No Time to Breathe

So I know its been too long. My life is awful right now. I mean awful as in absolutely no time. But since the President of my fan club (Aunt El) demanded that I write....then I write  :)

Catch up:
Since I last blogged...I passed my Accounting class with a C. Good and bad. Good because I passed. Bad because the C brought my GPA below a 3.5 and I have to graduate with a 3.5. Sooooooo now I am taking 2 easy classes this summer and then the second Accounting class in the Fall. I had better graduate in December. All I'm saying. But this means that I go to class 4 nights a week and 2 of the classes are from 8PM to 10:30 PM. Who makes a class start that late??? It's awful. During the week Vincent and I don't see each other. I pick up the kids, he comes home, tags me out and I leave for class. By the time I come home he's asleep. It's rough. I usually have to send him an e-mail of everything I need to talk to him about at work. Yeah, it's romantic.

Next, my little brother Galen got married on June 4 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Vincent and I went up without the kids and had a GREAT time. Seriously. Much needed adult time. Plus we got to hang out with my favorite Michiganders, Kim and Adam Ball. I went to UNT for 2 years with Kim. Then she went back to Michigan and I finished school in Kentucky. But Kim, you look amazing and you handle pregnancy so well. I am so jealous of women who have great pregnancies. I hated every minute of being pregnant. But some women pull it off so well. And Kim is one of them. Love and miss you guys!!
My sister, Naomi, was the maid of honor. Worst maid of honor. Ever. Seriously, I think romantic comedies could be made about her behavior. To start- didn't plan a bachelorette party because she said she "was waiting on feedback from the bridesmaids".Second, she stood up on the stage laughing during the ceremony (totally MY fault- but I was testing her). Third, didn't even keep the bride's dress looking pretty during the ceremony. In fact, the bride scolded her at one point. I am actually kidding about her being the worst maid of honor. I just had to give her a hard time since she takes it so well. But, no really, the bachelorette party wasn't planned. Luckily Becky (our other sis-in-law) came to the rescue and thought of a scavenger hunt in the downtown area. We had a great time doing it. There were a few party poopers in the group but we drowned them out with shots of alcohol for the bride-to-be. It really did turn out great. The  wedding itself was extremely hot. It was in this very pretty church that had NO air conditioning. Who thought Michigan could get hot?? The reception afterwards was fun and in air conditioning. I drank a little too much because my brother and his wife decided to have alcohol drinks for only an hour before dinner and then not at all during dinner. So I was chugging down drinks in preparation for the alcohol-free dinner with my crazy family. Not the best idea. Vincent decided to have me take a phone call from Tristan which ended up in about a half hour of tears. Awesome.


Next is a great video of Tristan that I got. It will definitely be in his wedding slideshow  :) I borrowed it from my Facebook page. I can't figure out how to turn it so it's sideways. Sorry.

Okay.......what else? Oh, we started and stopped potty training. It was too much. Tristan is definitely not ready and we don't have the time to dedicate to him learning. It was a lot of sitting on the toilet, ripping toilet paper up and throwing it down between his legs. Then, he would get off the potty and go pee/poop in the living room. Ugh. And the worst thing that happened is that Tristan now knows what a dirty diaper is and doesn't like it. So, at bedtime, after he pees or poops in his diaper he will take off the diaper, fold it ever so gently and lay it on top of the diaper pail. This would be nice if he didn't then proceed to saturate his bed, little mini rocking chair, stuffed animals and carpet with his pee after taking the diaper off. We have to put tight pants on him at night that he can't take off or else we're washing everything in his room on a daily basis. The first time it happened, Vincent was walking up the stairs to go into Caleb's room and out of the corner of his eye he sees something round and brown come flying over the baby gate we keep in front of Tristan's room. As he heads over to see what it was, he looks in Tristan's room and sees various 'lincoln logs' positioned all over the room- on the bookshelf, by his pillow, on his chair, and even 1 in the dump truck toy. How appropriate. It was quite disgusting. So even though no more potty training we still have to deal with that. Don't be surprised if you see a picture of him with duck tape around his diaper. I'm really close to doing that.
Here's a picture I got of him on the potty-

