Category: Shopping

Since Alaethia only took about 3 10-minute naps all day long I was certain she’d fall asleep early like she did yesterday. Fat chance. I was really surprised — she fell asleep around 11:15ish and didn’t wake up for a bottle till 5:30am! I’m so used to her waking up around 5 that I woke up on my own and literally just waited for her to wake up. I wish I could just sleep the entire time that she does but I can’t! I don’t know what’s wrong with me!

Anyway, I forgot to mention that John and I went to Target on Monday right before I had to pick Eenan and Brandon up from school. I always do that — say that I don’t want to go anywhere and always end up doing so. Anyway, it was in my favor. John got me another Craft Storage Cube, this time for my scrapbooking paper! The deal was: he’d buy me the cube (with a $5 off coupon I had even) and I would give him $20 on his birthday. So, it’s basically like I bought it for myself! I love it though. My paper’s all nice and organized and I can find everything much easier. I also got a tiny organizer box and a scrapbooking magazine for inspiration!

I’ve still yet to even start on one page, but I keep thinking, “I’ll wait a bit because I might find better stuff!” And if not that, then it’s the lack of time that’s stopping me. Maybe this weekend. I don’t have much to do (well, that I can think of so far) other than just housework, so we’ll see.

Jaylen’s appointment went much better than I’d hoped it would. I was bracing myself all morning for the worst possible scenario. I picked him up from school (10 minutes later than I was planning to) and we arrived just in time. He was cheerful and in a good mood and I didn’t have the heart to break it to him and tell him he was getting a shot. I never know how to break it to the kids because I know for sure they’re going to have that terrified feeling in their chest and it’ll only build up and cause a greater scene.

But he did really good! He of course, wailed when he saw the syringe lying on the table, but after the male nurse carried him onto the table (I could NOT lift him up; he was heavy as a boulder) and I held his face in my hands and the female nurse poked him in the arm he just stopped. Just like that, abruptly stopped. Puzzled and probably wondering, “That’s what I’m making a big fuss about?”

I’d told him if he was good I’d take him to get a bite to eat, which I had to do anyway since it was lunchtime LOL. We went to Long John Silver’s, his current favorite, and we both got popcorn shrimp, Mom ordered for herself and I got Mario a plate to take back to work for him. With all the driving around I’m so glad gas went back down (“down”, ha! Yeah right.) to $2.99.

On the way back from dropping off Mario’s lunch, we stopped by our old property so that Mom could pluck out a Bougainvillea but they’re so darn old we didn’t stand a chance. The stem was huge on all of the bushes and there weren’t any tiny ones anywhere. That’s something I rememberly vividly about our old house: the beautiful, different colored Bougainvilleas that grew all along the perimeter of the yard. Fushia ones, red ones, orange ones and even the rare-ish white ones.

We stopped by Target after that. I got the boys some bubbles from the Dollar Spot and found some cute velcro bows for Alaethia. I’d been looking for some velcro bows for her since before she was born!

That’s my new current favorite picture of her! Mario saw it and said, “I’ve GOT to get that for my Myspace.” LOL

I’ve been realizing more and more, if that’s even possible, how much I love my husband. I rarely get to see him because he works so much, but I know he’s doing it for us. One day it’ll get better, I know it will. He feels so bad for not being here. And well, like right now he could have been here, but he’s dropping off his co-worker’s computer at his cousin’s house so his cousin can fix it since he doesn’t have time since he didn’t get to do that yesterday.

He told me tonight while watching City of Angels, “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” out of nowhere, just like that. I feel the same way about him :).

We had a conversation last night about maybe renewing our vows. At first I wanted to so bad; I even brought up how nice it would be to get re-married on our 10 year wedding anniversary. To get married in a church this time, in the eyes of God and have an actual honeymoon. But I think God’s already watching over us. We’ve already been together 10 wonderful years (married eight), have 3 beautiful, intelligent children and I feel that God’s truly blessed us. So, like we agreed last night, if it happens, it happens. He wants to go all out though and said, “If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right!” It would be really sweet to have all our kiddos involved in the wedding this time :).

