Category: Holiday

I had already made a “New Year’s Resolution” to myself that I would post a little something every day (just like I made a pact with myself that come January 1st, it would be the 1st day of the rest of my life that I ate 100% healthy and just tonight Emily, Alaethia and I polished off the last of the New Year’s Eve queso dip *sigh*); but it’s already the 3rd day of January and I’m really not even sure if I’ll end up finishing this post, heh.

But anyway, since the last time I updated, the kids were all at the other parents’ houses. Jorge and I chilled out a lot and I cooked a lot. That’s usually when I try new things; when the kids are away. It’s a good distraction and we can try foods the kids wouldn’t regularly eat willingly, heh.

So Sunday I made this:

Right after we watched “10 Things I Hate About You”. Always one of my favorites. Heath Ledger *sob*.

Then Jorge humored me on yet another one of my ideas: a solar-light jar that I’d like to hang from a tree. So we took apart a $1 solar light from Dollar Tree, I puff-painted a Prego Jar and voila! It worked :).

The next 3 days at work would be a hectic blur of e-mails in Spanish, since the Mexican Artisan Expo is coming up next week. Literally, that’s all I did for 3 days.

Got home and made dinner on Monday night:

It was a hit with the guys :). I can’t remember what brand the packet was, but it was a Tuscan sauce you add sauteed chicken and rotini to. It was tasty.

I went to visit Minnie from Hidden Treasures after work Tuesday since she had a Puppy Brite she was clearancing out. I was hoping to make it on time to look around but her shop was closed. She surprised me with the FREE Puppy Brite and told me about her future plans for the shop.

She’ll be leaving January but will return February with Hidden Treasures. I’m happy she’s staying. I owe her for starting me on my obsession, heh.

I had ordered 100+ photos for $.10 each from Walgreens when the sale came around. I ALWAYS miss it, and haven’t printed any photos in about 2 years! So I took advantage. That night, after making dinner, I went through my scrapbooking stash and took a whole bunch of stuff out for a scrapfest :). Jorge sat at the table playing a game and John sat at the table using his phone, so we sat there and joked while I cut and pasted away.

The weather was dreary and cold on the 31st. I met my love for lunch anyway since I needed to remove my face from the computer. The e-mails were so monotonous and the office was as cold as a meat freezer (it always is *sob*) I just had to get away. So we went to Texadelphia, since he didn’t want to have Jason’s Deli -_- . I was trying to go for a “healthier” choice and picked a chicken sandwich on wheat bread but it was drenched in so much vinaigrette that it ruined my sandwich. The fries and queso were great, though!

I picked the kiddos up from their dad’s that evening, dropped them off with Mom and met Jorge at HEB to buy the New Year’s Eve stuff. It was raining by this time and the girls were sniffly so fireworks and s’mores outside were out of the question. Jorge’s boys ended up staying at their mother’s (where they did do fireworks and 2 ended up coming back sick, grr).

We decided to make queso dip, pigs in a blanket and watch some TV. The kids were ok with it. We also got some Welch’s sparkling grape juice for the kids to toast with us at midnight ^_^. I didn’t want wine, but Jorge convinced me, and the d’asti I love was on sale so I got it.

As soon as we walk in the door Mom comes in to help unload groceries…and immediately drops the wine bottle. I couldn’t believe it.

Sally and her George were supposed to come over but George worked late and then plans changed so they ended up doing their thing. I know I’m getting old because I was perfectly ok with chilling with Jorge and the kids watching Cristela and snacking on stuff :).

It sucked that Jorge’s boys weren’t here, but I was happy to bring in the new year with the rest of the family. When midnight came around, we toasted with the kids, gave hugs and kisses all around and went to bed a while later, hehe.

We spent Thursday feeding the kids and spending time with them. Jorge even found the last episode of Season 1 of “Selfie” on an app on his iPad and we watched that. Then it was gingerbread time. The kids’ dad gave them 3 boxes of gingerbread projects to do and this was the 1st:

We gathered all the kids to watch “The Book of Life”.