 

And, next, Tristan turned 2 on June 11!!! Can you believe it?? I don't know where the time went. We had the party at the Chuck E. Cheese in Plano. It was great. I mean, seriously, went off without a hitch. Tristan loved the only mechanical animal left, Chuck E. Cheese. Now they only have him and he just moves his head to a video on a big screen that is to his left. No more stage full of half-broken mechanical animals. Just a huge screen TV and 1 lousy animal. It's pretty lame. But we had the best time. Tristan got a lot of great toys. But the major entertainment for the night was what I think was an Armenian mob boss and his child's birthday. First, the girl was turning 1. She had on Chanel earrings and necklace. Second, she had the largest cake I've ever seen. It was a Princess cake with a castle on a hill. Except this hill was about 5 cakes high. Then on the top cake was the castle- very detailed I might add. It was ridiculous. Oh and then the family had not one but two "small" cakes for this girl to smash. Everyone there were covered in diamonds and fancy clothes. The men were real mafia-looking and had cigars in their mouths. On top of that, they kissed each other on the side of their faces when they first got there. It had the look of the Godfather, Armenian style.I'm just not sure why they were at Chuck E. Cheese....... I have pictures of the cake- which I almost got shot for taking. I guess they thought I was video taping while 3 of the guys were fighting (cause taking a picture of the 5 story cake between them wouldn't make sense). But they said something to each other and grabbed their cameras and pointed them at me and started video taping. It was awkward and a little scary. But I did get pictures of the cake without dying. Yet. I will post pictures of the cake later. 

Last, my grandpa came to visit everyone here in Dallas after years and years of not coming out here. It was so awesome. I was so happy that he could come. He's been wanting to for awhile now. But in celebration we took him to Lawry's Steakhouse. I'm serious when I say that I've been dreaming about that steak ever since. All I can think about is how amazing that steak was. Seriously-delish. Then on Saturday my Aunt El and Uncle Jeff threw a pool party at their house. We had so much fun. Tristan loved the pool. Caleb, of course, just chillaxed in a floatie and watched everyone. Aunt El, send me those pictures from there and I'll post those as well. Sunday we had a BBQ at David and Becky's and of course the fattie in me ate some more delish food. I need to do some serious exercise to make up for this last weekend. The food is so good but so not worth the exercise. I have been walking and/or running before work at 4:30 in the morning. That's the only time I have available nowadays.

Okay, enough for now. I promise promise promise to edit pictures this weekend. I refuse to post pictures that I haven't at least edited basic. So I will edit and then try to post a crap ton of pictures this weekend. Unless something crazy happens. But plan on it.

A Terrible Easter Sunday- Courtesy of US Airways

     This last weekend we went to Georgia to visit my grandparents and the rest of the family. We had a great time. My brother from Michigan flew in so there were quite a few of us. My sister Naomi took a lot of pictures with my camera since she's good at taking pictures and I have a fancy camera. I will post those once I get them back from her. But the biggest part of the trip was the trip back. It was a nightmare. Everything and I mean everything went wrong. I wrote a long letter to US Airways so I will use part of that to tell the story and add the additional details.


