Category: Family

Ah, Life!!

(This was started on Friday night and I didn’t finish updating and then I started back on it Saturday morning *sigh*)

(Friday) Ahhh…one of the best things about making Tortilla Soup is that you have enough caldito left to poach some more chicken the next day :). Did that, chopped up and baked some tortillas, cubed an avocado and voila!, dinner!

(May I also add that one of the best things about finally upgrading my WP is that I forgot about my laptop after dinner last night and it shut down to install updates, but it thankfully saved my draft, *whew*!)

I’m waiting for my babe to get back from dropping off his boys. Mine were picked up earlier by Mary. Mario supposedly caught the kids’ virus and was home so he couldn’t come. Mary had to come early since she had a Rosary to attend. Another one of their aunts passed away =\.

(Saturday) The house is utterly quiet, except for the Mexican soap opera Mom’s watching in another room. Between having my kids a few days here and a few days there and my babe’s for over a week straight, it was pretty routine coming home and being greeted by tons of little voices excited to tell you what they did throughout the day. Ok. I’ll stop. I’m just going to depress myself. They’ll be back soon :).

Ok, so let’s see. It’s been extremely hot (103-105, not including the “heat index” blah) and Mom was awesome and bought the kids a pool. (Which I heard caused a certain someone to spaz out and start talking smack about how we’re “buying” our children off with material things. Is he serious? Says the one whose mommy buys them everything they want the second they ask for it. Moron.) Anyway, the pool is nothing huge, which was a relief once we put Emily and Alaethia in there. The boys play around and knock them over accidentally and OMG–I go into panic-mode. I just CANNOT STAND the idea of a kid drowning, not even feeling that awful choking/burning in the back of your throat and nostrils. It’s the worst thing. So I make sure to go in there with them and I’m glad that the rare times the boys do push them over, they can get right back up.

My babe went to a training on the 14th in Houston. I had the girls till the evening the first night. We got in the pool and they kept me pretty distracted, but they ended up leaving with Mario and I was quickly becoming lonely and depressed. I would have been fine if my babe could just text with me all day and night, but he couldn’t, heh. Michelle and Rosie invited me to walk the trail with them near their house both nights, so that kept me nice and busy. I wish there was a walking trail at the park that’s 2 blocks down but there’s only playground equipment =\. I came home and actually did Ab Ripper–OMG, the pain! Too bad I only kept up with it for 3 days =\.

I finally took the kiddos to the library last weekend. The library I spent many summers at :). Only Eenan, Alaethia and Emily wanted to go at the last minute; the rest of the boys were into a video game and refused to move >_<. But, Eenan had fun and my poor Alaethia (who'd caught the stomach virus that the kids are taking turns passing around) enjoyed the puzzles and games, as did Emily :).

At the library

At the Library

We gathered a few books, I changed Emily’s diaper (she’s regressing with the potty training from when she had the darn virus. And I’m sure that other family isn’t helping much, grr) and Alaethia had to go to the bathroom so we got all that done. That was my cue to leave before Aly’s stomach really started to bother her. So, I braced myself for the wails when I announced it was time to go. And sure enough. Emily screamed. Loudly. Everyone thought she was the most adorable thing in the world, so they didn’t seem bothered, thank God LOL. I checked out the books. Chased her a little bit and then we walked out. She began to drag herself as soon as we walked outside but she became momentarily distracted when Eenan pointed out a little dead chick that had fallen out of a tree. Eenan, Alaethia and I hovered over it and began to analyze what may have happened, when all of a sudden a little 2-year-old foot comes out of nowhere and not only STOMPS, bug DRAGS across the pavement, squishing the already demised birdie :(. It was a bit traumatizing and I was so shocked I tried not to laugh. Eenan thought it was the craziest thing and was openly giggling. I gave Emily a scolding about how mean it was and she was silent on the way home. Kids!

We got home and I started on dinner: spaghetti and meatballs, one of my poor Alaethia’s favorites. She hardly ate because she was so out of it from that darn virus (she sure did enjoy it the next day, though!). Emily had a blast with it. She even took her fork back to me as I was serving the other kids and said, “Here. I don’t need this.” She had spaghetti EVERYWHERE.

My babe and I got into a 5-minute argument about something I can’t even remember now and we sat outside on the bed of the truck and talked about it. I love that about us. We don’t stay mad long because one of us always gives in and either apologizes or explains why we’re upset ♥.

