.

The boys had Taekwondo practice that evening. I made dinner quickly, ate a teensy bit and then took the boys. It was overcast and windy; the perfect weather for me. The boys went out to the mat and I realized I left my cell at home. It started thundering right at that moment and Eenan almost yelped and braced himself LOL. His teacher even laughed. I told them I’d be right back, to which Eenan, in a panic, said, “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!” I told him to calm down, I was just going to pick up my phone and go back. He was fine when I got back, but it didn’t help that during class the lights went out twice and the thunder and lightning were in full swing.

I served all the kiddos and Mom food then jumped in the shower. Yes. I take a shower before and after class, heh. I grabbed an apple and started munching so my sugar would be ok and got my water bottle. It was pouring bad and I almost decided not to go at all, but it’s only a 2-3 minute drive so I figured I’d be alright.

My darn umbrella wouldn’t open when I got there, figures, but I parked close enough that I could run in. The younger kids were still in class so I got to see them practicing for a bit before my class started. I guess the rain kept a lot of my classmates home; there were only 3 of us in total there. We had stations going on at one point; doing pi-chagi kicks at the standing bag, running through a little course where we’re not supposed to touch the targets and then practicing 1-on-1 with Luis, our teacher. We started with the form, then kicks, then those reverse-crunch things. I’m getting better at them! I don’t get as tired easily and I do them a lot faster.

As we were warming down at the end he started telling us about the belts. He told me and another guy, who’s a year older than me, to quit saying we’re old. He shared a story about our main instructor, Ernesto, and how he started Taekwondo & competing at the age of 24. He said if I kept up with it I could get my black belt by the age of 31!

I dropped the boys off in the morning yesterday so I stayed up and made Mario’s breakfast. He didn’t like my tacos :(. I bought turkey bacon, since it’s healthier, but he said it’s too salty and gross. Fine. Back to regular bacon it is.

I took a nap because I’d been up since 5am and it threw me off completely. I even got a headache. Still, I’d promised Mom I’d take her to Dollar Tree so we went. On the way over there I get a call from Elvira telling me about how they’re still having lots of problems with the programs because my old boss left and didn’t leave instructions or anything to make the new assistant’s job easier. I hate to say this, but I’m glad I left when I did. Imagine if I’d stayed, or gone back after I’d had Emily? Everything would be on my shoulders! And I’d probably be expected to do everything since I knew both systems really well and knew how to check out the equipment and so on. I shudder just thinking about it. Anyway, Elvira asked if I could go in at least for a little while and I said sure, I’d try and volunteer a few hours just to get them on track. I don’t know how effective it’ll be though, since they don’t even have lots of teachers’ rosters yet. What a headache!

We shopped, got McDonald’s on the way home and picked up the boys. We took the evening easy and when Mario got home he, Emily and myself went to see Aide, Adan and Ezael at their house (boys were with Mary, Alaethia with Mom). Ezael’s so cute and small! Aide had a pretty easy labor, too, so that’s great :).

I dropped the boys off again today and did the same thing; made Mario breakfast and then took a nap with the girls who were still sleeping. I got so mad; he tells me he didn’t want breakfast, he wanted to eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I saved the eggs overeasy in the fridge and went to sleep. I’m about to just stop cooking entirely!

When I woke up I fed the girls (well, Emily, Alaethia was having one of her I-just-want-milk moments).

I got laundry started and then John came over. We had an idea to open up a bottle of Moscato wine Pete & Sally had given me on my birthday since Mom bought me wine glasses yesterday. It took us a damn eternity to open it! They made it look so easy on youtube! We eventually had to try the screw/hammer method since the corkscrew nor wall-smacking methods didn’t work.

It was okay. Kinda smelled like beer but once you got over the smell it tasted sweet. It’s a dessert wine so I need to figure out what to make that’ll go well with it. Dorks that John and I are, we had it with cheddar cheese and Fig Newtons since there was nothing else LOL!

John left and I served us lunch. Picked up the boys, took a shower and made a quick dinner and off we went to the boys Taekwondo class. All the white and yellow belts were together so the class was huge. It was a bit of a refresher course, which is always good.

We got home, I ate really quick and fed Alaethia and squished a few green beans for Emily and then I got ready. Norma wasn’t going again and I wondered how many people would be in class tonight because of the football games. There were only 3 of us again: 2 high school boys and myself. I felt weird. Even moreso because we’d be taught by the older instructor tonight. I’d never practiced with him before.

