Category: Photos

It’s almost Christmas (OMG!) and I’ve been stalling updating this thing. So, with that said, here’s a Catch-Up Post with lots of pictures that should have actually been titled “The Longest Post In the History of the World” :).

Our Thanksgiving felt a little…rushed this year, probably because I undershot the time we’d need to prepare the food. John and Monique stopped by to drop off their homemade apple pie (aww!) and requested plates since they’d both be working this year =\. Then I rushed to pick up the kids, who were celebrating Thanksgiving at noon at Mario’s. (We’d be celebrating for dinner). But regardless, it was great and I was sincerely grateful for every little thing in my life, but mainly my family and wonderful kids ♥!

Keeping the kids occupied while we cooked:

The feast!

Can’t forget the ham!

Everything was super delicious. Briana and the kids came over and ate and chilled out a bit. Then, when 8:30pm rolled around we got the kids in bed and asked Mom to babysit while Jorge and I went Black Friday Shopping. It was his first time doing it, ever. I was a bit skeptical about taking him along, but he said there was no way he was letting me out into the madness on my own, so he said he had no choice, heh.

Started at Walmart, where the cars were parked in the dirt nearing the street. Lines were ridiculously long, and we weren’t sure they’d have what we’d need, so we left to Target. The line was BEHIND THE STORE!! This is a huge Target, mind you. I wish I’d taken pictures. They were incredibly organized, though. By the time we got to the area to buy what we specifically went there for…they were OUT. I couldn’t believe it. So Jorge says, “Well. We’re already here. Let’s look around and see what else we find.” So, moping slightly, I follow him and see a man hauling THE ITEM. I had a feeling I should stick around. So I did. I pretended to read my ad as I inched closer. (Jorge told me later he thought I was going to mug the guy LOL). I could hear him on the phone talking to probably his wife, and he sounded unsure about taking the item. We make eye contact and he hangs up. He looks at me and says, in Spanish, “Hey. Do you want it?” I nod an enthusiastic YES and we put it into our cart. I couldn’t contain a *squee* and Jorge asked, “Ok, what happened?” and jokingly adds, “Did you show boob or something?! How did you do that??” I was thrilled. We picked up several more things (including a spiffy blender, woo!) and stood in an hour-long line that squiggled through the isles.

Next stop was Walmart (where what we went for didn’t even make it to the store!) and then Kmart. We found what we originally went to Walmart for and stood in line for another hour. We headed home about midnight, but were pretty happy. Jorge said it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be and couldn’t believe how much we saved!

I went to bed, set my alarm for 4 hours later and planned to make it to HEB plus by 6am (BY MYSELF!), where I REALLY REALLY needed to purchase one of the kids’ gifts. Set the alarm, ate 2 bites of pecan pie for breakfast and ran out the door. The line went around the store behind the pharmacy. I made friends with 3 ladies, and they shared their ad with me in case I needed to run over to Walmart to price-match, heh. I found a map of the store that I’m assuming one of the employees misplaced and it told us exactly where everything was. Doors opened, I went straight to the place I needed to and got what I went for and then some. I was giddy with excitement! I couldn’t believe my good luck :). AND I got great deals on stuff I didn’t even expect to and got a $20 coupon to use the next day ^_^!

My kiddos left that evening for Mario’s, since it was his weekend. I bathed the girls and Emily had chills and then got a fever. I gave her Motrin and made sure she was nice and bundled up since it was drizzing outside. I told Mario to keep an eye on her; I just had a feeling she was on the road to a bad cold.

Alaethia dressed herself, as you can see, heh.

I was so bored when the kids left. First Jorgie and Justin and then mine left. The house is so quiet and I kind of come to a standstill like, “Now what?” I was glad for John’s company, who stopped by to eat and pick up a plate for Monique. He listened to my Black Friday Shopping stories and we caught up about other stuff. He left and Jorge got home and we ate and watched TV :).

I did shopping and started on wrapping the next day and then on Sunday Jorge and I had brunch at Espi’s.

We ordered the girls’ beds that day. Wouldn’t arrive for about 2 weeks. I was glad we went when we did; we got 2 different “Black Friday” discounts, $100 off for being customers so long, and 4 years no-interest (fk yes!) and we fell in love with the bed :).

Jorgie and Justin had been dumped (literally) at our house while we were out shopping, so thank God Mom was here. Jorge didn’t have his phone but had a feeling he should call them, and that just so happened to be when they were waiting outside our front door. Jesus. The woman can’t even wait to find out of they’ve made it safely inside.