        It started with our original flight on American Airlines flight #1241 scheduled to depart on Sunday April 24 –Easter -going from Atlanta, GA to Dallas, TX. Our original reservation was under 2 reservation numbers. One included passengers Vincent Martinez, Deborah C. Martinez, Teresa Masdon & David S. Masdon. The other reservation included Rebeca Masdon, David T. Masdon, and Naomi Masdon. David T. Masdon, Vincent Martinez and I were all flying with an infant in our laps. This brings the total to 10 people flying. We arrived at the airport only to find out that our flight was cancelled. Originally our plan for this inconvenience was to stay in a hotel and fly out on a non-stop AA flight the next morning. Now, I wish I had done that. From now on, I will do everything possible no matter how much I am inconvenienced to avoid US Airways. At 7:00pm almost exactly, our AA agent said that she received a call that US Airways had decided to transfer AA reservations to their flight #1780 & #373 with a final destination of DFW. This seemed terrible because of the stop but to get home that night seemed worth it. Because US Airways waited until the last possible minute to okay the transfer we were rushed. We ran down to the US Airways counter, where the agents were informed of this last minute ordeal. We were told to check in at the computers in front of the counter. I had to check 2 infant children in to 2 adults. The computer only allowed me to check 1 child to 1 adult. Since my husband and I have 2 children, I asked the guy at the counter, Courtney, what I should do. He told me I obviously did it wrong and since my brother’s reservation hadn’t been checked in yet, to check a kid in through his reservation. While I was waiting on my brother to check in, the other agent behind the counter walked from behind the counter and came over to both my brother and I. He could see all 10 people including 3 children plus luggage standing there but he still felt it necessary to say “You guys need to hurry up.” I asked him why he was telling us that instead of offering to help and he said “Well, I just want you to know that no one will be holding a plane for anyone and if you choose to be slow, you will miss your flight”. I still don’t understand why this guy even came over to us to talk. Meanwhile, my brother is going through the steps to add a child and we both confirm that 2 children can NOT be added to 2 different adults on the computer check-in. I go back to Courtney to report this information, who states that it’s not my turn. I wait while he calls someone up and helps them, then turns to me and says “Okay, what do you need?” His attitude was pitiful, at best. He added the child to my husband’s ticket and handed it back to us and called “Next”. I then stated that we were checking the stroller and car seat that were stacked on the scale right by him. He sighed and then said “Why didn’t you say anything before?” At this point it was such an awful experience that I ignored him and waited while he did it. Then the first reservation proceeded to the security checkpoint. Meanwhile, my brother David Masdon was having the hardest time with Courtney trying to add their own child Gideon to their reservation. David gave Courtney the entire adult’s ID’s: David T, Rebeca and Naomi. He stated there were 2 reservations. And Courtney did not listen and obviously didn’t care. He looked up my reservation and added Gideon to my father’s ticket, David S. It was not until Courtney printed out the boarding passes that my brother saw that he made a mistake. My brother explained it again and my brother stated that Courtney sighed and rolled his eyes. After that, Courtney took the next 35 minutes to fix my brother’s tickets. This caused them to miss the flight altogether.

