Category: Grimmy Grim

Finally! I’m finally done baking about 8 dozen Snickerdoodles. I promised myself that I wouldn’t get stuck baking on Christmas Eve, but let’s face it: it happens every year. At least I’ve got delicious Snickerdoodles to have with milk before I go to bed :). I’ve got to hide some from the rest of the family…shh!

I can’t believe it’s already Christmas Eve! This month, just as I suspected, passed by really fast. I have a feeling next month will pass by even faster, which frightens me a little. Everyone’s been telling me that my “perfectly round” stomach looks like it’s about to pop soon. Gotta remember to take pictures every few days from now till Alaethia’s born :). Something I desperately wish I’d done with the boys :(.

So, you know how I wrote yesterday that I was so happy I wouldn’t be out driving with the last-minute shoppers? I ended up doing just that. Mom got home from shopping (and having lunch) with Elda around 2, so the boys and I had a quick lunch and we all left.

Gramma loved her gifts and we talked for a while before we left. It had been pouring on the way to the nursing home, so we were hoping it would let down a little before we took off again. It didn’t. I didn’t plan on stopping anywhere to shop, but I wanted to try and find something nice to wear for the Quinceañera. John and I were the only ones who got down at Target; the truck’s seats were all wet from trying to get everyone in carefully at the nursing home.

We rushed around looking for something. Either everything was way too big or really plain looking. I had dressier clothes at home so I didn’t even bother trying to make something else look nice. Instead we went over to electronics and got some rechargeable batteries + charger for my camera since the one it came with was disposeable (which I thought was weird).

Getting out of Target was terrible…I almost got hit God knows how many times just trying to get out of the parking lot. The weather got better as we were closer to home, though, thank goodness.

The Quinceañ was actually much more fun than I anticipated. I still wish I’d found something nicer to wear, but once we were there and talking to relatives I hadn’t seen in a long time I sort of forgot about it. The kids’ presentation was so adorable; all the little boys whose ages varied from 5-15 bowed in front of Cori and gave her a rose they had hidden in their coats. Then later on, Cori and 3 of her friends had another little presentation. They’re all such good dancers!

Speaking of, Mario and I totally need to be taught how to dance. I will be getting my groove on at Noelia’s wedding in June!

Mario finally sold our old 1992 Prelude; the one Jorge had at his house for over a year and never actually “bought” from us. He sold it for MUCH LESS than that car’s worth, but it’s not like we could have gotten too much more for it because of the whole flooding incident at Jorge’s (he left it out of his garage and they live in a low-lying area =\).

Mario ended up getting an in-dash double-din TV for the Equinox. He says it’s his birthday/Christmas present, which I don’t think is too fair since I usually have the truck. He won’t really be able to enjoy it much =\. The rest of the money went towards a debt he owed his Godfather, Jorge, for. We were going to use the money for paying off bills, but we’re planning to do that during income tax refund time, if all goes well of course.

I would have finished this entry much earlier, but I was over at Mary’s talking to everyone. Most of the kids are being put to bed already (well, I say “already” but it’s kind of late. They’re usually in bed by 9.). Jaylen’s still up over here, giving me trouble. He only has one more minute to be up.

I can’t wait to see the look the their faces in the morning when they open up their gifts. That was the one present I wanted: for them to be happy. That’s all that matters :).

I probably won’t get around to telling everyone individually, so I’ll tell you now: have the best, most wonderful, love-filled Christmas!

First, I’d like to thank you all for the comments on my previous entry. Mario switched days off with a co-worker (per his co-worker’s request) and will have Monday off next week, so that’s when we plan to go through our closet and storage unit and find things for the family :).

Now for a much lighter entry. Mario was snappy last night, we made me get snappy. I took a shower, did laundry, and went to bed to read without saying a word to him at all. I was in bed reading for about 20 minutes when he jumps on the bed and puts his arm around my belly, chin on my shoulder and just lays there. Scared me half to death. That’s his way of saying “Sorry, let’s not argue anymore.”