We worked on the kids’ science projects the rest of the day (which included a walk to the empty lot down the streets where, for some reason, they have several different piles of roofing materials and we luckily found what Justin needed for his project). Closer to the evening Jorge started feeling really ill. He’d been complaining of a pain in his stomach but he doubled over and it scared the crap out of me. He rested after we made a run to Target to print the kids’ project photos and the kids and I continued on their project.

I talked to the kids and asked Mario how Emily was doing and if she needed to go to the doctor. Actually, I asked if she needed the doctor since the day before, but he said she was fine, feverish, but fine.

So when he brought her to me the next morning and it felt like her skin was on fire, I took her to the doctor immediately. Thank goodness I was using a vacation day. Jorge calls while we’re waiting and tells me he’s on his way to the doctor, too. His boss was taken-aback by his state and told him to come to the doctor ASAP. So there we were. 2 hours later, they were seen. He definitely had an infection and Emily was prescribed cough meds and Motrin. I asked, “Doesn’t she need some antibiotics?” Doc brushed it off and said, “Nah.” I had a bad feeling, but fine, I gave him the benefit of the doubt since he IS the doctor.

We got some food. Emily must have had a hard night, or the fever was making her lethargic, but she took a few spoonfuls of soup (that I fed her) and she fell asleep on my lap. It made me feel so sad. I can’t stand when my kids are sick and unlike themselves. I was angry at Mario for not taking her to the doctor sooner.

Emily and Jorge slept, and I went to pick Alaethia up from school. I spent that night placing cool, wet towels on Emily’s forehead and bathing her at midnight because her fever wouldn’t subside. I was so scared that I brought her to bed with me and she slept on my chest, like she did when she was a baby ♥. I got no rest, but was happy that she woke up without a fever.

Went to work, called the nurse and ordered an antibiotic for Emily, which Jorge picked up and gave her during lunch. He was feeling a tad better, too, thank God. Called Mom every hour or so to check how Emily was doing. There was a span of time where she didn’t have a fever at all.

I picked up cough drops for Emily and a new thermometer, since the newest one broke during the boys science projects and my old one’s battery was dying. I came straight to Emily’s room and checked her temp. She still looked so lethargic and unlike herself. Her temperature said 102.9, which I attributed to it being time for her fever reducers again. I stuck her in a cool bath immediately and gave her Tylenol AND Motrin and it broke my heart to see that she couldn’t even cry, she was so tired. Mom said she ate soup during her meals and drank plenty of water, but I was still afraid she’d become dehydrated. Jorge got home and saw that I was almost in tears, I felt helpless. Her fever was still at 102.6, even after a cool bath for half an hour. I put her in her bed and smoothed her hair from her face. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes and I swallowed back a lump in my throat and said, “Aw mama, don’t cry. You’ll get better.” My heart cracked into a million pieces when she slowly shook her head, letting me know that she didn’t think she’d ever get better. I dressed her up and we took her to her night doctor. It took about 30 minutes to be seen and when they checked her her temperature was still 101.3. The doctor said to keep doing the same thing, giving her Motrin and Tylenol together, keeping her hydrated, and cool baths, etc. She said the antibiotic would kick in by the next day. I decided to stay with her the next day, and to everyone’s relief she was better by the evening :). She even stuck around while I made dinner and asked to wash dishes, which she hadn’t done in days!

Thursday was Cash Mob day…where we spend money at a locally-owned member’s business. I wasn’t looking forward to spending, as I was budgeting, but it was fun trying stuff on:

Went for my kiddos that evening and spent it helping Eenan with his science project. Luckily, we had all the photos and everything, just had to put everything together (and we still didn’t end up finishing till 11pm!).

December 1st was Quentin’s birthday party. The 2 eldest boys wanted to stay home, of course, so they stayed with Mom. Justin, Jaylen, Emily and Alaethia went with me. They had such a blast and didn’t want to leave. Sally really out-did herself with the theme (circus) and decorations and games!

We were supposed to go back to the party for Carlos’ surprise party Sally was throwing, but plans changed. Jorge went to Furniture Row to pick up the girls’ bed. Long story short: he lost the phone somewhere at the store, we went to the store to search for it, walked around the Expressway and came up with nothing. We tracked it (iPhone) and it showed that it was near the Expressway, so we hoped that someone found it and left it in the store.

We cleaned the house like crazy the next day; even the boys’ room was scrubbed top to bottom. We took a break to go to Furniture Row, where we called and THANK GOD, Jorge’s phone was safely waiting. The guy at the warehouse was nice enough to find it thrown in the parking lot and kept it at the store.

