Halloween 2012

Last week felt like one of the longest, most stressful ones in a long time. One of my major events was coming up at the end of the week–which is where most of my stress was coming from–and it was Halloween on Wednesday.

Mario and I have been taking turns with the kids on Halloween since 2010, and this year was my turn. I was thrilled :). Mario hadn’t gotten the boys costumes yet and it was a week before Halloween; we were cutting it close. Jaylen wanted to be a Minecraft Creeper and Eenan wanted to be a zombie (of course!), so I figured we’d go the crafty way and do the costumes ourselves. I was probably in over my head, but I wanted the kiddos to be happy.

I’m so glad I’d worked on several things for work at home on Sunday (the 28th) or else I would have been swamped on Monday. Well, I kinda was anyway, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I sent everything out that needed to be sent out and followed up on several things. I can’t remember why I didn’t go to Walmart that night to get the stuff we’d need for Jaylen’s Creeper costume–I know I worked a bit late, but I can’t remember what else I had to do O_o–but I waited till the next day. I went right after work and bought the spray and acrylic paints. Got home: made dinner, got the girls in the bath and got them ready for bed. Early. Jorge got home and was visibly annoyed. The kids didn’t have costumes (hence my previous rant) and he couldn’t make SOMEBODY understand that he hands over plenty of cash for them to have 5 costumes each if they wanted. It was high drama. He needed to cool down (’cause things were becoming heated between us) so he went to wash his car. I got ready to start on Jaylen’s costume, and realized that the box we had was a bit too big and heavy. I asked Mom to stay with the girls while I went to Walmart for a new one. I found the box, went to pay. The cashier at the register is sweet enough to say, with pity, “Awe. You look SO TIRED.” She had NO IDEA.

Jorge got back when I was (having trouble) measuring and he helped me. We took turns painting. 2 1/2 hours later, we were done:

He loved it, thank goodness :). I’m just sad I couldn’t get it to him on time for school =\. But they have to dress as story book characters anyway and I’m pretty sure some kid woulda knocked it over and it would have been ruined :(.

Wednesday, Halloween, I got Aly ready for school and dropped her off. No costumes were allowed, but Halloween shirts were:

I totally don’t tell her to pose; that’s all her! My little diva! (Pay no attention to the mess on the bistro table…those were crafting supplies leftover from the previous night’s project!)

We had a meeting in the morning so they fed us tacos from El Pato, heh. We got to watch a clip while we ate of a local band that went on the Mexican version of “America’s Got Talent”. Pretty interesting!

I rushed through work. I’m pretty sure I met up with my love to eat lunch somewhere (this is when it comes in handy to check in on Facebook, but lately either my phone doesn’t cooperate or I just forget, heh).

I got out of work an hour early and rushed to pick up the boys. The whole drive takes 1 hour to and from, and we had to stop at a store and pick up baskets/bags for the boys, plus some “blonde” hair spray paint for Alaethia’s Rapunzel costume AND THEN I’d have to get them ALL ready and make it to the first party we were going to, which ended at 7pm.

So I picked them up and we went straight to the Halloween store on Shary. Super long line. Scratch that. We go a few stores down to Sally Beauty Supply. There’s only a slightly golden spray, but it’s $3 and the last one. It would be my last resort if Target didn’t have them. We walk to Target, with the boys acting like boys and making me laugh the whole way. I love those lil’ dudes!

We get to the Halloween section and I ask an employee; they didn’t receive ANY hair spray paint this year. Bummer. Jaylen found a basket, and Eenan ran as fast as he could to the game section -__-. Grrr. So there we go, looking for him. I came across a cart of abandoned clearance items and notice a whole box-full of solar path lights. 24 of them. At $.90 each! I call Jorge and finally get through Sprint’s crappy signal and he tells me, “GET THEM ALL!” So I did :). I’m SO GLAD we waited all this time to buy them! That’s a steal if you ask me!

Jaylen and I threaten to leave Eenan behind and we go pay. The boy STILL stayed behind. I remember a time when I could say, “I’m leaving without you if you don’t hurry…1…2…” And now he knows I either won’t leave or he could just sit all day in the game section LOL.

When Eenan finally got back, we went to Sally’s to get the gold paint. It was already going to be 6pm! There was no way we were making it to the party. Oh well. They were fine just trick-or-treating.

I got the girls in their costumes and spray-painted their hair. Emily had a hair piece and put it on, too LOL. Jaylen’s was easy; he put on is box and was ready to go! Eenan, on the other hand, took a while. I cut up his old shirt, put his hair up in a high ponytail so I could start painting his face white/gray (to which he gasped, horrified, “I look like a Geisha!!” LOL). And then came the tattoo applications and the rest of the make-up. Jorge got home as I was getting them ready, around 7:30pm. They were ready to find some candy!

