Grandpa

A couple of weeks ago, I asked for prayers for Anthony's grandfather. They have found out that he has cancer on his right kidney. He has been released from the hospital after a little over a week and is at home now. The week of July 7th, they will bring him to M.D. Anderson Hospital , here in Houston, to under go treatment. There are two different treatments that they are looking at. Cryoablation or Radiofrequency Ablation. Everyone is saying that they hope they do the Cryoablation, because it seems like it would be better for him. Once we hear back from the doctor on his choice of treatment, I will keep you updated. Once again, we ask for your prayers. Thank you!

(If you click on the name of the hospital and the name of each treatment, it will take you to an explanation of them.)

Panda Bears

Okay, this has nothing to do with my family, although sometimes I DO think it's a zoo around here! I just wanted to share this TOO CUTE video, I received through email.
Enjoy!
Have a great weekend!

AHH CHOO!- Bless you baby panda!

Somewhere over the rainbow...

On Saturday evening, we had a tornado in our town. Our neighborhood was fine, but we were without power for a few hours. Once the thunderstorms stopped, we looked out from our back door and saw this: A FULL RAINBOW!
A few minutes later, we saw that it was a double rainbow!

Look at the different colors of the sky.

We all enjoyed staring at this for quite a while!


And Tyler was extra excited because soon after we saw this, the power came back on!

Life's a BEACH!

After we ate at The Rainforest Cafe', we headed across the street for some fun in the sun! The boys love to go to the beach, and sadly we have'nt been since we had Carli. Well, I can see this will be an on-going thing this summer, because Carli now shares the love of the beach with her brothers. These kids had a blast! They lived in that water! The boys taught her how to jump over the little waves. She would tell them, "here it go!", every time a wave would come. I packed tons of toys and snacks, but, I think I should've left them at home. It was very hard to get them to dry off and load up into the car to go home. We didn't leave until 8pm. The pictures I took were all from when we were about to leave, because the whole time we were there, Anthony and I were out in the water with them. Thank you God for such a pretty day and a fun time on Austin's birthday! She called the seaweed, "yucky grass" Showing her first sea shell or as she called them, "rocks". She loves rocks.
Splish Splash!

She wore that hat most of the time and when she wasn't, she was carrying it. Trying to run back into the water when we told her it was time to go!
The boys MAD that we had to leave!
I guess they thought they needed to sit it in one last time?

Austin saying that it was cool and that he is okay with leaving. Tyler "supposedly" drying off before we leave.
Finally she decides to play with the toys...as it was time to go!
She prefered to play like this!
Just one last time in the water. This time with her favorite toy at the moment, a fish.
UH! The kids loved these birds, that these people decided to FEED! Really? WHY did they decide to do that? The birds freaked me out and I did'nt want them anywhere near me!

I think we brought back half of the beach with us. Our car, garage, and house, had sand everywhere. I had lots of cleaning to do and still have some. But it was SO worth it!

Annual trip

Every year, since we've moved here, we have drove to Galveston to eat at the Rainforest Cafe' for Austin's Birthday. This makes his SIXTH time! After pigging out on lunch, we always order the Volcano Cake! It's delicious! They're very popular there. Whenever the waiters bring them out, the whole way to your table, they yell,"VOLCANO!" They sang "Happy Birthday" to Austin, and made him act like a gorilla while they did. We all enjoy going there. It's really neat. Although there were times Carli got a little scared. The sights and sounds are that of a rainforest, so you hear the birds, waterfalls, rain/thunder, and hear and see the gorillas! She would say, "No willas!" ( gorillas), "No ooh ooh ahh ahhs!" (that's what she calls the monkeys, the sound that they make)

Carli loved this frog SO much, that Anthony had to pull her off of it to leave. She screamed and cried very loudly, saying, "MY FOG! MY FOG!" Poor baby!

Say it ain't so!

AUSTIN ANTHONY RAMIREZ IS 14 YEARS OLD!?!?

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

You mean to tell me that 14 years ago, on June 22nd, I gave birth to the most beautiful 7lbs.3oz. of baby boy? WOW!!!!

We have been given the best gift in the world! Austin is wonderful! Sweet! Funny! Precious! AND the strongest person we know! He has gone through so much! We are feeling like we are getting a better grasp on his seizures now, finding out that it is mainly due to a metabolism disorder. Certain foods, drinks, colorings, and flavorings. There are quite a few things we know to stay away from. Although it's not easy. A lot of times it's like a trial and error situation. He still has an occasional seizure, but he has been off of anti-seizure medication since December.

He enjoys school. He loves to draw and read. He loves Sponge Bob Square Pants. His favorite band is Green Day.He loves to tell jokes. He loves...girls! Yes, Austin really loves the girls!

It has been quite a journey so far with Austin and we would'nt have changed it one bit! He is truly amazing! Thank you God!

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY Austin! WE LOVE YOU!

