Category: Outings

Eenan’s 12th Birthday & A Productive Day!

Finally getting around to updating! Lots has gone on in the past few weeks: our little vacation, drama, work, stuff around the house, spending as much time as we can with the kiddos…it’s been great and busy. I need to rewind soon and get all that on here. And now I can since Roadrunner FINALLY did something right! Maybe this upcoming weekend :).

For now, I’ll post about the past few days. I picked up my kiddos Thursday night and rushed home to change since my boss and his wife was having a Pie Party. It wasn’t my immediate supervisor, it was the CEO, so we *had* to go. And I wasn’t about to pass up free pie! I followed Michelle and Rosie over there and had pecan pie, banana cream pie with chocolate ganach (sp?), and frozen peanut butter. SO, SO good!! And I’d been doing so well with eating healthy and avoiding sweets. I’d lost 4 pounds, and amazingly, even after that night of gluttony (and the morning after, when I had leftover chocolate cream pie and more frozen peanut butter for breakfast!) I’ve kept them off.

I made chicken Alfredo with wheat pasta that night…and was totally going to jog on the treadmill…but the kids wanted to watch a movie, so we did, and I fell asleep with them on the sofa. Oops.

I had a busy day at work Friday. The day went by really slowly. I came home and made fideo with ground turkey instead of ground beef. Came out pretty good, kids couldn’t even tell the difference :).

Jorge got home and we cleaned and got laundry started. Friends we hadn’t seen in a long time arrived, followed by Junior, Rick, and three of his co-workers. We waited for the supposed rain we were supposed to be getting from the tropical storm heading northeast, but got NOTHING! The girls joined us outside while the boys watched a movie. Emily was being a complete doll; everyone loved her :). She did excellently with her potty training that night. She eventually fell asleep in my arms and I got to lay her down. I wasn’t expecting any company that night, but I had a great time!

I spent the next morning being lazy. Didn’t even get up to make my babe breakfast, but he said it was fine :). I still had to wake up early to make the kids breakfast, though. I was woken up by Emily whispering, “Mom…they’re eating cereal without me.” Awww LOL! I made them pancakes and made sure everyone bathed so they’d be ready for when Mario and Mary picked them up. It was Eenan’s 12th birthday (!) and they were picking them up to take them to a movie and for lunch.

John was coming over and I was out of pancakes…so I whipped up another batch, from scratch :). I sipped my coffee while I worked out this week’s bills and expenses and then John came over. We chitchatted for a while and then I ran some errands, including groceries, which I loathe. I got home and made Eenan his Reese’s Peanut Butter Cupcakes, which he requested.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cupcakes

My babe got home, he took a nap and I woke him up 2 hours later since the kids were bouncing off the walls from impatience. I’ll give them credit; I thought they’d break after an hour, heh.

We made our way to Zuzhi, where Eenan loves the Gyoza (pork potstickers) so much he requested to go there since we went for my birthday. So we obliged.

Silly

The kids were amazingly well behaved, even though Jaylen whined occasionally about how long the food was taking to get to the table and he kept arguing with Alaethia about switching seats to be next to me. Ay, these kids!

I’d put a diaper on Emily, just in case of an accident, but she still remembered to ask to go when she needed to. I’m so proud of her :)!

We sang Happy Birthday to Eenan and the kids had cupcakes. We came home and the kids put on a movie. My babe went to get snacks and I, of course, only made it a few minutes before completely crashing out with both baby girls in the big cuddle chair.

I made pancakes the next morning and my babe went to get his boys. I made breakfast for the adults (chorizo and egg tacos on wheat tortillas) and then my babe and I went into turbo mode, cleaning the whole house. He really outdid himself; he swept, mopped, cleaned the entire master bathroom, sorted laundry (correctly), washed, dried, hung clothes, ran a new cable line, mounted the TV, assembled Emily’s bed, helped me rearrange the girls’ room, hung a frame in the dining room, cleaned the vent and air filter, vacuumed, cleaned the catbox, went grocery shopping with me and BBQ’d for us ♥!!

All in a day's work!

I cleaned the living room, swept and mopped all the other rooms he didn’t, did some laundry, and scrubbed the entire kitchen. It feels so nice to walk around and see our hard work :).

