Category: Shopping

I did it again Friday morning (the 17th of July); I turned the darn alarm off and thank goodness I woke up when I did or else Mario would have been LATE. He woke up with just enough time to get dressed.

I lazied around and then got ready to go to McAllen. Mary was still off that day so we were going to meet Mario for lunch. It was already passed 12:30 so I texted him and he told me he wasn’t going to be able to have lunch with us since he was working on a Jeep and was going to end up having a late lunch. Oh well :(. We took off, went to the bank and all that jazz and then met at Taco Bell.

The kiddos ate well, including Alaethia even though she didn’t finish her whole taco. I’ll take what I can get with my picky girl, though. I was taken by surprise when one of the cashiers said he knew Mario and that he was family of Mario’s boss. I thought he looked familiar.

We didn’t get a chance to see Gramma that day since Noelia was coming over to get her nails done by Maggie and just as we were leaving Taco Bell she called that she was at the house. Uh-oh. I took Mario some food and then we came straight home. I tidied up while Noelia held Emily and the rest of the kiddos lounged around I the living room. By the time I knew it, it was 4pm and I had to get the boys ready for TaeKwonDo and Maggie still wasn’t here. It was when we were at the Dojo that she let me know she was getting her light set up at her house so she wouldn’t make it. They’re finally moving back to their house! I’m just sad that they won’t be as close and we won’t be able to chill out all the time like we used to :(.

I was really hoping to get back and have Margaritas with the girls, but oh well. Since Noelia wasn’t getting her nails done she went to the Dojo to see the boys in action. They’re doing extremely well now that they’ve been separated. Luis, their instructor, is incredibly patient. He does a great job with the kiddos, even with the little hyper boy that’s always jumping around LOL. Eenan’s class is joined by the Yellow Belts on Fridays but each group still got their individual attention. Eenan has the first half of his White Belt Form down pat! He was so proud of himself that for the first time since they started going to class he seemed excited about Karate. He even said, “I’m going to get my Yellow Belt by the end of this month!” I hope so :).

We got home and Mary tells me to pack because we’re going to the beach, along with Andy and Noelia, the next day. I’m sort of not really feeling it, because Mario’s got a sale going on at work and I knew he wouldn’t be able to go. I hate going places when he doesn’t go. Not only do I feel guilty, but I feel…unsafe. But I start packing anyway; the kids’ swimming suits, including one for Emily, aw. I am in no shape (literally) to wear a bathing suit, so I just got some shorts and a tank together and another set for afterwards. At least I could work on tanning my arms and legs.

Mario was tired from work (my poor love) and I had to be in bed early so I surfed the web and he watched TV and then we all got ready for bed. I went to bed around 12:30-1am, which was still really late. I woke up around 3:30 with this excruciating pain in my ear, jaw and gums. My stupid Wisdom tooth. I couldn’t go back to sleep from the pain and conceding that I was going to have to get the darn tooth (or perhaps teeth) removed much sooner than I’d planned. I had two options:

The first: get my passport and get the tooth/teeth removed in Mexico and spend about $400 doing everything. The downside to that was probably getting an infection and my whole mouth becoming gangrened and loosing all my teeth or something awful like that.

The second: suck it up and give Elda a call and find out if her office does monthly payments. I’d get it done here and I’d most likely have a safe/clean extraction. The downside: spending a few thousand bucks, I’m sure.

So I thought about my teeth and then I tried to stop thinking about my teeth because when I dream of teeth people die (those who’ve been visiting me long enough know I’m SO telling the truth).

I started thinking about how Mario wasn’t going to go and started getting bad feelings about the whole trip and was already planning to tell Mary we weren’t going. I don’t know how to swim, so as much as I love the ocean, I’m terrified of deep water. I’m even more terrified that one of the kids’ll go too deep and get swept by the current and I can’t reach them. All these creepy thoughts went through my mind.

Then finally, around 5:30 I fell asleep, only to be woken up by Emily at 7 for a feeding. I went back to sleep for about half an hour and then got up to call Mom and take a shower. I got the last of the things packed up, made Mario breakfast and then got the girls dressed and ready. Mario left to work and I felt a pang of guilt/fear. But I willed myself to push the bad feelings away and to just have a good time. It was Emily’s very first trip to the beach, after all.