I can feel little hearts floating out of my ears. Either that, or I’m just really sleepy right now. Alaethia finally (thankyouLord) fell asleep so I shall take a quick shower and get in bed. I really need to start a new schedule. Maybe take a shower while Mom’s here, around 5pm, so that I can cuddle up with her at night and get her to fall asleep then put her in her crib. She’s officially a crib-only baby! Has been for about the past month or so. I’m so grateful!

WordPress users, I have a question for you: is “upgrading” really…well, hard? I always read we should disable any plugins and I just don’t want to ruin anything I’ve worked so hard to install (I say hard because I’m not the web wiz I once was, and frankly, WordPress still intimidates me, heh).

OH! And another question: has anyone switched from the Default URI structure (http://yoursite.com/?p=123) to the Date and Name Based (http://yoursite.com/2007/05/21/sample-post/) structure without messing anything up? I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but I’m afraid it’ll ruin the whole setup of the calendar and archives and all that stuff. Please let me know about this, I’ll REALLY appreciate it!

This is kind of off-topic right off the bat, but I’m so incredibly sad that I won’t be seeing Bob Barker on The Price is Right after June 6th. I’m so sad that I never got a chance to actually be ON The Price is Right. John and I always wanted to go. (And to Family Feud, too. We’d so PWN the opposing family.) But he had a good run. I like how he said he wanted to retire while he was still “young”. He’s 84 :). I wonder who’ll take over? Whoever it is, it won’t be the same.

Thank you so much to everyone who answered my questions! It was fun reading all your answers and “meeting” some new (well, to me!) readers! If you still haven’t answered the questions don’t be shy! Click here!

Well Jaylen’s Pre-K field trip was on Thursday. They went to watch Disney on Ice at the Dodge Arena. He said he had so much fun. He couldn’t stop talking about it :). They had pizza at Peter Piper afterwards and then they brought them home around 2:45. I’m going to be so sad when he leaves Pre-K–he’s had such wonderful teachers and I’m going to miss them. They always say he’s such a well behaved boy–I think they’re partly to thank for that :).

Friday felt like any other day, even though it was Mario’s day off. Usually Fridays (and Sundays) are spent out of the house, or doing something productive (like cleaning or building something) but since Mario was helping Chris do something he wasn’t here most of the day. He said if he got out early enough we’d go watch Shrek the Third. He was done by 4 so he came and showered and then we left. Well, actually, Eenan didn’t go because he insisted that he was going to watch it (twice) for his UIL and Millionaire’s Club field trips. And Mary offered to watch Alaethia for us, too. So it was only Mario, Mom, Jaylen and me going.

Although it was, what? The first day it was out we naively thought we’d get to get tickets for one of the shows at least, even though it wasn’t for the early ones. I drop Mario off at the front to get the tickets and go find parking. As I’m parking I get a call and it’s Mario. All tickets were sold out, even the ones at midnight. Bummer. The first time he actually wanted to go to the movies and it’s frickin’ sold out!

We decided we’d go to Target and just buy a movie and have Movie Night at home. We picked up some Gardettos, Scoops tortilla chips, some pizzas, a game for the boys’ Game Cube (TMNT), and Arthur and the Invisibles. We were overcharged for the game (it was on sale) so we ended up getting $20 back. Thank goodness I check receipts — Mario was already walking out the door!

The movie was really cute. Mario and I enjoyed it a lot and so did the boys. Eenan kept saying the little girl “Invisible” (can’t remember what they’re really called at the moment) was “beautiful” LOL.

Saturday was the day to get rid of the rest of the junk we had left from the yard sale. I packed up the trunk as best I could, including the stuff Karina’s mom was going to buy, and only took Alaethia and Mom with me. The boys stayed with John.

First stop was putting gas in the truck, because my husband likes to play this little game where he leaves my truck on empty to see if I’ll actually make it to the corner of the street to the gas station. Grr. He always does that. Even when he leaves me his car because he “just wants to take the truck for once.” Drives me insane.

I get to the gas station and my heart stops when I notice how much it costs: $3.09. WTF?! I don’t even think it got to that much at the end of school in 2006 when gas prices were through the roof. It took $40 to fill my truck, which is A LOT for the Equinox.