I set the alarm for 12:30am, which I did not want to do, but I had to turn off the slow cooker (made ribs) and put laundry to dry. Add two more wake-up calls from the bladder; I couldn’t wake up this morning. I had every intention of crawling back into bed once John, the boys and Mario were out of the house, but I had some caffeinated coffee with Mario along with breakfast and now I’m completely awake. I’m going to regret this around 2pm. *eye twitches*

Remember what I said on my December 9th entry? That I had to go shopping and I just know one of the kids was going to act up? I was totally right. They were both good at the beginning. First stop was Gramma’s and they behaved pretty well. Next stop was Target. Something possessed Jaylen (a little demon I suspect) and he started throwing a fit as soon as we walked into the store and grabbed a cart. The carts were all wet since it’d been raining and he insisted on getting in one. After hearing a minute straight of his ear-piercing screams (and being started at my other customers) I told John to just put in in a cart, wet or not. He continued to scream over Heaven-knows-what and I started to feel really overwhelmed. John got what he went for (a hoodie sweatshirt) and he paid and I stormed to the front of the store as fast as I could. Eenan was being really good. He saw how stressed I was and just walked quietly beside me the whole time.

Jaylen, on the other hand, continued to scream all the way to the truck. Everyone got in the car and I calmly told him he was grounded, which set him off again. I lost it and yelled, “SHUT UP!!!” and started bawling my eyes out. I surprised Mom and John and the kids. Shoot, I surprised myself! Talk about hormones gone wild. I sat there, silently sobbing for a little while with my hands cupped over my eyes until I could get myself to calm down. I hate crying in front of people. And, hello? I don’t want people to know my kids can get to me that way. First thing I told mom and John was, “No one will know about this.”

And Jaylen? He didn’t even stay awake long enough to feel guilty for making his emotionally unstable mother cry. The boy fell asleep as soon as he heard my first sob.

I still had two stops to make, Kmart and Wal-Mart, but opted to go only to Kmart since the thing I needed to buy there was on sale and since it was Saturday, it wouldn’t be on sale the next day. There was no way I was going to Wal-Mart.

Mom stayed in the car with the boys. Jaylen was still sleeping and Eenan was being extremely good. I wiped my eyes one more time and John and I went into the store.

(Babe, you better NOT be reading this! Close the window right now!)

We went straight into the sporting goods department, because that’s where the knife Mario wanted was. We found it very quickly: A white and red ticket was taped to the display that said $17.99 on it, just like Mario described. We waited for a cashier and waited, and waited. Finally, after 10 minutes, I saw an employee pass by and I flagged him down. He sent the girl from that department over.

I tell her which one I want and she says. “Oh…” I feel my heart sink, shoot a look at John and ask her, “What happened?” She says, “This price is for an old Ad. It’s actually $31.99….”

She trails off and starts ripping off stickers from other items that are old and turns to me and says, “But, we have to give it to you for that price since the sticker was there.”

I felt so relieved and wanted to hug her. When we were walking to electronics, where we were going to pay, I whisper to John, “I’m so glad they’re giving it to me for that price. Otherwise, this would have been the–”

“–worst day of your life?”

“No, not the worst, but close. Top 10. No, top 5, at least.”

We browsed around a little after I paid and then we went to the truck. Jaylen was still sleeping and for a second I considered going to Wal-Mart but quickly snapped out of it after remembering just how horrible his mood is when he’s abruptly awaken.

I don’t know if it was pure coincidence, or if the dramatics with Jaylen set it off, but I started feeling really tired and breathless the next couple of days. If I did normal things, like walking around the house putting laundry away or sweeping or standing for long periods of time washing dishes, I’d get short of breath, my palpitations would start up and I’d feel light-headed. I was attentive to everything I was feeling though, and kept feeling for Alaethia’s movements, which were frequent, just in case.

