Family Life

As Valerie and Nicholas get older and more active, our houshold sure has gotten busier. It still felt like a small family when they were babies, but now they are growing and babbling and walking and talking and wanting their independance with every new day.

Valerie is crawling and has become a very particular baby. She likes her milk warm, she can cry for 20 minutes straight and the minute you pick her up she will stop and have a huge gummy smile for you. She prefers to be in your arms, but not sitting. She is a night owl and is the lightest sleeper out of all of them. She can not fall asleep in our arms but can co-sleep.

Nicholas is coming on 20 months! He's running around, already filling out Seth's old hand me downs (that's when you know they are getting big!), wants to play with the big kids and although he isn't using words he does point, will show you exactly what he wants and will tell you when it's not what he wants. He is still a very sweet baby. He loves to sleep and is our only thumbsucker. To this day, the only time he sucks his thumb is when he's snuggling up with a blanket. He sleeps covered up from head to toe and can sleep 15+ hours during the night and still take a nap in the day!
He can not co-sleep, he thinks it's playtime when he's in bed with us.

Seth is 4.5 and is really mature for his age. He's our adventurous one. He loves to ride his bike and his new best friend is a first grader who lives down the street. He starts school next year. He can't wait. He's still active as ever, he is like a pin ball in a pin ball machine - running around not needing a break. He's also our parrot and loves to repeat all the bad stuff. He's our line pusher. He knows where the line is but he will try to get a toe over to see how far he can go.

Olivia is loving K! Her reading skills have improved 110% since starting school. She could get through a book, a little slow and needing help and now she's wizzing through the more challenging books needing little help. We didn't accelerate her to 1st and I am glad we didn't. She's being challenged and her teacher recommended her for their gifted and talented program. I know she will love that.

Otis is huge! I will post a pic of him soon. I really need a digi camera. I'm waiting to get a digital SLR, as I just got my film SLR a few years ago. He's really a good dog, listens and loves the kids.

Hurrican Rita - or otherwise known as a practice run

So, the way the media was covering Hurricane Rita last month, you would have thought it was armageddon around here. The storm was to hit Sat at 4am. If you were not out of town by Wed afternoon, it was too late or your 4 hr trip was turned into a 24 hr one. Not to mention the gas shortage, then absolutely no gas for a day, then no water anywhere Wednesday afternoon.

Being in property mgmt, the mgrs and asst mgrs usually stay with the bldg. My mgr let me go home knowing I had little ones. Which was a good thing. It took me 2 hrs to get home that Wed, then Thurs it would have taken me at least 3 hrs because I have to use a road that gets people to I-10. Luckily, the storm went more East but it made me realize that a) We are going to be more prepared in advance rather than fighting for basic supplies with people and b) we are not leaving, we don't have a reason to evacuate seeing as we are 80 miles inland from the coast. Sure, we'll get wind damage, tornados, etc..but our houses won't flood and we will most likely survive. The Cat5 that came through here back in the 40s only caused 21 deaths. Out of millions, that's not bad. Considering nearly that many dies trying to evacuate. Pets died from carbon monoxide poisoning from all the traffic, even some people were affected by the carbon monoxide. And then there were the poor people who were overheated, as temps were in the 100s. Ugh, what a mess.

What I hated was the way the media fed this sense of panic. Destruction. Catastrophy. these words were used to describe our situation. How do you expect people to react?

Next time, give me beer, water, flashlights, some cards and we hunker down.

Ok, so life has been crazy lately....

It's been a few weeks and I have so much to write. Where to start...Ok, so I have not been back to that wonderful nail salon and I'm so afraid to, even though my nails need a nice, new manicure!! :)

Can you believe my "baby" started Kindergarten Wednesday and she goes all day, every day. Wasn't it just yesterday that she was Valerie's age? And if she is this big already, how old does that make me? Ok, I won't think about that too much...I'm still stuck in the '90s. LOL! We should have some pictures up soon. She's such a big girl. sniff...sniff...If that's not bad enough, Seth starts K next year! Well, at least my two little ones will be at home for a few more years.