Anyway, I met Karina’s mom and she took all my stuff, even what I was leaving at the Goodwill, so that was cool. I still have some stuff to look through and put away in our little storage unit, but God I feel lazy. Especially since it’s so darn hot out.

I didn’t have much luck finding anything while thrift shopping on Saturday. I got a cooling rack for cookies for $.50, a new pack of cleaning gloves for $.50, the Amy Coe pillow case Mini Blanket (I found out it’s a Mini Blanket and not a pillow case. It’s too cute!) that goes with Alaethia’s crib set (Flutter Mod) for $2.50(originally $9.99), a cute roll of wrapping paper for $1.00, and a brand-new huge bottle of my favorite current lotion, Johnson’s Soothing Naturals for $2.00. I can’t remember what else I got (oh! Now I remember, I got Mario 2 sealed, brand-new packs of Nicotine gum because he was supposedly going to quit smoking for $3 for both), but in all it was $11.30. Enough to get a stamp on my card for speinding over $10. I frantically look for it and to my horror realize that I’m missing the first stamp I got two weeks ago, when I barely found out about the card program. You get your card stamped whenever you purchase $10 or more and on your 10th visit, you get $10 free towards your purchase! Now I’m back at square one!

I dropped off a drink for Mario at work, then we went to visit Gramma, who’s doing very well, and then we went to Wal-Mart. We left early, at 10:30am Saturday and still didn’t make it back home till 4:30pm that evening. It never fails!

I got up early (for a Sunday) at 9:30am to the boys fed and Eenan ready for and dropped off at CFF. I ate a quick breakfast and started getting myself and Alaethia ready for Noelia’s shower at 2pm. I made good timing, especially since I wanted to leave at 12:45, just in case.

Mario picked Eenan up from CFF and then guess what he did? Since he was watching the boys he wanted to take them out somewhere so he took them to watch Shrek the Third!! Without ME!

I was even more annoyed when he, once again, took my truck without my knowledge and left me the Neon with low tire pressure and NO GAS. He’d given me $20 to spend “on myself” but that ended up going towards gas in his car!

I also stopped for some pens for the bridal shower since they were short some, so I guess it was good that I was a little late leaving the house.

The bridal shower went really well. The games were really fun (I stupidly changed purses to match my outfit and we ended up playing two games having to do with purses: the first one was a weight one–whoever had the heaviest purse wins. I TOTALLY would have won had I not exchanged bags! And the second one was a scavenger hunt and you guessed it–everything was in my other bag!). There was even a funny one where there’s two girls: one has a roll of toilet paper in her legs, the other has a stick. The one with the stick closes her eyes and the one with the roll “leads” her to put the stick in, well, the hole LOL. It was hilarious!

The other two games were Guess the Spices and the other was the White Stuff game (where you determine what each white powder is, like flour, baking soda, anything you’d use in the kitchen). I won for the Guess the Spices one ;).

And since they had a Money Tree in place of gifts, Noelia made out like a bandit! While we were sitting around the table I jokingly told everyone, “I’m going to just throw a party and have a money tree, too!” LOL

Mario had a pretty good time with the boys; he even took them with him to a job he had to do and they behaved well! As soon as they got home, though, Jaylen started acting up. I’ve been having such a tough time with him when before it would be Eenan who’d act up. I’m so afraid Jaylen’s going to end up with Middle Child Syndrome, where they sometimes act up because they don’t feel like they’re getting enough attention :(.

I’ve got no plans to leave the house today (well, except to pick up the boys). I really need to finish this week’s laundry and finish tidying up the living room but I really want to just read. It feels like a never-ending battle!

I don’t usually blog at night, when I’m trying my hardest to get Alaethia to fall asleep, but since I’m willing myself not to go over to my bedroom and shake Mario awake (just to be a bitch) I’m going to blog.

One thing I hate is going to bed without showering and tonight was going to be one of the nights that I didn’t. Mario was supposed to watch Aly while I showered, which takes me all of 15 minutes, but decided HE was really sleepy so he went straight to bed. I ended up taking her into the bathroom with me while she was in her carseat and prayed that she wouldn’t scream the whole time I was in there. Luckily, she was in a good mood and was mesmerized by her reflection in the long mirror.