Went to eat at Jesse’s on Sunday afternoon. Poor Mario had wanted to go there since his birthday and we finally had a chance. Mary went along with us. We ordered a delicious Seafood Platter and there was plenty of fish, shrimp, fried oysters (ew), stuffed crabs and frog legs (double ew) to go around. Mario specifically got that platter because he wanted to try the frog legs. He kept offering me some but I passed.

After lunch, we had two stops to make, the first of which I can’t remember for the life of me and the other to Wal-Mart. Mary offered to stay in the car with the boys since she was reading the newspaper so we were grateful for that. They’d been pretty good, but we didn’t want to risk it. I’m hoping this is just a phase Jaylen’s going through because it would really suck to have to leave them behind everytime I had errands to run :(.

As soon as we went into the store, I started feeling really sweaty and lightheaded. It was weird since I’d just eaten, so I knew it wasn’t that my sugar was low. We got everything we needed quickly and went home.

We got home and Mary took off again to buy a Christmas tree at H-E-B. Yadira, Tommy, and the kids came over to help decorate the tree. I’m usually up there, dizzy with Noelia after wrapping lights around the tree a few times, but I still felt too weak to help this year. Instead I took many pictures :).

We went to Elda’s after the tree-decorating to check out the chairs she upholstered. They looked so nice. Which reminds me, I need to upholster my hideous kitchen chairs, too. We’ve only had our table and chairs for a year (this Christmas) and the boys already destroyed the fabric. I’m going to upholster them with nice fabric covered in clear plastic. Hopefully they won’t end up stabbing the plastic, though.

Mario made burgers on the George Foreman that night, so I was plenty grateful for that. My feet wouldn’t have been able to take standing in front of the darn stove.

Mario and I had a talk on Monday or Tuesday after he got home from work. I don’t even know how it came up, I think it was something we saw on TV where a girl started crying or something and he asked, “Why are women like that? I mean, I don’t get it. How can you all just cry like that?” I laugh and say, “Hey, in my case it’s my hormones, darnit. I can’t help it at all. Trust me, I’d love it if I didn’t have to bawl all the time.” And the conversation went on from there.

We talked about the baby, our lives together, the boys, what we want in the future, and other stuff I can’t remember. I told him how I really wanted to help out with the bills and how I also wanted a house in at least a year, badly, and he told me not to rush. He said he found it strange how I kept saying I was “only spending a few months with the baby”. I felt like I had to rush. He never says anything about me not working, but I want to work. I cried a little when I told him I was going to miss a lot of her milestones when I started working, and he said, “You don’t have to miss anything, nobody told you you had to work!” Still, I’d love to work, but if I find it to hard to leave her I’m listening to Mario and staying home a little longer. The best of both worlds would be to work from home, but there aren’t very many opportunities like that where I live.

I’ll change the subject now. Thinking of all that stuff stresses me out, and she’s not even born yet!

Wow, my back hurts. My feet are feeling pretty good, but only because I constantly have them propped up when I get a chance to sit down. They’re not swollen or anything, which is weird, but they hurt so bad. Maybe it’s because I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been right now and my body’s not used to it? I wake up 3-4 times a night to pee and when I step down off the bed I get a stabbing pain in my feet. I finally stopped procrastinating and bought some soft flip-flop style slippers yesterday. My feet felt much better last night (I usually walk around barefoot, which hurts my feet even more). And speaking of night time, turning from one side to the other is the worst pain I’ve felt so far. I’ve heard a crack a few times when I’m slowly trying to turn.

The kids had a dentist appointment yesterday. I got Eenan out of school early, which I wasn’t too happy about since they have Benchmark tests and 6 Weeks tests going on. He should be alright though. Both of them did really good, although Eenan was hyper as always. Eenan got a filling re-done with minimal screaming. He just needed to hold my hand while Dr. Canales drilled. Jaylen loved his teeth cleaning and has absolutely no cavities :).