Mother and Son time

Since Tyler and Carli were at VBS every morning this week, it has given Austin and I some quality time together. Monday, we went grocery shopping. Sounds fun? Well, to him it is. He likes to push the cart, help find the groceries we need, take out the groceries for check out and even unload them too! He was a great help! Tuesday, we went to the dollar movies, where watched "Happy Feet" and munched on some popcorn and drank cokes, Wednesday, we went to his doctor's appointment, and Thursday and Friday, we just hung out. It was very nice for it to be just the two of us.



My cool man!

Vacation Bible School

When I was a little girl, I loved summer time! Aside from no school and getting to go swimming all day, I loved it because I got to go to VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL! Even when I was too old to go, which was 6th grade, I then went to be a helper. I did this every year until I was 18. Once Austin was old enough to go, when he was two, I volunteered then. Tyler came along and we continued our VBS every summer. Once we moved here, I no longer volunteered, but the boys did go. Austin is too old to go now :( but Tyler is still able AND...CARLI GOT TO GO THIS YEAR! I was THRILLED!! They've gone everyday this week, from 9am-12pm. She has done really good and despite her telling me every morning as soon as I walk into her room to get her up, "No mommy chuch! (church)" No mommy Jesus!" No mommy pay (play)!" She only cried twice when I dropped her off. They both had a really fun week. On Sunday, our church will have a VBS service where all of the children will get to perform the songs they learned and some skits as well.



Carli pointing to her "Jesus Shut" (Jesus SHIRT)

They were getting a little annoyed with the picture taking...oh well, I can't help it!

PRAYER REQUEST

I am sending out a prayer request for Anthony's grandfather, who is in the hospital. Here is what his Aunt Rachel sent in an email yesterday:

This message is for all of those who care about my Dad (Yalo), he was admitted in the hospital today. He has been having some problem with shivering, chills and weakness in his right leg. The doctor's in the ER could not find what was going on. So, the doctor that was filling in for our family doctor, chose to hospitalize him to run more test. He experienced those symptoms for 2 days causing him to be taken to the ER. He did develope a fever today, so they will be looking for some sort of viral infection of some kind. That is about all we know now. They will be doing more test tomorrow. I will keep you posted, as we find out what is going on. He is in room 3316 at St. Joseph hospital.

Thanks and lot's of love,
Rachel Ramirez

Doctor visit

I feel like I am always going to the doctor's office. Today, it was Austin's turn. It was a check up on his broken collar bone. About four weeks ago, he was at school, in P.E., running the bases, when he tripped and fell, resulting in the FIRST BROKEN BONE in the Ramirez household. He got a good report...he's healing nicely! I wish I had a better picture of him with the sling on, but, he hated wearing it, when he did, he would'nt even wear it correctly! He only wore the sling for a week, whenever he went to school or out somewhere. Like, for instance, the movie theatre as seen below. Since day two of him breaking it, he never complained...what a trooper!

A post from ANTHONY!

What? A post from ANTHONY? Yep, that's right! Anthony wants to write a post. I know that this blog is about all of us, but I never thought he'd want to write anything! So, I guess I will take a deep breath and slide away from the keyboard so he can take over. I'm SO NERVOUS! What's he going to do??? ANTHONY WRITES:
Okay, there's something that's bothered me for a looooong time now and I've done something about it....and that's when I want to eat a bowl of cereal. That's right, for so long I've had to eat a bowl of cereal from Shell's little bity cereal bowls........one bowl is not enough from those little SHALLOW bowls. Tonight, I had enough, so I got the cap'n crunch and I got our SPAGHETTI BOWL and started pouring cereal into it!!! YES ......it was PERFECT. Well, when Shell saw me eating my cereal she FREAKED OUT AND STARTED YELLING AT ME!!!!!! I told her it wasn't my fault because her little bowl was too shallow.....it might as well be just a plate with a little bump for milk. When I want cereal I want my spoon to disappear into the cereal and milk and then come back up with alot of cereal on the spoon. Especially cereal that gets soggy like Frosted Flakes or Corn Flakes and you can get a big ol spoonful and mmmmmmmmmm that satisfies the old appetite. So Shell's mad at me because she said the bowl is ridiculous and I told her when I eat cereal from her little shallow bowl I usually have to eat two bowls, now I can just eat one big bowl. So, in a way, I'm doing better because now I just need to eat one bowl of cereal instead of two. It's a win win situation for all!!! You'll see the pictures of the bowls and you can understand that I am right and Shell is wrong.......thanks for taking my side on this! Shell's little bitty bowl

Ant-Man's BIG 'OL BOWL!

See the difference?

Just another day in paradise!

The other day, Joni and I took our babies with us to the grocery store. Bradley is 15 days older than Carli. It is really nice having them so close in age. They do very well together and are so cute to watch. As you can see, they started off great in the shopping cart. WELL, Carli decided she had enough. She cried and yelled the whole time we were in the store! "NO KISS BRADLEY!", "NO HUG!" and she even got mad when he would touch her back. "NO BACK! NO BACK!" Oh goodness, it was so funny, I wish I would have gotten a picture of when they were BOTH crying!

Sorry Bradley, girls are just so moody! She really does love you!