It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I'm SO EXCITED! What do I love more than the fall? Christmas time! The colors, lights, smells, Church services, the food, the gift giving, the kids' excitement on their faces. There are so many more, I could go on forever! This weekend I hope to get started on my decorating...OH I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

I will leave you with a holiday survey I received in my email inbox from Kayce.
If you have a blog, I'd love for you to post your holiday survey as well.
'Tis the season!
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both.The kids always get wrapped gifts
2. Real tree or Artificial? FAKE
3. When do you put up the tree? The weekend after Thanksgiving.
4. When do you take the tree down? A couple of days after Christmas.
5. Do you like eggnog? No
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Cabbage Patch Kids or Barbies
7. Hardest person to buy for? Mimi. She has every outfit and accessory known to man. Plus, she's the person that says, "I don't need anything. Save your money!"
8. Easiest person to buy for? Carli
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. remind me to tell you our tradition with our Nativity scene.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? MAIL! Last year was my first year I didn't mail them. I just didn't get around to it.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A tea kettle with a cow on it and a Kenny Rogers's Greatest Hits TAPE! THANKS ANT!
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Frosty the Snowman and White Christmas. They were both my mom's favorite!
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Whenever I get around to it.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Any food!
16. Lights on the tree? Yes, multi-colored.
17. Favorite Christmas Song? Hark the Herald Angels Sing
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? A couple of days before Christmas, we go to Bryan for the day, so that we can be at our house the day of for Santa.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Yes, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner/Donder, Blitzen, and Rudolph.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? ANGELS! Everyone knows about me and my Angels.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? One on Christmas Eve and all the others the next day.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Grumps. If you're not happy, don't go to the mall and spread the non-cheer. Stay home and shop online. ( I stole this from Kayce.)
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? No particular color or theme. I have all of this kids' homemade/school made ornaments and ornaments given to us as gifts. Makes for a special tree.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Any food. I love food!
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? A new camera...ANTONY, HINT HINT!

Turkey Day Happenings

Man, I'm stuffed! Tired too! We didn't go anywhere. We stayed here like always, since Anthony has to work tomorrow.
As the day comes to an end, I sit here and think about how truly blessed we are!Here are some of my favorite Thanksgiving crafts from the kids.
This is Austin's from the first grade.

Tyler's Turkey hand print from kindergarten.

Carli's Turkey place mat from this year. The feathers are each of her fingers.Instead of watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade like we always do, the boys stayed in their room and Anthony and I watched this movie with Carli. She was too cute as she watched it, she acted it out!! Complete with heels, tutu, crown, necklace, puppy. The feast. After we said our prayer, we all had to say three things that we were thankful for.

We completed our feast with peach pie, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate chip cookies.

The next big important item of the day.... and THANKFULLY, THEY WON! So now Anthony can end his day on a happy note!

Happy Thanksgiving

We are so thankful to God for all that he has given us! We hope you take the time to let Him know how thankful you are too for your blessings!

Farewell Highchair

Since we have gotten a new kitchen table and Carli now sits with us, it is time to say farewell to her highchair!
Oh, the highchair days...

Ramirez, Party of Five!

It's about time!
A year after Anthony and I got married, we got a kitchen table that seated four (before that we had a small table that seated two). All of these years our table worked fine for our little family, until Carli decided that she wanted to eat at the table with us.
We have FINALLY gotten a bigger table that will fit the Ramirez, party of Five! We LOVE IT! As you can see, I still have the plastic covering the seats and I have been making the kids eat on placemats. I can't help it, I just got it; it's so nice, I just want to enjoy the "newness" for a little bit. I know it is a kitchen table afterall!

Go on over...

To JONI's BLOG!
She posted about our little day trip to Bryan/College Station last weekend.
Make sure you leave her a coment that you stopped by.

I've been MIA. Everything is fine, just SUPER BUSY around here (Joni, Deyanira, Vicki)!
I have a couple of new post coming. Check back later tonight for at least one of them!

I'm a BIG KID NOW!

