Category: Alaethia

Jorge’s Expo, Football, Dina’s Visit and Projects with the Girlies

Thursday, September 25th was a hectic day for both Jorge and I.

He had their yearly Expo at his workplace and I had to run around all over the place and try and make it on time everywhere.

I left work a little early to pick Jaylen up at school after football practice. I was earlier than he expected (to which he said, “I had just gotten comfortable and sat down to watch a volleyball game *insert sigh*”) LOL. We picked up Eenan and waited about 20 minutes for some pizza (they’d been wanting to try the pretzel crust one) and then Jorge and I met at the house with all the kids, we practically tossed paper plates out like frisbees and had them all sit down to eat. Jorge changed, left to work, then I changed as quickly as possible. I made it to the Expo by 7 and was taken on a tour by my Love :), where he showed me his latest creations.

Michelle, EZ and Ivan showed up a while later, as did Jenna. Jenna and I’d never hung out other than the Expo the year before, or comments here and there on Facebook and she really is such a sweet girl :). We walked around, ate, looked at the latest techie things and then the guys and Michelle left. Jenna and I stayed behind, eating and chatting and then headed to Roosevelt’s, where one of the Reps was taking us. Jorge didn’t want to be rude and decline so we went. It’s one of the very few occasions we stay out while we have the kids.

We ran into Jenny and her hubby, John, there and said our hellos. Then I tried my hardest to stay awake. I didn’t even want to order anything. I always feel like we’re taking advantage of the poor Reps =\. But we did have fun, and chatted and reminisced about the Expo last year and all the Shenanigans that happened. We said our goodbyes since we had to be up super early to take all the kids to school the next morning.

We got up, quite reluctantly, woke the kiddos up and got ourselves ready. I realized again that morning that feeling as groggy and tired as I did is exactly why I don’t like going out on a work night. I knew it was going to be a looong day.

I knew it was going to be an even longer day when we realized we’re all running late. I didn’t even get to make some coffee. We’re on our way, I pick up Gatorade for Jaylen (and Big Red gum for Eenan) and drop them off still on time, thank goodness.

I stop by the new Starbucks that I’d still yet to visit. There was only one entrance and exit and I wasn’t fond of the $4 I spent either, heh. Am I a cheapskate? Yes, yes I am, but I knew I couldn’t function without a coffee or latte.

The morning went by pretty fast, thank goodness. I was meeting Thelma and our instructors for our entrepreneurship project at Hobby Lobby to buy the supplies they’d need for the class on Wednesday. By the time I knew it, it was lunchtime and I met my love at Tacos Kissi. Such good sushi!

Sushi from Tacos Kissi
Sushi from Tacos Kissi

The afternoon went by fast, too, but not before Jorge and I got into spat by text. How I dislike those .

I picked up my boys and girls (Mario took the girls home with him so I picked them all up together). Dina, Briana and the kids were waiting for us at home :). We ordered in pizza and just chilled out at home. I think we were all exhausted and we all went to sleep earlier than we usually do when they come to visit. We all had an early morning the next day, since the 3 boys had football games!

I always wondered how it would work; like, would I make it on time the days Jaylen has games back in our city after dropping him off in the city he goes to school in. The first time we were presented with this type of morning was when it was storming and the game ended up being cancelled. So this was the first official time I’d attempt to accomplish this.

I dropped him off, drove alllll the way back, came home, got the girls ready and packed a bag of waters and snacks, then we made it to the school down the road where Jaylen would play. He was a bit disappointed the week before because he only played once but this time he was a receiver for the entire game! He did really well, although their team unfortunately lost .

#87
#87
My Jaylen :)
My Jaylen 🙂
The girlies supporting their bro!
The girlies supporting their bro!

We left the game after they played and I came home with the girls before we had to drive back to pick Jaylen up. Both the girls watch all these doll videos on YouTube and Alaethia had been wanting to do a project for a while. This one was baking breads and pastries for dolls. It was pretty neat :). We just mixed:

1 tablespoon of corn starch
2 tablespoons of baking soda
1 tablespoon of water, although we used a little more since it wasn’t mixing well.

Then we microwaved the mixture for 1 minute, let it cool, and kneaded it.

We shaped the pastries and let them air-dry while we picked up Jaylen:

Shaping the pastries
Shaping the pastries
The girlies at work
The girlies at work

When we got back home, we baked them for a while, let them cool, then painted them with acrylic paint:

Pastries
Pastries
More pastries
More pastries

Alaethia recycled a Prego lid to use as a pastry tray .

Briana, Dina and the kids returned from the boys’ game and we chilled out the rest of the day :). Emily started feeling under the weather. She’d mentioned that her ear felt weird the night before, so I asked her several times throughout the day if she felt okay, otherwise I’d take her to the doctor. She said yes each time, so we stayed home.