We lazied around the house the rest of the evening. We watched TV. I read my book while the girls slept. The boys played Xbox and then acted like total boys; roughhousing, climbing all over my babe, SPINNING! It was crazy and they had a BLAST! Jorge spun all of them from their LEGS and they loved it LOL. All 4 boys even dragged me over to my babe and he attempted to spin me but I was terrified LOL.

We woke up the next morning, Father’s Day, and I made my babe his favorite, an omelet with the works :).

First thing on the agenda was relocating the pool. It was beginning to sag on one side where the ground was unleveled. My babe emptied it out and then I helped him smooth it out and refill it on the driveway. It was the most level ground we could find. The kids were sitting in the garage just watching us. They had popsicles and drinks while they waited. I found it kinda odd that Mario nor Mary had called to ask to pick up the kids since it was Father’s Day, but around 1:30 Mary called and asked if I could take them over sooner than 6. I told her about them waiting for the pool and they’d be over at 4.

We all go in the pool and had an awesome time. It was so hot that the water was a wonderful relief.

Me with the Kiddos :)

We stayed in there a good hour and a half. I was almost sunburned and my babe was most definitely sunburned for being out so long. It was already 5 so we all hustled to get changed so I could drop the kids off with Mario. While I changed Alaethia, Emily and my babe fell asleep. It was the cutest thing LOL.

So I got back from the long drive and we started with the BBQing. I really wish my kiddos had been there, but I tried to be understanding and giving Mario time with them, too. The food was great and it was really nice sitting outside and chatting :).

Foooood!!

(It’s now Sunday night and I’m STILL trying to finish this post! I’m so bad at this!)

Let’s see. We chilled out with my babe’s boys Tuesday night. We were watching TV and then got bored and came outside to sit on the porch. The boys started blowing bubbles and one of them was kinda crappy so I searched Google for homemade bubbles. We went inside and mixed some water, dish soap and Karo syrup together and they were AWESOME! The boys had so much fun ^_^!

We had an emergency with the pool; a neighborhood kitty seems to have clawed it so we tried our hardest to patch it up but it didn’t work. We made a trip to Walmart to hopefully find a repair kit but ended up with ice cream instead since there were no repair kits, heh. I finally found Dreyers Brownie Fudge and Justin and I picked that one :).

It FINALLY rained on Wednesday, just like the forecast predicted! It was wonderful! I love love love overcast skies and rain!

My babe and I hardly meet for lunch anymore (one, because he’s usually far away with work and two, because we’re cutting back on extra things) so we thought we’d have lunch at El Terco Seafood that day. It was SO GOOD.

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They postponed one of my events 🙁 so the rest of the day at work was pretty laid back for me. I got home and made dinner for all of us and then my babe and I went grocery shopping. We ended up with this:

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We sat outside on the porch watching TV, eating our cheesecakes and I had a glass of wine. It was a great, great night :).

The next day it was nice and overcast and the forecast didn’t disappoint. It rained again after lunch. I had to walk barefoot to my van, which I’d parked across the street because the parking lot directly across was blocked off!

Overcast

I prayed on the way to pick up the kids. It’s a 35 minute drive on a good day and the rain was coming down hard so it took about 15 extra minutes to get there. Thankfully, by the time I picked them up and was on my way back with them, the rain had stopped.

This was the night I originally made tortilla soup. I fed everyone (got great reviews, including from Emily, heh) and then we spent the rest of the night chilling out and watching TV, or being out on the porch. It’s so awesome when we’re all together. We literally feel complete :).

So this brings us back to Friday evening after the kids were picked up/dropped off. We ate dinner quietly, which was really weird. No crazy, funny stories. It was just QUIET. You usually crave a second of silence when all 6 kids are screaming but it’s just awful when you don’t hear ANYTHING :(.

We finished dinner at chatted at the table and decided to go to Red Mango for some yogurt (buy one get one free, baby!) before heading to the Duckie Park (as Alaethia calls it) and eat our yogurt there.

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We sat at a covered bench and ate our yogurt, people watched and just talked. I enjoy my little dates with my babe. It’s so comfortable and we can be quiet or sharing stories or laughing and it’s always NICE. I love it. I told him about how I always feel guilty when the kids aren’t here. Like, it’s…wrong…to have fun or a good time if they’re not around. He told me he felt that way too sometimes but it was ok for us to have fun once in a while when we’re alone. So I gave myself a break that night and enjoyed myself :).

I was told the exact same thing by Pete and Sally later that night, when we visited them in their new house :). It’s GORGEOUS! They gave us the grand tour and then we sat in their living room and caught up. I love them, love our conversations. We each shared cute anecdotes about our relationships (how Sally and I both follow the guys around the house switching off lights, heh) and we discussed our kiddos. It’s always great meeting up with them!