I forgot all the joys of public school. After we left Olivia in her class we got stuck in the hallway as the Pledge of Allegiance was being recited over the public speaker system. We're trying to rush out of there and then I see everyone else standing stil, hand over heart reciting it. So there we are, a double stroller, mommy, daddy and a 4 yo all standing still. I couldn't believe it. In a million years, I never would have imagined us doing the pledge as a family in school. :) Too funny!!

Otis has become quite the dog! He is just so smart, he swings with his front paws in the back and he can use his front paws to open his cage door. I'm waiting to find him on the toilet seat and flushing. LOL!

Summer is over, in my eyes anyway....HALLEJUAH!! Come on fall, my absolute favorite time of the year. Cooler temps, holiday season, birthdays, fun...fun...fun...goodbye 80 degree temps at 5am, goodbye frizzy hair, goodbye sweat!! :D

They call me Lucy....

I swear, I felt like I was living one of those episodes right out of "I Love Lucy" Saturday. That show could so easily represent part of my life. Some of my friends would know.

Ok, so I had a nail appt at 1:00 p.m. Saturday. This was my 3rd trip to the salon, 1st appointment. I figure since I'm becoming a regular, I better start making appts. Well, we were at the mall until 1 and home by 1:30. Any normal person would have called to let them know they were running late. But no, I am not normal. See, I thought "They don't know who I am. I've only been there twice, right?" How would they know I wasn't Brandy, the 1 o'clock french manicure appt? Oh, how wrong I was. My first clue was when I pulled up to the salon, they see me and then look at the clock. Ok, Brandy, now's the time to leave. Nope, gotta go in...must get nails done. As I'm staring at the sign-in sheet, something comes over me. I sign my name Marie Vargas. Marie was my middle name prior to marriage. Hidalgo Vargas sounded fake. So, Marie I am. I am here, a walk-in off the street wanting a french manicure. I wasn't even there 5 minutes when the lady I had requested came in from a pedicure and asked "Are you Brandy?". Ugh, I stared at her for what felt like an eternity and shook my head no. "No, I'm not Brandy". That's all I could muster. I couldn't even look her in the eye. Busted! She proceeded to talk in their language to the lady who was doing my nails. I knew I was busted. I knew I would walk out of there with the ugliest nails ever. I am trying to so hard not to laugh. But my hands are about to go in the little hand warmer and I'm furiously thinking about how I could have a twin, who is Brandy, who has kids. Nah, that won't work. I'm cracking a smile. How could they recognize me after only 2 visits?!?! Man, these women are goooooood. I keep thinking how sad it is that I found this great nail place and now I have to find another one. I know I will never be able to show my face again there. I enjoyed every minute of my manicure, from the arm massage to the nail dryer. In the end, I did end up with a beautiful manicure. Even though Marie was charged $15 and Brandy only paid $12 last time. Oh well, I don't see Brandy ever going back. Marie on the other hand....LOL!!

Corpus Christi and Diving off the deep end...

We hit the road Saturday and went to Corpus Christi. It wasn't that bad a drive afterall. What I thought would be 5 hours was only 3.5 hrs. But boy, was I glad to be home Sunday night! :) We saw the grandma, aunt and uncles and even some cousins. We stayed at the Embassy Suites and Happy Hour = Free Drinks = One Happy Momma! LOL! The kids had fun swimming in the pool and although we ended up getting around 4 hrs sleep, it was a great trip.

So the kids are swimming just about every night. Olivia jumped off the diving board without floaties! WOW!! :) Seth is having a little harder time giving his up, but that's ok...he's got a bit more growing to do. And here I almost spent hundreds of dollars for lessons at the Y! :) I'm a bit surprised they aren't as tired as I was hoping..err..thinking they would be after swimming. They seem to be wired when they get back around 9, which is not a good thing when bedtime is around the corner. Weird....

We also had the kids' pictures taken at JC Penney a few weeks ago. Here are their proofs.

