It’s so nice to have a moment of peace and quiet! All the kiddos are asleep and I started browsing through Ebay, so before I get myself into trouble I figured I’d blog instead, heh.

Today was one of those days I spend running around non-stop.

I fed the kiddos, did some dishes and once Mom came over I got ready and went to pick up Mary’s renter’s check. I missed the crossover to the building so I had to drive about a mile more to cross at the next one. There was some kind of crime scene or something weird going on. There were two sheriffs and 6 state troopers looking for something on the road and putting up little markers. It was strange.

I get to the place and the lady tells me, “You’ll have to come back. My daughter just left with my checkbook. Is there something else you need to do in town?”

I inhaled to keep my cool and asked, “Didn’t Mary tell you I’d be here at noon?” I knew she had. It was 11:58. I’m sorry. I was 2 minutes early.

She says she wasn’t expecting another man to come pick up a payment for who-knows-what, so she gave him the check that was supposed to be for Mary. WTF? So there I am, waiting 18 minutes for her daughter to get back with the darn checkbook. Grr.

My next stop is Academy, where I was returning two work out blouses and some shorts (got the wrong length and that’s because I picked them out myself!).

Went to Sally’s Beauty Supply after that to get some wax stuff and a few nail things. I got the nail things but of course they were out of the other stuff I needed. Oh well. I spent so much time browsing and I was already getting hungry I figured I’d come straight home and eat some lunch. Something I told me I should go to the other store, but I wasn’t sure where it was so I went home.

I ate and looked up the number to the store. Sure enough, they had only 2 left. So I went back, got it and rushed back home. Caught up with the kiddos a bit and took pictures of Emily who looked so adorable hugging a ducky plush Alaethia had brought to her. She reminded me so much of Eenan! I’ve got a pic of him holding a telephone the exact same way ^_^.

I got ready for Taekwondo as fast as I could. I was 2 minutes late LOL.

Taekwondo was awesome. We started with stretching of course. I didn’t know why Luis was asking me to do this leg stretch we hadn’t done for a while, but I found out later during Forms.

He did sort of a practice test, with the Horse Stand, kicks laps and then 30 situps and 40 leg lifts. Then he told me to do the white, yellow and orange forms. I did those correctly so he said he was going to teach me the orange-advanced form. OMG. I thought I’d never get it! I felt all desperate and frustrated like I did when I first started back in September LOL. There’s two new basics in that form, the neck chop and back stand, I believe it’s called. The neck chop was easy to understand (he said it’s like a waiter holding a tray and you bring it forward and show it to the customer–once he put it in those terms I totally got it LOL). The back stand though, oh gosh. It’s weird because you have to lean on your legs all weird (hence the weird leg stretches he had me doing) and do the opposite with your hands. I’ll get it eventually. Luis showed me the basic that’s introduced in each form…it gets crazy! I laughed when he said, “Once you get to your Black Belt it’s easy” LOL.

I had to stop and get gas after class and then remembered Mary’d asked me to cash her check for her. Oops! So I go over there and they give me trouble about it ’cause she’s not there, so we make plans to meet in 10 minutes. I rush home and tell the boys to get ready for their TKD class, because of course they weren’t yet and then I rushed back to the bank to meet Mary. Get that done, rush back home, the boys jump in the car and off we go to their class.

They’re class was similar to mine. I need to get those boys to be a little more…calm in class. Since they’re really comfortable with their teachers now they’ve begun to act up a little. I constantly have to remind them to quit jumping around, or laughing or talking and I never had to before! They used to make a big deal about how well-behaved they were LOL.

Mary texts me while class is going on and tells me she picked up dinner: Subway! Woo! We all ate at their house and we watched the kids go insane. I don’t know how they have so much energy! Especially the boys, who had just gotten home from TKD!

I took video of Emily being insanely cute, as she usually is. Mom taught her Pat-a-Cake and she KNOWS IT! Then I gave her a little stuffed animal to show the in-laws how she hugs them. OMG I wanted to bite her LOL.

The next hour and a half was spent in the living room putting Jaylen’s huge Lego Miners vehicle together. I didn’t get to help poor Eenan much, but he actually likes to do them himself. He just needed help putting the stickers on.

