I planned on starting my painting project that day (painting the new trim white in the bathroom and kitchen/living room divide and painting the kitchen yellow), but Mary needed to do some exchanges/returns. I had to exchange my slippers (I’d just gotten a pair from Mrs. Ruiz and already have some other ones) and my City of Angels DVD so I offered to go along with her. Better than having to drive on my own and brave the insane crowds with the kids. They stayed with Mom.

We picked up Yazmin and Angela and when we’re on the Expressway getting into McAllen, Mario calls Mary. All I hear her say is, “Are you okay? Was there any damage?” My heart sinks. I know he’s been in an accident. I don’t freak out and say silent until she turns and tells me he’s at Jack-in-the-Box and had a fender-bender. It was nothing serious, but Mario was at fault and the women are from Monterrey, Mexico and we should make our way over there. I’m so glad she was there. We know nothing of that stuff, except being able to tell when we’re trying to get screwed.

We get there and meet the two sisters and the mom who were in the other car. The girl who’d been driving was nice and actually really knowledgeable about all the paperwork. They didn’t, however, want to call the cops which we found weird, but Mario insisted. So while we waited we assessed the damage.

Mario was trying to turn left on a busy, busy street and when he was looking to the left and the women were in front of him, he slightly accelerated thinking they’d moved up, but they hadn’t. Still, the only damage was a tiny swipe that smudged the dust on the bumper (seriously, it was mostly dust—no paint got scraped off) and the light impact caused the bumper to unsnap from the clips. Mario could have just pushed it back in himself and wiped the car down, but we decided it would be best to let the cop examine it first. I took pictures of the damage just in case, because I had a weird feeling. The cop got there, took the report and he was on his way.

We exchanged phone numbers, policy numbers and Mary told them she’d be in touch from her office once the report went through around the next Wednesday. We were already starting to walk away when the quiet, tall and lanky sister says something about paying upfront. We kind of chuckle and tell her no, that’s not how it works. The mom chimes in and says that in other countries she’s been to, that’s how it works. Mary tells her she’s in America and it doesn’t work like that here. They ask us to wait and are on the phone for an eternity. Every time we gesture that we’re leaving the Mom or sister raise their palm up to us to wait. After about half an hour we tell Mario to leave, that they’re just trying to get money out of us. Sure enough, I hear the lanky sister talking to someone and getting really frustrated because they don’t have an answer she wants to hear. They give us the same crap again about how we should pay up front and Mary raises her voice and tells them that’s what our insurance is for—to avoid having to worry about anything or paying anything “up front”. So we leave. This was half an hour after the cop had left. Dumb women.

The mall parking lot was insane, just as we thought it would be. Traffic wasn’t too bad on the roads, but it was awful at the actual stores.

We went to JC Penny and I exchanged the slippers for a nice sleeveless nightgown. I wasn’t a big fan of nightgowns before, but since I’m becoming so huge and PJ bottoms but me I’m warming up to nightgowns more now.

We were starving, for waiting around so long after the darn accident and whatnot so we got some pizza at the mall. We were extremely lucky to find a table and chairs since the mall was packed to the brim with people. We went to Academy next and then to Walmart, where I exchanged City of Angels for Baby Mama and A Knight’s Tale. It was a total pain in the ass, though. I couldn’t find the price for the 1 Baby Mama Blu-Ray left and it took me forever to find the regular DVD. It said $13, so I grabbed it and went to pay. We were in line for half an hour because they were charging me the DVD for the Blu-Ray price. I should have just gone back and gotten the darn Blu-Ray since they were taking forever. We even sent Yazmin over there to show them because not even the people that work in electronics could find anything but the guy was being a jerk with her. Even though I could see people in line behind us breathing smoke through their nose for having to wait so long, I was even more insistent on having them give me the correct price because they were all being idiots. Acting like we made the price up. After what seemed like forever they finally went to the counter and agreed that it was $13 after Yazmin showed them the price on the rack. The DVD was just mislabeled. Grr.