He started us off by warming up, jogging and then me and the other white belt practiced our forms and basics with him. I can’t believe after just a week of not going to class (when I was sick) I was already forgetting stuff. But the teacher was helping me and I caught on pretty quick. I felt good because he kept saying, “Yes!” “You got it!” “Excellent”. Even adults need words of praise :D.

My self-esteem went up a few notches when the boy who was helping me practice asked me what school I went to. Like, high school! I smiled and told him, “I’m 27.” He seriously didn’t believe me at first LOL.

We practiced our one-step sparring (which still confuses me sometimes. I sometimes forget to step when I’m the one attacking!) and then our teacher taught me a few self defense techniques. It was pretty darn cool. Really basic stuff, but very effective. Lots of grabbing and closeness though. THAT’S why I take a shower before LOL!

The boy (I didn’t get his name) helped me with my kicks. Luis, the younger teacher, showed up and gave me tips on my kicks. Apparently I wasn’t kicking with me knee first for the up-chagi (kick to the chin) and was making it look like a chito-chagi (straight up-and-down kick to the head). It’s hard sometimes to not get them to all look the same. After all the practice, though, I got everything down, I think. Ernesto asked if I was taking the test tomorrow and I said yes. I’m ready!

I went to Chris and Nancy’s right after class ’cause Mario was there (it’s down the street from the dojo). I was so embarrassed; Jorge & Billy were there, too and they saw me in my uniform! Darn boys started joking around about my cooking (I don’t even remember how it go to that subject) and I really don’t know how much they were joking about! Made me mad.

Anyway, I went in to chat with Nancy, who showed me her sonogram pictures. They’re having a boy! I came home to relieve Mom from the girls and got them ready to go back to Chris and Nancy’s. We just sat inside talking about everything and around 11am I came home. Nancy has to work tomorrow so I didn’t want to keep her from sleeping.

I chilled out with the girls in bed, watching Food Network for a bit. Emily’s trying to crawl, it’s the cutest thing. She kind of makes pushes her bootie into the air and pushes herself forward LOL.

I need to go to bed already if I want to wake up and get Mario’s breakfast and lunch ready. Then I’ve got to practice, practice, practice!

So. I haven’t posted an entry in pretty much: forever. Again, I blame the social networking sites. And the fact that every time I seem to open up WordPress a child needs something, the cat’s climbing my legs (more on that later), the husband’s calling or I feel guilty being in front of the computer and not with the babies, heh.

I’ve been sick just about this whole darn week, first with a stomach bug or something related to my blood sugar–I don’t know which one–and now I’ve caught the cold that’s been skipping from kid to kid. GREAT.

Thank God Mom’s here to help me with the girls. Alaethia’s pretty much independent, only needing to be put in the high chair for meals or assistance in the bathroom, but Emily still completely needs someone so it’s tough being sick. Thankfully this is one of the only times I’ve been sick since she was born, but my gosh, I hope this is it for the rest of the YEAR.

I guess I shall emphasize:

I started going to Taekwondo about…3 weeks ago. Norma, Aaron’s mom (Jaylen’s best friend’s mom), had been trying to convince me to go since two weeks before that. I finally decided to give it a try. The first week I went Wednesday night and Friday night. And my God. I hadn’t been that sore since…ever! I’d hurt in places I didn’t even know I could hurt!

Norma didn’t go that first Friday night, and I asked Maggie if she’d go with me but at the last minute she had a client stay late. I was already at the building by the time I found out so I braved being the only girl and went on my own. Luckily there was another girl there that night; unluckily she was an 18-yr-old champion Black Belt LOL. I felt mediocre compared to her, but I was there to exercise so I didn’t let it get to me. It was weird that, until I told her, she thought I was younger than her. That made me feel a little better, heh.

We had a bar-b-q for Noelia’s birthday that Saturday. We chilled out till late evening. The lights went out and you could hear kids screaming randomly throughout both houses LOL. We collected all of them, brought them to my living room and Mario and I began lighting candles everywhere. See? I told him all those scented candles would come in handy!!

We went outside and chilled out under the party porch. Emily was feeling sickly & NEEDS to be in the air conditioning or else she throws a fit. She wasn’t a happy camper. She began a screaming fit that caused us all to go bananas. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. It was a mixture of developing a diaper rash, being hot and being sleepy. When the lights and air came back on we dipped her in the bath and she fell right to sleep!