My babe worked the next day and I spent the day lazying around the house. I wanted to do absolutely nothing. John came over and we chit chatted and laughed at everything like always. I typed up this entry, uploading pics to Flickr, commented on Facebook and I had this crushing feeling in my chest telling me to Get up! Quit wasting time! Quit being lazy and clean the house!! Go buy groceries! Visit your Gramma!!!

So I eventually gave in (around 3pm) and Mom and I visited Gramma. I wanted to make sushi for dinner but we didn’t have rice, so I went to HEB Plus in Shary instead of the HEB down the road. Who in the world do I run into but my babe’s psycho ex. I saw Justin and he lit up when he realized it was me. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him with her. She had her 20-some-year-old niece and her son with her. I told Mom, “Just wait. There’s gonna be drama.”

Sure enough. She came into the “Asian isle” and proceeded to cause a scene. She went on and on about how he still sleeps with her and so forth (which is funny considering that WE’RE ALWAYS TOGETHER) and was just EMBARRASSING. She event\ went as far as tapping an innocent customer on the shoulder to get her involved in her psycho babble. She pushed me once and I told her, “I’m not doing this here with you, and definitely not in front of Justin.” Of course she goes into *snap*snap* mode and says, “So what? I wait for you outside, or what?” So completely childish and ghetto!

I called my babe to let him know there was most likely going to be a show later on. I said, “I wouldn’t doubt she leaves her cart somewhere and goes straight outside to wait for me behind my van.”

I should be a psychic! I got to my van with a cart-full of groceries and there was the silver car she was in, parked directly behind my van. She gets down and I go on about my business, putting groceries away. She yells God knows what to me and my mom tells her, “Just leave her alone. Go away.” And when she got in front of my Mom’s face and yelled at her I snapped, “Don’t yell at my mother that way!”

She yelled in all her ghetto glory, “I don’t give a FUCK about your mom!” and pushed me. I’m not sure what she grabbed first, but she pulled my hair, tried ripping my (brand new!) tank top repeatedly (’cause she’s a perv like that) & flailed her arms in pathetic attempts to punch me. I had my stupid bag on my shoulder, open as always and I did NOT want to let it go. I was afraid her niece would grab it and run. But her niece was too busy holding my left arm away from her lovely aunt. I had managed to grab her stupid face since she first attacked me and I did NOT let go. The other hand was wrapped around a chunk of her hair, too. I couldn’t get out of the knot of arms and I saw her legs spread open so I kicked her square in her ghetto balls. She moved back and started with her made up sob stories so the lovely crowd that had assembled around us could hear. And the entire time Justin and the other little boy were watching from inside. She’s seriously something else. What exactly did she accomplish? What was she trying to change? I’m not leaving him, he’s not leaving me, so…? Well, Karma’s a bitch, though, just wait and see.

Last night was, needless to say, a total flop. But today completely made up for it :). My babe and I slept in, I made crab & avocado omelets and then we showered and got ready for the day.

Crab & avocado omelet

We stopped by Red Mango (it’s an addiction, I tell ya!) and got our usual yogurts. That was our lunch. I beat my babe at the Slug Bug game hehe. I sold Emily’s old crib, so John finally got that out of his apartment :P. We went to my babe’s sis’ house to get more of his things and tell her about my adventure yesterday, heh. We got home and unloaded his stuff and went to Walmart for a few things I’d forgotten yesterday. We had some popcorn when we got home and then we went outside to clean the pool. My babe’s friend came over for a bit and then we relaxed in the pool for a good while. We hadn’t noticed just how many different types of birds fly around our house. I finally saw two little hummingbirds here!

We washed up and I made us some awesome sushi :).

Sushiii!

And now we’re sitting outside on the back porch. We’re so not gonna want to get ready for work in the morning. Why must the weekend be so short!

Family Matters

Work was a breeze this week, too. I finished up with stuff from my scholarship event as soon as I got to work on Tuesday (OMG, I just remembered I forgot to pay something *makes mental note*) and helped one of my co-workers with a mail-out. We were all summoned to do it and listened to music and ate pizza :). It was fun!

I fell asleep Tuesday night as my babe and I watched a movie on the sofa. And he passed out Wednesday…on the sofa. It’s something about that darn thing! It’s so comfortable you can’t help but fall asleep!

I went straight to get the kiddos Thursday night, got home, we all played with Ruffles and I got straight to making dinner (chicken tomato/Alfredo). My babe got here, we ate, and I dropped the kiddos off :(.

