Category: Photos

First, a very Happy Birthday and 4th Anniversary to Mayra!!

The First Thursday we went to wasn’t at the Civic Center. I found out it was in the City Hall parking lot. How I mixed those two up I have no idea.

It was pretty cool. There was a Sound Off and everything. The boys behaved wonderfully the first half of the time there, then when they started complaining we whipped out the Gameboys and they were angels again.

That’s one of the trucks that belongs to the company Mario works for.

Mario got paid Friday so the first thing we did was cash his check and then had lunch at Long John Silvers. I could go for some LJS right now *drool*. The boys ate almost all their food and I’d been craving a crabby patty so I got one of those along with my meal (are they just called crab patties? I can’t help thing of Spongebob.)

They also had these cool little hats and I had the boys take pictures. As you can see, Eenan had been crying before so he’s got a shiny tear at the corner of his eye and tear spots on his shirt.

We took the boys clothes shopping after lunch. The crowds weren’t so bad for being tax-free weekend. We usually don’t go during the tax-free days to avoid the crowds, but we had no choice this time as we both wanted to choose the kids’ clothes. I realized that day that Gap now sucks. They wouldn’t let me just exchange Eenan’s polo shirt. I didn’t have the receipt (Yadira forgot to give it to me), but they’ve exchanged his clothes before and now they have this stupid policy where they send you a check-by-mail and you won’t get it for weeks. Idiots.

Anyway we got them 3 screen-print T’s and some cargo pants at JCPenny. The shirts were buy one get one for $1–love when they have sales like that. We were looking for some cargo shorts since it’s hot over here till around November but most stores only had “Fall” clothes. We checked a few other stores, like the Children’s Place and nothing. The kids were getting antsy so Mario got them some cotton candy while I changed our payment date at JC Penny for a later time (since all our bills accumulate at the beginning of the month and we have the biggest payment–the car). We went to Old Navy next, where we found them a pair of painters shorts each. Then we went to Walmart for their socks and undies but we need to get Jaylen’s undies since they never have his size. I got a maternity blouse for myself. It’s one of those airy tunics; brown with light brown/teal beads around the collar.

Sorry for the smudgy quality. My lens was dirty and I didn’t know till after I took all the pics.

We went to Jorge and Maggie’s that night. Eenan finally went with us. Jaylen’s nose bled from both his nostrils. It freaks me out when he gets nose bleeds. Mario says he was the same way when he was little though and still occassionally gets nose bleeds when his nose is too dry. We stayed there till 11:30pm just talking about different things. We were supposed to order pizzas but I guess everyone forgot. On the way home we ordered from Whataburger and ate at 12 midnight O_o.

I had bills to pay so I appointed John to go with me while Mom watched the boys. I deposited money at the bank, then went to Ross to hopefully find some maternity clothes. The crowds were much worse on Saturday since all the people from Mexico were here shopping. I’d still rather fight the crowds to find nice, inexpensive maternity clothes though. I can’t justify spending $20-$30 a blouse at those big maternity stores.

After browsing through the one rack of Small clothes I ended up with 3 blouses and 1 pair of black cargo pants. I wanted more, but I had a budget so I didn’t spend any more. They have such cute Halloween stuff and so many nice bed sheets and comforters. I got some dinosaur sheets for Jaylen’s twin bed (whenever we get it) and a Pirates of the Caribbean Spy book for the boys to share.

Again, dirty lens=crappy pictures. Plus, my futon’s black and that’s where I hung the shirts for the pictures.

We went to JC Penny next, where I searched for parking for half an hour and couldn’t find anything. When I decided to stalk a couple who was coming out of the mall to take their parking space, this little skinny asshole stole my space! And he WAVED while doing it! I so wanted to get off my car and ring his pencil-neck or key his car, but decided I’d be the bigger person and move on. I ended up parking right in front of the door and told John to stay there in case a cop told him anything.

I paid our two bills there and then took our rings to get cleaned. Mario’s had to be resized and needed a diamond replaced. Total time for all this? 8 weeks! I have to be without my rings for 8 weeks. It’s Wednesday and my finger still feels naked :(.

We went to Walmart afterwards and got a few groceries and the house-cleaning necessities. On the way home I paid for our storage bill and thank God we were done.

The next day Mary treated us to the movies. We watched The Ant Bully. It was really cute. I told John when I got home that if I didn’t know any better that movie was made about him. He tortured ants most of his childhood.

We had a party to go to next. The decorations were so nice and the centerpieces were delicious–literally. It was a fruit bouquet and it was so good.

There’s my mom-in-law in the background, heh.

To make a long story short–I hated that party. They had this man entertaining the kids with games and all he spoke was Spanish and VERY broken English, so my boys didn’t understand a thing. They were so frustrated. They even tricked the parents into going over there and playing the games. There I am, pregnant, and I had to sit and pop balloons that the kids were bringing me so they could win a prize. And of course the bigger kids won instead. Mary finally ended up sneaking over to the prize table and “got them” some cute wooden boxes with crayons in them LOL.

