48 Hours in Houston

Well,I'm back. I had a super time in Houston. Here's a recap.

Luxuries experienced:

1. Flying. Not only did I get to fly without children, but I got to fly first-class. Guapo travels a lot and so he gets bumped up when there is an opening. He is always so sweet to let me have the seat in first-class while all 6 foot 4 inches of him sits back in coach. While I was enjoying steak and cheesecake, he was back trying to wash down a huge roll with a little piece of cheese and meat that were lost in the middle.

2. Hotel.

Yep, that's a little chocolate on the bed.

3. Showering/going to the bathroom by myself. No explanation necessary.

Stores visited in a 1 1/2 day period:

1. Target (2X)
2. Walmart (2X)
3. Gap
4. Motherhood Maternity
5. Marshalls
6. Old Navy
7. JoAnn Fabrics
8. Micheal's
10. Barnes and Noble
11. Toys R Us
12. Ross
13. Some other toy store, I can't remember the name
14. Some other fabric store
15. Lakeshore toys

Stores I avoided like the plague:

1. Bath and Body Works
2. The Container Store
3. DSW Shoes

Things learned about Houston/Houtonians

1. They have a great love for the frontage road.
2. They do not like it when I drive like a Big City Mexican.
3. Dollar stores are very, very popular.

Missions accomplished:

1. Maternity clothes purchased. I really hate buying maternity clothes. They will sit in my closet until I absolutely have to wear them. I am still wearing my regular jeans, but I'm having to unbutton them at night and after I eat. I will resort to using a rubber band before I will put on maternity pants.

2. Christmas shopping: 95% done and it isn't even November. I am so proud of myself.

Important purchases made:

1. My first pair of grown up black pumps. (you didn't think I could go shopping without buying some shoes, did you?) I have really never owned my own pair of black high heels.

Aren't they pretty? I have to practice walking in them before I actually wear them in public.

2. Tums. They have tums here (how could they not?), but not the berry flavor. I am coming into some rough heart-burn filled months. Must have berry-flavored tums.

3. Reese's cups. Yum.

And now I'm back in Big City trying to make it through the 100 halloween activites we have. More soon.

Muchacha Moments #4 and #5

Welcome to Muchacha Moments wherein I share my strange experiences having a full-time live-in maid here in Big City, Mexico.

Our maid has had a rough couple of weeks. We are trying to smooth things out so we don't have to let her go and start all over with someone new. Here are the highlights.

Muchacha Moment #4

A couple of weeks ago I was having a yucky day so Guapo and Julio (6 yrs) each bought me a dozen flowers (awwwww, so sweet). I put one dozen in the dining room and the dozen roses from Guapo in my bedroom. So, I go into the maids room in search of something and this is what I find:



She cut my flowers and took them to her room without ever mentioning it to me!!!

Muchacha Moment #5

I bought two half-gallons of ice cream to make Julio an ice-cream cake for his birthday. The cake rose like crazy in the oven (over the sides of the pans), so I never even got to the point of adding the ice-cream, but when the party-kids were at our house for the (at that point store-bought) cake and ice cream portion of the birthday party I asked the maid to set the ice cream out to soften. As I was entering the kitchen to get the ice cream, she quickly mentioned that she had eaten a "little" over the last two days.



Her definition of "a little":



BOTH half gallons were in this condition. This is not a big girl. She is probably 4'10" and I wouldn't call her heavy. I'm not sure what she's doing with all the ice cream but I wasn't happy about it.

There's more to share, but I'll have to save it for another post!

I'll be taking a few days off as I am heading to the Lone Star State to do a little shopping. I'll be back next week!

Definition Meme

I thought I was immune to the most recent rash of memes, but leave it to my best-online-friend, No Cool Story to include me in the fun! She supplied me with the following words and I was to supply the definitions. Here you go!

soubrette- a delicious chilled French dessert that is typically only eaten during the celebration of Bastille Day (July 14th).

Saponaceous- Relating to the release of frog eggs as in, "the saponaceous fluid surrounds and protects the eggs the first six hours after release".

palimpsest- a common abrasion found on the tongue due to eating way too much candy, more specifically, way too many candy corns.


Xowyg- I have no clue what this real or made up word means. I am hoping it's real because I'm going to use it the next time I clean Guapo's clock at Scrabble.

(This is NOT Guapo, but it is how he feels when we are playing Scrabble!)

Does anyone else want to play? Let me know in the comments and I'll give you some words.

A Birthday Party with No Pinata (Gasp!!!)

Wow, a whole week has gone by since I last posted. My excuse? A six year-old's birthday party.

I am not much of a hostess. I like making dinner and inviting one other family over, but anything beyond that (even if the attendees are only 5 and 6 year olds), stresses me out. Besides, there's a lot of pressure in Latin American countries to have fabulous birthday parties. Parties here are not just for the children, but for the entire family. Most are catered, involve at least one or two bouncy houses, a larger than life pinata, and last for hours. One party we went to in Venezuela (for a 3 year old) had an entire petting zoo complete with pony rides.

