The Ramos Family

The preschool class has a bear that the kids take turns bringing home, his name is Patchy Bear. Bella absolutely loves Patchy! He got to come with us to see High School Musical 3 - I think he liked it ;o) He has a notebook where the kids write about his visit and often times put pictures of them with Patchy in it as well. Whenever we send him back to school, Bella talks about how she can't wait until he stays with us again!

St. John Vianney had a magazine fundraiser last month. They had prizes that the kids could earn for 'selling' subscriptions and the ultimate prize was lunch at Old World Pizza in Inver Grove Heights - transported there by a Hummer Limo! Our family and friends helped both Maria AND Bella earn that prize! Thanks to everyone that placed an order and helped them out with achieving this goal! I was very happy that my schedule allowed me to go with them, it was a lot of fun! The kids loved being in the limo, especially since they didn't have to be in a car/booster seat! I have a feeling this will motivate them for next year, they'll definitely want to ride it in again!

This cracked me up...... I'm still amazed at all of the little things Lorenzo does - I think I'm just cherishing all of his milestones since I know he's our last. I want him to stay this age, it's so fun :o)

Here are some updated photos of Maria ~



She FINALLY lost her first tooth on Friday, October 24th, 2008! I had picked the girls up from school and we went straight to the movie theatre to see High School Musical 3 (Daddy met us there). It was about the last ten minutes of the movie and Maria starts crying. She had lost her tooth and couldn't find it! She settled down and was able to find it on her shirt. The tooth fairy visited that night and brought her two dollars. In fact, she woke up at 5:30am, came into our room and asked if the tooth fairy had come - much too early for a Saturday morning :o( She has since lost her other bottom tooth and claims one of her top teeth is loose :)



(L) Jada, Jaida, Anna
(R) Maria, Paige


Maria & Paige



On Sunday, November 9th - Maria and her Daisy Troop had a roller skating event at Fun Zone in Woodbury. I decided to stay and rollerskate with her and it was a lot of fun! I was a little worried since it had probably been, oh let's say 20 years or more since I'd skated! This was only Maria's second time rollerskating but she almost refused to hold my hand and was venturing out on her own quite a bit (aka - leaving me in the dust ;) ). We were able to buy a Rollerskating patch to put on her Daisy Scout vest........ now if I would just get around to buying some fabric glue and getting it on there!

GIRL SCOUT COOKIE UPDATE: We received the order forms for cookies at her last meeting. We aren't allowed to 'officially' sell any cookies until January 17th. We got to try out one of the new flavors, Dulce de Leche - it was pretty good! I'm a little bummed they don't have one of my favorites - the shortbread ones dipped in chocolate! They'll be selling the following kinds of cookies: Lemon Chalet Cremes, Trefoils (shortbread), Do-Si-Dos (peanut butter sandwich), Samoas (need I elaborate - if you've had them you know they're one of the absolute best cookies ever.......that is if you like coconut!), Dulce de Leche, Sugar Free Chocolate Chip, Tagalongs and of course THIN MINTS! Our little sales girls will be contacting you sometime in January!

Now you know why it's taken me so long to update the blog. I've been busy whipping out the HTML to put together this fun Christmas layout. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Maybe I'll actually post some pictures sometime soon!

Oh yes, it's been almost TWO months since I've updated our Blog! Life has been busy, between work, kids and trying to get in shape - and then there's this whole FACEBOOK deal! One more thing to distract me in life but it's been fun. I'm asking Santa for more hours in the day for Christmas :) Of course, now I have so much to blog about - it will probably take me all weekend! And we have a busy weekend already! Tomorrow, my dad is taking all of my siblings, their spouses, Paul & I to see A Country Christmas at Celebration church in Lakeville. Paul & I got to see it last year and it was a wonderful show (though Paul wasn't so sure at first, as one of the opening acts was "Two Steppin' Around the Christmas Tree"). Paul isn't a big country music fan, but the show ended up surprising him and he really did enjoy it! We're looking forward to seeing it again and spending time with family. After the show, we're all heading back to my dad's place where he'll be serving us dinner. He hasn't revealed the menu so we'll just have to wait and see what he's cooked up! Auntie Missy will be coming over in the afternoon to watch the kids, then Grandma Kay is coming over to relieve her so she & Matt can get some Christmas shopping done. Thanks Auntie Missy & Grandma Kay!