Here are all 4 kids:


Here's Miss Valerie:


And Miss Olivia:


Sethman (sshhh, he insists he is just Seth now!):


And Nicky:


And yes, we worked out to get those pics and although I would have loved to have seen teeth, it was much better than some of our other proofs! haha...oh well, I thought we did pretty good for 4 kids. :)

4th of July Weekend

Well, we had a very active and tiring holiday weekend. I took off Friday, the 1st, so it really did extend my normal 2 day weekend to 4. I love waking up and greeting each of my kids as they wake and seeing their smile as they realize mommy will be home today. That's a cool feeling.

I did play Betty Crocker. I made a Banana Nut Bread from scratch along with a homemade cream cheese frosting. So, I've poured my batter into the loaf pan and I am waiting for the oven to reach 350 degrees. As I am putting away my ingredients and supplies I notice my unopened, brand new box of BAKING POWDER. YIKES! I decide to toss the baking powder into the wet mix. Maybe no one will notice. An hour and a half later, we are enjoying how moist and rich my bread is when I suddenly bite into this bitter part of the bread. Uh oh, there's my baking powder! LOL! I am such a goof! And that's after starting over after adding the baking soda because I misread my measuring spoons and put too much in the flour mixture! Oh well, there's always next weekend. :)

The kids went swimming Monday afternoon and we ended our long weekend with a bang. Literally. We popped some pretty cool firecrackers in our driveway/street and the kids enjoyed watching them. Of course, by then Nicky was fast asleep and Valerie had just gone down for the night.

Did I mention how the kids are swimming with no floaties? Seth is a fish underwater and Olivia can swim the entire pool length x 3. wow, they are growing up too fast. :)

Astros game and eye candy!

We went to the Astros game on Saturday. We had kick-ass seats, right above the VIP section. I had only planned on staying *maybe* an hour, with 4 kids, I didn't want to get my hopes up on enjoying the game. To my surprise, the kids were so well behaved that we stayed all the way until the 7th inning! To top it off, we saw Rob Reiner and James Denton, Mike, from Desperate Housewives! How awesome does that sound?? To say the least, it was the best game we've ever been to. It was also Nicky and Valerie's first game too. And, we made the big screen TV!! WOOHOO!!

Here are some pics from the game:


James and Rob


Nicky


Olivia and Seth


Gabriel and Seth

Then and Now

I was browsing at pics of Nicky back when Valerie was born and couldn't believe how much he has changed these past months.

Here he is in January 2005 @ 11 mos


Here he is today @ 16 mos


Out of nowhere, his head exploded curls! LOL! He gets that from Gabriel, who has pictures of when he was a kid with an afro. LOL!

Here is Olivia and Seth back in 2001!


Here they are 4 years later!


I think Valerie still hasn't changed...much...Here she is in January 2005


Here she is today


Ok, I'm done reminiscing. LOL! I swear it was just yesterday that Olivia was Valerie's age. Can I call a time-out to catch my breathe? ;-)

Family Pictures - June 20, 2005

Here is Seth feeding Valerie last night...


Here is Miss Olivia striking a pose...


And our newest family member, Otis our fearless boxer mix...

Otis, O tis, O it is....

I can thank the movie, Son of the Mask for naming our dog. Ever since Olivia saw it, she fell in love with the dog who happens to be named...Otis. So, what are her suggestions for puppy names? Otis, of course! Well, afer days of countless suggestions we literally ran out of names. LOL! Otis it is. I must say, he is one heck of a dog. I'll post a pic this weekend of him and the kids. Crate training is going wonderfully well, we are even sleeping all night long! YAY!!