THAT'S RIGHT...CARLI IS A BIG KID NOW!!!
"NO MORE DIAPERS!", as Carli would say.
She is POTTY TRAINED!
I can't believe I won't be seeing these boxes of diapers around the house anymore or the thought of how much money I'll be saving! :) Although she has developed a love for buying Dora and Disney Princess underwear now!
We are SO PROUD of our BIG GIRL! She's done really GREAT!
For months, she's shown interest in being diaper free, but honestly, I just never gave it the time and energy it needed. I really wanted to do it during Thanksgiving break, but Carli was now really showing signs and I only had a couple of diapers left in the package, so I thought I'd go for it. She's had a few little accidents, but now does not and she even wakes up from her naps and bedtime dry! We've even ventured out of the house some and it went great!Don't you know I SOOO had the urge to post pictures of her as a baby in her diaper and her now in her underwear or even sitting on the potty! Just couldn't do it though...not on the internet. YAY FOR OUR SWEET BIG GIRL CARLI!

Celebrity siting

While we were all out shopping last weekend, we noticed a celebrity...After we watched her shop a while and gave Tyler a little pep talk, he went right up to CYNTHIA COOPER and said, "Hi, I'm Tyler and I would like to know if I could have your autograph?" She ws so kind and wrote a little something to him. This was BIG at hour house...we love basketball!

The PONYTAIL...

I've decided that this time, we'll let the ponytail stay a while. Shortly after her first ponytail, I cut her hair shorter. It was a tough decision. Let it grow longer or keep it short? Of course, Anthony and the boys love it in a ponytail, me? Still not sure? Carli likes it as long as she has a bow too.

A Birthday Celebration

Saturday night, a few of us went out for Miranda's Birthday. We headed to dinner and then caught a movie.Back row-L to R: Me, Melodye, Phyllis (Miranda's mom), Sara, Heidi
Front row- L to R: Tanya, Miranda, Michelle (yes, another Michelle-wish I was as tall as she is!)

Me and Miranda

Me and MelodyeDinner: PF Chang's was WONDERFUL! Just WONDERFUL!Movie: Changeling. Was NOT so wonderful! Let me clarify...the movie was made great by Clint Eastwood. Angelina Jolie was great, really great. The story, as you know is a true story and I knew that it had something to do with a little boy being kidnapped, but that is just a part of the whole true story...OH MY BROKEN HEART! SO SAD! SO GUT WRENCHING! AWFUL! Just AWFUL! Not a good chick flick, and although we gave Miranda a hard time about it, we DID have a VERY FUN TIME!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABEL!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR ABEL!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!BABY Abel is 25 years old today! He is Anthony's little brother. Abel, you're off the hook, your sister in law is going to be nice to you and not embarass you by putting baby pictures of you on here! I'll give you an XBOX 360 cake instead! Hope you had a great day!

Halloween Day!

We hope you all had a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween!
We woke up Halloween morning with some STOLEN CARVED PUMPKINS (even the candles were gone!) Our neighbors' carved pumpkins were gone too! Austin's had his initials and Tyler's had a face! We were SOOO SAD AND MAD! We had just carved them the night before and I hadn't even taken a picture of them yet! This is the only picture we have of them-uncarved! BOO HOO!!!
Well, it was time to get passed that and get the kids off to school. Carli had her Fall Festival at school that day, so she was excited! She took these absolutely, positively, delicious cookies to each one of her friends and teachers. THANK YOU KATHY FOR MAKING THEM!!! You can also check our her baking blog here.

Kathy even put them in the bags for me...TOO SWEET! All I did was add the ribbon and tag!

All packed and ready to go!

And now, the kids' costumes!

Paging Dr. Ramirez...

Fitting, with all of the doctors he sees.
EWWW....SCARY TYLER!
Carli obviously wasn't scared, she wanted to be like Tyler!
But, after we reminded her of her costume, she quickly changed her mind!

Roll out the red carpet for SNOW WHITE!

She LOVES pumpkins!

She had to dance with Snow White before we left!

HOW pretty are her shoes?

Doll in hand and ready to go!

It was a really fun night!

Tyler and Anthony stayed and handed out candy, I took Austin and Carli trick or treating. Carli totally got it! Every single time she would say, "Twick or Tweat!" and "Tank you!" As we would come to each house, she would yell, "OH LOOK! Another house!" "YAY candy!" Once we got back home, they helped hand out candy for the rest of the night. Once we put Carli to bed, we all watched the Hulk movie. This morning, I think we all woke up with sugar hangovers!