And after snacks and letting them run off the rest of their energy, they all went to bed and now I’m here. I forgot to mention that Mario went to Adan’s since it’s his birthday. He got to have his guy’s night out last night when he went to Jorge’s and now he’s having another one. How nice. That reminds me. He better be awake enough to tell me the juicy gossip he promised to share.

Sat., Dec. 19th – I had a hard time sleeping the night before, but I had a good breakfast, got the kiddos fed and, along with Mom, left to town. Had to go to the bank, pay a bill, Target for Emily’s diapers and a new make-up bag for me (only $0.97!), and Sprint for screen protectors for my Centro that they didn’t have.

The kids were getting hungry so we went to eat at Taco Bell. It feels like we’re never going to leave a place when I’ve got all the kiddos, and that day I only had 3, so you can imagine LOL. Alaethia was being picky about her food as always, Emily was quickly becoming bored and Jaylen kept making Alaethia laugh. Loudly. We finished up as quickly as we could, dropped off some food for Mario since he was really busy at work and hadn’t had a chance to take lunch yet, and then we went to Gramma’s.

We walked into her room and were a bit taken aback that she was wearing an oxygen mask again. She seemed really down and when I asked if she was okay she shook her head and said she felt dizzy. She was in better spirits by the time we left though, since we made her laugh and the kids entertain her. I just prayed she wasn’t feeling sick for Christmas.

We went straight to Walmart after Gramma’s. I hate grocery shopping. That takes forever with all the kiddos, too. It was wonderful getting home, but not so much because I had to put all the food away and make dinner LOL. If I remember correctly, I think I popped some Dijorno’s in the oven.

Sun., Dec. 20th – Mario had to unfortunately work that Sunday. When the kiddos took a noon nap I locked myself in my bedroom while Mom watched the kids in the living room and I got to wrapping presents. The plan was to wrap every last gift that was in my closet, at least.

I was on a roll, and then Eenan called at 1:30 that they were almost home, about 2 hours away and they’d really like enchiladas for their arrival. Shoot. I scrambled everywhere looking for all the ingredients. I didn’t have cheese! I had to go over to Elda’s and borrow a bag from her. We got to talking and then I realized they’d be home in an hour LOL. I got everything done on time, though, thank goodness.

We went over to the in-law’s to eat and chit-chatted about their trip. They brought back the cutest little gloves for the girls! I’d never seen gloves as teeny as the ones they brought Emily!

I wasn’t going to get much else done wrapping-wise, so I left the remainder of the stuff on my bed for when we got back from Andy’s birthday get-together at Golden Corral.

I went straight to Maggie’s to get some beautifying done and when I was on my way to the restaurant with everyone Mario calls that he’s not feeling well and won’t go. Darnit. Oh well. At least the kiddos would have fun. It’s Eenan’s favorite restaurant.

We all meet at Golden Corral. We get down and there’s just no way we were going to be seated within in the next hour. So we go to Furr’s. Eenan was throwing a fit about who-knows-what, Alaethia was complaining about being in her car seat, Jaylen was bothered by Eenan’s noise and Emily was crying for a bottle when I was already driving. OMG. It was awful LOL. I was glad to get to the restaurant. All the kiddos ate what they wanted and the adults had some chatting time. I had the most unhealthy brownie a la mode drenched in hot fudge LOL.

I wasn’t too happy to get home and find out that Mario had been snooping in the gifts, so he knew exactly what Blu-rays the kids and I got him! I wasn’t counting on him being home since he was supposed to meet us at the restaurant, so I didn’t even think to put those away. Argh. Oh well LOL.

Before bed I flipped through a few of my Scrapbooking magazines. I really wish I just had a few hours to scrapbook. I have so much awesome stuff and haven’t even used it! And pictures galore too, thanks to the awesome $0.10 print sales Walgreens has every-so-often!

See? There I go with my internet ADD. I barely finished editing my post from November 18th and already I was wandering off to Facebook when I only meant to close the tab. THAT’S why I never blog anymore!