She woke up the next day feeling worse, so we’d be visiting the Urgent Care that night. She got a fever, and once she gets a fever she pretty much goes downhill. It’s pretty scary, so I didn’t want to take any chances.

Dina, Briana and the kids left that morning. It always feels like we don’t get to spend enough time together and it sucked because I was so exhausted this weekend .

I made everyone breakfast; well, the ones who wanted bagels with salmon and cream cheese:

Salmon and cream cheese bagels!
Salmon and cream cheese bagels!

It was a few hours before Urgent Care opened, so we did a few things around the house, like replanting things and setting up the birdfeeder, now that it finally stopped raining.

Emily helping me re-pot succulents from Dina's house :)
Emily helping me re-pot succulents from Dina’s house 🙂

Even though she felt sickly, Emmos played football with her bro:

Foosball!
Foosball!

She got tired and Justin came out to play with Jaylen. The kiddos later helped clean up. Eenan was caught in the act:

Helping mom :)
Helping mom 🙂

We had a late lunch of fish tacos, which, thankfully, the kids all liked (except Emmos. She had soup).

Fish tacos and the sugar skull mug my love bought me that morning :)
Fish tacos and the sugar skull mug my love bought me that morning 🙂

We got ready and left to the doctor around 5:30. And were there till 9pm, for them just to tell us she was fine and prescribed congestion medicine. That’s what I get for giving her Motrin for her fever, I guess. She didn’t have a fever when we arrived, and they said that supposedly her throat and ears were fine. I knew I’d have to take her back to the doctor later. Grr.

And sure enough. She woke up feeling even worse. I kept her home from school, gave her Motrin & her congestion medicine and made plans to leave work early to take her to her actual doctor. When I picked her up, Mom gave me a run-down of their day. Emily tells me, “I love my grandma, Mama. ‘Cause she takes care of me when I’m sick.” Aww!

By the time we got to the doctor, she was clearly showing signs of infection in her throat so they prescribed an antibiotic.

I got home and talked to the boys. Had a conversation with Jaylen. It was music to my ears :). Something I’d been wanting to hear for a long, long time . Now to get it all to fall into place .

Bits and Pieces

As you can see, I changed the theme up a bit. It’s not exactly what I imagined; I wanted to throw a succulent in there somewhere, but I don’t have the proper tools for illustrating on this laptop and it’s late, etc, etc. I also need to figure out how to make my non-Wordpress pages work with the CSS/tables, but that’s a whole other day, heh. Oh well, at least the blog works!

It’s been pretty low-key the last 3 days.

My love and I spent the morning being lazy on Sunday and had breakfast at Taco Ole.

That breakfast tho!
That breakfast tho!

We picked up some stuff we needed for the pets (namely the fish) at Petco and then we picked up Jorge’s boys to spend the day with us.

They watched football while I did some cleaning, lazied around, cleaned my bedroom and organized my desk and then it was time to start the week. Meh.

The girls have been wonderful. They helped with dinner yesterday after John and I got back from grocery shopping:

Helping make lasagna!
Helping make lasagna!

They’ve been super polite and helpful and willing to do their homework and brush their teeth and go to bed without whining about it. Tonight they didn’t even watch TV or play on their iPads; they spend their time playing Teacher and Student. They would call me every-so-often to pretend I was picking Emily up from daycare and checking her folder, heh.

Poor Jaylen hurt himself in football so he didn’t practice today. I hope he’s better tomorrow, and definitely 100% for his game on Saturday.

Eenan’s into his art and tonight he showed me some of his earlier stuff, from middle school (through Facebook, of course). He’s come a long way :)!

As much as it pains me to do so–because I’d rather be painting, or reading blogs or working on the scrapbook page I never got around to doing…

Pending pages!
Pending pages!

(It’s been like that since Sunday. I at least managed to CUT the photos today, heh.) …I’m going to go ahead and get in bed. Hopefully, Jorge will keep from stealing the covers all night like he did last night and I won’t wake up every 30 minutes >_

Follow Through

Mom and I both had doctor’s appointments yesterday. I remember when all I had to do was drive her and wait with her, but now I’m taking the appointment right after hers *sigh*.

It’s been 3 months since my last doctor’s appointment. Got blood work done. I’m really terrified to find out the results of my cholesterol screening, since I haven’t exercised at all since July and haven’t exactly had the best diet lately =\. The positive side is that–even though I FEEL heavier and was eating like crap–I didn’t gain weight. In fact, since my last appointment in June/July, I LOST 5 pounds.

I also asked the doctor about my darn acne. It’s gotten better since June, but I wish it would just GO AWAY ALREADY. He started me up on a pill again and a new gel, so we’ll see how that goes.

We’ll see how Mom’s results are, too. She wasn’t too keen on going, so I’m pretty sure she hasn’t been eating well *sigh*.