OMG, and did anyone watch the Biggest Loser yesterday?! Can you believe how thin the final four (and even some of the ones kicked off early and the ones excersizing at home) got? I would love to know what exercises they do. I need to find episodes on Youtube or something and save them so I can get inspired when I’m ready to work off this baby weight!

It occured to me that I’ve got a month and a week or so to go and I still have tons of stuff that need to be done around the house. I’ve already made a to-do list on Word and I’m praying we’ll get every single last thing crossed off that list!

My computer’s slowly dying. We’ve had it for 3 years already. I say ‘already’ because the last one we had gave out in 3 years also. It shuts down when making DVDs or when the kids are playing games on the Disney or Cartoon Network sites. I thought it was a virus or something at first, but Norton and all the other programs we have don’t alert us to anything. A while back, the computer diagnosed itself with either bad RAM, power supply, fan or harddrive. NICE. That’ll be easy to figure out *sarcasm*.

Before the computer dies, I need to back everything up (let’s see HOW I can do it since I can’t exactly burn much) and get all my old entries on WordPress. Thankfully, most of my important files are on my external harddrive. I need to go through my old pictures, which are on CDs, and add them (even though my camera from 2003–a Samsung Digimax 101–was crappy but at the time I thought it was amazing LOL) to Flickr. I also want to scan some old pics, like my baby pictures and pictures of Gramma, and add them, too.

I’ve also go to start wrapping presents. I’m the type of person that waits till Christmas Eve and stays up making cookies and wrapping presents till 1 or 2am because I’ve procrastinated all month. Not everything that’s in my closet is mine (Mary’s stashed some stuff in there, too) and I’ve got stuff at Mary’s and Mom’s:

Oh yeah, and I have to clean up the living room and kitchen. I don’t like that part.

The past few days have been…insane. I’ve been up and about since 3am Friday and my feet hate me for it. They’re thankfully not swollen, they just feel like I’m walking on glass or something.

Thanksgiving went without a hitch. Mario woke up at 6:45am to help Mary put the turkeys into the oven since one of them would have to be hauled to our house since we were having 2 turkeys, as usual. He totally let me sleep in; I didn’t wake up till 9am. By the time I showered and made myself presentable, it was 10am. I woke Mario up, who’d fallen back to sleep, and got the kiddos ready and we went over to Mary’s. The food was delicious as always. We had turkey, of course, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, broccoli rice, green bean casserole and probably more that I can’t remember at the moment. I lost my ravenous appetite half-way through my meal since Jaylen had been playing in their clubhouse and lost his footing at the bottom of the steps. He scraped his back on the last two steps and naturally screamed his head off. Since Mario was playing pool (since he’d already finished eating), he sends Jaylen in so that *I* can take care of him. After cleaning him up with peroxide, q-tipping some Neosporin on the scrape and covering it with a bandaid, I didn’t feel as hungry anymore. I put my plate away and about half an hour later, joined everyone who was eating dessert. I’ve craved pumpkin pie with Cool Whip so much during this pregnancy! Thank God I’m pregnant during the Fall/Winter months LOL.

Dad called and said he unfortunately couldn’t make it. I sort of figured he couldn’t come since his car isn’t working but I was hopeful. We agreed to make plans to get together later though.

We chilled out the rest of the day and later on when Andy and Noelia arrived (she was meeting some of Andy’s relatives she hadn’t met before) we started to browse through the Black Friday ads. All who were going sat around the kitchen table and discussed our game plan: who was going with who, what each person was in charge of getting and where we would meet in each store. At first John was hyped about going, but ended up changing his mind. Mario thought he was going to have the day off, but was called in, which really sucked. Andy would be at Best Buy; Mary, Sonia, Yadira, Tommy, Noelia, Yazmin and I would be at Wal-Mart (eek!) and would split up there. After that, we’d go to Target.