We went to town the next day. I saved $12.50 at Target by using a whole heckload of coupons they sent me! Right after that we went to Walmart for grocery shopping and…piercing Emily’s ears! I’d been meaning to do it since she was 4 months old (she’s 6 months now for those who don’t know), but something kept coming up. Mom wanted to get them done for her like she did Alaethia’s, so did. We met Yadira, Tommy and the kiddos at Walmart and Angela got her ears re-pierced too. She went first. Emily went next and my heart almost thumped out of my chest when I held her on my lap. Yazmin snapped away with my camera for me. The girl sanitized and put the little earring gun to her ear and she was fine…until I whispered, “She didn’t cry!” And all hell broke loose LOL. Poor baby couldn’t stop. By the time she’d calmed down enough to get the other ear done a crowd had formed to witness what was happening to the poor baby LOL.

She calmed down and seemed like nothing ever even happened once we started walking around the store and shopping. Thank goodness. I felt like an awful mother LOL. But at least we got it over with, and before her Baptism, too.

We spent the whole first week of September’s evenings at Taekwondo practice because the belt test would be that Saturday. The boys were doing magnificently; they were totally ready except for a few tiny things they had to work on. I, on the other hand, was NOT getting the darn form! I couldn’t understand why we had to turn the way we were, or why we were doing this block or that punch. I felt like an idiot and I just wanted to quit.

Didn’t help that Monday night, while getting out of my extremely high (well, for me) van, I hurt my darn left foot! So I couldn’t kick as well as I had been just the week before. Mario went to see me that night and I felt shy and embarrassed LOL. He said I was doing really well, though!

By the time Wednesday came around my left foot was still hurting and since I couldn’t balance very well on it, I wasn’t kicking (pi-chagis) correctly with my right foot and was hurting my toes! But the workouts were really intense. I’m not very big on running, because I have boobs of course, but I like the type of workouts we do. You work everything out. I wasn’t going to weigh myself till Saturday, because I’d weighed myself the Saturday before (weighed 130.5), but I couldn’t wait. I weighed 126.5! I hadn’t weighed anything in the 120s since before I had Emily and right after I did (but gained a lot back, unfortunately)!!

So that was my new motivation to keep going. Ever since I’d started Taekwondo I began really watching what I ate, because I kept telling myself I worked out too hard (REALLY HARD) to fuck it all up by stuffing my face with everything I saw.

I remembered taking video of the boys with Ernesto, the older teacher, when he taught them the white belt form step-by-step, number-by-number. And I found it! I studied it and within 30 minutes I learned it!!! I wasn’t a failure; just needed to understand the rhyme and rhythm behind it!

I was so ready to show off my form that night and when it came down to it, I messed up a step LOL. I just get nervous. Which is why I decided I wasn’t ready to take the test that Saturday. Norma’d been going 4 weeks already and she was ready. The only crappy thing was I didn’t want to be the only adult white belt left!

Oh, I forgot to mention: that Tuesday Mario and I finally went to the credit union to get a personal loan out to consolidate (on our own) our credit card bills. We were paying up the ass a month for them, especially now that every single one had upped the interest rate a month before Obama’s new law goes into effect. It was becoming ridiculous. It took some doing, but in the end we’re paying about half a month for 4 years now, fixed rate and everything. I feel so…liberated!! No more credit cards for us. It was the stupidest thing we’ve done as a married couple to rack up those darn things. From now on, if we don’t have the money for it, we’re not buying it!! Except for Home Depot…we always need that one! And it’s easy to pay off!

Since we didn’t have practice Friday I took the afternoon to pay off all the bills that could be done at the stores. I even ended up finding two size 8 red polos for the boys. I returned two of the medium ones they didn’t like because they were too long.

We had Annie’s sister’s (Marci’s) baby shower to go to on Saturday. We got to chit-chat with Annie, eat and then had to run and pick up the boys on time to get them to the belt test. I was so nervous for them! Poor Eenan was really nervous. He kept putting his hands in his face and even asked for a bathroom break. They did really well, though, I was so proud! They even had to break a board at the end of the test, which took all of us by surprise! Jaylen did a Chito-chagi kick (a straight up and down kick) and broke it. Eenan did an open-palm punch and broke it. It was amamzing! I wish I had the pics up to show you guys! I’ll post them here when I get the chance.