We packed all our stuff and kids in Elda’s truck, which we were borrowing since all of us didn’t fit in m Equinox or Mary’s Sentra. We stopped for breakfast at Burger King where I spotted a beautiful hummingbird!

Of course we were moving and in the truck so I couldn’t get a very good picture.

We met Andy and Noelia at their apartment and then we all drove to Walmart where they were getting some stuff. We were off on our hour 1/2 drive after that and since I didn’t sleep very well I kept nodding off. It felt like we arrived in 20 minutes to me LOL.

It was around 10 or 11am and it was already scalding hot outside. Gotta love South Texas weather, not. We got all our junk off and found a huge umbrella to rent. We slathered sun block all over the kids first, then ourselves. Mary helped me since I was holding Emily and then I passed her to Noelia so I could finish up.

The older kiddos started off with sand castles of course. I just sat and watched them and held Emily. She was hungry so I fed her and then she started nestling herself against me to fall asleep.

It was nerve wracking keeping an eye on all three kids once the boys started getting brave enough to dip themselves in the cold ocean and Alaethia played in the sand. I passed Emily on to Mom and she and Mary took turns with her while I stayed with the other kids. There were so many people!

Noelia and Andy took the boys to the first and second sand bars and Andy taught them to use the boogie board. I took pics from the shore while I watched Alaethia making sand castles. I was, again, nervous as heck watching them out there but I knew Andy and Noelia would keep an eye on the boys.

Alaethia picked shells with Mary while I sat with Emily, who’d fallen asleep and was all sprawled out on a chair LOL. She looked so cute. Somewhere around here we ate sandwiches and then Andy convinced me to go out to the 1st sandbar with them to pick shells and be with the kids. I went for Alaethia after a while and she behaved amazingly. I was afraid she’d try and jump into the water on her own but she was too busy looking for shells. I found my very first live sand dollar! I had no idea the little guys were a reddish-pink color!

I went back several times to dump our shell collections into the bigger sand pail. Andy found several hermit crabs for the kids! I totally intended on bringing them home and looking for info on saltwater hermit crabs. We have the land ones, but I imagine their diet and habitat are much different!

Mary told me to tell the rest that we’d be leaving soon. I said okay, and relayed the message. While I was walking back I saw a family huddled around each other looking at something. I snooped to see what it was and they showed me their handfuls of sand dollars! They told us to sit where they were and look for them. The kiddos all stayed on the sandbar while Andy, Noelia and I dug our hands into the sand and unearthed tons of little sand dollars. It was a breeding ground for them, but most of them were already dead :(. Andy told me how to bleach them to make them into those white sand dollars we see at the shops. I’m totally going to scrapbook them!

We went back to our umbrella and started putting all our stuff away after that. Mom didn’t get in the water or the sand at all so she stayed in the truck waiting while we got the girls washed up. Mary’d accidentally bought a pack of bad water bottles (they tasted like plastic) so we washed the girls with those and left them in the car with Mom while Mary, Noelia, Andy, the boys and me went to shower and change.

It took the guys a good half hour to get in and change, and that’s because they didn’t even have a line to wait in. It took us–I’m not kidding you–an hour and a half to get through the line and finish up. Didn’t help that the 2 girls in front of us ended up letting 3 more relatives cut in! I was so mad I asked them if they were all going to go into a stall together and they say, “Oh no, of course not!” And I proceed to tell them how cutting isn’t cool and how unfair it was to everyone else that they let them in. They gave the excuse that it was their first time “here”. Um, too bad. It’s rude in general to do that. So they ended up letting us go through, buahaha.

It felt good to wash off all that salt and sand. I was SO SUNBURNED! I didn’t reapply sun block half-way through our time out there and neither did Andy, so we looked like lobsters LOL. We went to the gift shop in Los Fresnos.

Since it was such a last-minute trip and I was on a budget, the boys each got a cute message in a bottle with sand and fake gold in them. I got Mario some alligator and ostrich jerky (yum!) and got a sponge, extra shells and a little hut for my hermies back at home.