It was as adorable and colorful as I thought it was going to be :).

My poor Jorge had to work Friday :(. I spent the day lazying with the kids ALL DAY LONG. Well, after going to Walmart to get some cereal and other groceries.

I put the ingredients for beef stew in the slow cooker and then the kids and I watched all of Season 1 of “Friends”. And then my last Christmas gift from Jorge came in: my Keurig!

You would think someone who loves coffee as much as I do would have asked for one as soon as they came out, but I’m such a cheapskate I couldn’t justify spending money on one. We have one at work that Ivan provided for us in the copy room and it really is convenient. My love just so happened to get this one for a steal so I’m THRILLED!

Jorge calls around 5:30pm that their company party is that evening…and that spouse are welcome to join. I was suddenly extremely grateful I had the foresight to make dinner in the slow cooker. I had about an hour to do my hair (which was in all it’s curly, lion-mane glory) and find something to wear. After several runs bath and forth between my closet and the laundry room, I found an outfit. Mom served dinner to the kids and then Jorge and I were on our way to the Blue Onion.

We had such a good time; they even had a trivia game for the employees. And the food, OMG, the food! I could gorge on the pita and hummus all day!

We slept in a bit today and then I dropped off Jorge’s wallet to him at work and I ran errands. My day consisted of ordering more pictures ($.09 at Walgreens till 11:59pm!), watched the first episode of Dr. Who with the kids and cooking and got a head start on the laundry. Jorge walks in and says, “What are you doing?? That’s my job!” and made me stop, heh. We’re watching a UFC Fight while the kids either lazy around on the sofa next to us or are playing Xbox.

Well, what do you know, I wrote a whole post and I may actually publish it. This should have probably been my “resolutions” post, but it really is the same bullet points as they usually are: eat healthy, exercise, lose weight, not stress, be a better fiance/mom/daughter/sister, be nicer to everyone around me, etc. I hope to accomplish those and if I could shave off some debt and save money it would be the cherry on top ^_^.

I can’t decide whether December’s been a month that has gone by fast…or slow. It’s kind of a combination of both, I guess.

Since the last time I posted (which was almost a month ago), we celebrated Tony’s birthday. It was an Ugly Sweater themed party but Jorge wasn’t too keen on the idea and I figured, When else am I going to use an Ugly Sweater? So we opted out.

And then our boss let us know that our annual Staff Party was…Ugly Sweater themed. Lord Jesus LOL.

I took the girls to the Inaugural Lighting of the Christmas Tree at the Convention Center.

They were fantastically patient, since it started at 6pm but after speeches from the Convention Center director and the Mayor (whom the girls personally met and felt super excited about) they didn’t actually light up the tree till around 6:45pm. Their restraint scored them a trip to nearby RGV Cupcakes :).

December 3rd was the final day for our Latina Hope, er, “semester”. The morning went by without a hitch, the ladies did their presentations and then it was over and time for some Wing Stop! Michelle and I made our way over there and EZ and Anabel met us. Yum.

Another Inaugural event was happening that weekend, the Holiday Parade. We’d made plans to go, even though we had no idea what to expect since the weather was iffy, Jorgie was still sort of hobbling around with his crutches even though he’d gotten his cast removed, and Mom was going with us. I was skeptical about her and those stadium seats, but she wanted to see Mario Lopez on the float, heh.

It was an all-day event in itself preparing for the parade. I fed the kids, got ready and headed to HEB to buy snacks. Got home, packed a bag with snacks, got everyone ready and then we braved the traffic to drop Jorge’s parade ticket off…since he forgot it that morning and he’d be meeting us at the event.

The traffic was insane since the streets were closed but we dropped off Jorge’s ticket without a hitch. Well, until, of course, I’d turn on the wrong street due to a “right turn only” sign, grr. But we still made it through the hoards of walking people and the buses transporting people to the stadium. Very slowly, but we made it. All the kids looked out the windows in awe and Eenan said, “Is this what it’s going to be like during the Zombie Apocalypse??” Yes. Probably.

