Last Weekend in Texas

The day after my surprise baby shower, we attended a "stars & hearts" birthday party for my niece Sophie. There were games, two playgrounds, face painting, dancing, pizza, cake, ice cream, you name it!



As you can see, the kids had a blast, and Pumpkin especially enjoyed this tune.



It's hard to believe that this is the same kid from last year's videos, huh? Anyway, we left for home the next day and spent the night in Wichita Falls, TX, where we visited beautiful...Wichita Falls! (ooh, aah) Yes, ladies and germs, as it turned out, our Hotwire-garnered hotel sat right beside beautiful Wichita Falls, and we were able to stroll over to the park to take a look. As it also happened, it was deathly hot out that morning so we had to hightail it back to our vehicle to avoid passing out from dehydration, haha.

It seems we do enjoy frittering away the time when we travel so we also spent a few minutes chilling out on the rocking chairs at the Cracker Barrel and then again on the grass with Sunshine before we finally hit the road again.

Surprise, Baby!

As it turned out, the reason my mom and Chela kept pestering me to buy "nice" maternity clothes even though I kept telling them that the only place I'd be going this summer was to the park was because they were planning a surprise baby shower for me.

Here's how it went down.

My sisters and I like to get together for a "spa day" whenever I'm in town. Since my younger sister Chela was going to be working the whole week, we were going to try to do it on Friday evening instead of in the morning like we usually do. Anne, my older sister, called one day and offhandedly remarked that she'd forgotten that she'd agreed to host a Mary Kay party for my cousin Leti (an MK rep) on Friday so we were going to have to do our "spa day" in the morning without Chela. Chela said it was okay with her so I agreed.

That same week, Chela took me to the mall to buy some maternity clothes then we joined our cousin Leti at the movies to see "Sex in the City." Neither of them mentioned the Mary Kay party, and as I hadn't really been invited, I didn't give it another thought. Back at mom's, though, Chela asked if I was planning to attend the party. She seemed surprised when I told her I'd probably just stay home and watch movies, but she argued convincingly that our sister put on pretty good parties and that I should attend if at least for the food. She sealed it by saying that both she and our mom would be there as well so I agreed to join them...again, without really thinking anything of it. I would've planned on attending anyway if Anne had asked, but I'd assumed it was just for her teacher friends. Besides, I needed a new tube of that super duper hand cream MK sells.

Here are some of the other clues I later missed:

**Friday morning, after my "spa day" with Anne, I asked my mom for her SUV. Oddly, Mom seemed a bit surprised by my request and somewhat reluctant to let me borrow her truck saying that she needed to run some errands. Then, she suddenly capitulated and said I could pick it up in an hour. I told her that I didn't really have any plans so she may as well keep it since she needed it, but that I'd call her if something came up. Actually, I was perfectly content to stay home in the cool A/C and watch movies all afternoon since my folks have all the movie channels, hehe.

**Friday afternoon, Juanita, my parents' housekeeper and cook, was folding my freshly laundered maternity clothes and brought one of the "nicer" ones to me suggesting I wear it to the party that evening. I don't recall what I told her, but I don't think I agreed, haha.

**When Chela came by later to pick Mom and I up for the party, she asked if I wasn't planning on wearing any sort of makeup. My sister knows very well that I don't normally wear any makeup, but she's always insisting that I, at least, brush on something for the "shine." Either way, I sure wasn't going to put on anything just to have it washed off at the party so she reluctantly dropped it.

**When we arrived at Anne's house, I thought I spotted a friend's car parked in the street outside and fleetingly wondered if she and my sister knew each other well enough for my sister to have invited her to this makeup shindig. The thought, however, left my mind almost as soon as I had it, and the 3 of us trooped to the front door and rang the bell.

**Anne answered the door herself and whispered urgently to us (or so I thought) that there were "a lot of people" there. Again, I sort of wondered why she seemed odd about it since wasn't it preferable to have a lot of people attend a product party as opposed to having only a few? Again, the thought was fleeting and disappeared from my consciousness as we entered the house.