It felt like forever before we got home and when we finally did it felt so good to be here. The kids had such a blast! We were going to go over to Jorge and Maggie’s that night but I was so sleepy and sunburnt that we just stayed home and chilled out here.

I wanted to punch myself when the alarm went off at 7:45 in the morning on Wednesday for staying up so late the night before. Still, I needed to shower before we left to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! Mom was already waiting and came in to watch Emily and Alaethia, just in case they woke up, while I showered. I got showered, ready, made breakfast for Mario, made some coffee for myself and got Emily and her diaper bag ready before 8:30! First time in a long time I was actually ready before everyone else!

Mom was staying with Alaethia since I didn’t think she could be still for 3 hours. I left next door to Mary’s; the boys were barely getting dressed and Mary was in the shower. I felt almost anxious–what if we took too long and didn’t find good seats!

We left the house at 9 and picked up Matthew. We got to the movies and got our seats. We were sitting a row above Amy and found pretty good seats even though the theatre was really full. Sonia, Angela and Yazmin got there a little later. I had to change Emily’s diaper since she’d just gotten over the diaper rash and I didn’t want it to come back. So I took her and her diaper bag and changed her on the sink, because of course they don’t want you to take babies with you therefore they don’t have any changing tables. Rude. Anyway. I REALLY had to go pee, and no one was with me so I hung the bag up on the door hanger and–with Emily in one arm–I did my business. I’ve still got it baby! I remember doing the exact same thing at the movies back when I only had chunky Eenan in a diaper LOL.

When we went back I got everything ready for Emily (bottle, blanket, chupy) and fed her and she fell asleep right when the movie was starting. She reminds me of Jaylen; he’d do the exact same thing! Perfect babies to take to a movie.

***SPOILER ALERT! SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY DETAILS ABOUT HARRY POTTER 6!***

All-in-all, I liked the movie. It didn’t steer too much from the book, but there were some extreme changes, like leaving out Voldemort’s dad and sister completely. I thought that was pretty important. They left out that old lady that Voldemort would visit, Hepzebah, was it? So they left out the goblet Horcrux that he took from her. I can’t remember too well, but I’m sure Ginny isn’t the one who went with Harry into the Room of Requirement to get rid of the Potions book and the kiss wasn’t all “wow” like they were making it seem. The whole scene where Dumbledore’s killed is completely different. Harry wasn’t under the invisibility cloak or Stupified (or whatever charm it is); Dumbledore just told him to go to a lower level and to keep quiet. I really wanted to see the White Tomb (it was in that book right?) but they left that out, too. BUT I thought it was hilarious and the parts they did change were executed well. I’m just glad they didn’t totally change it like the 5th one. Now I’m wondering what they’re going to do to the last one. They better make it good. Sonia said if they chopped this one up so much, what if they do the same to the last one and it’s only one movie and not 2?

***END OF HP6 SPOILER ALERT!***

So yes. There you have it. We picked up some Burger King after the movie because we were starving. All I’d had was popcorn and a small soda at the movies, which I shouldn’t have had in the first place. I know I should have gotten a salad, but no–I got a Whopper Jr. meal. With a soda. Doh. I need to quit drinking so much soda!!

We ate in the car in the parking lot of Old Navy since Eenan wasn’t wearing pants LOL. He’d gotten gum on his pants at the movies so he took them off. They had to go on again when we went into Old Navy to get him and Jaylen their school pants. We actually found 4 pants each in their sizes so that was great. We went to Walmart after that and then came home.

I cleaned the living room from top to bottom because it was in great need of a thorough cleaning. I had to kick the kids out of the living room and into my bedroom because they were driving me and Emily nuts. I had such a headache from yelling at the boys. Then I had to make dinner, which was carne guisada, rice and beans. I fed all the kiddos (including rice cereal for Emmy). Alaethia was happily singing, “Hey sister, go sister, go sister, go sister…”, which I can only imagine was her version of “Lady Marmalade” LOL.

When Mario got home he and I ate dinner. We watched The Punisher: Warzone, which I didn’t fully watch since I was nodding off. Mario made us some Piña Coladas and OMG, they were so good. They hurt my darn messed up Wisdom tooth, though. I really need to get that thing taken out, but I still haven’t gotten my Passport and I’m scared to get it taken out!

