Category: Holiday

I got up early and started making breakfast. I had a buffet of regular pancakes, banana pancakes, omelets and bacon available. Sally was coming over later, around 9:30am, so that gave me enough time to have everything ready. Mario ate breakfast and left to work. He was going to work a half-day only, so that was exciting :).

Sally got here and we ate and talked for a good while. She said we spent a lot of time eating but I would have felt horrible just getting straight to work and not even chatting. She’s such a doll, though. She gave me such great advice and even moved everything around in my closet to make more space. She even brought me two Rubbermaid storage boxes she’d bought at Target! She also foamed up the crack at the bottom of the closet floor, which I’d been asking Mario to do for the past year! I was so sad she had to leave so soon, but she also had things to do and it was her dad-in-law’s birthday.

Mario got home around 1pm. He wanted to take a nap, but asked if I wanted him to do anything around the house first. I said SURE! You don’t have to ask me twice! He began disassembling Alaethia’s crib to turn it into a daybed for her. He finished and John, who was in the living room, went to help him move it into Aly’s room. They couldn’t get it into the room at all! The hallway curves weirdly so they couldn’t make a complete turn to get the bed inside. So there’s poor Mario disassembling the crib again in the hallway, then dragging all the pieces into her room and reassembling them. He was not a happy camper after that so he wasn’t too thrilled when I asked him and John to help me (and by help me I mean they did it all since I can’t move anything heavy myself) rearrange the furniture in my bedroom. John went home and Mario went to sleep when they were done while I looked through old magazines. Mario and I had 11 magazine folders in total. Most are his. He needs to look through all of his and I still have a few folders to go through, plus a pile of junk to sort and put away.

I made up Alaethia’s daybed all pretty with her Amy Coe bedding and then I took a shower. Everyone started arriving a while later. Much to Mario’s protests he went with me to buy fireworks for the boys. While we were at the ATM we ran into Rolando and his family. Eenan was sad he missed him; I told him to go with me!

Mom spent the whole day making buñuelos and burritos for everyone. We all ate and then started taking chairs out to watch the fireworks. Just about everyone stayed under the Party Porch since it was drizzly and cold. The boys had a blast with their fireworks (under adult supervision of course—I was freaking out scolding everyone even like that LOL) and kept their hoodies and shoes on for once.

I felt so left out LOL. Everyone was having some sort of mixed drink. I’d never wanted a Margarita in my life so badly. How strange that my pregnancies with both girls have caused me to crave alcohol (not that I drink any while pregnant of course). Jose made me a virgin salty dog. It was alright.

Mario made the mistake of bringing out his shot glass that’s like 5-6 shots in one. A boy we didn’t know, Mario and Adan all took full shots of Vodka from it, instigated by Jose. I kept telling Mario not to do it, but he never listens. At least 5 people did walk away with incriminating photos and video LOL.

When midnight neared people started going crazy firing their guns into the air. I hate that about where we live. Yeah, it’s almost like the boonies, but it is a very-populated, residential area. Some of our own relatives brought out their shotguns and at first were shooting into the ground and then started shooting into the air. I herded all my kids inside and made them stay here while I helped Mary, Elda, Mom and Mona clean up. I gathered all the dishes, washed them and got in bed with Alaethia. I was a bit upset with Mario because he was out there with the gang, but I got over it. Not before lecturing him on gun safety and how dangerous it is to shoot into the air. Heck, I learned my lesson last March! The whole conversation was a bit pointless though seeing as how he was quite drunk. John had come over towards the end of the night and Mario was telling us all this story that he’d just told the night before to the exact same people that were at Adan’s. I even repeated word-for-word to John what Mario said about a second later. He didn’t believe me, which was funny.

As soon as Mario got into bed he was OUT. First time we’d ever gone to sleep “early” for New Years!

Christmas! I’d set the alarm for 8am, since this time we weren’t going to be up super early and hardly any of the family was going to come over till much, much later. The boys, however, were awake by 7 and Mary waited to call till 7:45, when they couldn’t contain themselves anymore. Mario wanted to take a quick shower and of course they were complaining ’cause they had to wait so long for Mario. Mary and I tried to stall by separating everyone’s presents (mainly theirs) into piles for easy opening. As I was getting ready to set up the baby monitors Alaethia woke up and Mario was finally ready. The boys opened their presents first and I’m so happy that they were happy with their Santa gifts and gifts from us and everyone else. They actually asked for “small” gifts from Santa this year (Jaylen – the whole Pixos set and Eenan the Nintendogs Chihuahua DS game), which Santa really appreciated because he was on a budget this year ;).

They mostly got DS games, movies (Wall-e and Kung-Fu Panda on Blu Ray!), art stuff, and lots of science lab stuff. They even got an awesome microscope/computer kit (that Jaylen became too over-eager opening and cut his finger with a tool). Mona out-did herself; she got the boys some really nice Transformers toys and a blanket and froggy (that really croaks!) for Alaethia. The boys finished with their gifts and went on their merry way to play with everything.