I started feeling like I could do the test, too, but there was no way I’d get to talk to anyone about it. I began to feel silly because I was actually becoming a little emotional about not testing LOL. Jaylen had gone over to Norma’s to play with Aaron so I went to pick him up and her hubby told me I should inquire about testing. I couldn’t do it, though. I quickly made dinner (enchiladas) and went to see Norma test. I totally could have done it!! The yellow belts testing for yellow advanced had to spar and I got a little scared when one of my former students was sparring and kicked another kid in the teeth! It chipped his tooth; sounded like someone had snapped a twig or something. I’m not so sure I want to be doing that part…

Andy and Noelia came over Sunday morning. Andy was going hunting with Mario’s uncles and Noelia, Mary, Mario, the kiddos and I actually went to church on Sunday. Well, the girls stayed with Mom. We’re going to try and start going every Sunday. Mario came to me one day and told me he’d like to try, and I’ve always wanted to so we’re going through with it. Mario had some work to do, but I went to the movies with Emily, the boys, Mary and Noelia to watch Aliens in the Attic. I actually enjoyed it much more than I thought I would! Alaethia had a fun day of shopping with Mom, Elda and her mom LOL.

Monday was another normal day. Mary went with us to the boys’ Taekwondo where I asked Luis about possibly testing during the week for my yellow belt. He said sure, we’d practice that night and if I was ready maybe I could take the test the next day. Awesome!

He taught the boys the yellow belt form that night. Jaylen, who’s much more eager about learning Taekwondo that Eenan, wanted to watch the video I’d recorded of them doing the form so I found it and everyone watched him practice. He learned it! I realized it was 7:30 and got in to take a shower really quick. No time for dinner, but I felt good enough to wait till after practice. Big mistake. We were doing Moola kicks, which require you to spin and I was dizzy halfway through class! I was grateful when we got our water break and stuffed half a granola bar in my mouth. I didn’t feel any better by the end of class. Couldn’t even finish doing the lunges or jumping jacks–so embarrassing. I took a seat and tried to collect myself. The room was spinning and turning colors and I was shaking like a leaf. A chihuahua’s actually what I imagined myself like that night, LOL.

I got into the car and sat there, shaking, for 10 minutes, until I saw that just about everyone was leaving the dojo. I don’t know how I drove home, but I did. I just wanted to get home and rest, but Eenan couldn’t find his backpack anywhere so we searched and searched. It was nowhere to be found. We got ready for bed and I just didn’t feel good. Sure enough, an hour after I laid down I started vomiting. Like there was no tomorrow. And other unpleasant things. I did so 3 times during the night, which is crazy because it takes A LOT for me to throw up.

I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water or Gatorade. I still don’t know what the heck happened. Food poisoning? My sugar being too low? A stomach bug? I don’t know. But it was awful.

I felt horrible the entire next day. Thank God Mario was off work. He had a lot to do that day though, so he wasn’t around very much. Mom was thankfully here to help me with the girls. Luis had also called to set up a test time for me, which would be the next morning but I told him I just couldn’t. Maybe next week?

I’m not even sure I want to go back. I got scared. If this did have something to do with my sugar, I don’t want to have another episode like that AGAIN. And this is the 3rd time I go to Taekwondo without eating before. But we’ll see. I’ll finish off the month, maybe test. I definitely don’t want to get into sparring, especially with the guys! Call me a chicken or what have you but I have enough problems with my teeth without having them be knocked out. And my 4 children need their mother in one piece. I just wanted to lose some weight!!

The next day was Mary’s birthday and we went to Andy and Noelia’s to celebrate. I’d kept down some crackers and a Ramen noodles so I figured it was ok to eat. Well, I ATE. Shrimp, corn on the cob, steak and chocolate cake I’d made. Needless to say I felt gross the entire next day, but I didn’t get sick at all, thank goodness. I just couldn’t eat till the evening because I was nauseous.

It’s been raining like crazy lately and with rain comes power outages, all the time. We had a thunderstorm that day that brought along with it a power outage and power surge that shorted the modem’s power supply, the HDMI cable, Alaethia’s TV, our phone and our DVD player! Thank GOD my laptop was okay!

I felt well enough to go to the store with Mom and walk down the block with Emily to take a picture of a rainbow we’d seen. I ate chili and that went well so glad that’s over!

And then I woke up this morning with a damn cold!! Emily’d gotten sick a few nights ago and the three other kiddos already had colds so it was bound to happen with my immune system being so weak right now. I’ve got tissues stuffed up my nose as I type this. Not really how I imagined spending my Friday night, but beggars can’t be choosers *shrug*. At least I’m not puking!!