Even with our tickets and parking, we still had to walk all the way around the parking lot and out to the main street to get to the stadium. Poor Jorgie was sweating by then and Mom was exhausted (due to her usually sedentary lifestyle) by the time we reached the stadium. We took potty breaks as soon as we made it in and the kids were amazingly well-behaved and ate snacks while we watched the Posada and Nutcracker performances. Jorge made it after finding parking pretty far away and said it started sprinkling on his way to the stadium. But it dwindled down and we enjoyed the show :).

It was a great show :). We had to wait till the very end to leave, since people rushed by and didn’t bother letting poor Jorgie down with his crutches. I wanted to visit my workplace’s booth and see TR3N perform, but the rain was coming down. By the time we got to our car and drove Jorge to where his car was parked it was pouring. There was no way we’d make it to the park.

So we got home and ate and chilled out :).

The kids decorated the tree the next day (December 7th):

And I made a Taco Casserole. I’m going to have to post that recipe, it was amazing! Certainly not diet-friendly by any means, but pretty amazing!

We had leftover tortillas the next day, so I made the girls some quesadillas.

The evening didn’t go without incident; my little Emily–always my little helper in the kitchen–cut her finger pretty deeply lifting the lid on a can of beans. John flew in to the rescue because I really was panicking. She always wants to do so much more, but we had a lecture about how she’s 5 and can only do so much around the kitchen. *sigh*

Alaethia’s Country Christmas performance was on Tuesday the 10th. Mom, the boys, Mario and Mary joined Emily and I. Her class did such a good job, even after they had technical difficulties with the song starting up ^_^!

It was also Family Reading Night afterwards so the girls got to test, scored some free books and even got some face painting done.

It’s all about food at our house. Alaethia requested “Boats” on Wednesday.

And she also requested that we work on a snowman for the Snowman Contest the library was holding. She saw the entries during Family Reading Night so I picked up some supplies at Michael’s after work and got to it. They were due THAT FRIDAY. Aye.

I was slowly receiving my orders, which were my Christmas gifts from Jorge and Mom.

I already had this Rainbow Brite since sometime around the early 2000’s, but I won an auction for her hair piece.

Now I have a few duplicates, which I’d like to post for sale, but first I need to get into my boxes and see which duplicates are nicer to keep, heh.

On Friday, the 12th, I went to lunch at Feldman’s, on my own since Jorge was working in Brownsville and I needed to get a gift for the White Elephant gift exchange at the staff party that evening. If you’re in my area, I highly recommend the Friday Special there, which is this insanely delicious lasagna:

I ended up running into EZ and Michelle, who were also looking for a gift during their lunch hour hehe.

Jorge got home that evening and we got ready to go. He was not happy at all about wearing an Ugly Sweater, or a Santa Hat, but he was such a good sport ^_^.

He’s totes adorbs!

We had such a good time with all my coworkers and the White Elephant game is always a blast. We ended up with a Starbucks giftcard I stole from Gerry hehe.

We had a Karaoke after party, where Michelle and I sang “All About that Bass”, I sang “Cowboy Take Me Away” and then Gerry, Michelle and I sang “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. It was a blast!

Dina, Javi, Briana and the kids were visiting and were already waiting for a bit when we got home. We stayed up chatting on the porch for a bit until I started nodding off and we came inside to sleep. Everyone was pretty exhausted.

Alaethia had her UIL competition so I chilled out with Jenny, Mary and Emmos in the cafeteria while she competed. The girls left with Mary (Mario’s weekend, unfortunately) and I went back home and started cleaning. Once Dina, Briana and Javi got back from visiting their peeps, we chilled out here. Jorgie and I made the Taco Casserole for everyone and it was a hit again :).

We hung around all day Sunday until we went to Noni’s for some delicious menudo. We watched the kids play outside for a bit and then we headed home. Jorge would be away for the next 2 1/2 days so we had to get home and get him ready.

I got a chance to have lunch with Sally while Jorge was gone ^_^. We hadn’t seen each other in forever and it was nice to catch up.