We took Eenan to Target so he could spend the cash I gave him and we got a few other things we needed for around the house. We got back and Jorge started the fire. Billy came over and I spent a while outside with the girls. We ate, I let the kids play for a while longer before getting them all to bed. I was beat. It took 3 stories and 2 lullabies, but the girls FINALLY both slept in their room! Alaethia used to do so well in their room, but she regressed because she STILL sleeps in Mary’s or Mario’s beds, which pisses me off like you could not believe. Emily even whispered to me, “Mama? The Cucuy is going to come for Alaethia because she’s not behaving. The Cucuy won’t come for me, right?” Awww! She’s the sweetest thing LOL.

We took a shower once the girls were in bed…which meant that I wasn’t slipping into my sheets till 1:45am. Alaethia woke up once and I tucked her in again and they both stayed asleep all night. I’m so proud of them!

Needless to say, I had such a hard time getting up this morning I got to work 6 minutes late. Amazingly, I didn’t get scolded for my lateness. I can never seem to get there on time for our Monday morning meetings.

I had a stressful day with those darn golf tourney letters. By the end of the day, Michelle and I had almost broken the printer; it was driving us nuts.

I rushed to the ATM, Target for Eenan’s gift from mom, and then to get gas in the van. Mario called in the afternoon, saying he was working late (uh huh, sure. His work isn’t open till 7:30-8pm. Can we say gym?) so his mom was picking up the kids. Mom has an appointment tomorrow so she wouldn’t be here to watch the kiddos. I’m gonna miss them :(. I get them back on Thursday =\.

I made lunch for mom, Jorge, the boys and me. I meant to watch Weeds since the house is clean and I had absolutely nothing else to do…but I found things to do here and there and ended up not watching Weeds and cleaning, hehe. My babe picked up his boys and here I am, with a few more minutes to myself. I can’t believe I’ve actually blogged! And now, before my babe picks up our free movie from Redbox, I shall publish this post and watch a few eps of Weeds :).

Ah, Life!!

(This was started on Friday night and I didn’t finish updating and then I started back on it Saturday morning *sigh*)

(Friday) Ahhh…one of the best things about making Tortilla Soup is that you have enough caldito left to poach some more chicken the next day :). Did that, chopped up and baked some tortillas, cubed an avocado and voila!, dinner!

(May I also add that one of the best things about finally upgrading my WP is that I forgot about my laptop after dinner last night and it shut down to install updates, but it thankfully saved my draft, *whew*!)

I’m waiting for my babe to get back from dropping off his boys. Mine were picked up earlier by Mary. Mario supposedly caught the kids’ virus and was home so he couldn’t come. Mary had to come early since she had a Rosary to attend. Another one of their aunts passed away =\.

(Saturday) The house is utterly quiet, except for the Mexican soap opera Mom’s watching in another room. Between having my kids a few days here and a few days there and my babe’s for over a week straight, it was pretty routine coming home and being greeted by tons of little voices excited to tell you what they did throughout the day. Ok. I’ll stop. I’m just going to depress myself. They’ll be back soon :).

Ok, so let’s see. It’s been extremely hot (103-105, not including the “heat index” blah) and Mom was awesome and bought the kids a pool. (Which I heard caused a certain someone to spaz out and start talking smack about how we’re “buying” our children off with material things. Is he serious? Says the one whose mommy buys them everything they want the second they ask for it. Moron.) Anyway, the pool is nothing huge, which was a relief once we put Emily and Alaethia in there. The boys play around and knock them over accidentally and OMG–I go into panic-mode. I just CANNOT STAND the idea of a kid drowning, not even feeling that awful choking/burning in the back of your throat and nostrils. It’s the worst thing. So I make sure to go in there with them and I’m glad that the rare times the boys do push them over, they can get right back up.

My babe went to a training on the 14th in Houston. I had the girls till the evening the first night. We got in the pool and they kept me pretty distracted, but they ended up leaving with Mario and I was quickly becoming lonely and depressed. I would have been fine if my babe could just text with me all day and night, but he couldn’t, heh. Michelle and Rosie invited me to walk the trail with them near their house both nights, so that kept me nice and busy. I wish there was a walking trail at the park that’s 2 blocks down but there’s only playground equipment =\. I came home and actually did Ab Ripper–OMG, the pain! Too bad I only kept up with it for 3 days =\.