It was also a sad weekend for some of our pets. We decided on Sunday that we definitely were giving Louie away. We’d decided last week that we’d give him another week to potty train and he refused. We woke up Sunday morning to find the kitchen and living room floors covered in poop and pee. That was it. It’s too unhealthy for me and the kids to be cleaning up poop all the time, so we called Yadira up and she found him a new owner right away.

And, since Choco Kitty had her kittens, my father-in-law and I had decided he was taking her and her babies to the ranch. We don’t have money to spay her right now, so instead Big Mario took her somewhere where they need lots of cats. The ranch has tons of mice, so they’ll do well there.

Mario had been on a lottery ticket kick and after losing $22 (yup, he spent THAT MUCH), he won $14 then $50 and then $12. He could make a living out of that. Kidding.

We went to a get together for Mario’s dad’s side of the family. Betty and Vanessa are pregnant as well and Vanessa’s having two boys! Betty’s hasn’t let itself be seen yet, but I’m pretty sure she’s hoping for a girl since she has two boys as well. It was nice seeing everyone.

As for the remodeling, they already threw on the texture and are ready to paint. We’ll be getting the paint this weekend. The huge 8 foot shelf I had with my 80s things on it and the kids’ books and movies has been emptied into bins. I’m PRAYING that they get those closets ready soon. I have the boys new school clothes hanging on the back of the couch since there’s no where else to put them and it looks so messy :(.

Today, I have to make some more calls to share the big news and later on we’re going to the movies. Fun, fun :).

Let me just say how much I hate WordPress at this moment in time. I hate when I get that stupid “you must enable referrers” crap. I tried saving and editing and *poof* my entry was gone just like that. Fucker.

Anyway, since my other entry where I felt like I’d just die from my sinus headache, I’ve been feeling pretty healthy. I took a regular Tylenol that night, just to see if it would work (because it didn’t the last time I had a headache) and lo-and-behold it worked. Too bad it was 11pm and I was already getting ready for bed.

Mario and I ran a few errands on Friday. A few errands took about 3 hours, so by the time we got home he ended up falling asleep on the couch and didn’t do anything he needed to do to the bedrooms.

We got some stuff we needed from Home Depot, Pet Smart (food for Liz–she’s spoiled and refuses to eat the canned dead crickets and meal worms we bought her. She only wants live ones!), went to Mary’s office and then had lunch at Jesse’s Restaurant. I know we did more, but I can’t remember now.

I went to the storage units later on with Andy, Mary and Noelia since Mary got a unit in the same storage place we’re at. I had 5 plastic totes full of baby boy clothes, 2 strollers, 1 infant car seat and 2 booster seats. That’s because I have 2 more booster seats at home for Eenan and Jaylen. Garage sale time?

The next day I went to Mexico (Nuevo Progresso) with Mary, Noelia, and Andy. We got Revolution flea/tick medicine for our dogs ($24 for 3 months as opposed to $18 for every application at the vet every month) at the Vet. That store smelled so bad. I had to run out for fresh air because I almost puked. That had never happened before.

We got all the candy we needed for Eenan’s party. Mary got half and I got half. It was so hard choosing which candies to get–everything looked so good!

I also got some chocolate liquor candies for Mario; Jack Daniel’s and Jose Cuervo. I want to go back to the Canada Store to get some curios to decorate the living room with when all the remodeling’s done. I also want to go back to get a few more cute “fake” bags. I bought a somewhat similar copy to the Dooney Stars bag. I never thought I’d buy a fake bag, because most of the time they look tacky in my opinion, but this one won my heart and was only $13.

We went to Target to get Eenan’s gift, exchange my blouse (Target’s maternity section SUCKS and is totally ugly), and some pens for the party bags. Next stop was lunch at Golden Dragon and then Party Universe for the party bags. We got home at 4pm–I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was rest, but instead I got to filling the goody bags for the next day.

I got up early the next morning and gave the kids breakfast, cut their hair, cut John’s hair, bathed the children, dressed them, got Mario’s things together (because he doesn’t “know where anything is”), then got myself ready. We picked up the cake at 12:15 and got to Peter Piper by 12:45. We waited 15 minutes then went in to set up.

Everyone started getting there by 1:15 and the pizzas weren’t anywhere in sight. There was a girl attending our table and another table and the other table was definitely being quite bossy. The girl would forget to get stuff for us because there other people were so demanding and constantly “needed” her. I quickly got annoyed and told Mario, “Last time we’re having a party here.” Then I noticed the girl was right behind me when I said that and after that orders started flowing more smoothly. We did everything in a timely manner. Everyone got to eat as much as they wanted, there was plenty of cake and ice cream and even goody bags left over for some adults LOL. Eenan had fun. He kept asking, “Are we having cake yet?” Because he knows as soon as you have cake, you get to open presents! He got some pretty awesome presents and was just thrilled. He said it was the best birthday ever. A few of our friends didn’t go, but that’s cool. We had a good turnout anyway. And the best part? It was SO not as expensive as I thought it would be.