Next it was Alaethia’s turn. I was a little upset because Elda grabbed her and helped her open presents while Mario took video. It sounds whiny and childish, but I wanted to be the one to sit with her and open presents. That’s something I should have been doing with her. That, and I never have pictures of myself with the kids, ever, unless I ask someone to take them. But anyway.

Alaethia loved her My First Dollhouse from Santa she wanted to open all of her accessories right away and play. She also loved her Hello Kitty from John, the giant Care Bear from us and the stroller from us. She promptly stuffed the big Care Bear in there and gave her a ride in the stroller.

Andy and Noelia got there and she opened her treasure chest from them. It was almost like an actual treasure chest, filled with tons of girlie accessories and a super soft Tinkerbell blanket I wanted to steal for myself LOL.

I loved all of my gifts. Mario and I didn’t get each other anything big (he got me two DVDs I’d been wanting and I got him a knife). Mary went all out as usual. She got me the first 3 Twilight books, City of Angels on DVD (which I’d have to exchange since that’s one of the ones Mario bought me), slippers, boxers, Mrs. Doubtfire on DVD and a beautiful butterfly necklace. Grandpa surprised all of us by giving every single member of the family cash, including my mom and brother! I felt so emotional when I opened that envelope and then learned he’d included Mom and John. I totally signed into Ebay later and ordered Batteries Not Included for myself (and that was all I bought really, for $7.35).

Mario made some Mexican hot chocolate and it was delicious. I had like, 3 glass-fulls. I don’t think we had any breakfast just so we could make space for all the delicious turkey, gravy and the trimmings. It was like Thanksgiving all over again!

We chilled out the rest of the day enjoying the kids and each other and their new gifts. Alaethia was amazingly entertained by her stuff! I tried organizing her room as best as I could, to make room for all her new stuff. We still had some girl-ifying to do to her room, heh.

Will add pictures to this entry soon.

I’d been waiting for this day since last Thanksgiving and couldn’t wait to eat some of Yadira’s green bean casserole, Mary’s turkey, stuffing and broccoli rice, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream! I prayed and hoped that Alaethia could keep her food down and that I (or Mario or anyone else for that matter) didn’t catch what she’d had. She hadn’t thrown up since the night before, so things were looking positive.

I’d invited Dad over for Thanksgiving and he actually came! He came about 3 hours early (I told him everything started at 12) because he supposedly had to be somewhere else by 11:30. I was glad he showed up, though. I didn’t feel we were close enough to invite him about 4 years ago, and the past three years when I did invite him he never came over. He probably didn’t think about it all those Thanksgivings he was away when we were little, but I did think about him now as an adult and felt almost guilty about him being home alone, eating alone. I remember I asked him once how his Thanksgiving was and he told me he and his friends got together and went to eat at the Salvation Army dinner. But anyway.

Mom was catering to Dad like she was a waitress. She even had me make a pot of coffee and then when the food was done, serve a plate for him. He left around 11:20. I was hoping he’d stay and eat with us and all, but I guess it would be too overwhelming since it was his first time meeting family other than my in-laws. Maybe next year.

Of course Mom wasn’t going to live it down. Everyone was teasing her, especially because they know Dad’s asked her to run away with him to his house at least 10 times. He’d actually half-joked again just that day that she should leave with him.

I started getting strong stomach cramps around 11am, before Dad left. I kept clutching at my belly and cringing and Yadira noticed. She said Ana, one of her co-workers, had gotten cramps and diarrhea after her baby had been sick with vomiting so what if I had the same thing? I waited around and even debated not eating anything at all in case I did get sick. That didn’t last long; I served myself a nice plate of food and ate to my heart’s content. And then I had dessert. The boys and Alaethia actually ate really well—who doesn’t during the Thanksgiving feast? I got to see Mario here and there; he was outside under the back porch with the men and we women were inside browsing through the Black Friday ads. Mary and I weren’t really planning to go to the sales at all, but Annie and Cat asked her to go so I volunteered myself to go along with her. I was a little sad Mario wouldn’t get to join in the madness since he’d only gotten Thursday off and not Friday. We worked out a game plan and gave everyone their assignments.

I had pains on and off throughout the day. Sometimes they felt like they were contractions, which freaked me out so I tried staying hydrated and immobile. I even drank a Sprite to settle my stomach; everyone who knows me knows that I only drink Sprite when I feel sick LOL. I felt a little better by dinner time, thankfully.

I had a quick dinner of leftover stuffing and broccoli rice and went to sleep early, around 9ish. Mario took care of Alaethia while I slept. He gave her Tylenol when she was feverish again. At one point he got bored and dressed her up warmly to go over to Adan’s. He didn’t get desperate and take her to me at all, like he usually does. I was really proud of him, and incredibly impressed that he didn’t wake me up ONCE for help!