I finally took the kiddos to the library last weekend. The library I spent many summers at :). Only Eenan, Alaethia and Emily wanted to go at the last minute; the rest of the boys were into a video game and refused to move >_<. But, Eenan had fun and my poor Alaethia (who'd caught the stomach virus that the kids are taking turns passing around) enjoyed the puzzles and games, as did Emily :).

At the library

At the Library

We gathered a few books, I changed Emily’s diaper (she’s regressing with the potty training from when she had the darn virus. And I’m sure that other family isn’t helping much, grr) and Alaethia had to go to the bathroom so we got all that done. That was my cue to leave before Aly’s stomach really started to bother her. So, I braced myself for the wails when I announced it was time to go. And sure enough. Emily screamed. Loudly. Everyone thought she was the most adorable thing in the world, so they didn’t seem bothered, thank God LOL. I checked out the books. Chased her a little bit and then we walked out. She began to drag herself as soon as we walked outside but she became momentarily distracted when Eenan pointed out a little dead chick that had fallen out of a tree. Eenan, Alaethia and I hovered over it and began to analyze what may have happened, when all of a sudden a little 2-year-old foot comes out of nowhere and not only STOMPS, bug DRAGS across the pavement, squishing the already demised birdie :(. It was a bit traumatizing and I was so shocked I tried not to laugh. Eenan thought it was the craziest thing and was openly giggling. I gave Emily a scolding about how mean it was and she was silent on the way home. Kids!

We got home and I started on dinner: spaghetti and meatballs, one of my poor Alaethia’s favorites. She hardly ate because she was so out of it from that darn virus (she sure did enjoy it the next day, though!). Emily had a blast with it. She even took her fork back to me as I was serving the other kids and said, “Here. I don’t need this.” She had spaghetti EVERYWHERE.

My babe and I got into a 5-minute argument about something I can’t even remember now and we sat outside on the bed of the truck and talked about it. I love that about us. We don’t stay mad long because one of us always gives in and either apologizes or explains why we’re upset ♥.

We lazied around the house the rest of the evening. We watched TV. I read my book while the girls slept. The boys played Xbox and then acted like total boys; roughhousing, climbing all over my babe, SPINNING! It was crazy and they had a BLAST! Jorge spun all of them from their LEGS and they loved it LOL. All 4 boys even dragged me over to my babe and he attempted to spin me but I was terrified LOL.

We woke up the next morning, Father’s Day, and I made my babe his favorite, an omelet with the works :).

First thing on the agenda was relocating the pool. It was beginning to sag on one side where the ground was unleveled. My babe emptied it out and then I helped him smooth it out and refill it on the driveway. It was the most level ground we could find. The kids were sitting in the garage just watching us. They had popsicles and drinks while they waited. I found it kinda odd that Mario nor Mary had called to ask to pick up the kids since it was Father’s Day, but around 1:30 Mary called and asked if I could take them over sooner than 6. I told her about them waiting for the pool and they’d be over at 4.

We all go in the pool and had an awesome time. It was so hot that the water was a wonderful relief.

Me with the Kiddos :)

We stayed in there a good hour and a half. I was almost sunburned and my babe was most definitely sunburned for being out so long. It was already 5 so we all hustled to get changed so I could drop the kids off with Mario. While I changed Alaethia, Emily and my babe fell asleep. It was the cutest thing LOL.

So I got back from the long drive and we started with the BBQing. I really wish my kiddos had been there, but I tried to be understanding and giving Mario time with them, too. The food was great and it was really nice sitting outside and chatting :).

Foooood!!

(It’s now Sunday night and I’m STILL trying to finish this post! I’m so bad at this!)

Let’s see. We chilled out with my babe’s boys Tuesday night. We were watching TV and then got bored and came outside to sit on the porch. The boys started blowing bubbles and one of them was kinda crappy so I searched Google for homemade bubbles. We went inside and mixed some water, dish soap and Karo syrup together and they were AWESOME! The boys had so much fun ^_^!