Anyway. Let me start this post from December 18th…if the girls allow it. I think, what I’m going to do to catch up with my blogs is going back and just copy/pasting all my Tweets from all the days in between posts. I’d hate for Twitter to have some kind of glitch and lose my memories!

Fri., Dec. 18th – I’d spent the entire day/night the previous day baking away for the kids’ teacher’s cookie tins. That was my gift to them this year. I made Snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, mini banana muffins and Mary contributed some of her famous Pan De Polvo. I finished with everything around 11:30pm.

I called Mom over earlier than usual to watch the girls since Mario wanted me to drop him off at work. Went straight home after that.

As sore as I was from my work out at Taekwondo the previous day, I managed to busy myself around the house till it was time to pick up the boys at 1:15 (early release). My Eenan would leave me for 3 days that afternoon. He was going to Eagle Pass with my in-laws. I’ve been away from him before, like when I was giving birth to the other 3 kids and when Mario, Mary and I went to Houston with Mario’s aunts for the George Straight concert. But each of those times we were only apart for 1-2 days! This time HE was the one leaving me. I was terrified, but I knew he’d be well taken care of, of course.

He had a breakdown before he left, telling me how much he’d miss Mario, Mom and me, but I assured him we’d all be ok, he’d be ok and we’d see each other very soon. Plus, he had his cell phone to keep in contact with us.

When he left and the kiddos were all situated with Mom I left to run a few errands, like depositing Mario’s paycheck, paying a bill at the Credit Union and getting my hair cut. I was already running late, so I was hoping the lady would hurry. It was the owner this time, and not the other lady who used a razor to cut my hair the last time and totally effed it up. I figured my hair would be fine.

The little boy who was cutting his hair before me kept staring at me. I smiled at him and continued texting with John. When I looked up once he mouthed, “Help. Me.” I couldn’t help but giggle. He was so cute! Little did I know he was trying to warn me!

I told the lady exactly how I wanted my hair, and of course she did the complete opposite of what I wanted! Why do they do that! I didn’t even know how bad the damage really was until I got home, showered, blow-dried and flat-ironed my hair (which is how I usually wear it). It looked like she’d gone to town on my hair with a weed-whacker :(. I was so upset. She didn’t even CUT the length of the back, which is what I wanted done in the first place! I wanted a shorter version of what I already had! She even added bangs! Argh.

I get to TKD and, because I’d skipped lunch, was shaking. Didn’t help that I was cold and still livid about my hair cut. Class helped me sort of forget about it and I had a few laughs about the whole situation with my instructor. He even warned me not to go back to have her “fix it” because she might ruin it more. I could hear him in the back of my mind when I was getting in the van to get it “fixed”, so I didn’t go LOL. I took both instructors their cookie tins, too, before they disappeared at the house LOL.

Mario called before I had to pick him up and asked if we wanted to go to the movies to watch “Avatar”. Um, yeah! It would bring up Jaylen’s spirits since he was feeling a little bummed about Eenan not being home, which always boggles my mind because they’re constantly at each other’s throats! That’s brotherly love for ya.

Alaethia was excited as soon as she heard “movies”. I think she mainly likes to go for the popcorn LOL.

Elda offered to watch Emmy for us, which was awesome of her. I took them a plate of cookies and all of her things and as soon as I knew she was alright we took off.

The movie was…AWESOME. It just was. I didn’t think I’d like it but I LOVED it! Jason and Mirella just so happened to walk in as we were and they sat a row above us. Jaylen was literally on the edge of his seat and Alaethia only had 1 potty break and stayed awake for the most part!

It was super foggy on the way home. I hadn’t seen that kind of fog since the months of October when I was still working at the middle school.

We got home and the girls played together with Alaethia’s old Laugh and Learn kitchen, aww. Cutest thing ever watching them interact. I can’t wait to see them both in fairy or princess dress-up clothes! Jaylen played a game on the Xbox even though it was late; he just got ungrounded that day after the long grounding both boys had. We had some celery & ranch (even Emmy got in on that) and we went to bed about half an hour later.

Even though I missed my Nano terribly, it was a perfect evening. Totally made up for the hair cut!