We watched Fired Up afterwards and then I went to bed with the girls. I was so darn tired. Mario went to bed about half an hour later and right when I was falling asleep…he woke me up LOL.

Emily woke up for a bottle around 7am, which left me with 25 minutes to sleep. I don’t like when she gets up at that time because then I fall back to sleep because I’m exhausted and then when the alarm goes off I can’t get up.

When the alarm went off today I actually turned it off and went back to sleep! I woke up at 8:00 exactly, thank goodness, and Mario said to wake him up at 8:15. So that totally screwed me up and I didn’t get up to make him breakfast. He picked up tacos instead LOL.

I got up around 10:30, when Emily was pulling on my nose and smacking my eyes to let me know she was hungry. I fed both girls, then Mom came over and watched the girls while I prepared my coffee and had some cereal. Then Mary came over and asked me to go to Walmart with her so Emily and I did. We got back and she made tonight’s dinner, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, while I put her groceries away. I came back home with 3 Walmart bags of snacks and fruits for the kiddos; totally didn’t expect that LOL.

She was craving brownies so I made some for dessert. I bathed Alaethia and then we went over to eat dinner. The boys got ready for Taekwondo and we left. It seems to drag on now that each boy goes for an hour each. They’re learning a lot more now that they’ve been separated though. They had such an intense workout today! I felt tired just watching them. Jaylen learned the first 8 steps of their form and so did Eenan. Since it’s just Eenan and another boy in his class, they started sparring today! I felt so nervous. They were missing sometimes and actually hitting each other but they were fine. I wish I could get into it but the adult classes are from 8-9pm. I don’t think I could spend another hour there LOL.

We got home and the boys practiced some more. We need to work on their flexibility and length of their kicks. Eenan says he’ll get his yellow belt by the end of this month. I hope so :).

I washed dishes after the boys practiced and while Alaethia went for a walk with Elda. She’s doing much better from her gallbladder surgery. She keeps doing stuff she’s not supposed to, though, like driving only 6 days after her surgery and carrying Emily today!

There are many reasons why I hate washing dishes, but one of the main things is that you get to think a lot. Like today, I realized that I’m OLD. I’d constantly laugh at Mario and Jorge when they said that. They were being dramatic, I’d say. But no. Tonight I realized that my kids’ Taekwondo instructor is 6 years younger than me–that’s what set me off LOL. Then I realized that I’ve gotten to “the age” where it’s hard to lose weight. No more jogging to melt the pounds off like in the good ol’ teen days. No more eating an entire pizza and still being 98 lbs. Ever since I started working out I’ve GAINED 3 lbs.!!! WTF is that???

Anyway, *composes self* Mario got home and he went straight to bed! I was so incredibly bored. The boys were of course, with Mary, so as much as I was grateful for the silence, the girls and I were bored LOL. Mario’s up now, but watching TV in our bedroom while I’m here, blogging. Emily’s on her pink playmat and Alaethia’s watching Noggin. I’m finally ready for bed. Hopefully I won’t start watching whatever Mario’s watching and I stay up later. G’nite!

Fri., May 8th – I’m really not sure what I did this day. I tweeted that I “hate Home Depot already” LOL but I don’t remember what I did there. Obviously got more “last minute” things for the living room but I don’t remember what. I know for sure I got my Mother’s Day shopping done at JC Penny, where I got some great deals because I had two coupons and everything was on sale to top it off! I got myself two basic fitted T’s. I’m happy to say the size Medium one fits loose! Woo!

I spent the rest of that day lounging around the house with the kiddos and surfing the web when the littlest ones let me.

Sat., May 9th – I was waiting on two Re-ment sets I bought; one for Mom, one for Mary that I was giving them along with their blouses for Mother’s Day. I was so pissed to go to the mailbox around noon and find 3 “sorry we missed you” notes telling me to go to the Post Office to pick them up. I checked the time. They close at 12:30 and I had 15 minutes to get there. Thank goodness we live 3 minutes away.

Well, I get there and what do you know? They decided to go home early that day. Grr. I had no choice but to give the moms that part of their gift a day late.