We had an emergency with the pool; a neighborhood kitty seems to have clawed it so we tried our hardest to patch it up but it didn’t work. We made a trip to Walmart to hopefully find a repair kit but ended up with ice cream instead since there were no repair kits, heh. I finally found Dreyers Brownie Fudge and Justin and I picked that one :).

It FINALLY rained on Wednesday, just like the forecast predicted! It was wonderful! I love love love overcast skies and rain!

My babe and I hardly meet for lunch anymore (one, because he’s usually far away with work and two, because we’re cutting back on extra things) so we thought we’d have lunch at El Terco Seafood that day. It was SO GOOD.

IMAG1665

They postponed one of my events 🙁 so the rest of the day at work was pretty laid back for me. I got home and made dinner for all of us and then my babe and I went grocery shopping. We ended up with this:

IMAG1670

We sat outside on the porch watching TV, eating our cheesecakes and I had a glass of wine. It was a great, great night :).

The next day it was nice and overcast and the forecast didn’t disappoint. It rained again after lunch. I had to walk barefoot to my van, which I’d parked across the street because the parking lot directly across was blocked off!

Overcast

I prayed on the way to pick up the kids. It’s a 35 minute drive on a good day and the rain was coming down hard so it took about 15 extra minutes to get there. Thankfully, by the time I picked them up and was on my way back with them, the rain had stopped.

This was the night I originally made tortilla soup. I fed everyone (got great reviews, including from Emily, heh) and then we spent the rest of the night chilling out and watching TV, or being out on the porch. It’s so awesome when we’re all together. We literally feel complete :).

So this brings us back to Friday evening after the kids were picked up/dropped off. We ate dinner quietly, which was really weird. No crazy, funny stories. It was just QUIET. You usually crave a second of silence when all 6 kids are screaming but it’s just awful when you don’t hear ANYTHING :(.

We finished dinner at chatted at the table and decided to go to Red Mango for some yogurt (buy one get one free, baby!) before heading to the Duckie Park (as Alaethia calls it) and eat our yogurt there.

IMAG1677

We sat at a covered bench and ate our yogurt, people watched and just talked. I enjoy my little dates with my babe. It’s so comfortable and we can be quiet or sharing stories or laughing and it’s always NICE. I love it. I told him about how I always feel guilty when the kids aren’t here. Like, it’s…wrong…to have fun or a good time if they’re not around. He told me he felt that way too sometimes but it was ok for us to have fun once in a while when we’re alone. So I gave myself a break that night and enjoyed myself :).

I was told the exact same thing by Pete and Sally later that night, when we visited them in their new house :). It’s GORGEOUS! They gave us the grand tour and then we sat in their living room and caught up. I love them, love our conversations. We each shared cute anecdotes about our relationships (how Sally and I both follow the guys around the house switching off lights, heh) and we discussed our kiddos. It’s always great meeting up with them!

My babe worked the next day and I spent the day lazying around the house. I wanted to do absolutely nothing. John came over and we chit chatted and laughed at everything like always. I typed up this entry, uploading pics to Flickr, commented on Facebook and I had this crushing feeling in my chest telling me to Get up! Quit wasting time! Quit being lazy and clean the house!! Go buy groceries! Visit your Gramma!!!

So I eventually gave in (around 3pm) and Mom and I visited Gramma. I wanted to make sushi for dinner but we didn’t have rice, so I went to HEB Plus in Shary instead of the HEB down the road. Who in the world do I run into but my babe’s psycho ex. I saw Justin and he lit up when he realized it was me. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him with her. She had her 20-some-year-old niece and her son with her. I told Mom, “Just wait. There’s gonna be drama.”

Sure enough. She came into the “Asian isle” and proceeded to cause a scene. She went on and on about how he still sleeps with her and so forth (which is funny considering that WE’RE ALWAYS TOGETHER) and was just EMBARRASSING. She event\ went as far as tapping an innocent customer on the shoulder to get her involved in her psycho babble. She pushed me once and I told her, “I’m not doing this here with you, and definitely not in front of Justin.” Of course she goes into *snap*snap* mode and says, “So what? I wait for you outside, or what?” So completely childish and ghetto!

I called my babe to let him know there was most likely going to be a show later on. I said, “I wouldn’t doubt she leaves her cart somewhere and goes straight outside to wait for me behind my van.”