Mario and I chilled out with the kids and then watched Journey to the Center of the Earth with Alaethia (and Jaylen for a little while). That was one of the movies Mario received for Christmas. I really need to update my DVD List! Too bad Alaethia had a field day moving her favorite ones all over the place and took them out of alphabetical order!

Christmas! I’d set the alarm for 8am, since this time we weren’t going to be up super early and hardly any of the family was going to come over till much, much later. The boys, however, were awake by 7 and Mary waited to call till 7:45, when they couldn’t contain themselves anymore. Mario wanted to take a quick shower and of course they were complaining ’cause they had to wait so long for Mario. Mary and I tried to stall by separating everyone’s presents (mainly theirs) into piles for easy opening. As I was getting ready to set up the baby monitors Alaethia woke up and Mario was finally ready. The boys opened their presents first and I’m so happy that they were happy with their Santa gifts and gifts from us and everyone else. They actually asked for “small” gifts from Santa this year (Jaylen – the whole Pixos set and Eenan the Nintendogs Chihuahua DS game), which Santa really appreciated because he was on a budget this year ;).

They mostly got DS games, movies (Wall-e and Kung-Fu Panda on Blu Ray!), art stuff, and lots of science lab stuff. They even got an awesome microscope/computer kit (that Jaylen became too over-eager opening and cut his finger with a tool). Mona out-did herself; she got the boys some really nice Transformers toys and a blanket and froggy (that really croaks!) for Alaethia. The boys finished with their gifts and went on their merry way to play with everything.

Next it was Alaethia’s turn. I was a little upset because Elda grabbed her and helped her open presents while Mario took video. It sounds whiny and childish, but I wanted to be the one to sit with her and open presents. That’s something I should have been doing with her. That, and I never have pictures of myself with the kids, ever, unless I ask someone to take them. But anyway.

Alaethia loved her My First Dollhouse from Santa she wanted to open all of her accessories right away and play. She also loved her Hello Kitty from John, the giant Care Bear from us and the stroller from us. She promptly stuffed the big Care Bear in there and gave her a ride in the stroller.

Andy and Noelia got there and she opened her treasure chest from them. It was almost like an actual treasure chest, filled with tons of girlie accessories and a super soft Tinkerbell blanket I wanted to steal for myself LOL.

I loved all of my gifts. Mario and I didn’t get each other anything big (he got me two DVDs I’d been wanting and I got him a knife). Mary went all out as usual. She got me the first 3 Twilight books, City of Angels on DVD (which I’d have to exchange since that’s one of the ones Mario bought me), slippers, boxers, Mrs. Doubtfire on DVD and a beautiful butterfly necklace. Grandpa surprised all of us by giving every single member of the family cash, including my mom and brother! I felt so emotional when I opened that envelope and then learned he’d included Mom and John. I totally signed into Ebay later and ordered Batteries Not Included for myself (and that was all I bought really, for $7.35).

Mario made some Mexican hot chocolate and it was delicious. I had like, 3 glass-fulls. I don’t think we had any breakfast just so we could make space for all the delicious turkey, gravy and the trimmings. It was like Thanksgiving all over again!

We chilled out the rest of the day enjoying the kids and each other and their new gifts. Alaethia was amazingly entertained by her stuff! I tried organizing her room as best as I could, to make room for all her new stuff. We still had some girl-ifying to do to her room, heh.

Will add pictures to this entry soon.

Mon., Dec. 22nd – Ah, my first official day of Christmas vacation! It was so nice waking up and actually getting a chance to make breakfast for everyone. I saw Mario off to work and once he was gone I started cleaning. I took a break, then started organizing Alaethia’s room some more. Her closet is almost 100% organized, except for some of the boys’ blankets and board games on the top shelves.

Eenan’s getting over his cough and was resting, Jaylen was playing the Game Cube without throwing a fit, and Alaethia was blissfully playing in her neat, clean room. I’m slowly getting the house in order. That’s what I call heaven.