My love assembled the girls’ bed that night. All he asked for was an abundance of Peach Tea and football, heh.

All the kids loved it. Justin and Jaylen even asked for a similar bed, a fire truck LOL! Err, not gonna happen :P.

Since the girls’ mattresses hadn’t come in yet, we pushed in their old toddler bed mattresses, which they were quite happy about :).

The rest of the week was the usual; helping Alaethia with projects at the beginning of the week and events at work the ending of the week.

Wednesday was the Good Day Luncheon:

Thursday my babies left to Mario’s and it was the All About Women event in the evening. It was a fun morning, even getting a visit from Santa and taking a group photo at work. I went to lunch with EZ, Laura, Michelle, and Bob Z. and then the worst thing in the world happened: I dropped my Galaxy SIII and the screen shattered into a million pieces! I was in shock!

I didn’t have time to be sad about it since Michelle and I were running errands for Gerry, like buying wine at H-E-B and buying balloons at JJ’s Party House. Then we helped decorate and so on and then it was time for the event. It was super packed and the Traveling Photo Booth made it even more fun. We took a billion pics! Even Sally and my Love got to make it at the end :).

Jorge and I were hungry, so since we were kidless we had dinner at Chili’s. It was nice to relax, just the two of us. Until JR. showed up and joined us a while LOL, but it was a quick catch-up visit and then he had a game to watch in the bar section. My love took this photo of me, almost make-up-less and tired, and posted this:

Yo quiero esta preciosa novia mía más que la vida 🙂 es mi mejor amiga y todo lo que alguien pudiera pedir en este mundo :*)

I love this precious girlfriend of mine more than life, she’s my best friend and everything anyone could ask for in this world.

He still surprises me after all this time :). I never knew my old friend Jorge to be so good with words (in English and Spanish!), or to be so sweet, heh. He’s the best!

We got home, relaxed and crashed out. I was excused from the all-day event that was happening on Saturday, since my love and I were heading to Brownsville for the day. Our Anniversary is November 18th, but we hadn’t had a chance to celebrate it till that day. And it was the best ever! We woke up, got ready and drove straight to Beef O’Brady’s for brunch, heh. The food is always great and what’s best about it is: it’s free!

We stopped by Walmart to pick up some chairs and miscellaneous things for the 10-Man Jam concert :). We weren’t going to get to see all 10 artists, because we had plans to watch the Pacquiao vs. Marquez fight at Beef’s that night, but I was really looking forward to seeing Eden’s Edge :)!

Yeah, my hair was curly. I was too lazy to straighten it that morning, heh:

Local artist Madelyn Victoria opened the show:

Eden’s Edge!!

Bucky Covington:

Greg Bates:

Jana Kramer:

By then it was too dark to get a good photo of the last group we saw, The Farm:

I was a little sad that we didn’t get to see Lauren Alaina, Katie Arminger and several others, but we had a fight to watch! And what a fight it was! We had dinner (mostly appetizers LOL) and had an awesome dessert while we watched the most epic knockout ever!

We got to our hotel pretty happy :).

The next day, we woke up, got ready and checked out and were on a mission to find the closest Denny’s. Only, my Google maps was on crack or something ’cause it made us get lost 3 times in 3 different cities >_

We had a pretty darn good beginning of December :).

Jorge and I were just discussing over dinner last night that one of these days–of course when it’s one of Mario’s weekends–I’m going to just NOT do anything: no housework, no work, no bill-paying, no errands, no driving Mom around. Nothing. I’ll just sit in my sweats, drink some coffee or tea and read and be lazy.

His reply? “You can’t. You just won’t.”

I must admit, he’s probably right. Already I’m thinking of what needs to be done when I get home.

I woke up today and first thing I did was make a call to the bank. I’m still trying to close an account and can’t seem to ever reach a manager!! Got up when I heard the girls’ TV turn on. I went into their bedroom and both were sleepy-eyed but smiling. I smooched and cuddled them. Alaethia snuggled under the blankets and said she wanted to watch the beginning of “Up”, since she missed it yesterday. Emily pattered down the hallway behind me and we had Lucky Charms together :).

Alaethia joined us and I tidied up the kitchen and living room. We sat down together and I read them 3 of their library books. John came over and handed me his final car payment and some of my mail that for some reason still goes to his mailbox, grrrr. I got 2 calls from work and walked Michelle through some paperwork. I dressed myself and the girls, did their hair (with, thankfully, little whining over hair-knot-yanking) and then made some quesadillas for lunch. I heated up leftover potato soup, chopped up fresh chives, made some peach tea. The girls ate and they loved the quesadillas. My love got here and I served his food. As I’m serving tea in the kitchen he yells, from the dining room, “Oh my God! This is so good! Why haven’t you made these before!!” I don’t know why I haven’t, heh; probably because we don’t buy flour tortillas often. These were only in the fridge because one of the guys brought them during the barbque on Monday night.