He didn’t really want to smile as you can see.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but whenever the kids have a birthday, the “non-birthday” boy gets a small gift, too. Just to prevent any tears or hurt feelings. Or worse, a tantrum in public.

So, yay. It feels nice and liberating after one of the kids’ parties. And I was thinking, after the baby’s born we’re going to have a party once every 3 months and then 6 months after that. Crazy!

I took Mom to her Endochrinologist appointment yesterday. She was having lots of trouble with her insulin. She was to the point where she would sweat profusely, get dizzy and feel extreme fatigue after injecting herself. The first thing that went off in our heads was ‘too much insulin’ and sure enough, when we told the doctor her symptoms he said it was the insulin. She was hypoglycemic and could have possibly gone into insulin shock. Her doctor lowered her insulin intake and she seemed to do much better this morning.

We went to see Gramma afterwards. She’s doing fine and is healthy :). Aunt Nora had called the day before because Gramma wanted to know why we hadn’t visited her in 2 weeks. I told her about Mom’s appointments and how she was doing and then finally told her I’m expecting. She wasn’t preachy or rude at all. I’m so relieved.

As for the remodeling, most of the sheetrock’s up, except for a few panels where they’ll need to work on the electricity. Remember the hole in my living room with the exposed studs?

Well, now it looks like this:

We already have the extra 3 boxes of joint compound for the texture on the walls and whatever places need to be taped/floated. After the taping/floating/texture, the electricity, and trim’s done it’s time to paint! I can’t wait to paint and then start decorating :)! I feel so anxious to get everything ready. I feel like my pregnancy’s going to swoosh by as soon as I hit 4 months.

I can’t wait :).

We had a very eventful day on Friday. We all got ready (including John) and left to visit Isaac at the hospital. John stayed with the boys in the truck while we went up to see Isaac.

He was doing great that day. Natalie, Isiah, their mother and another little girl was there with him. We didn’t even say hi to his mom–we were a bit disgusted by her behavior, which I won’t mention here, but we opted to ignore her. We ended up talking to her by the end since she wouldn’t stop talking while we were trying to talk to Isaac.

We talked to Isaac about everything. He told us his diabetes was at 400-some when he got to the hospital and he lost 30-some pounds in a month. He looks really fit, but it’s unfortunate that he lost all that weight because of his sickness.

I was standing near the wall across from Isaac and Mario was right next to me. When we were all talking about diabetes and how he needs to be careful I got this horrible ringing in my ears and started feeling really dizzy. I felt really hot and sweaty and then the room started turning blue and white as I tried to focus on something. I softly told Mario, “I don’t feel well,” and Isaac’s mom overheard and had me sit down. My heart was racing and I fanned myself with my hand to calm down. When I finally felt better we got up and excused ourselves since it was time for Isaac to eat. I still felt really hot and I felt that my blouse was completely soaked in sweat. I didn’t know what was going on; I’d never felt so bad.

They released Isaac later on that day. Thankfully, his mom agreed to let him go back home with Cat and Annie.

We went to pick up Mario’s check after that and were relieved that it was indeed a nice check. He was afraid (as always) that since it’s been slow, he wasn’t going to make enough. Thankfully he did–we had to put aside for Eenan’s party, pay bills, buy the supplies for remodeling, pay my dad-in-law back for the money he’d lent Mario the week before and buy groceries and stuff for the house. Thankfully we had enough to do everything we needed to do.

We got some lunch at Burger King (stupid Luca Pizza in McAllen was still being worked on). After the kids played in the indoor playground for a little while we went and got the tickets for Monster House before they sold out. John was going to watch Clerks but it ended an hour after ours did so he got tickets to Monster House instead.

We had about 45 minutes before the movie started so we stopped by the Home Depot nearby to get a few things we needed for the bedrooms (plugs, coaxial cables, speaker wire, etc.). We went to Wal-Mart after that to get the rest of the stuff we needed.

Since we’d just eaten we stopped by a gas station and just got candies to snack on (which cost about $2 less than buying them at the theatre!). The kids were exceptionally well-behaved and were content with their Life Savers Gummies. It was a pretty good cartoon. Very funny and it kept you entertained (Jaylen didn’t even fall asleep this time!). Gotta buy that one on DVD :).