Things that irritate me. Today, I had one of those days. Here goes:
1) People who are late....I am the most punctual person you will ever meet, I hate it when other people think they are their own time zone.
2) Road Rage at 7 o'clock in the morning. C'mon people, the sun is just rising. Do you have to ride my ass and then swirve around me? Don't you see me putting on my makeup? ;)
3) People who have their boyfriend call in sick for them. If you're going to play hooky, have enough balls to call in yourself.
4) Husbands who can't give their child medicine as prescribed. Honey, it says to give 4x a day, not just the one time I am doing it.
5) Family members who call past 9 p.m. Ummm, did you forget we have 4 kids all under the age of 5?!? I cherish this time, I don't need a ringing phone waking them up.

Babies and puppies, what's the difference?

Babies are cheaper! LOL! We just adopted a dog from the Houston SPCA over the weekend. His description read a retriever mix, we just don't see it. He is definitely a boxer mix, which the vet confirmed today, $70 later. Ok, difference #1: Baby visits are 100% covered, puppy visits are not. He goes back next week, then 2 weeks following that. Where's that link for pet insurance?....

Overall, he is a great dog. We've been crate training him, and lucky for him I'm used to getting up every few hours to make a bottle, change a diaper, and now we can add going outside butt-ass naked too, to do his business. Lucky for us, he doesn't bark or whine while he's in the crate. Puppy is still nameless. I like Lucky (because he's one lucky dog, and we are one lucky family!), followed by Dollar (meaning all the dollars we will be spending on him for the next decade - LOL!). Who knows when he will have a name. His poor file at the vets still reads Vargas Dog. Difference #2: Babies get named before they go home, puppys can still go nameless after going home. Think crate training will work on my 16 mo? And how about offering obedience classes for toddlers? Hey, maybe they can combine the two. Bring a kid, get the dog trained for free! People think we are crazy for adding a pup to our family with two little ones, and now I can see why they think that! Of course, I think it's the perfect time to add to our family. We're already living on little sleep as it is, so it's not like I'm sacrificing any more beauty sleep. You know???

We took the kids to see shark boy and lava girl, it was alright. The last time I saw a movie wearing 3D glasses was Jaws 3. What a PITA they were as an adult! I can't believe how friggin expensive the theaters are. And that' s because we only had 2 of the kids with us. Luckily, we only do this 1-2x per year. lol! The kids had a great time, and Seth did really well. It was money well spent. :) I can't wait until we get to drag them to our movies to sit through, though.

Weekend Happenings

What a busy weekend. Olivia, Seth and Nicky spent the night at grandma's Friday night, and what do Gabriel and I do? We went to the mall, then came home and watched movies until 2 a.m.! Meet the Fockers is hilarious and then we went to the other extreme, Saw - that was a good thriller. Gabriel was such a good sport, he HATES scary movies and yet he laid there with me watching it. Then we couldn't sleep and cheked all our doors and windows before going to bed. LOL!

Saturday morning was my big appt. I was supposed to get my hair done at 9:30 and then colored at this fancy, schmansy hair salon. I knew a cut was going to cost $80, I was assuming the color would be at least $100 since it was a one step color. I did what I always do and I backed out. Mother's Guilt. ugh! The more I pondered the costs, the more I didn't want to go. Hair Cut or Coach Bag? Hair or Bag? Hair or Bag? LOL. Not like would go buy a Coach bag, but it was the same price range and I didn't feel comfortable doing it. The problem is my hair. It's naturally curly, wavy, straight up front, super thick and combine that with Houston's humidity and I lose. I know if I pay the $$$, I walk out a happy lady. I don't go home, re-wash my hair and style it the way I always do. But, what do I end up doing? I go to the mall (mistake #1) and I go to Visible Changes (mistake #2). I left there looking alright. She took about 30 minutes to straighten my hair, but she did it. It wasn't until Sunday morning, after I showered and am ready to style my own hair that I burst into tears. I specifically said I wanted a style where I could wear my hair curly or straight. Well, I can't wear it curly at all. Now, I have to straighten my hair every morning, which means I need to get up earlier and blah, blah, blah...I am NEVER going back there! UGH! I am going to go get this fixed in a few months. By then, my hair should be longer and I'll have more options.