Tues., Dec. 23rd – I woke up to turn off the alarm and find that Mario had already woken up. I staggered to the living room 20 minutes after the alarm went off and contemplated staying awake to do laundry. I told myself no, I was going to get the boys’ breakfast ready and then allow myself to go back to sleep. It’s one of my resolutions for this holiday break: sleep, and not feel guilty about it!

I woke up around 10 and waited for John to come over since he’d agreed to go to town with me the evening before. He didn’t come over till 11 and then tells me I have an hour and a half to get to town and shop. Um, it takes half an hour to get there and another half hour to get back…there was no way 30 minutes was enough to finish all my shopping. I had things to return which takes long enough!

I told him to forget it and started cleaning and doing some more laundry. He comes over around noon, bummed, and tells me his plans were cancelled. Karma! He asks if I want to go to town after all, but I say no, I’m busy now. He sits at the chair he usually occupies when he’s here and huffily takes out his laptop and starts surfing. I do want to go to town, but I take my time getting ready then making lunch for the kids and I. Mom came over to stay with the kids while we went shopping.

Our first stop was Circuit City to pay off the rest of my credit card balance ($15.56). We only had a $1,000 account and the finance charges per month were ridiculous. I’d give more than the minimum payment due and the finance charge was still greater than the payment. So we transferred the balance to another credit card with no interest for a year. I’m hoping to do that for all my credit card.

We went to the mall, which was John’s idea. I’d been avoiding the mall at all costs, except for the time I’d gone to JC Penny to buy Mom’s gift and Toys R Us for Aly’s. We stopped by several stores and then went to Build-a-Bear, where John wanted to get Alaethia her gift. The line trailed well outside the door of the store, out into the isle. We spent 1 hour standing in line, just to get to the “Stuffing” section. John was getting her a turkey (he’s strange like that) and he wanted to get her a Hello Kitty, but they were out. So we picked a pink bear with white hearts instead. I complained the whole time we were in line, especially because I could feel my sugar dropping and I was getting shaky. Thankfully I had some Jelly Bellies in my bag.

I was also getting in a bad mood since some shoppers from Mexico think the rules don’t apply to them and kept trying to cut in line. They kept coming up with excuses like, “I’m just going to pick the animal.” Um, no. I had to wait in line to pick our animals so they’d have to do the same thing, sorry.

We stuffed the bear and turkey and rubbed our love and care into the little hearts that get sewn in. We asked the girl helping us if she knew when they’d be getting more Hello Kitties and she said she wasn’t sure since they’re the first to go. She said definitely not before Christmas since it was already the 23rd.

We get in the other line to pay, which is another freaking hour. As we’re standing there looking at all the clothes while the line slowly inched closer to the registers we notice people walking around with limp, stuff-less Hello Kitties. Wtf? When we’re parallel to the animal bins we notice they’ve added not one, but three bin-fulls of Hello Kitties! We’d already stuffed bear, but I was hoping that when we got to the register we could talk to someone and have them switch them. I went across and grabbed a Hello Kitty and when we finally get to the register talk to the girl about our dilemma. She called someone to stuff the Hello Kitty and said they’d use the bear we’d already stuffed as a sample so everything was fine! I was so glad!

It was already 5pm and we were starving. John asked if I wanted to eat at Kumori (um, yes!) so that was our next stop. He needed to be home by 8pm, so we needed to eat and finish shopping in a hurry. Too bad they were taking long with everything—doesn’t it always happen that way? We also had this brilliant idea to order a Jalapeno Firecracker, which is a huge jalapeno stuffed with crab and cream cheese and had all these colorful sauces swirled all over. It looked and smelled delicious. I watched in awe as John ate his with no problem, while I kept taking tiny bites from mine and having my eyes and nose immediately water. I told him screw it, it was too hot and I couldn’t do it. So he happily took mine and ate it in two bites—and man did he regret it!! There wasn’t enough lemonade on the table to soothe the sting! He told me that my pepper was much, much hotter than his was. He’s like, “Didn’t you see me eating mine with no problem? Yours was a lot hotter!”