By the time we got home from the doctor and waiting for prescriptions it was almost 11am. Being stuck by needles encouraged me to have a healthy breakfast, as much as I wanted that darn Captain Crunch Berries cereal :(.

Oatmeal with strawberries and almond milk
Oatmeal with strawberries and almond milk

I cleaned up my bedroom after (somewhat) and organized my nightstand. Then I got ready for work and took off.

It was a slow day at work. Replied to a few e-mails, organized some bills, dropped off an invoice and that was really it. I was hungry by 2pm so I had a Campbell’s soup drink. Then we get an e-mail from Rosie that a company left us some pastries and fruit from Corner Bakery Cafe. FML. I shoulda just had fruit, but I had a piece of bread, too. No willpower, I tell you!

Someone stop me!
Someone stop me!

My boss left early and then it was time for a grand-re-opening Ribbon Cutting for Kohnami. It’s under new management and remodeled (it’s been forever since we’d gone there; I think the last time was for Michelle’s birthday last year and it still looked kinda raunchy >_<). We did the RC and then they fed us. OMG. Sushi. Boat. [caption id="attachment_2474" align="aligncenter" width="300"]Sushi boat at Kohnami! Sushi boat at Kohnami![/caption]

The food was so good. I only served myself 5 little sushi pieces (I can eat around 10!), some rice and edamame.

Wally and EZ kept Michelle, Marie, Rick and I laughing. It was a blast. I ordered some rolls for my love (50% off, can’t beat it!) and was home by 6pm. I called the kiddos, got a summary of their day (the boys were playing Super Smash Bros together and the girls did the usual, like play Littlest Pet Shop and watch their customizing/baking/Littlest Pet Shop/Minecraft videos on YouTube). I rolled out of bed, where I’d been talking on the phone to the kids, and put on my workout clothes. I had told myself all day I was going to run because I ate that bread, heh. I seriously want to get into a routine again, and since Jorge was working and the kids aren’t here this weekend I had no excuse. So I went outside, where mosquitoes swarmed me, and watered my succulents. It was thundering and turning dark fast, so I went inside.

It took me forever to just START running. I put on Biggest Loser on NBC while I ran. I did 30 minutes (5 of those were spent vacuuming under the treadmill LOL) and I was EXHAUSTED. I couldn’t get control of my breathing.

At least I did something!
At least I did something!

Jorge got home and he ate his dinner while I showered. We watched “The Knick” for a while. I was getting hungry so I made us a snack :).

Cucumber, lime and Tajin!
Cucumber, lime and Tajin!

I managed to stay awake long enough to finish watching “We’re the Millers” and the rest of the most recent Sons of Anarchy episode. I fell asleep when I was watching each one the first time, surprise, surprise!

It was Karina’s birthday party that night at Ice House, but it started at 11pm and I was already falling asleep by 11pm =\. Jorge and I had discussed earlier in the day if we’d end up going.

Can we say homebodies?
Can we say homebodies?

It just seems like such a TASK for me, getting ready, driving, staying awake that long =\. Plus, if I wasn’t already sleepy and I have one drink, I’ll for sure GET sleepy. Had it been earlier, we might have gone. I hope she wasn’t offended :(.

Plus, we had to be up early for the boys games, and they were both far. I was already running late when Jorge barges into the bathroom, upset, because the boys mother didn’t wake up on time to drop them off for their game after a night of partying. I can’t believe that crap. No shame whatsoever!

But anyway. I already ranted about that earlier, heh.

I get to the school and squish my way to the bleachers. The grass was still wet from the rain and mosquitoes were everywhere. Thank God Mary had some OFF. We sprayed the girls and ourselves and the girls had their breakfast while we watched. Poor Jaylen’s teams lost. And since he played the entire game 2 weeks ago (they cancelled last week’s), they let the other boy play the entire time. Jaylen just went in for a while.

But at least I got to see them all :).

My #11!!
My #11!!
My Chicklets!
My Chicklets!

I waited for Jaylen and he told me about his thoughts of the game while we picked up some McDonald’s for him. I dropped him off and saw Eenan for a bit, till the GIANT mosquitoes started flying all over the place. There’s been 2 cases of West Nile in the Valley, so that makes me super nervous =\.

The skies turned gray as soon as I drove away and it started to drizzle. I went to Dollar General to pick up some birdseed. I was actually hoping to find a hummingbird feeder for cheap, but I didn’t, grr. I did, however, find some bags of soil for $0.30 each!

I got home, ate my oatmeal I picked up when I got Jaylen McDonald’s and now I’m here, typing. We need to go see Gramma and then Mom wants to pick up El Pato. Maybe I can convince her to pick up something at Salads Plus!

Going back on this post…I realize my life really does revolve around FOOD hehe!