The girls had some great news that day, too: they were one of the winners in the Snowman Contest! They got a $20 gift card from Target, so naturally they asked to go to Target to buy Shopkins that evening, heh.

It was a long 3 days without Jorge. He was working away at a ranch so he had horrible reception and I couldn’t randomly text him like I usually do. I had a pretty hard time sleeping, which is saying something since I sleep like a rock when he’s home, heh. The girls and I were glad when Wednesday came around and he got home :).

Fast-forwarding: I had only done a very small amount of Christmas shopping, so we literally shopped at the last minute. So I went to donate blood like I’d promised Sally on Saturday the 20th.

Then braved the masses at the mall. Yes. The mall. I wanted to get Jorge some colognes so there I went. Luckily, I found perfect parking after a few cruises around the parking lot. And I was already there, so I finished the rest of my shopping for the adults. I went to Target for a few other sales and then we were 75% done. The rest of the shopping was done by both Jorge and I at Best Buy for the big boys and he even made a run on his own to Toys R Us for a pickup truck Julien asked for that we COULD NOT track down at Target. He got the last one!

I took Emily to an optometrist appointment on Monday the 22nd. She’d failed her eye test at school and after the extremely long wait at the appointment, they let us know she’s got pretty high astigmatism and needs to see a specialist. Poor baby. She was pretty upset about needing glasses =\.

Work went buy at a snail’s pace it seems on Tuesday and Wednesday. A lot of people were on vacation, so it was just a handful of us to say the least.

While the kiddos were asleep we stuffed stockings:

Then Jorge filled an extra stocking we had with random junk and gave it to John. John quickly got to work on his “Maguiver Kit”!!

We worked on Christmas Eve to get Friday off, but we got donuts and then got to go to Lonestar BBQ!

My kiddos left that evening to spend the night at their Dad’s for Christmas Eve, and Jorge announced that we were going to pretend we weren’t 100 for once, so we had dinner and drinks at Cheddar’s.

Then we met Tony and Billy at Skean-Dhu.

We hadn’t seen Billy in a while so we caught up and had some laughs. I was proud of myself for staying up past midnight for once, heh.

We got home and wrapped the last of the presents. Jorge kept asking, randomly, where John was and he even posted on his wall on Facebook. We saw the lights of John’s car beam in the window so we got the brilliant idea to grab chairs from the dining room, put them directly in front of the door and sit like two angry parents waiting for their kid to come home, arms crossed and all. He unlocks the door and we keep ourselves composed. As soon as he swings open the door he grabs his chest in fear, seeing our legs and thinking that we were duct-taped, bound and were being held at gunpoint or something. Then I said, “Where have you been, young man? We’ve been worried!” He exhaled audibly, glad we weren’t dead LOL. Not exactly the outcome we were hoping for but it was hilarious. We laughed about it after his shock wore off, hehehe.

The next morning, we had breakfast. It’s always somber and strange when they’re not here for Christmas morning. But we picked up the kids to start our Christmas celebration :).

We had happy kiddos, thank goodness. We ate Delia’s tamales like we traditionally do. We visited Gramma and then I helped the girls bake on their LalaLoopsy oven.

We had fun :). Emily announced that, next year, she wanted to buy gifts for a less fortunate family and buy them food. She made my heart swell and a lump form in my throat :*). So proud of my babies!

Our kiddos left back to the other parent’s house since it’s their weekend, so I did a lot of cleaning and my grocery shopping yesterday. Aunt Nora and Linda visited yesterday and we caught up a bit. Then I cleaned the house just in time to relax with my love in the evening :). It’s been a great weekend. Gotta get through the next 3 days of work and then it’s 4 days of relaxation! Well, somewhat, heh.

I guess now’s a good a time as ever to update. I’m in the living room with Jorgie, Justin and Julien, who are all busied by electronics and we’re probably all a little under the tryptophan haze after having had Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch. My kiddos were picked up to spend the weekend with their dad’s family. It always feels a bit melancholy when they’re not here after Thanksgiving, but it is their Dad’s weekend and I’m glad we were able to be together for Thanksgiving. Providing that I don’t work next weekend (I’m REALLY keeping my fingers crossed), I’m hoping we’ll have a fun beginning-of-December, as the City is putting on their Holiday Extravaganza (not formally the name of the event, but it may as well be!).