We picked up some yummy pizzas from the Luca in Mission. Mario had to go back since they jipped him out of $10. He kept counting and recounting the money and told me to count it. I told him, “We’re missing $10”. When he got the money back he said, “The guy was new. Apparently he’s not good with math. And since I’m not good with math I thought I’d check with you since something seemed off.” LOL

We ate in a hurry and Mario started working on the cabling. He had to go up into the hot attic to run stuff to the new bedrooms and he came back down looking like he’d spent a week in a cave. He had cobwebs all over himself and was dripping in sweat.

Later on (Mario was still working on all the cabling) my dad-in-law came over and they started working on the new door to the hallway, which used to be the door directly to our huge bedroom we shared with the kiddos. Since they added the new walk-in closet to our bedroom they had to move the doorway 3 feet to the right to coincide better with the hallway. After lots of sawing and hammering (and a layer of dust in the living room) this was what we were staring at from the living room:

Scary. The entryway into the hallway’s going to have a nice angled arch to match the arch that divides the kitchen and living room. I can’t wait till it’s all done!

I spent the rest of the evening sweeping up drywall dust and fetching anything Mario needed for what he was doing. It was 1am by the time he finished. In the end the speaker wire wasn’t run correctly because the wall’s shaped funny and the cable in the living room didn’t work, probably due to an old plug that was already installed there. He ended up having to run the cable that was hanging out of the wall back out just so we could at least have TV in the living room.

I don’t remember much from Saturday except feeling more tired than usual and still feeling short of breath. I went to the doctor first thing in the morning only to be there for 1 hour and not get seen. People that were there way before me were finally being seen by the time I got annoyed and left. I was annoyed because I was there so long and because on one side of me there was this horrible mother yelling at her daughter and on the other side there was a kid who’s dad was in a daze and couldn’t hear him shaking a tin can full of coins. Who carries a tin can with coins in a diaper bag??

Once I got home and felt better I dragged John with me to reserve Eenan’s party and then we went to H-E-B so I could get groceries. (I kept becoming short of breath and started suspecting that my heart murmur was back.) I got a pretty good amount of food for $75–very proud of myself. When we got back home my dad-in-law arrived with the rest of the supplies we’d ordered: sheetrock, joint compound, electrical boxes and other stuff. Ricky’s brother hooked us up and we got the sheetrock for $4 a sheet. The catch is, the corners are slightly damaged, but hey, for $4, Mario and his dad had no problem trimming the sheets. They sell at Home Depot and Lowe’s for about $8 a sheet.

We went to sleep early since we were to wake up early on Sunday. Mario and Big Mario were going to start working on the room. They put up most of the drywall and I’m so proud of my Babe–he did most of it himself and didn’t mess up one sheet! Drywall used to be his least favorite thing about construction because it never failed that he’d get a measurement wrong and he’d have to start all over. But he did SO good this time.

Elda’s birthday was Sunday so we went over to Mary’s to celebrate. They had shrimp cocktail and OMG it was good. We talked for a while with the family and then I came back over here to see what Mario and his dad were doing. I’m so, so thrilled with the way everything’s coming out. I can’t wait till it’s all done. Big Mario even approved of the colors I want to paint the rooms (we can do what we want, but have to get it approved with the landlord, heh).

Everything’s mostly done–Mario was so tired (poor thing) that he left a few small areas without sheetrock but he can do that in a snap when he’s got the time. Other than that, everything electrical needs to be done and then the taping/floating/sanding and the texture and painting. I CAN’T WAIT!!!

John went with me to Wal-Mart to get the rest of the stuff I needed and then Mario had me stop by Video Plus to rent some movies. We didn’t get around to watching them last night (you know you’re parents when your kids are watching the Disney Channel and you’re watching it along with them!).

I got up, saw Mario off to work and then ate breakfast. Then I got to sweeping all the rooms since everything was covered in sheetrock dust. I got tired after sweeping only my kitchen and living room–which aren’t big at all. Tried taking a nap, but of course THAT didn’t happen. Got up and swore not to stop until I finished sweeping and mopping. After 3 water/apple cleaner changes, the floor was back to normal.

I had my appointment today to see what was up with the episode I had on Friday. Again, I waited for over an hour. I had an appointment at 2:30 and they didn’t see me till 3:40. All that waiting just to find out that I definitely had the heart murmur again and everything I was experiencing is normal. While I laid on the table and he ran the ultrasound wand over my belly I could see the baby moving around. She/he was so active today! Dr. C had me hold the wand while he went out to get something. A book. He explained a little more about the heart murmur and how 90% of women get them during pregnancy. While he read I ran the wand over and over myself and saw the baby turn back and forth, pick up it’s little legs then stretch out–how cute is that?? I got a look at her/his perfect little hands–all 5 fingers were present :). I can’t WAIT to find out what this baby is so I can start buying little clothes! I can’t wait to HOLD this little one :).

Ack, it’s 7pm and I haven’t even started thinking of what to make for dinner. Toodles!