Ok, enough about me. LOL! The pool party was so much fun. Olivia did all sorts of jumps with her vest and Seth attempted to swim without his! He's a natural in the water. He swims better underwater only because he's still working on getting above it. LOL! Nicky didn't care for the water. He preferred to stay by the steps. And Valerie, well she slept most of the time there. :) When we got home, we bbq pork chops and then we all crashed! LOL.

Sunday, more BBQing. Nothing like BBQing every weekend. I swear, we do it every Sunday. lol. My dad came over and brought some steaks, then we went to go see his new house he's having built. It was a HOT weekend, I am so ready for October and November. :)

Me, the Liberal - Go figure!

Liberal You scored 33% Gender-Abolitionist, 100% Sexually Liberal, and 40 % Socialist

You are the Liberal Feminist. This means that you tend to think the women's movement would best succeed through legislative changes to the system as opposed to radically restructuring our governments or ideas on gender. You tend to be mainly concerned with sexual liberation, and think that much of the oppression of women is leveled against them as a result of oppressive sexual morality. Men who sleep around are pimps and women are whores. You would claim that the negativity associated with a female's sexual freedom is only a blatant attempt to repress femininity into a submissive role. Also, you probably believe women should have access to reproductive controls such as abortion and contraception. You most likely embody the ideals of the typical American Democrat: you are pro-choice, sexually liberated, and politically active (though your political views aren't very extreme). The other feminist types: The Housewife The Marxist The Liberal The Liberal Extremist The Gender Abolitionist The Radical The Gender-Liberal The Revisionist

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 7% on Gender You scored higher than 53% on Sexuality You scored higher than 56% on Class

Link: The Feminism Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Woohoo! 100% Sexually Liberal. This would not surprise my closest friends or husband for that matter. LOL! I love this quiz, it was right on the money.

My Linguistic Profile

Your Linguistic Profile:

60% General American English

25% Dixie

10% Yankee

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

That was fun! Ok, so I got this off Brandy's Blog. You think 'ya'll' really upped my Dixie speak? LOL! I thought it was interesting, some words I had never heard of. Yes, Kleenex refers to any tissue that catches my boogers and Coke is anything carbonated. As well as Band-Aids, any bandage, any cartoon, that goes over a boo-boo. :) hmmm...I wonder if my schooling in IL contributed to the Yankee/Upper Midwestern part? And, where is spanglish. I can't forward this to my family because I don't think they would even register on this chart. ROFL!

One Lonely Flag.

Memorial Day. Another holiday where I get a paid day off and then some. I ended up taking the Friday and Tuesday off as well. It turned out to be a nice, long weekend.

Driving down my street, I saw one lonely flag flying from a mailbox. This is the same street that is all decked out Halloween and Christmas, every house is decorated and everyone participates. And yet, today I saw one lonely flag. It made me realize that I haven't paid much attention to Memorial Day and what it means, besides a day off and family get togethers around a BBQ pit. I made a decision to go out and buy a flag and proudly post it next year. How sad that when we have a day to honor our fallen soldiers, most of us are concerned about running out of beer and getting more ice for the blender.

So, do you celebrate Memorial Day?

I'm no virgin...

How's that for a snazzy title? This is my first blog, 30-something years old and I'm just trying to keep up with technology. I'm still working on my iPod.

So, what do you do with these things? I guess you just start typing about whatever is on your mind. Like a journal, only there's no key and anyone can read it.

I'm a working mom, juggling my career, my family and my own sense of being. I just started knitting. Actually, I tried starting back in winter when I was pregnant with Valerie, my fourth child. I got so far as casting on. I really need to get back on that wagon. I found a stitch-n-bitch group that meets near my house, I have to get to a meeting one day. I've also taken a liking to Desperate Housewives and any "reality" tv show there is. I dunno why I find myself hooked on reality tv, but it started way back when MTV debuted The Real World in NY. I also love taking pictures. I have a Nikon N65, but am working my way up to the Nikon D70. Man, digital SLR has to rock! I love my SLR, but can't seem to develop all my rolls of film.