So I’ll go back a few weeks and update on whatever I remember.

The week following Halloween was the first of many hectic weeks at work, little did I know. I started out by thinking up some centerpieces for the Annual Banquet, along with my other duties. The hours just whizzed by. It took 3 trips to Hobby Lobby to find everything we’d need for the centerpieces. My week in a nutshell: Put the centerpieces together, attend a small Expo (where we made some good contacts for my Expo), find a last-minute costume for the Annual Banquet (60’s theme this year!), and get ready for and attend our Wednesday meeting, then help get the museum ready for the Annual Banquet. It was a colorful week, indeed!

I picked the boys up on Wednesday since I’d be swamped on Friday, and their dad liked the idea since he was going to “borrow” them the next week on Wednesday for his birthday, too. So it worked out. Of course the weather would be cruddy for the Annual Banquet; it was drizzly and chilly. But it was a fun night! Anabel and Blanca did a great job :).

The decor was amazing and bright and the evening flowed like a dream.

We also got to admire the beautiful altars created to celebrate Dia de los Muertos. Dania from the Incubator was one of the main artists that worked on the Alice in Wonderland-inspired altar. It was beautiful!

Also happening this night was a mysterious texter that was sending messages to Jorge letting him know she was thinking about him and that she knew where he lived. We immediately assumed it was his psychotic ex-girlfriend from highschool (who has on 2 separate occasions in 2012 and just this year attempted to get in contact with him again via Facebook), but as we got more information realized it was somebody completely unexpected! I’m gonna have to hide him!!