While this incident was happening to my brother; my husband, mother, father and I were going through security. Since Atlanta is the 2nd largest international airport, security is crazy busy. So they have a separate line for Handicapped and Strollers. There was a large sign above it. Well while I was pushing Tristan in the stroller and had Caleb in a sling on me, I go down the aisle for strollers. There is a TSA Agent standing at the end so I ask her where she wanted us to go. She looked at me with a smirk on her face and said "Yeah, you need to go get in  line with everyone else. Who do you think you are?" I pointed at the sign above her head and said, "No this line is for the handicapped and strollers". She shook her head and said "No, it's not and you're trying to cut." She then walked over to another TSA agent, named Gay, and asked her if the line was for strollers. Gay nodded and said "Yeah, but she shouldn't be giving you attitude about it." As the other lady walked away, I said "Yeah, there's the huge sign above your head that says strollers on it. Might want to check that out before you tell someone that's it not." Right after that, Gay, yelled "You need to learn who you're talking to and when to shut your mouth. You'd better change your attitude or I will make your life a living hell." I said "Excuse me?? I wasn't even talking to you." She said "Well, that's my friend and if you keep up your attitude I'll make sure my other friends make your life hell through this security line." It was unbelievable. Of course, TSA agents can pretty much do whatever they want because they have no one supervising them nor does the government care about it since their job is to "protect". It's really sad how an $8/hour employee thinks they are on top of the world because they have a little bit of power for a few hours. I really want to say that but decided to bite my tongue and just get through security.  We went through security and basically ran to the gate. We got to the gate to see a long line of passengers lined up to board the plane. A male employee saw my son in the stroller and motioned for me to come to the front. He wrapped a tag around the stroller and disappeared down the ramp. The lady at the gate, Anita, apparently didn’t see any of this happen. She immediately yelled “What do you think you’re doing?” I stated that the gentleman told us to come to the front. She said “No he didn’t say or do anything and you can’t just cut.” I told her since she obviously couldn’t see the 2 screaming babies that I was holding that I was traveling with 2 small children and I thought I could get loaded onto the plane first. She said “Um, no because I have to check your bag. You need to wait on the side for me.” She then waited for EVERYONE in line to board the plane. While we were standing there, my father mentioned his anxiety about my brother, sister-in-law, and sister missing the plane. Anita heard him and said “Oh, we are DEFINITELY not waiting for anyone to board the plane. We will not even wait 30 seconds longer for anyone. We don’t care about American Airline passengers and whether or not their flight was canceled. That’s your problem, not ours.” After everyone loaded the plane, Anita took our tickets and scanned them. I asked her if she needed to see the bag and she said “Umm, no.” This woman made us wait for everyone to load the plane for no reason at all. Also, David T., Rebecca, and Naomi rushed to the gate to arrive at 7:57pm. My brother stated that Anita saw them, shook her head and said “Too late, we weren’t going to let our own customers suffer because AA canceled their flight.” The flight was supposed to leave at 7:59pm. The 2 minutes difference would have allowed my brother, sister-in-law, and sister time to board the plane.
   After we boarded the plane, I feel a huge and I mean huge wet spot on my shirt. Caleb's diaper had leaked all over me. Since he's small I decided to go ahead and change his diaper right there in the seats. I'm normally against these things but it had to be done. Then my mom yells at me from across the aisle that Tristan had a poop diaper that needed to be changed. I told her to wait until we got in the air. Well we had to pass him back and forth so that he would be distracted and when I grabbed him poop rubbed all over me. His diaper had leaked as well and the poop seeped through his clothes and onto mine. Awesome. But we had a long wait to take off so we asked the flight attendant if we could use the bathroom to change it and we did.
        Then when we finally landed at midnight or around there, all of us were physically and emotionally exhausted. We come out to get my checked baggage and stroller and car seat. I got the luggage and car seat. A few minutes later a woman came over to us and asked us if we were waiting on a stroller. She said the stroller had its wheel taken off, making it unusable. This made the trip to long-term parking even more miserable with cranky, heavy babies to carry.
   So, as you can see, awesome trip back. Needless to say, the trip to my brother's wedding in June will not include our kids. It will be a kid-free vacation. Thank the Lord.

Geez, Louise

All I can think of right now is of the next thing I have to do on my checklist. Seriously, the weeks are always crazy. Mon-Wed I have class immediately after work and then when I get home, I have to remember to do everything that the kids need done- laundry, making food for Tristan, feeding Caleb. My life is a trainwreck right now. Vincent and I joke about how we never see each other and how we need to have lunch together at work so that at least we can see each other during the week. It's crazy.

First things first. Tristan got his room built. He has his very own room. This has led to the most exhausting week of my life. He has discovered that there are no walls to keep him in bed. So he gets up and plays. I don't care if he plays in his room all night, it's the getting up and opening the door and screaming non-stop into the hallway. This then wakes up Caleb and produces 2 cranky kids. We put the baby gate in front of his door so he can't go anywhere but he realized he can scream instead. The first night he literally screamed out the door every 10 minutes. I was exhausted of going up there and yelling at him. And it is still going on. Last night we put loud fans in Caleb's room along with a sound machine to block out Tristan's screams. This actually worked. So we let Tristan scream and scream until he got tired and passed out in front of the baby gate......at 9:45pm. Yuck. I hope he gets better at going to bed.