Our clean-up day at work was yesterday, Friday. Most of us started Thursday afternoon and I’m so glad I did. I organized our section in the storage room…it was terrible! There was old stuff and weird decorations…my boss gave me the ok to just chuck everything LOL. Now it’s nice and neat ^_^.

My boss, myself and two other co-workers were in charge of cleaning the kitchen. It was just my boss and I cleaning, though, but it’s ok. We finished in a flash and then I started in the filing room and my filing cabinets. Another co-worker was nice enough to vaccumm for us since her desk was super clean and she wasn’t in charge of other sections :). I dusted everything before meeting my love for lunch at Kumori. I hadn’t been there in a while! The food was super good, as always, and didn’t take forever even though the place was packed. I veered away from my favorite, the Rainbow Roll and got the McAllen Roll instead. It has raw fish, too. It was insanely good!

I tossed out my recycling box when I got back to the office and we all passed inspection in our area at 2:30! I ran a few errands, got some food at HEB and came home. John was spending the night since I was dropping him off at the airport in Harlingen early in the morning. I hadn’t seen him in a long time already!

I needed detergent because John had to do laundry and I had a few coupons I wanted try out so we headed back to HEB. I got a huge bottle of Gain deteregent (stupid, expensive detergent!), 7 bottles of KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce (were on sale for $1, with a $1 off coupon=free) and buy one get one free Airwick air fresheners. The total bill was $20, came out to $10.80. I basically paid for the detergent only! Not much of a mass purchase, but the Extreme Couponing thing could actually work! John and my babe were impressed, heh. We’ll never run out of BBQ sauce :P!

My first Extreme Couponing" expierience!

We waited for my babe to get home and we headed to Weinershnitzel, John’s treat. I hadn’t been there yet; it was GOOD!

We came back and waited for the rest of our group to get here. John turned in early, Michelle left around 11pm and the rest of us stayed up. I went to bed around 2:30 and still felt pretty good when I got up.

John and I amazingly found our way to the airport without getting lost. He was super nervous. I don’t blame him. I’ll probably be shitting bricks, too, when I finally go on my first flight LOL.

I passed by the Iwo Jima monument and followed the map on my phone.

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I’m driving for what seems like forever and panic when I don’t see anything familiar. Never fails: I got lost after a wrong turn on US 77. I hate that thing. So I call my babe, get frustrated because I don’t know any of the roads he’s talking about and calm my nerves so I can focus and get back on the road. I did pretty good and then came up to a signless 4-way and wasn’t sure where I was supposed to turn. I, of course, went the wrong way and stopped at a gas station to get directions…but it was shut down. GREAT! I collect myself again, and head in the opposite direction and voila!, back on 83!

I was going to pass through Dad’s city and I hadn’t spoken to him since sometime last September so I stopped by. I started to get worried when I noticed the chair he sits in outside was overturned and dusty, his car looked like it hadn’t been moved in a while and nobody answered the door. He’s always home. I called the number I had and got voicemail. My half-brother’s number was now someone else’s. I found it weird that dad hadn’t tried contacting me since that last time we spoke and I began to get panicky. I went around the house and looked through the kitchen window. There was a candle on on the counter, so that made me feel a tiny bit better. I had a feeling I should check the doorknob and sure enough, it was open. I went in and felt creeped out right away. It was super dark and there were 3 wheelchairs. It was strange. He has one leg amputated due to diabetes, but I saw no reason for the types of wheelchairs that were there. I went into his room and my heart sank when I saw a hospital bed in place of his bed…and two prosthetics, not just one. I wondered if they were there because he was in the hospital. I got freaked out and left quietly and quickly. I left him a note on the door, letting him know I’d visited and left my number just in case he didn’t have it. I hoped for a call.

I got home and picked mom up and we visited with Gramma for a while. We came home and I relaxed most of the day. Lazied around like Ruffles, our kitty. Don’t know if I’d mentioned him before. He’s been with us since about two weeks after we moved in.

Ruffles!!

I watched Lifetime movies all day while texting with John and my babe. Didn’t do once ounce of cleaning, heh, which is fine ’cause the house doesn’t really need any heavy-duty cleaning. Just gotta sweep & mop tomorrow (I’ll get my babe to help me again :P) and do laundry.

Dad called around 2:30. He let me know they indeed amputated his other leg up to the knee as well and he’s having dialysis done 3 times a week, hence the reason he wasn’t home. I couldn’t believe it. He just doesn’t take care of himself. He almost died before they amputated his other leg. He just got the 2nd prosthetic done so he hasn’t started walking around with them yet. I’m glad we got back in contact. I really was worried. Mom gave him her cellphone number and they chatted a while LOL.