When I got home from the Banquet, and after settling down, Jorge and I had a long talk. We’ve both been so busy and exhausted that we’d failed to spend time together at home, and just talk. It was a good reminder and I’m glad he took the initiative to bring it up :).

~~~

I went home early due to too many hours at work and got to eat lunch with my love the next day at Espi’s. Didn’t stop me from working from home, though. We were on a time-crunch for our Expo and I wanted to get as many exhibitors as I could.

Picked up the kiddos and just had a lazy weekend. Spent most of the time outside, or lounging, or cleaning the girls’ room with them. Alaethia came and piled her Care Bears on the sofa and said, “We can get rid of these now.” My heart naturally broke into a million pieces :(. I remember when she would take every single one of them she owned everywhere she went.

Case in point:

The next work week was a blur of interviews (my first radio interview in Spanish, ever) and photo shoots for the Newsletter. It also included a meeting regarding the upcoming food festival over some cappuccino and lunch later during the week at Taste of India.

Which reminds me of the night John decided he was going to re-enact Sia’s “Chandelier” video. The kids were already in bed so only Jorge and I got to witness this hilarity. He saw the video one time and said, “Ok, I got it,” and proceeded to do his thang. And then he wanted to watch Bollywood videos he pretended to know the words to and I couldn’t UNHEAR him at Taste of India. Jesus.

Cut to my previous post update and then it was the 18th of November. Jorge and I’s Still-somewhat-unofficial-offical Anniversary date. 4 years and I couldn’t be happier :*).

Kumori was the 2nd place we ever had a date at. Our first was at Mimi’s but it closed down a year ago :(.

This week was hectic, too. I had to make centerpieces for Michelle and Ivan’s event, get the food festival brochure in the mail and work on the Expo and attend meetings. To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement.

The girls had art project after art project that week. They didn’t have to turn them in till December 1st, but Mom taught them to get things over with fast, and that they did. I had to pick up more pom poms and glitter, but I always welcome a trip to Michael’s hehe.

They also and homework galore. Jorge is such a huge help. He is WAY more patient at teaching little kids math than I am. It’s almost as though he enjoys it :). I got to get us some Delia’s one of those nights, so that was a welcome change :).

Thursday was Michelle and Ivan’s event and that day felt like it just zoomed by. Friday came around and I was so overwhelmed (and PMS’ing, TMI) that I bawled by the end of the day. I hate that feeling. You know it’s coming, too. When your eyes well up and you get that lump in your throat and the waterfall of tears comes and there’s nothing you can do. Oh yeah, and it happened in front of my boss . FML.

I was relieved when it was time to go and picked up the kiddos. I spent time with them as much as I could since I knew I’d be working Saturday (for set-up) and Sunday (for the Expo). They’re just awesome ^_^.

How did those boys get so HUGE?? Can someone make it stop??

Set-up went well and the event went as good as it could go. 2 exhibitors didn’t show up, but at least they’d already paid =\. We didn’t have the 4,000+ people we wanted but it was a good event. And I was SO GLAD it was over!

I met an author that day who gave me his book to help with my acne problem. That’s what I love about my job: the people I meet. I know he and his lovely wife were placed in my path for a reason, and I’m glad to have met them :). (Especially after all the stress from the week before; my face was ravaged! :I)

I went shopping for something to wear for our 50’s photo shoot. Me and my brilliant ideas. We did end up finding a gentleman with a ’56 Ford Victoria, thanks to EZ and the contacts we made the weekend of the car show, but now we needed to find clothes! I was so stressed. I did end up finding some little red flats but who knew what else I was going to do.

So Monday comes around and I jump right into my next 3 events: the Mexican Artisan Expo, the Food Festival and the ladies’ project. I had tons to do and had to break up my time into sections because I’m notorious for developing ADD and not sticking to one thing and then I become overwhelmed. I went to Old Navy during my lunch hour to find something to wear, and found a 50’s-era looking jacket. The only one in the entire store in my size. Didn’t even have a tag and had a scrape on the “leather” arm, but it would have to do.

The car was beautiful! The couple who owns it were so nice and agreed to let us use it at the Festival, too!

I couldn’t keep my darn hair in the bandana. By the time I took this photo my curls had already fallen apart, but I liked how the final photo came out.

I got home that evening and made dinner and then made some banana bread while Jorge and Jaylen played Xbox and while the other kiddos chilled out. I was glad to have had such a productive day and had productive days at work on Tuesday and Wednesday, too.

Jorge’s boys were dropped off that afternoon and my kiddos were picked up. Jorge and I braved the crowds at HEB for last minute stuff and came out alive and well. Jorgie and Justin were picked up around midnight, for some reason, but all our kids would be back the next day for Thanksgiving :).

We had a really low-key Thanksgiving. It was a little different since there weren’t any kiddos around and it was quiet and Jorge’s family wasn’t here like they have been the past 2 years, but we took our time. I made breakfast for Jorge, John and myself and then we watched TV. Poor Jorge had a splitting headache, but we fired up the Sonos and got all the trimmings and turkey ready for dinner. He buttered up that turkey and wrapped it in peppered bacon, while I chopped and peeled and cooked :). Then we picked up my kiddos and his were dropped off by the time we got here. We ate around 6:30pm and it was amazing!

Jorge slowly went into a food coma, heh. We let him be, and the girls painted while the boys played video games. Eenan was taking advantage since he’d been grounded all week due to a bad report card =\. I put all the food away and washed dishes while my Emmos rinsed. Then we cuddled up on the sofa, Jorge woke up and he played with the kids while I slipped into slumber.

Poor thing had to work today. I woke up around 30 minutes after he left and made the kids banana pancakes. Around 10:30am I finally decided to get ready and check out whatever was left of the Black Friday sales. With all this buzz about “Black Friday” starting on Thanksgiving, I didn’t want to bother going out with the crowds. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Target was calm and neat. AND, I ended up finding some pretty good deals for the little ones! I’m only a bit sad I missed out on the $2 towels, heh.

My kiddos were picked up :(, I warmed up leftovers for the boys and I, I vacuumed a bit and that brings us to however long it’s taken me to type this out. Gonna get dinner ready for when Jorge gets home. Turkey, or turkey??