We left the house by 3am. Mario would stay with the boys till 8am, which is when he’d leave to work and Mom would take over. Mary, Noelia and I left in my truck, then we dropped Mary off at Yadira’s.

I won’t go into detail because so much went on, but I’ll say this: people were trampled, we heard a woman scream in pain, a man punched another man (probably because of the portable DVD players that were on sale for $50) so Mission P.D. was called (there were 5 cars outside the store), a fight broke out in electronics over some cameras, and I heard a woman crying in the bathroom when I went to pee before we left. DRA-MA. It was terrible. When Noelia and I were together at the beginning, we got the present Eenan wanted, which was on sale for $28 (down from $38) and some game boards. My job later on was to find some DVDs that were on sale for $3.88 and then get 2 hand mixers that were on sale for $4 for Mary. I did both without getting hurt. A nice family let me scoot in with them before the caution tape was cut to get to the isles with sale items. Everyone was really cautious because of my big, protruding belly :P.

Poor Mary had trouble finding the iDogs she was looking for. When a nice lady she’d met had held one for her, this bitchwoman who looked like a bulldog told the lady she was with Mary and that she’d take the iDog for her. We got there right when they were making the exchange. I tell Mary, “Tell her it’s for you!” and the bitchwoman says, “Too bad. She gave it to me.” Grr. We saw her later when we arrived at Target and I silently hoped that I could somehow curse her causing her not to find anything she wanted LOL.

The line at Target was insane. We were somewhere in the middle but people’d been camping there since the day before. Weirdos. I don’t know what they’d be there so early for. I was there for DVDs, I found the toy we got Eenan at Wal-Mart for $15 so we exchanged the other one later, Game Cube games, a crock pot and I can’t even remember what else. It was much more civilized and controlled at Target. People who were trying to cut in line or wait at the front of the parking lot to run in with the rest of us who’d been in line were quickly sent to the end of the line by the employees. And there was plenty of merchandise to go around.

Andy met us there. Poor thing didn’t get the computer he wanted from Best Buy, but that’s only because psycho people were waiting there since 4pm the day before O_o. I could never do that. I’m crazy enough to wake up at 3am, but not actually SLEEP there.

Andy did, however, get Eenan’s main present for us on sale (almost $100-150 off!), so that was much appreciated.

We had breakfast at Burger King and a few more stops, like K-Mart (which didn’t have much on sale and not much left of what was actually good), Academy and another 2 stops at Target and Walmart to return stuff. We had a very successful shopping day. My legs hurt SO BAD after we were done shopping–I couldn’t even climb into my truck to drive home!

I know 3 things that I’m getting for Christmas, buahaha! Edward Scissorhands and Season 1 of Grey’s Anatomy from Mary and a Flickr account from Mom–woo!

Mario got out of work later than he thought he would, and because of a misunderstanding he didn’t get his paycheck cashed before the banks closed. Totally sucked. I was hoping we’d make it out to KB Toys to get Jaylen’s main present, but I sucked it up as best as I could and we just chilled out here.

I left to town with Mary the next morning while Mom watched the boys. We went to pick up Mario’s check at work, came back half-way and cashed it, then went back to town. We went to Best Buy, where I got 4 awesome DVDs for $20 (as you’ve probably noticed, I’m not mentioning much of what I got just in case I get some snoopy readers ;)! *cough*family*cough*) We went to Target again and then had lunch with Mario at El Pato. We dropped him off and finished our shopping (I’m so out of it I can barely remember where we went!) and we finally came home. I ended up finding Jaylen’s main gift at Target–the LAST ONE LEFT. I was so happy I almost cried. I was certain I wouldn’t be able to find it anymore and was kicking myself for not getting it the day before, but yay, we found one :). And cheaper than KB’s or anywhere else for that matter.

My feet were on fire that day.

I got the kids ready in their costumes for Brandon’s birthday party when we got home while they watched Ice Age the Meltdown. I *had* to get it; the cheapest I found it was $14.99 at one of the Targets in McAllen. All the other ones had it for $19.99, which I found really weird.