And can you believe he was blaming ME for his staying up till 3am?! I don’t force him to be online or watching TV or going to Chris’ house, do I?

And it’s not like I can sleep right now anyway. Alaethia is most definitely teething (at 3 months–has been teething since around 2 1/2 if you can believe that!). She got a fever twice yesterday and then diarrhea this afternoon. Plus she’s been fussy and clingy, drooling like crazy and constantly eating her hands. If she’s not frantically eating her hands she’s bringing my arms or fingers to her mouth to gum on.

Like right now…

This little girl amazes me. She’s already trying really hard to pull herself up to a sitting position when she’s laying down. She’s been trying to roll onto her tummy and has been grabbing at things and slowly bringing them to her mouth. She also sits up really straight and cute when we’re out shopping or looking at stuff. People always think she’s older than she really is :).

I meant to clean and tidy up the living room today, but was out of the house for most of it. I took Mom grocery shopping in the afternoon after picking Jaylen up from school and then went to Target with John after picking up Eenan. He bought me Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for Mother’s Day :). I’ve got to finish up my current book (Sushi for Beginners) and start up on the 6th book to “freshen up” before the last one comes out! I also indulged a little and spent $17 on a cute yellow blouse and lilac sweatshirt for Aly and a navy blue tank for me and a sheet of cute Marcella by K stickers. Oh yeah, and small Ziplocs, too. I’d run out.

Bleh. I’ve got tons of important documents to shred, important statements to file, boxes of crap to look through (still) and I need to look through the boys’ artwork and scrapbook my favorites.

Wow. I’m watching (well, not really watching–the TV’s just on for background noise) Discovery Home and this woman is just like me. She’s got Rubbermaid tote after Rubbermaid tote full of her childrens’ school/artwork.

That actually brings up something I’m incredibly curious about: What do you do with your child(ren)’s artwork and schoolwork once they bring it home? I have every single thing Eenan did all of Pre-K, Kinder and first grade. This year, I decided I’d save only the cutest, most creative things and make a scrapbook with them (I’ve already started this year’s scrapbook but I’m not even close to finishing it). But then I feel guilty throwing out the other stuff (like math sheets and spelling homework, especially with Jaylen since it’s his very first year) because I know how hard they worked on it. Still, I don’t want to be a packrat anymore! So, what do you moms (and dads) do? What do you suggest? And also, do you or your parents have any of YOUR work saved from when you were little?

Ooh, and another question I have now that I’m remembering the tank I bought today: Do you know of any good clothing swaps? Like, online? Some place where you trade good clothes where people won’t jip you. Would anyone here be interested? I’ve got a few things I don’t want to just sell at, say, a Yard Sale because they’re worth more than the darn $1 people want to give me for them!

Since I’m asking all these questions, I thought I’d do something I’ve never done here before. Ask YOU questions! I found a survey type thing on Myspace so I figured I’d use that as a template. I removed some of the questions on that survey and added some of my own. Just copy and paste them in a comment with your answers :). Don’t be shy!! (Of course, you don’t have to answer any you don’t want to answer.)

1. What’s your name?

2. How old are you?

3. Where did you find “me”?

4. Do you have children or do you want any? If you do have some, what are their ages?

5. What’s one song you absolutely love and recommend?

6. Can you cook? What’s your favorite thing to cook?

7. What do you do for a living? Is it what you’ve always wanted to do? (I ask this because after all these years, I still don’t know what I “want to be when I grow up”!)

8. What was the last book you read? Did you find it interesting?

9. What’s your worst habit?

10. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it?

11. What’s your favorite thing to do in your spare time?

Those were a lot, weren’t they? I hope you get a chance to answer!

I’ll go speed-read now while I’m trying to get Alaethia to sleep. Jaylen has a field trip tomorrow and I need to have him ready on time so I hope she decides to go to sleep already. She’s practically bouncing on my lap, though, so it doesn’t seem like we’ll be going to sleep anytime soon!