Thurs., Apr. 23rd – I woke up in the morning and told myself Today is the day! You’re going to watch what you eat and get healthy again! I went into my school-supply stash and pulled out a spiffy new notebook to document what I was eating, kind of like Weight Watchers. Actually, I even pulled out my Weight Watchers booklet, and tried remembering little meal plans from my semi-diabetic days, because back then–when I was really watching what I ate–was when I started losing weight.

But that only lasted about 3 days.

Until I can get my sleeping schedule to one of normalcy (which means sleeping early and waking up before 11a.m.), there’s no way I’ll be able to “eat right”. I get so busy during the day with the girls and now with remodeling and cleaning all the time that I even forget to eat lunch sometimes. If it’s before dinner and I remember that I’m hungry I’ll pop a Ramen into the microwave or
I’ll reach for the nearest junkfood. This is reminding me of my days working in the library and skipping meals/eating too much junkfood. If I don’t watch myself I’m going to end up diabetic again!

Anyway, the boys had Report Card Night that evening so I left Alaethia with Mom and took Emily with me. I expected to be there at least 2 1/2 hours like we usually are but it went much faster that night. I had yet another conversation with Eenan’s teacher about his “bully”. He’d punched Eenan in the back this time. I told her that the counselor still hadn’t spoken to them like I’d requested over a month ago so Eenan had every right to defend himself and he better not get in trouble for it since obviously nobody’s doing anything about it during recess and P.E. She’s already done all she can and can’t really discipline him since it doesn’t happen in the classroom. She said to go straight to the principal. I don’t really feel like talking to the principal since the last time I had that little spat with her over the kids’ perfect attendance, but I really have no choice.

I finally saw who the bully’s mo is, and–sorry to say–I’m not surprised the kid’s a bully. She’s one of those parents who doesn’t care what goes on in school. And I’m not just making assumptions, I’ve heard from teachers themselves.

It took forever waiting in line to speak with Jaylen’s teacher, as usual. Jaylen started playing with his friend and his friend’s little sister shook Emily’s rattle for her and talked to me. She spoke beautiful, fluent Spanish and took me by surprise when she asked me in English that was just as fluent, “Do you speak English?” I told her, “Yes, I do. And you speak English very well, too.” She nodded and said, “My mom only speaks Spanish.” I smiled at her and said, “You can teach her!”

That’s one of the reasons I think it’s awesome that one parent’s primary language is Spanish: their kids speak it fluently and then pick up English from another parent or in school. Everyone here at home speak English primarily, so the kids don’t understand a lick of Spanish! I used to be fluent in Spanish as a kid also, when Dad lived with us. Once he moved out though, I slowly began to forget words and now I have a lot of trouble trying to articulate my thoughts in Spanish. I really need to look up ways to teach the kids while they can still absorb info like sponges.

Anyway, the boys are both doing great in school. Perfect attendance, all A Honor Roll. Eenan still rushes through his work, but his teacher always brags about how smart he is and how she expects nothing less than a 90, especially in math. Jaylen’s doing brilliantly and is in charge of Row Call in the morning and is reading and RR Testing at a 3rd grade level (he’s in 1st grade). His teacher says she knows he’s capable of even 4th grade, but doesn’t want to push it yet. I couldn’t even get some of my 8th graders (when I was working) to read 3rd grade level! I got a little lump in my throat when she sighed and said, “I don’t think I’ll ever have another student quite like Jaylen.” Aww *sniff*.

We went over to Mary’s when we got home, ate, and then started working on Eenan’s Castle in the Attic castle model again. We got pretty far on it. I hot-glued the “carpet” in the Great Hall and the “grass” in the courtyard, which were pieces of fabric we bought from Walmart. It’s turning out pretty good!

I spent the rest of the night just chilling out. Mario was outside with the guys while I held Emily and uploaded pictures to Flickr and made a wallpaper of the girls at 2 months. I never realized just how much they look alike! Even Mario had mistaken one of Alaethia’s pictures for Emily LOL.

Fri., Apr. 24th – Emily turned two months old!

And Alaethia turned 2 years, 3 months old! It was time for Emily’s 2 month vaccines so, as much as I was dreading it, I had to get ready to pick up the boys, drop them off with Mom and endure a 2-3 hour wait at the doctor’s office. I arrived at the doctor’s office…and it’s closed. I’d called to ask earlier if it was open and they said yes…and then I realized they were talking about the Mission office. The calls must have been forwarded over there. Gah.