We ate our rolls quickly once they brought them to us, and then went to Barnes and Noble a few shops down to get a gift for a friend of his. Our next stop was Target, where I returned a few things and bought 2 cute dresses to stuff in Alaethia’s stocking (she has way too many toys already!), and some jeans for her and wipes. Next we went to Walmart, where I was going to buy the boys a Halo figure each, like the one Elda’d asked me to get for her for Brandon. We had no luck finding them, but we did find Elda’s Bakugan Starter Set she wanted for Brandon that we couldn’t find anywhere else. I couldn’t believe my bad luck; I hate not finding what I need. Since the kids wanted Happy Meals we stopped at Mcdonald’s and then finally, thankfully, went home.

The baby was squirming around like crazy. I still wish I had some type of ultrasound machine at home so I could see exactly what she’s doing when it seems that she’s kickboxing in there. Damn you Tom Cruise and your money and your in-home ultrasound machine!

I wrapped the rest of the presents I had stashed in the closet while all the kids were playing at Mary’s. I was about to start wrapping the cute play-stroller we’d bought for Alaethia when Mary brought her in. I didn’t think anything of it and left the box on the table while I cut the wrapping paper to size. Alaethia was walking into the living room when she stopped in her tracks and asked, “Hey, wha’ dat?” She came running back and asked to open the box and I thought fast and said, “No, Baby, we can’t. That’s Angela’s toy. Her mama forgot it here.” She actually fell for it!
I was so sleepy but I had to wait for the laundry to come out and I had to wait for Alaethia to stop being moody. She’d developed a canker sore and it was driving her nuts. I couldn’t find the Orajel anywhere. She was awake till 12am.

Wed., Dec. 24th – Mario and I both woke up and I made breakfast. He was tired and reluctant to go in to work in the first place, even though they’d be getting out early. His bosses, along with Jorge, Maggie and Robert, got drunk and stayed up till 4am so no one was answering their phone when he was calling to ask what time they should go in after he noticed he had a missed text from Robert. He said he’d wait till 9:30 for them to let him know and if no one called he wasn’t going in. They did call, but just to let him know it was an optional day, so of course he didn’t go in.

I don’t remember what Mario had to do that day, but I gathered up the kids, Alaethia’s things and Mom, of course, went with us to several stores to find those Halo figures I wanted for the kids. I went to 3 different Walmarts, including the one I’d gotten Brandon’s Halo figure at, but they were all sold out at the first two. I finally found some at the 3rd one, even though they weren’t the ones the kids originally wanted, but they were Master Chief anyway so they’d do. I got Alaethia a little Pucci (I think that’s what they’re called? They’re tiny plush dog houses with a tiny dog and tiny accessories—which I would promptly put away in case she decided to eat them), I found a gingerbread house THANK GOODNESS, and bought a large cookie tray for the Snickerdoodles I’d hopefully be baking.

I finished wrapping everything up and then we all went over to Mary’s to construct the gingerbread house. I *had* to get one this year since Eenan wrote a composition about his Christmas memories and making a gingerbread house with his siblings was one of them. Since the house already came assembled it was much easier to get the icing made and ready for “gluing” all the gumdrops and candies. They had fun making it…and then eating it.

Mary and I helped Santa *cough* wrap up Christmas gifts from him and stuff stockings and all that jazz after the boys went to sleep. Mario was watching Alaethia and he noticed she’d gotten a fever. I was so worried, especially because Mary told me to keep an eye on her since the canker sore and fever and cold-like symptoms (which she didn’t have) were the first signs they’d gotten when Bonnie got Meningitis as a baby, bless her soul. I just prayed and prayed that it wasn’t the reason why Aly was sick. After Mary and I finished up inside, we watched some TV and then to bed we went. I gave Alaethia some Motrin to help the Tylenol we’d given her earlier and put her to sleep in our bed. I get too nervous when they’re small and develop fevers. I’m always afraid they’ll get worse before they get better and I won’t notice. She slept well all night though. Good thing, because we had an early morning the next day!