Category: Birthdays

It’s been a crazy few weeks. What with the girls having their extracurricular activities and having to leave work at 4 p.m. almost everyday for them, and having to get costumes ready, bills, groceries and work, work, work–I feel like there really aren’t enough hours in the day. Best believe there’s been no time for working out or hobbies 🙁 .

But as tired and busy as I’ve  been (and oftentimes: overwhelmed) I’m glad that work events, activities with the kids and life in general have gone pretty smoothly.

Sally invited us to her and her friends’ Halloween party. We get invited every year, but for  some reason or another, haven’t made it. 

After paying bills and running  errands on a Saturday, the girls and I went to a thrift shop that I  used to frequent a lot about 10 years  ago. 

I had to figure out a costume for THAT evening because only I would buy my costume in September and try it on 3 weeks later only to find that it was completely see-through (and I could have done with losing about 10 pounds! That thing was skin tight!) The family is going with a Star Wars theme for Mia’s birthday this year, so no Princess Leia for me. Instead, I was going to figure out how to be an Ewok! Wicket, to be exact.

Emily unearthed this plastic turkey that we had an exact copy of  when I was little. Mom also  had a Santa and Rudolph! Of course it came home with us (not like I need more junk 😆 !)

Just as I was about to give up on finding something, I couldn’t believe my luck! Not only did I find the perfect  teddy bear to behead for his ears, but I also found some burnt orange fabric and brown plush fabric to match the ears! We got home and I  got to work while I made dinner. 

I realized I DID NOT know how to sew a skirt, especially since the fabric really was some type of plush upholstery, but I tried my best and put something together within an hour. I’m happy to say everyone knew exactly who I was!

Jorge and I are both a bit socially awkward when we don’t know people, so we didn’t think we’d stick around long but we ended up staying a good 1.5 hours! (Ooh, party animals!)

We had our Wine Classic event that was “The Great Gatsby” themed so I had to figure out how to run all these errands at work AND find myself a 1920’s looking dress! So of course I would run to thrift shops during lunch to find pieces to make this outfit possible. I ended up finding a black lace dress with beige liner and a kid’s-size flapper dress I wanted to cut the fringe off of. When I finally got around to working on the dress…the fringe wasn’t enough! So I conceded to the fact that I’d have to actually purchase some downtown. Meh.

So I found the fringe on one of our craft-shopping trips, and I found my shoes and headwear later downtown as well. I was literally working on my dress, hand-sewing the fringe during my lunch hour that same day!

I rushed around finishing things at work and rushed off to Quinta Mazatlan to help Gerry. I was posted at the silent auction room like I am every year 🙂 . Where all the yummy desserts are!

I’m proud of myself for maintaining control of myself throughout the event, but now that I’m looking at the photos, I’m having major regrets about not tasting everything 🙁 !!

Anyway, my outfit worked out (the fringe never unraveled!) and I managed to throw my hair into an up-do that sort of made sense. (It actually worked out much better during my trial-run at home!):

It was an awesome event, Gerry always outdoes herself! Clean-up was crazy but seemingly fast and Gerry, Ryan and I ended up having our actual dinner at 1am at Whataburger, hehe.

Briana, Dina and the kids had arrived while I was working the previous day. We got up and got ready to have Mia’s 7th birthday party, Star Wars themed! Briana goes all out! It was a crazy whirlwind of going to Walmart, getting tables and chairs, attempting to help Briana with snacks (my Jello brain was good, the white chocolate I bought for our pretzel mummies was so bad! Stick with the good stuff, even if it’s more expensive. Then we had to get ourselves and all the kids ready, but the end-result was awesome! Jorge, Briana and the kids even did the Imperial March as the big open 😆 !

It’s a good thing I got a group photo!! The boys lasted all but 15 minutes in their costumes!

It was so fun! Glad Sally and the kiddos got to make it, too! I never got around to trimming the “hood” of my costume (it was supposed to be v-shaped at the front *sigh*), but all-in-all, it was a blast and the kids were chocolate-wasted and strewn all over the place. Love those family gatherings!

It’s been 8 months since I decided to go under the knife. I didn’t update last month (month 7 post-op) because I was feeling pretty good and didn’t want to jinx anything. 

I’ve had little to no shocks of pain lately. I used to get them a lot around the areolas. Sometimes I’ll still get a sudden sting in the same area I was drained on month 6, but it’s nothing major.

I’ve even been sleeping on my sides again, but I have to be very careful to not squish my boobs. On the actual day of my 8 month post-op anniversary (the 10th), I had some pants to return at JC Penney so I went bra shopping after my epic fail a few months ago (nothing fit comfortably then and I couldn’t figure out my size!). 