We chatted about his work, the girls, the kids’ Christmas presents. I’m still debating what to get the girls, plus we need to take our budget into account =\. And whether risking my life during Black Friday shopping is worth it. There are a few good deals so we’ll see.

We got ready to go since Mario’s mom was picking the girls up since she got out of work early. Mario supposedly couldn’t come after work because his truck was full of stuff and he didn’t have booster seats or something like that but he’s probably going to the gym after work or having company. Same ol’, but whatever. I only didn’t protest because I knew I’d be stuck waiting for Mother this entire time. And I am. 2 hours later. Although now I think of it, I shoulda said no and taken the girls for froyo :*(. Dammit!!!

This is before they left; this was as still as they’d get after 10 takes, heh:

*sigh* I already went to the bank to make John’s payment and I even took a stroll through the home depot garden center. I want to plant new greenery again…but I’m still skeptical. Like Jorge said, every time I plant something, something else destroys it.

Case in point: the petunias, impatiens & purple bougainvillea? Slaughtered by the hailstorm.

The 2nd round of petunias, celosias and the rebirth of the bougainvillea? All crushed by the roofers repairing the damage caused by the hailstorm.

So yeah. Makes me not want to try anything anymore :(.

Sweet Jesus, I’m becoming antsy! I’ve typed this whole thing on my Galaxy. I wanted to update about our eventful day yesterday, but I’ll save that for my laptop. I guess this will be the time I don’t do anything at all but read, sans sweats, coffee or tea or comfy couch =\.

The girls played with Barbies till it was time to go outside and wait for the BBQ to finish cooking on Monday night.

A black chihuahua mix randomly walked up to the porch and decided to join us. The girls were elated. The food was out and I’m not kidding you, those fajitas Jeremy brought from–of all places, Walmart–were SO GOOD. The seasoning was amazing. Omar brought meat and these awesome corn tortilla tacos made of bean and I think chorizo from Monterrey…the girls and I were in heaven, heh.

I was quickly getting tired, and the girls were drowsy, so we called it a night. Jorge came in later and gently woke me to go to the bedroom.

And we crashed out till it was almost time for him to go to work D:. So no breakfast for him that morning. I saw him off to work, and made my way back to the living room to nap in the cuddle chair till the girls woke up. But, that was short-lived…as Mom decided to thrash things about in the refrigerator -__-. Got up, woke the girls up, and Emily helped me make French toast :).

We finished up, they played with Barbies and I chopped up veggies and put them in the slow-cooker with some meat for beef stew for when my love came home for lunch. Must make it a point to get more recipes for that thing; it’s so handy!

I cleaned up, bathed the girls, then myself and my love came home for lunch. He LOVED the beef stew ^_^. I did, too, but my stomach was already protesting since I’m not using to eating red meat often, and I’d already had it the night before =\.

My love left back to work and the girls and I left to run an errand and then we went to the library.

Between computer time, getting the girls new library cards, and them finding their books, we were there a total of 2 hours O_O. But it was fun. I LOVE that place! It’s just so…cozy? I don’t know how to explain it. I spent a lot of time at the Old library as a child and now I’m glad I get to make memories with the girls at the New one :). And I’m thrilled that it’s not far from home, too!

I had to lure the girls out of the library with gumdrops, or else we never would have left! Sue me. We didn’t leave before at least one of them had a meltdown, though; Alaethia was upset that we didn’t buy nachos from the Cafe LOL. But she was placated once she scored a candy from the store.

We got home and they quietly flipped through their books. I chopped up cauliflower and potatoes for Skinny Potato Soup. Once it was done, the girls and I ate, and then we watched “Up”. Well, Alaethia sorta watched “Up”…she wanted to look up the Barbie DreamHouse game and check out prices for the dollhouse LOL.

My poor babe got home late. He had to settle some things with a project and then was on the phone making managerial decisions. I don’t know how he does it. He’s always so stressed out :(, but he’s the type of person who can leave it at the doorstep when he gets home ♥.

I bathed the girls, put them to bed and then we attempted to watch The Voice but we sorta passed out towards the end, heh. My poor babe missed a good deal of the end; he was exhausted. All-in-all, it was a long day. But a great one :).