**The lights in the kitchen/family room were off as we entered, and I watched in puzzlement (and a touch of consternation) as Chela boldly entered the room and flicked the lights on. I thought to myself that Leti must've been showing a short video on proper skin care techniques or something of that sort and wondered what had gotten into Chela to just go in there and mess it up like that. (BTW, those of you who know Leti would understand why I'd think she'd be showing a video, haha.)

**I walked in after Chela and beheld several old friends of mine sitting around the room. I briefly wondered how (and why) my sister would've invited my old friends to her Mary Kay party, but again, I didn't really think too much about it figuring they were also friends or acquaintances of hers.

Someone or other must've eventually called out "Surprise!" but it still took another moment or two of me looking around the room to realize that every single one of the guests was focusing on me and smiling widely.

Boy, was I ever surprised! The biggest surprise I've ever had I'm sure (aside from that of finding out that I'm pregnant probably). It's a shame that no one had their camera out because I'm sure it would've made for a great shot, haha.

So that, in a nutshell, is what happened. The reason my mom needed her truck was because they used it throughout the day to bring over a bunch of chairs from the restaurant's party room as well as decorations and dishes of food prepared by Salsa's cooks especially for this party. (The food WAS good, btw, just as Chela had promised ;).

It was a lot of fun catching up with so many of my old friends. I was very moved to see that they'd turned out to celebrate this latest development in my life considering that hardly any of us really stay in touch anymore these days. Even more startling was the fact that this entire party was apparently conceived and planned out in just 3 days including the invitations! Wow, those are some good friends!

Thanks a million to my mom and my sisters for doing all this for me. I was really touched. Thanks also to my aunt Ampere, who made many of the decorations herself and helped my mom put it all together. To those of you who came (even those of you who gifted me with shockingly pink baby clothes ;), I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there for me. :)

Week 2: Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Our 2nd week in Texas was just as much fun as the first--mostly due to the fact that Lis was finally out of school and spent EVERY SINGLE DAY (and nearly every night) with Pumpkin (at his insistence, in fact).

Since Chela was still working that week, I took the kids to visit her library, where Pumpkin and Lis took turns "reading" to me and performing fantastic gymnastic feats in the library's reading room. ;)


The other days they spent in Beautiful Grandma's backyard splashing around in the warm water with Lily and Sunshine, relaxing in the grass, or visiting with their other cousins.


While Pumpkin was thus entertained, I took the opportunity to go shopping for maternity clothes with my mom and Chela (at their insistence, I'm afraid, hehe ;). I also went on a couple of "spa days" with my sisters. Pedicures and hair with Chela on Wednesday, massage and lunch with Anne on Friday. Ahhh.

Then, things really got interesting. ;)

The Happy-Haps (Week 1)

In a nutshell, here's what went down on our last visit to Texas:

The kids were in their last week of school so we spent most of our daylight hours playing in "Beautiful Grandma's" backyard with Sunshine (& Grandma's dog Lily, whom you can see in the bottom of the 1st shot. Also, note Pumpkin's before & after hair styles. ;). That weekend, we celebrated Lis's "actual" birthday and also attended the girls' dance recital.























The following Monday, we went to Lis's "Indiana Jones" birthday party, which was held at the local Children's Museum and was remarkable in that my sister forgot the plastic ware forcing us to eat our cake like this:

Actually, the party and the decorations were pretty cool. My sisters really know how to go all out, haha (not me!). Since our last visit to this museum, a retired priest had gifted them with a bunch of Union Pacific and Texas-Mexican railway model trains, books, and memorabilia, and the museum made up a separate "train room" to display their latest goods along with a huge wooden train table. Naturally, Pumpkin spent almost the entire party in that room coming out only for sustenance, hehe.



While he was out and about, Pumpkin also took the time to take a whack at the pinata and play a bit with his cousin D, who's the same age and also enjoys Thomas trains. (There's D, the tough guy, also taking a shot at the pinata.)














Lis, as you know, is Pumpkin's FAVORITE girl in the whole wide world so after the party ended, we drove her back home, where he even had a blast watching her open her gifts. So cute!

New from Pumpkin

"IAM rhymes with IAN!"

Also, here's a short clip of Pumpkin and the dogs (Lily & Sunshine) running around "Beautiful Grandma's" backyard.