And this time, I still couldn’t figure it out! 

It’s either a C or B (down from DD) but I felt like everything was pressing on my incisions (even though I only tried on wireless bras) and it was giving me anxiety! I could also see lines of chub on my back (a direct result of not being able to run or exercise!!), so I said screw it, I’m keeping my cotton sports bras! I’m more comfortable anyway!
I went running on the 11th and felt pretty damn awesome! My heavy-duty running sports bra wasn’t too constricting and I didn’t feel stretching on my boobs when I ran fast. I had just been thinking about how I hadn’t gotten those weird, red, itchy, mosquito-bite looking welts in a long time! But lo-and-behold, when I got home and took my bra off, there was one on the side of my left boob above my incision! I still don’t know what the heck causes that! Sweat? My blood pressure being elevated from running? The bra itself? Who knows?

But all-in-all, I can’t complain. I feel comfortable and am braless as soon as I get home from work. I just hope it doesn’t backfire and I make my bewbs all wobbly!! Can that happen??

Sorry, thinking out loud. Anyway. If I could just get myself to work out daily again and not have some kind of mammary-incident, that would be great!! I was doing P90X, Yoga and running (occasionally) before that infection on my incision happened, so I’m hoping to start again soon, and hopefully with no problems this time! I have a Halloween Costume and 1920’s themed event I have to dress up for!

My Mother’s Day weekend started a bit early on Friday, with Emmos presenting me with a beautiful magnet frame for my fridge .

We had movie night that night, and I managed to fall asleep during the latest Star Wars movie. The parts I saw were great tho!

I skipped yoga the next day (after much rolling around in my sheets debating how long to “sleep in”) but I eventually got up and got ready…only to sit at the kitchen table drinking coffee 😆 .

I took Emmos with me and we searched all over for the small Peppa plushes for Charlee. They were out everywhere. But we did find this:

For $1.00!! We couldn’t believe it. We searched the isles for more, but again, nothing 😕 .

We did all our shopping and errands and then we got home and I got the 3 little ones ready to go to Charlee’s party. Before we got ready to leave, Julien runs to me and says, “Happy Mother’s Day!!”:

I immediately choked up; I felt overwhelmed and just surprised! I put it on the fridge proudly, next to Emmos’. He brought me a little poem, too, with handprints and a painting of a vase with flowers in it (the buds were his little hands!), but I told him it should be for his 1st Mom. I didn’t know how to take his reaction; I didn’t want to offend him, but I figured she should have something, too, from him. I know I would want to. I did take pictures of him with the poem and painting and I said, “There! Now we’ll both have one!”

So after adjusting my mascara and swallowing down the lump in my throat, we were off 🙂 .

They had so much fun at Sally’s! She always comes up with cute games for them and they love it. And Charlee looked adorable, of course!

I had a great time, too, catching up with Sally. I love spending time with her!

We got home and just as I changed into my lazy clothes, I get a message on Facebook stating that I won a Mother’s Day contest pack from Xquinkles Snack Land!! I never win those social media contests so I was thrilled, and hello?! Who wouldn’t be thrilled over this:

I took half the brood with me; the others stayed home playing video games with Dad 🙂 .

Then we got home and watched The Jungle Book–which I passed out during as well.

The next morning was officially Mother’s Day 🙂 . Jorge woke me up with smooches and told me to stay in bed, so I obliged 😆 . Then he and the girls woke me up and I was greeted by these beautiful, drowsy faces:

My love and the kiddos didn’t make breakfast that morning, but he did bring the next best thing: menudo and barbacoa!!

So we ate, and then I was allowed to lounge around all morning until we got ready to return some stuff (can you believe the tunic I’m wearing in the photo was $5??) and then we went to visit Gramma:

She was doing good, thank God :). She’s recently moved to a new facility, per her request, which shocked us all. So that only means she really didn’t like it at the previous place before 🙁 .

We got home and Aunt Nora and Linda came to visit. Then we lazied around the rest of the day. It was just awesome, and low-key with all the kids, Mom and my love. John was around for a bit, but disappeared to study. We watched Grey’s Anatomy with the kids the rest of the evening until I passed out on the sofa.

As for gifts, I did a satisfying amount of clothes shopping 🙂 . Plus my love got me this:

I had such a great day yesterday, that I actually didn’t mind having to wake up at 5am this morning 🙂 . And dropping the kids off was a piece of cake on our way to school/work and the day went by fast and was a breeze! I even applied for a grant (with my co-worker’s advice, of course!)