I should be a psychic! I got to my van with a cart-full of groceries and there was the silver car she was in, parked directly behind my van. She gets down and I go on about my business, putting groceries away. She yells God knows what to me and my mom tells her, “Just leave her alone. Go away.” And when she got in front of my Mom’s face and yelled at her I snapped, “Don’t yell at my mother that way!”

She yelled in all her ghetto glory, “I don’t give a FUCK about your mom!” and pushed me. I’m not sure what she grabbed first, but she pulled my hair, tried ripping my (brand new!) tank top repeatedly (’cause she’s a perv like that) & flailed her arms in pathetic attempts to punch me. I had my stupid bag on my shoulder, open as always and I did NOT want to let it go. I was afraid her niece would grab it and run. But her niece was too busy holding my left arm away from her lovely aunt. I had managed to grab her stupid face since she first attacked me and I did NOT let go. The other hand was wrapped around a chunk of her hair, too. I couldn’t get out of the knot of arms and I saw her legs spread open so I kicked her square in her ghetto balls. She moved back and started with her made up sob stories so the lovely crowd that had assembled around us could hear. And the entire time Justin and the other little boy were watching from inside. She’s seriously something else. What exactly did she accomplish? What was she trying to change? I’m not leaving him, he’s not leaving me, so…? Well, Karma’s a bitch, though, just wait and see.

Last night was, needless to say, a total flop. But today completely made up for it :). My babe and I slept in, I made crab & avocado omelets and then we showered and got ready for the day.

Crab & avocado omelet

We stopped by Red Mango (it’s an addiction, I tell ya!) and got our usual yogurts. That was our lunch. I beat my babe at the Slug Bug game hehe. I sold Emily’s old crib, so John finally got that out of his apartment :P. We went to my babe’s sis’ house to get more of his things and tell her about my adventure yesterday, heh. We got home and unloaded his stuff and went to Walmart for a few things I’d forgotten yesterday. We had some popcorn when we got home and then we went outside to clean the pool. My babe’s friend came over for a bit and then we relaxed in the pool for a good while. We hadn’t noticed just how many different types of birds fly around our house. I finally saw two little hummingbirds here!

We washed up and I made us some awesome sushi :).

Sushiii!

And now we’re sitting outside on the back porch. We’re so not gonna want to get ready for work in the morning. Why must the weekend be so short!

Passing the Time, Part 2

I really should try to finish updating…it’s been almost a week since I last updated and now I’m 2 weeks behind LOL. Oh well!

I brought lunch with me to work (shrimp and rice :)). I read a little and then remembered that I haven’t updated this thing.

But anyway! Details are becoming sketchy (I used to be so good at remembering things!) so I don’t remember much from Friday the 13th except that I made sushi for dinner and my babe made his awesome stuffed jalapeños!

Dinner from the 13th

I’m not sure if we had company over that night, but I know we stayed up late. My poor babe still had to work Saturday and I began to get up to make him breakfast but he told me I should rest and he kissed my forehead as I snuggled under the blanket and fell back to sleep :). Amazingly, I slept in till 11:30am! I never sleep in, not because I don’t want to, but because I simply can’t, ever. I felt refreshed! I made myself some coffee, followed up with the girls about when we were meeting for our movie, and got ready.

We went to watch “Bridesmaids”…super HILARIOUS movie!! I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it as much as I did :). Karina’s crazy; she sneaked in some wine coolers so we had some LOL. It was just Karina, Dayse and me who got to meet up. And after the movie, Dayse had something to do so it was just Karina, her friend and niece and myself having lunch (breakfast/lunch/dinner for me!) at Rodz.

I went home and get a text from my babe that he was getting out of work a bit late because they’d just sent him…to Rodz to work LOL. I made him some dinner and he got home and we watched one of the “Pirates” movies. We’re spontaneous…and I wanted cheesecake so we hopped in the truck and went to Starbucks at Barnes and Noble to get some Godiva cheesecake and Fraps. We looked around for a while and then went home. I love my little dates with my babe :).