Mom abandoned ship and decided to go with us. She’d bought all this candy and wasn’t even going to give it out! We went to Michelle and Rosie’s neighborhood, where they let us park, thank God. It was madness. It looked like herds of zombies were out and about. Most of the houses were out of candy, but the kids got some pretty good loot. Towards the end of our expedition Emily says, “Mama. I can’t walk anymore.” Aww LOL!. It was time to call it quits. We got in the car and went to visit Gramma for a while, then we picked up some Church’s Chicken, fed the kids at home, forced them all to take showers and they were out for the count. All of them LOL.

I woke up at 5am Thursday morning to take the boys to school, then drove home right after to pick up Alaethia and drop her off at school. Work was hectic, but everything seemed to be running smoothly…until one of my fitness instructors dropped out. And then my chef dropped out. Grrr. It was drama, but thankfully we found replacements quickly.

Ate lunch with my love at Siempre Natural. Got out of work, drove to pick up the boys, and took them to Game Stop, then got home and started on some enchiladas. Got the girls in the bath, got everyone in bed and THEN I sat down to watch the CMA’s. Jorge was having his Guy’s Night on the back porch watching Thursday Night Football, so I snuggled up to watch some singin’. Yeah right. I was out like a light by 9:30pm! Jorge woke me up around midnight and I got in the shower. Good thing, too, ’cause next morning was another 5am wake-up call!

I gathered all my stuff that I may need since I was having a late work night (my phone charger, flats, etc.) and took the boys to school. Jorge was taking Aly this time *whew*. I got to work and did all the last-minute things that have become a ritual the day before an event. I made it a point to call all my exhibitors and got confirmation that indeed, everyone was showing up. Thank goodness. I gathered everything we’d need for the event and packed my car, then headed to meet my love for lunch. We chose HEB Plus Cafe, Spoonz, since we were both craving it (too bad I ordered the wrong panini sandwich!).

My boss texted that we could change into jeans, so my love and I went home and I changed, I dropped him off at his jobsite and then I went to the convention center. An hour in, I had a feeling I should call one of my instructors…and she flaked out on me after she confirmed! So we put our heads together and hired one of our go-to guys for an hour of guitar instrumental. *whew*

I left for my boys at 5, picked them up and they stayed with me at work, keeping busy with their (and my) phones :).

We closed shop around 7:45pm and the director of catering came to talk to the boys. He told them about this app where they can monitor where the International Space Station is and plants and stars. He told them the ISS was passing over us at 7:59pm and what way to face to see it, so we hauled out of there and parked. And sure enough, we saw it! A little silver dot passing by in a perfect arch. The boys were pretty intrigued :).

We got home and ate and then we relaxed in PJs and watched our shows. I got ready for the next day and hoped for the best.

Got up, another 5am morning, and headed out. Met the boss at work at 6:30am to pick up some stuff we forgot, then headed to the convention center. People were already waiting to unload. It felt like a blur. By the time we knew it, it was time to open the doors. To make a super long story short, we had a much better turnout last year in terms of people, much better turnout this year in terms of exhibitors. I was really disappointed. Something went wrong with the ads, or something. Didn’t help that 3 other similar events were happening around the Valley. Ugh :(.

It was over, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be honest. I was so stressed! I felt a little bummed, but my boss told me not to worry, and so did everyone else. I did my job.

I packed up my stuff with my co-worker’s help, and then I headed to HEB. Briana and I planned on celebrating Halloween with the kids that Saturday, since we didn’t get to on Wednesday. We were trying to mimic our celebrations from the year before, only this year Dina wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be carving pumpkins =\.

I got stuff for mummy weenies, cupcakes, and some cream cheese and bacon stuffed crescents for the adults. I was tired just thinking about it, but I wanted to do this for the kiddos.

I got home, unloaded, changed and lay on the bed with Emily. She ran off and I ended up falling asleep for a whole hour, until our lawn guy was weed-whacking near my bedroom window. He finally showed up! He left us a letter in our mailbox, thank God, with his info. We’d lost it and our neighborhood lawn kid hadn’t showed up in 3 weeks and the grass was INSANE.

I started on the mummy weenies, then the cupcakes. My love showed up, then Bri and the kids. We chit-chatted and my love got the projector running. I finally finished with the food at 10pm! I started at 5:30 LOL.

I could eat those every day! May (or may not, heh) post a recipe this weekend! It’s hard for me to since almost everything I make is just by “eye” measurements, so that’s where it gets hard to put it on paper. Er, or website.

This was after the movie started getting scary LOL. Eenan came and sat next to me, Jorgie had an arm around each of the girls (but they refused to stop watching!). Later, Nick, Jorgie and Justin went and huddled around Jorge:

I stole this one from Jorge’s Facebook :P. You can see Eenan realizing that someone was behind us…and he was instantly creeped out LOL. He said, “He scared me!” And I said, “WHO??” And he points and Jorge and says, “HIM…” but it sounded more like “heem” LOL!!

Not pictured is Jaylen, who passed out in his room and no amount of noise or rib-poking would wake him up. Until an hour later when he sprung back to life and wanted to play video games -__-.

It was a great night! As stressed as I was, and as much work as it took, I feel blessed to be surrounded by my family and our good times ♥!

It’s taken me a whole week to write up this post, so I’ll stop here and continue with this week’s post next week, buahaha!