A few weekends ago, Vincent and I went to Shreveport for the weekend- just the two of us. It was amazing. We had a great time. We don't really gamble but we did for a little while and won a few times. But most of the time we had free drinks and people watched. There was a lady there that had won 2 million the week before and she was being escorted by the big guy in charge of the casino everywhere she went. We followed and watched her waste $10,000 in a span of 30 minutes. Holy crap. On Saturday afternoon we went to the outlet stores that they have there and bought a bunch of stuff. All in all, it was a relaxing weekend that we both needed badly. We actually slept in till 11:00am, which we hadn't done in years. It's like our bodies won't even let us sleep in anymore so I was really surprised that we did. Anyway we took a bunch of goofy pictures.

Also, the bluebonnets are out in full bloom right now and since they only last a couple of weeks, I had to get a picture with my kids in it. Caleb is growing up so fast.



My little sunshine

So, my kids are super sick and I had to stay home from work to take care of them on Friday as well as today. Mainly because they got me sick as well. Yuck. But my beautiful Caleb is such a sweet kid and has been smiley even though he has a fever. I love that kid. He has the best temperament EVER. I don't know how he is already 3 months old. Man, they grow up so fast. On top of that, I'm starting to forget how terrible it was to be pregnant which is not a good sign :) If I knew that I would absolutely have another boy I would get pregnant again. But since I can't guarantee that, I am not sure if I will have any more kids.Vincent is just happy that I'm starting to forget pregnancy. He thinks that's a start. :)

So I took crappy pictures of Caleb starting to smile and posted them to Facebook and I didn't really like them. But I decided to get a video of his smile since the pictures turned out like crap because he was moving so much. It's adorable.

 

Carpet Disaster

So since I have a few minutes before class I thought I would mention the story about Tristan ruining my carpet (well, for a little while anyway). For those of you who don't have kids or do and have never heard of Gentian Violet- let me explain. Little babies get thrush in their mouths all the time. Thrush is an infection in the mouth that hurts the baby and causes them to be SUPER fussy and have a hard time eating. Back in our parent's day they would dab Gentian Violet on the inside of the mouth and VOILA, all gone in 1 day. Now, they give you a prescription that takes at least a week to get rid of it. That's why I use Gentian Violet. But, Gentian Violet is a purple dye. You have to be SUPER careful with it because it stains.

Well, Caleb looked like he was getting thrush and I wanted to stay on top of it, so I went and got the Gentian Violet. I dabbed some in his mouth, made sure I screwed the top VERY tightly and then turned my attention to Caleb's mouth to catch the spit up before it hit and ruined his clothes. This took about 30 seconds. In this time, Tristan had unscrewed the Gential Violet, dumped in on the carpet and couch, and proceeded to stomp in it and press his hands in it. By the time I figured it out, all I could see was purple. And then I freaked. I just knew Vincent was going to physically beat me for the first time ever when he saw the ruined carpet. He was grocery shopping so I quickly tried all of our cleaning supplies on the carpet. Nothing. Our very expensive steam cleaner was being worked on at the shop so I didn't have that. So after nothing worked, I sat defeated and started to cry. Pretty sure we can't sell a house with bright purple carpet. Tristan figured out I was upset and gave me a hug around the neck while standing on the couch behind me. Man, I don't think anything is better than a little boy's arms around your neck. He was forgiven by me instantly. In the end, Vincent also wasn't mad because Tristan went over to Vincent after he got home, patted him on the back, and said "Okay, Dah Dah". Like he was comforting Vincent. It worked. Thank God he's cute.  :)

It also worked out because the very expensive steam cleaner did its job. It took it all out. I mean all of it. That right there was worth every penny we paid for it. Anyway, I couldn't bear to take a picture of the carpet because I was so ashamed of my bad parenting but I did manage to take pictures of Tristan post-destruction. Believe me, these pictures do the event NO justice. It was horrific.