I do not cave to this pressure. We still have "American" birthday parties where the kid invites a few friends, it lasts a couple of hours, and parents, grandparents, siblings and cousins stay at home.

But, I still don't enjoy being the hostess.

Julio invited 5 friends and we took them to a kind of children's museum. I've been to several children's museums in the States but this place takes the prize. It was so cool, I wanted to ditch the kids and play! It is called "Kid City" and the kids go around earning money by working and then spending it on things they want. Here are some shots.

Here are some of the kids preparing hamburgers at the little McDonald's:

Julio giving Guapo a shoe shine:

The kids building a brick wall:

Shaving at a barber shop:

Making pizzas at Domino's:

Pretty cool, huh? They had a sushi restaurant where you could make your own sushi, but no one wanted to go with me. :(

***Random side note: we thought one of the kids, who was in fact a boy, was a girl almost the entire party (the kid with the blond hair in the McDonald's picture). When he had to go to the bathroom I took him to the women's restroom and while the boys went to the barber shop to shave, I tried to take him and Margarita to the beauty salon instead. He didn't really dig that.

Finally, Julio heard Guapo referring to him as a "she" and corrected him. That goodness he did before his mom came to pick him up or I really would have embarrassed myself!

Happy Birthday Julio! We love you!

Ultrasound News: It's a ______________!!!

Will I be buying this:

Or this?:

The answer is: (drum roll please. . .)

Both.

No, I'm not having twins, thank goodness, it's just that we never find out what we're having (and I'm not crazy about gender-neutral clothes).

Isn't that annoying? I always want other people to find out and then I don't do it. Guapo says it's one of the few surprises you can have in this life. So, we always wait.

With the other three it wasn't that hard for me. Today when we went to the ultrasound, I really wanted to know. First of all, I feel like I should prepare mentally if it's another boy, and more than anything, just for convenience. Clothes are so outrageously priced here and we are going to the States for New Year's, so it would make sense to find out so we could buy the little thing some clothes. I warned Guapo that if we didn't find out, I would have to buy for both. He didn't budge.

The baby is healthy and well from what the doctor could see but appears not to be a very cooperative baby as it wanted to remain in a ball the entire 1 hour ultrasound session making it very difficult for the doctor to take her measurements. She kept making me roll this way and that way and prodding the poor little critter with her instrument to get it to stretch out.

I'm thinking it's another boy because when she had us look away so she could check out the nether-regions it didn't take her too long. But, according to the ancient-Chinese-gender-predictor-calendar, it's a girl. Of course it also claims that Julio (6 years old) should have been a girl, so I'm thinking I can't put too much stock in it.

Hmmmmm. Who knows. 5 more months of wondering and waiting.

Good News and Somthing Funny

Well, it's official.

I have just finished my first barf-free week in 11 weeks. Yay!!!

And, here's a little somthing to check out that is totally cracking Guapo up lately. It's very short, I promise.

Have a great weekend!

First Belly Picture-17w3d

Ok, before I show you what I look like I have to tell you that I have a weird body. I have a disproportionally small waist compared to my rear/thigh region. I buy pants that fit my legs so they are always loose around my middle.

When I am pregnant, my sides fill out first and then I start to poke out in the front. Guapo says I look like I have a tire around my waist. Thank you very much Guapo.

So that's what's happening right now. My sides are filling out, and because I have extra space in my jeans around the waist I can still wear them.

By the end I look totally normal and huge.




And as you can see, I've already had my pregnancy hair-chop episode. There is this Colombian lady in our ward with the cutest hair and when I mentioned how much I liked it to her, she offered to cut mine.

"Sure, why not?" I answered.

So, she showed up at my house and cut off a good portion of my hair. I like it though, thank goodness. I am finally embracing my waviness!

Me-Crawling Back. Juan Carlos-Not Painting.

So here I am, crawling back on hands and knees to Blogger. Yes, the very same Blogger that has given me countless headaches over the past 6 months. I guess I am just a creature of habit, I just don't feel at home over at Blogsome. The real problem is is that the comment section bugs me. No little pictures and the format is just less reader-friendly in my opinion. So here I am again, ready to pull my hair out anew.

Anyway, Juan Carlos (3 1/2) finished up his first month of preschool last week. He goes MWF and takes the "party bus" so I don't have to go out and battle the traffic quite so often. The school sent home a flyer mid-month to let parents know what was going on at the school. Here are some of the things Juan Carlos supposedly learned about in September:

Art
The children learned about the Mexican painters Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Rufino Tamayo, as well as some of the works of different artists of the Middle Ages.

Music
Different types of music from the Middle Ages such as: works by Carmina Burana, Gullamue de Machaute and Gregorian Chants.

French
Colors, parts of the body and house furnishings.

And let's not forget about the weekly Chess class!

Hmmmm.

When he gets off the bus each time, I always ask him what he did at school that day and his reply is always the same, "I didn't paint."

That's all I get. He didn't paint. It's all in there somewhere right? All the Mexican painters, French vocab, and strategic chess moves? It's got to be.