Elda had decorated the carport in a Haunted House theme and the kids were wearing their Halloween costumes. They had a moon jump and musical chairs and the food for the adults was menudo (the kids had hot dogs). It was really good and the desserts were cute. Elda borrowed my Betty Crocker Bake-n-Fill cake pans and made a spider cake with chocolate Twizzler legs.

John and I were going to go to Target after the party, but I could hardly keep my eyes open and my legs still hurt really bad, so Mary and Noelia offered to join us. Mom stayed with the boys while they watched Ice Age the Meltdown. John ended up buying an iPod after being annoyingly undecisive for half an hour. I got a gift for Catherine’s birthday, which isn’t till December 13th but I was getting such a deal I couldn’t pass it up. Mario had called while we were there and asked me to buy him a long-sleeved shirt since it was cold and he wanted Mary to drop me off at Jorge’s for a party they were having for Manny, their neighbor.

Mary drops me off, but we ended up coming home since Maggie was just home from work and in the shower and Mario wanted to rent movies anyway. We stop at Video Plus and rent some movies and get some ice creams. We get home, get in our PJs and about 15 minutes into the movie (You, Me and Dupree) decide we’re too darn sleepy to watch it LOL.

I dropped Mario off the next day since he wanted me to pick him up and go grocery shopping. I woke up that morning to Mary washing my mountain of dishes that were left in the sink from the past 3 days since I had hardly been home (and when I was, I was resting my poor feet!). I felt so embarrassed and kept telling her she shouldn’t have. I cleaned for a while and then John came over and watched the boys (I don’t want to leave them, they just hate going on any kind of shopping trips because ‘Mama takes too long’) while Mary, Mom and I went to Target yet again since Mom needed to get some Christmas gifts that were on sale. We’d done our gift exchange the night before and I had two boys I needed to get games for and they just so happened to be the exact amount of money I needed to spend on each gift, so I got them. I also got a gift for Mario’s godfather which I got for a pretty damn good deal. We’re thankfully almost done with Christmas shopping! We only need a few more small gifts for the kiddos and about 6 more gifts for the family and a birthday present for my dad-in-law. I’m so happy :).

We stopped to see Gramma for a while and put up her Christmas decorations per her request. She’d also asked me to make her a Christmas CD so I obliged and we were listening to it while we put her tree up. I miss my Grimmy and wish she could be here for Christmas :(.

We picked Mario up when it was time to do so and we went grocery shopping. I love when he’s there–it’s so much easier to pick stuff to cook during the week when he makes suggestions.

I was on a cleaning frenzy yesterday and sat like, 2 times during the whole day. Mario even had me drive over to his work during lunch to drop off some stuff and pick up a pizza for him. I had to get more cough medicines for the kids since Eenan’s teacher was complaining that he’d gotten the whole class sick which is a bunch of bull. She told the nurse I should have kept him home, but hello? He coughed maybe 3 times all day long–how could I keep him home for a cough?!

I actually got to take my morning nap today (didn’t fall asleep till 1:30am yesterday) and then cleaned, sewed curtains for Mary, and cooked. I had everything done by 8:30pm, which is why I actually have a chance to update. The kiddos are actually sleeping pretty well during the night which I’m so grateful for. I haven’t heard one cough. Thank God for Triaminic, Vicks Vaporub and humidifiers!

I have my 31 week doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I’m so excited. I’m actually getting really nervous and anxious now since there are only 9 weeks left! I have so much to do before she’s born. Mario and I decided we should get my registry done as soon as possible, while I can still walk. John and Mario are always teasing me about how big my belly is and how it seems to grow every few minutes LOL.

Oh wow, the weather should be nice and cold by Thursday. I can’t wait!

I shall shower now. I plan on sleeping early tonight, no matter how late Mario gets here (it’s Tuesday–they have beers on Tuesday).