The boys and I made Gramma some beaded bracelets for Mother’s Day because that’s what she asked for. It’s a perfect gift because she’s got tons of clothes and we can only buy her so many chocolates or decorations for her walls. The boys did a great job and Gramma loved them! We gave her 3 and she joked that we owed her two: one from Alaethia, one from Emily LOL.

Elda graciously watched Alaethia for us, since I didn’t think she’d hold her pee the half hour to Gramma’s and back. I took her potty chair and a Princess bag with coloring books and extra panties over to Elda’s. She said she did wonderfully.

After visiting Gramma we went to Walmart. It’s always tough shopping with the boys because they put in double the amount of stuff I usually buy. But we all behaved ourselves and I stayed within my budget. I got some cleaning supplies for the hardwood floors and a washable microfiber broom and other things for cleaning. I wasn’t sure exactly what to get so I prayed that the Pledge hardwood/laminate floor cleaner would be okay.

I got home and Big Mario had already put up both doors and was about to start working on removing the covers for the central air. It took about half an hour for the room to cool. I started mopping the tiled floors and then swept the laminate wood floors in the living room with the microfiber cloth broom. Alaethia found the box of Swiffer dusters and said, “I’m gonna help.”

She had fun following me around being a little “mama” :).

Mario got home and was immediately hyped up about getting everything into the room that night. He began moving all the wiring for the surround sound from the old living room to the new one. Now we have holes all over the walls; reminds me of Swiss cheese…

As he was beginning to install everything in the new room they sent me to Walmart (again) for some more stuff like light bulbs, filters for the a/c, a power supply and other stuff like that. I took Jaylen with me and man he was moody because he was sleepy. He ended up falling asleep in the shopping cart.

It was 11:30 by the time I got home and Mario was fixing up the recessed lights. Jose, Elda, my dad-in-law, Mom, Adan and Tommy were all here with us, helping us with the furniture relocation. (Mary wasn’t here because she and Noelia were at the George Strait concert at Dodge Arena!)

It was 12am when we got the rest of the furniture in and my dad-in-law tells me, “Happy Mother’s Day!” and gives me a hug. He says, “I wasn’t going to rest today until we had you moved in on Mother’s Day.” I almost couldn’t say thank you due to the huge lump in my throat. What other father-in-law builds you a house to be near his kids and grandkids? What other aunts/uncles/cousins are at your house at 12am helping move furniture or helping you watch the kids while you clean up? I can’t tell you how blessed I feel to be a part of this family!

We sat with everyone once the sofas were in and just took it all in. We had a fab new living room! Mary got home and all the moms were wished a Happy Mother’s Day and everyone started leaving little by little after that since it was late. Adan hung out with us for a while and Mario and I stayed up till 4am till we got everything just right.

Sun., May 10th – We woke up and got ready to go eat at Lotus, where Jorge was treating all the moms–aww :). I had broccoli beef and for the first time ever had dumplings! They’re so good! I need to find a recipe.

Since Mario and I are pretty familiar with using chopsticks, we asked for some. They brought us a whole bunch and all the kids had a blast trying to eat with them :). We had a really good time.

Our next stop was the movies. We watched Wolverine. Really good movie. I liked it much better than I thought I would (isn’t that usually the case?).

I checked my e-mail that day and didn’t expect to find an e-mail from my “new” uncle. He asked if I’d gotten any info from Gramma and I e-mailed back that I did and explained what she told me. For some reason I understood that she said my grandfather never knew about my mom. It’s hard to understand her since she has a speech impediment. I wasn’t sure about that tidbit of info but I told him about it anyway. He’d asked before if his dad knew about Mom and he made it seem when I spoke to him 2 years ago that he did, but Gramma had just said he didn’t. I was confused. He’d asked if Mom was in the yearbooks since they were close in age, but since Mom didn’t get to finish high school because they gave her the duty of staying with Gramma after she got sick from Polio she wouldn’t be in any of them. I was iffy about sending a pic of her, but I did and asked him if she resembled any of them. I’d forgotten to mention earlier than mom’s got three more siblings: the uncle I’m speaking to, another brother and a sister! He also e-mailed back to wish us all a Happy Mother’s Day, aww :). I couldn’t wait to hear more from him. I really want to meet this side of my family!