We slept in again (two days in a row for me, WHAT?!) And we lazied around all day. We picked up El Pato for lunch and ate with mom. The weather was great that day. It’d been hot and humid the week before but a “cold front” had come in that morning and it was nice and cool. It would have been a great day to take all the kids to the park :(. It’s so quiet without them here, it’s almost weird. We try and watch TV or keep ourselves busy to fight the boredom without them. After we ate we sat outside with mom on the back patio. We took a walk around the yard and noticed all the neighbors’ trash had blown into the yard so we cleaned up the yard. We got three garbage bags of junk! I wish we had a cedar back fence so they can keep their junk to themselves >_<. I raked up leaves and the chopped grass my babe was weed-eating. We felt nice and accomplished :). The kiddos came by with Mary when she dropped Emily off and they stayed a bit. I had at tough time putting Emily to bed that night, which usually happens when she spends the weekend over there. Grrr. It was my scholarship event that Thursday so last-minute things were finished up that week. I think this event was the easiest I've had and this is the last one for "this year". It was pretty low-key at work all week, which is always nice, but I feel...guilty LOL. I'm traumatized from my previous job, where my old boss would say, "There's never any free time!" So when I have free time now, I LOOK for something to do LOL. We went to Jr.'s Wednesday night. We hadn't been over there since even before we moved to the new house. It was nice being over there. Of course I couldn't stay awake long enough and fell asleep on my spot on the sofa till the guys had their "guy time" and we came home. I got ready for bed and did amazingly well the next day, the day of my event. Michelle and I got ready at work and I'm so relieved to say the event went without incident. Every section on the program transitioned smoothly, there were no awkward pauses, the guitarist played beautifuly, the food was delicious...it was just nice :). I got to meet my babe for lunch the next day at Chick-fil-A :). I've been trying to keep from spending unneccessarily so I've been taking lunch to work, but I wanted to see my sweetie so we met up. Seeing him for lunch makes the day go by faster :). Mario kept the kids that night since I had the event and the kids were coming with me during the weekend and I was feeling pretty good so I met my babe and the guys at Buffalo's. I had one drink and just laughed and laughed at the guys and their jokes. We stayed in Friday night and I had all the kids get ready early so that we'd get ready fast the next morning for Jaylen's First Communion. It was awkward being near Mario's family, but I ignored it and paid attention to the Service. The "after" part--taking pictures with Jaylen--was quick and painless and we came home. We lounged around the rest of the day and I painted the girlies' nails. The kids played and had a good time. The next morning wasn't exactly how I pictured spending my Sunday; waking up and driving the kids all the way to La Joya so the boys could go to church. They wanted Jaylen there for post-First Communion things. It's ridiculous though, driving back and forth 3 times in one day. I don't get to see the boys till 2:30 and have to "return" them at 6. It totally cuts into my time with them. I already told them I'd be taking the boys to church here the weekends I have them. I made lunch for the rest of us when I got back and then my babe and I turbo-cleaned because Aunt Nora was visiting, heh. I'm glad we didn't have much to clean :). She brought us a spring wreath and we sat with Mom and caught up. I love her and wish we could see each other more often :(. The kids ran rampant through the house playing hide-n-seek and since they wanted something to snack on I made a chocolate cake. And then it was time to drop off my babies :(. The rest of the kiddos, my babe and I went to Walmart when I got back and we had a lil' BBQ. Put the kiddos to bed and then we stayed out on the back porch for a bit. We spent the next day doing stuff around the house, washing the van (finally LOL), and we went to his sister's house to pick up the TV. We spent all afternoon going to raspa and fruit cup places along the way and NOBODY took debit cards. Very disappointing. We treated ourselves to some Red Mango on our way home after picking up the TV. It was SO GOOD! Almost glad we didn’t get those fruit cups, hehe.

Red Mango!

My babe’s friend came over to help him install the TV and then we actually got to sit down and watch TV in the living room! it was nice :). We watched “Extreme Couponing” on TLC–first time watching it and I was hooked! It’s amazing! I wish the stores in our area doubled coupons, though. Otherwise I don’t think it really works out =\. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to collect coupons and try it out though!

Emily had a hard time falling asleep again that night, even after 2 stories and about 6 lullabies. Alaethia, however, sleeps like a ROCK!

It was a great weekend with my kiddos, however limited my time with the boys was :(. I’m grateful for all my happy memories, though. Every last one!