On Sunday, the girls have swimming lessons and then Maria has her first piano recital! She had to memorize three songs for her performance, I think she's pretty much ready. She seems to enjoy piano though she does get very frustrated with herself when she doesn't 'get it' right away. I try to reassure her that anytime we learn something new, it's going to take some time. Hopefully she'll start being a bit easier on herself!

Just a quick note about Maria's birthday - we're going to have her birthday party at the Wakota Ice Arena in South St. Paul on Sunday, Dec. 21st at 4pm. I'll send out evites but that won't happen until sometime this weekend - in between all of the other things to accomplish!

UPDATE: Since the post just below this mentions Maria wanting to have her birthday party at Feed My Starving Children, I thought I would let you know that I looked into this about a month ago and they didn't have ANY openings on weekends or evenings! I talked to Maria about this because she was really bummed one other time when she thought she couldn't have her party there. I told her that we couldn't have her party there because they had SO many volunteers, which was a GREAT thing for them. She agreed that it was good that they were so busy and we also talked about finding another time to go as a family, after the holidays. It didn't take her too long to get excited about an ice skating birthday party!

Alrighty - gotta head to bed!

While the kids were off of school during MEA week, Paul's co-worker, her family, our family and TJ & Noah volunteered at Feed My Starving Children. I had heard of Feed My Starving Children before, had spoken to those that had volunteered their time there but hadn't yet had (or should I say taken) the opportunity to experience it myself. They have several different locations and we went to the one in Eagan since Paul and his co-worker, Nicole, were actually working that day and it was close to the UPS hub. They start out with all of the volunteers in a sitting area, sort of like a presentation room - and they talk about how it got started and then proceed to show examples of kids before and after they received the food through the program. It was interesting, enlightening, saddening - lots of different emotions flowed through me as I listened to George explain it all to us. To help us understand how bad it is for these people, George showed us a sample of a 'mud pie'. They literally take dirt, mix it with water and shape it into a circle and let it bake in the sun. These sell anywhere from $.02-$.05 each - for DIRT. There is absolutely no nutritive value, they simply eat it to curb the hunger pains. They are even seeing people eating pebbles, which the body is unable to digest and requires surgery to remove them. Can you even imagine - with all of the choices we have in what we eat everyday - that there are people who have absolutely NOTHING to eat? They showed us a picture of a six year old girl before she started receiving food through the program, she weighed 15 lbs, literally skin and bones. I think that had such a huge impact on me because Maria is six years old, and this little six year old girl weighed less than Lorenzo - our six month old!

Some of you may already know the story but....the founder of Feed My Starving Children started it back in 1987 after a trip to Honduras because he wanted to do something about all of the people there that were nearing death due to starvation. He had initially sent nutrition and candy bars back to Honduras but unfortunately, their bodies couldn't handle the richness of those foods and it actually made them sick. He then went to food companies and asked them to come up with something that would give these people the nutrition they needed, bring them back from the brink of death and would 'stay down' (i.e. their systems wouldn't reject it). What they came up with was a combination - chicken, veggies, soy & rice. Here's a little video of our assembly line!



The kids had so much fun putting the meals together. We tried to make sure each kid got a chance to do all of the different jobs. Nicole and her husband, John, have two daughters - Paige & Hailey. All the kids did a great job (the adults too, of course :)! After we were all done, I went home to pick up Bella and meet up with the rest of them at Cece's pizza back in Eagan. There was no shortage of food there, that's for sure! Bella wasn't able to come with to volunteer because kids have to be at least five years old in order to be there. She can't wait until she turns five so she can come with!

On one of the videos they showed us at Feed My Starving Children, there was a girl who was celebrating her birthday with her family and friends. We had asked Maria after we were all done if she wanted to have her birthday party there and she said 'yeah'! George was nearby and he said they only have one requirement for birthday's - you have to bring cake and chocolate ice cream! Maria said we'd do that for sure! I love that they get kids involved at such a young age - I think when they see kids their own age in pictures before and after - it really has an impact. We're hoping to become regular volunteers there.