I meant to finish updating this entry since around 4:30…but I sat down to finish watching a movie and crashed out on the sofa (darn thing…). Woke up, talked to my babe who was on his way home with the boys, and I started on dinner. I made some cilantro dip, and now we’re sitting down to watch “Tron”. Wish my babies were here. They’re going to the beach with their dad tomorrow. I get worried, but I’m praying everything will be fine :(.

Ok, movie is starting!

Easter 2011 Till Now

So my boss is out today, I’m done with all my work, Michelle’s very busy with her upcoming Event and only one certificate has come in for me to process. Needless to say, I’m bored. I’m Girl Sick and feel miserable and just want to be laying in my bed with my favorite blanket while my babe gives me a massage. And sipping some warm manzanilla tea. That last one I’m fixing to do in just a few minutes…

I guess I’ll recap. It’s either blog or keep reading my book on the iPad (which I recently dropped and almost caused my Babe to have a coronary 🙁 ). Anyway…don’t wanna remember that…

I had my kiddos starting Thursday night before Easter Sunday and my babe had his starting Friday. They had such a good time just playing and hanging out with each other. My babe had to work Saturday, and I had lots of errands to run…and successfully ran those errands with 6 kids in tow, hehe. I dropped my mom off at Gramma’s and off we went. Got supplies at Dollar Tree for Easter and got them a few things for their baskets…which ended up not being baskets at all because they wanted them RIGHT NOW, heh.

We bar-b-q’d and I made a cake to celebrate the boys’ birthdays which were earlier in the week. My babe invited his cousin and a few friends and I invited Michelle. It was a really last-minute thing. I hope to be more organized next year and able to invite PEOPLE.

We woke up early, I made breakfast for everyone and we celebrated Easter. Eggs cracked everywhere, bubbles, side-walk chalk…it was great! My babe’s mom, sister and her kids visited for a while and then we had to drop off our kiddos with their other set of parents =\. I’d like to have games for them to play next year; make it more fun. We’ll see :).

Mario had the kids last weekend so it was really lo-key for me. Spent the weekend being really lazy, and then cleaning and doing stuff around the house. I had to work a few hours on Sunday. Casa Guanajuato brought The Mariachi Clown show to the Chamber and as skeptical as I was about it, they were hilarious!

Mariachi Clown Show

When I got home felt pretty darn awful. I thought at first I was having a reaction to the allergy meds they gave me. Then I thought my sugar was dropping because I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. And then, after reading the info on the antibiotics they gave me for my stupid acne, figured out it was THAT that was making me feel awful. I seriously felt like I was drunk and having an anxiety attack at the same time…and had felt that way since getting sick with allergies, which was the exact same time I was prescribed the acne meds. I stopped taking them. The side effects were pretty darn scary and I was already feeling most of them! I wasn’t looking forward to Depersonalization!!

The guys bbq’d that night and Pete and Sally went to visit :). It was great chatting with them and laughing. There was a total of 9 kids in the house, literally running everywhere and screaming, but it was great :). I remember telling my babe, “I look forward and wish so much to have all our kids screaming and telling them, ‘Keep it down, guys!’ and smiling over at you because we’re all together.” It’s so nice to BE THERE.

Our evenings without our kiddos are quiet. We try and stay busy =\. We cook (well, lately I’ve been cooking >_< LOL) and are trying to eat healthier. I even started bringing lunch to work most of the time now :).

Homemade tortilla soup

Froyo

We spend time outside and water the yard and watch movies. Which I always fall asleep at the end of…STILL. And Wednesday night we took an hour-long walk through our neighborhood. It was great :).

Our next event at work is the Scholarship banquet. We’ve got almost everything done. The kids’ pics, the bios…we just need to turn it all in to graphics and printing and then we’re set for the programs. We had the food tasting yesterday with the catering company. OMG: we had 4 types of chicken and rice to choose from and it was so hard to pick just one! But we did, and the whole meal’s going to be AMAZING!

It’s kinda weird having all this “down time”. I’m used to running around at 100MPH all day long, up and down the stairs for whatever reason. Sitting for too long actually having time to read a book is unheard of LOL.

We had Gerry’s event, All About Women yesterday and got to have goodies and Border Buttermilk, which are pink lemonade Margaritas. I love our events hehe.

Ok. There’s an hour before lunch. Blogging helped me forget about my cramps for a little bit, but now I think I’m going to make me a cup of tea. And read that book :). Hope I get to see my babe for lunch and after work, it’s time to pick up the babies! ♥