I was smart this time and took my book, remembered my Centro, took only my important stuff in the diaper bag and took my Hugamonkey sling to carry Emily in. When I got off the car and walked through the lobby to sign her in, everyone just stared at me. Half of the people probably thought I was weird and the other half’s expressions showed that they thought it was the most genius thing ever, which it is. Emily slept the entire time in the sling and I got to read and finish Eclipse.

They took us in and weighed her. 9 lbs. 12 oz. All the girls took turns carrying her and saying how cute she was and making a big fuss about my sling.

And then they gave her the shots. It broke my heart to hear her scream that way but she thankfully calmed down quickly. I gave her Tylenol as soon as we got home and she was fine for a while. It wasn’t till night time that she became fussy.

I rocked her while I browsed through Ebay. It’d been a while since I’d actually searched for stuff on it. I bought myself some Macro lenses for my Kodak Z650 and I also bought a new Re-ment set and the 7th book in the Georgia Nicholson series with the cash my dad-in-law gave me for my birthday. I got a familiar giddy feeling thinking of the packages I was going to receive. Too bad it would take the lenses a while to get here since they were coming from Hong Kong with free shipping :(.

We stayed in that night and watched My Best Friend’s Girl, which I liked much better than I thought I would. Adan came over and watched the movies with us. When we left, Mario and I started watching Marley and Me, but we only watched half before we got tired and went to bed.

Sat., Apr. 25th – I was going to have tons of stuff to do that day and I was not looking forward to it. I woke up to make Mario’s breakfast and was going to set the coffee pot, but decided against it. I went back to bed for a while. By the time the girls and I woke up it was 10:30 and I still didn’t feel like getting up and going. We got ready, slowly, and left the house around 1:30. There was no way I’d have time to go to Walmart and grocery shop. We only had a chance to go visit Gramma for a while.

I rushed home, dropped the boys off with Mom, then Mary, the girls (who wore matching dresses) and I picked up Noelia. She looked so pretty in the dress she wore. She’s been feeling much better from the U.C. and is much happier now, too. It’s good to see her like that.

We got to Darla’s bridal shower early. It was being held at Macarena and Gordo’s house, Mario’s cousins, not far from where Noelia and Andy live. The house is beautiful. I fell in love with their outdoor kitchen. It was small, but what I imagine a future outdoor grill looking like at our home. We’ve already got the party porch ;). I wanted to take a picture of it but felt embarrassed.

I didn’t win any of the games, not even the purse scavenger hunt which I usually win because I’d just cleaned out my bag. Darn.

We didn’t stay long since we had Vicky’s 1st birthday party to go to also. Both parties were at the exact same time. So we said our goodbyes to the relatives, dropped Noelia off and drove across The Valley to get to the party.

Mom and the boys had ridden along with Elda. They fought the entire time we were there, mostly over their video games. Emily was passed around and Alaethia was busy playing with Matthew and Angela, so it was nice to get a little time to myself, even if it was for 15 minutes.

We’d arrived when the kids had already hit the piñata so the kids were happily bombarded with candies. We ate, then went inside to sing “Happy Birthday” to Vicky and had some cake.

We helped clean up a little and then we came home. Mario was just arriving when we got here. He did a few things outside–can’t remember if it was directly related to the new living room or not–and then Nancy and Chris came over to visit. I was washing dishes so Mom was watching Emily. She was crying inconsolably and Mom couldn’t figure out how to calm her. Nancy asked her if she could hold her (she works at a daycare) and as Mom passed her into Nancy’s arms Emily just magically stopped crying, just like that! I couldn’t help but think what an awesome mom Nancy would be. She’s so patient. But she and Chris have been trying all these years and still haven’t conceived.

We talked and caught up while she held a happy Emily and I washed dishes in the kitchen. Again, like she always did with Alaethia, Nancy told me to call her up if I ever needed help with the baby. I’m blessed to have so many awesome ladies willing to watch my adorable girls…but I still feel guilty and never call them up LOL.

After Chris and Nancy left we got in bed. We had to be up early the next morning. Mary was going to be at a Confirmation retreat with Yazmin at the church, so I had to be up early to pick up and drop the boys off at CFF. Mario was also planning to go to Home Depot so we could get more stuff for the new living room. I can’t wait till this whole project is finished!