He is Risen!!!

Happy Easter!!!  I am so thankful to be able to celebrate another Resurrection Sunday!  I will be forever grateful for Jesus' sacrifice for us.  Before Natalie died, I could never fully appreciate the sorrow God had to endure watching his Son die.  Also, I was never as thankful for his resurrection so that we can be with Natalie again.  Thank you Jesus!!!

This year, we decided to be less busy since Amira is still so little.  This make things more relaxing for me, thank goodness!  We attended church, ate a quick lunch by ourselves and then headed to my Dad's parents house about 30 minutes away.  We were able to spend a quiet afternoon just visiting with my grandparents, brother and soon to be sister-in-law, my parents and my aunt and uncle.  The kids provided good entertainment, too. :)  After a couple hours there, we drove back home with three tuckered out kids.  It was a good day. 

We had to wake Sapphira up to get her out of the van to take pictures so she wouldn't smile nice for a picture.  Blowing wish flowers was ok though. 

First Easter! 

Up close and personal

Oh Bubbo...

This was as good as it got!  Don't you love their matching dresses!?  I can't help myself!

Pretty girl

We didn't get pinched!

We typically don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day in any way at our house.  We don't tend to do the smaller holidays much (we aren't against them at all!), but I will always remember leaving the hospital after Natalie died on St. Patty's Day because the nurse who helped us fill out the paperwork to transport her the mortuary was wearing a string of green shiny beads.  It reminded me that time had not stopped outside our hospital room walls and we now had to return to real life and learn to cope with the gaping hole in our hearts.  Sigh.

Anyway...now that Malachi is in school, he's learning about these things and was told that he had to wear green or be pinched.  Malachi picked out his greenest shirt for the day, but upon looking through the girl's clothes, there was no green to be found.  Then I remembered the green fabric on my shelf and got to work on some simple and soooo stinkin' easy circle skirts.  I used this tutorial for Sapphira's skirt and this pattern for Amira's.  In just over an hour, I had these two skirts whipped up.  Loooove it!

The night before: Sapphira's just waiting for the morning to measure her waist and put in the waistband.

Matching sisters.  Sapphira was so excited!

Such a good baby sitting through church.

Green nursing toes.

Talking with Papa at lunch.

Amira: 15 days old

Our own fireworks!

Since we were going to be out of town for the fourth, we waited to buy fireworks until the fifth so we could take advantage of the post holiday clearance.  We never buy much more than the basics anyways, but we have found it we go the day after the holiday, especially toward the end of the day, the workers will often throw in extras.  This year, we were given a package with 4 larger "pillar" type fireworks as well as some snap-pops, ground blooms, smoke bombs, the snake things and some confetti shooters.  Gotta love free stuff!  :)  We also made sure to get some extra snap-pops and as many sparklers as we could since they are our favorites and we often do them on New Years Eve and sometimes birthdays.

After Samuel got home from work on Thursday, we waited until it started getting a little bit dark and headed outside.  As a child, I remember having to wait foooooooorever for it to be dark enough to light them off, and I think our kids thought we were torturing them as well.  

We started off with some snap pops.  I love how something so little and cheap can make them so happy.  The mess does not make mommy happy, however. :)

 Getting a dud ready to step on.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

 I let both of the kids pick one out that they wanted.  Of course Malachi picked one that looked like Transformers.

 There was quite a bit in that little box!

She loved watching the show, but didn't like the loud noises.  She sat in my lap the whole time so I could cover her ears.  (Here's a sneak peak of my new hair cut.  I'm gonna try to get better pictures of it when it actually looks good and I have makeup on! ha)

Sapphira picked a "Purple Pearls" firework.  The second she saw the purple on the front she grabbed it up.  This was my favorite one growing up.  Nothing, not even the label, has changed about this one.  Another plus, it doesn't make noise, just pretty purple sparks.  (When Samuel went to try to get some more sparklers after work, they threw in a box of 8 of these for free.  We saved several for her birthday!)

Yay for sparklers!!!  I love how in awe they are everytime we give them their first one.

Then we start to get a bit crazy...

Big circles for a big boy...

little circles for little sis.  Does anyone else miss the old metal ones??  They were so much better! :)

I really like having our own little show at home.  I think it's kinda fun to do it the next day so the kids get to see both big and little fireworks and it spreads out the excitement, too.  Doing it the day after also makes us quite popular neighbors!  All the neighborhood kids started pouring out of their house at the first pop of a firework and congregating a driveway down to watch.  A couple of them were getting really excited and ooo-ing and aw-ing and calling out all the colors they saw.  Happy Fourth of July!!!

Happy 4th of July!!

Every year, my in-laws rent a condo at the coast for the week of the 4th of July.  The kids loooove being able to go and spend time there with them because there is a dock to fish and crab from, several beaches a short drive away, a fun historical downtown with little shops to pick through, and a pool to splash in.  Also, the city puts on a large fireworks show for all to enjoy.  In years past, we have spent the night, but this year work schedules did not allow that, so we woke up early and headed out to start our fun day.  First thing we did once we got there...beach time!

 After taking a wrong trail to the beach which involved Malachi sinking into and losing his flip flops in thick mud (oy), we finally got down to the sand.  We found this little pool of water immediately after getting onto the beach and the kids decided this was where they wanted to play.  We could barely see the waves!!  We let them play for a while and Malachi got his mud slinging out of the way! 

Poor thing had a runny nose from the wind and her hair wouldn't stay out of her face so in no time flat she had sand all over her mouth and cheeks.  But she looked pretty silly! ;)

Malachi has been begging to fly this kite for months, so was super excited to finally have enough wind!

He literally flew it for 3 minutes and was done.  Hopefully that will stop the whining! :)

We finally convinced him to go down to the waves.

  Oh how I love them! 

Running!!!!!

 Of course we brought diggers!

 Happy dirty boy!

 This bird was convinced we had something for him and stared us down for quite a while.

We weren't able to spend as much time as we had wanted since the wind was blowing the sand around and the sand fleas kept biting.  We headed back to the condo and the kids got an opportunity to go down to the dock with Daddy and Papa and play on a play structure.  We waited until after supper to go swimming to kill time before the fireworks started at 10 pm.  Last year at this time in the pool, Malachi was clinging to his pool noodle (also wearing his life vest of course!) and would shriek if I let up on my hold on him.  This year, he was swimming and kicking with out assistance and was willing getting his head wet.  Sapphira just wanted to be held in the water and didn't really do much more than splash with her hands last year, but my what a year did for this little daredevil!  She was jumping off the side of the pool into some one's arms, laying and floating on her back, swimming on her belly while being held from person to person and was asking to bob under water.  I think I need to get my little fishies in lessons sooner than later! After getting out of the pool, the kids played with their cousins while waiting as patiently as they could for the show to start.  We had been misinformed about which part of the bay the fireworks were being set of from, so the bottom half of the fireworks ended up being blocked by another condo building but we could still see quite a bit of the show.  Sapphira kept asking every one if they liked the colors or sounds and if they liked the big or little sounds better. :)  We ended up getting home at 1:15 in the morning, so while we were so tired on Thursday morning, we were thankful for our fun-filled day.

Happy Father's Day!

For Father's Day this year, I had the kids help me make some pictures for Papa and Boppa.  I guess I have kind of gone on a "gift strike" lately when it comes to family.  I have such a hard time finding gifts for everyone (don't get me started on gifts for men!!!), so I guess I subconsciously decided to just make small things and be sure to spend time with our loved ones instead.  It's cheaper (!!!) and probably a bit more memorable.  Who remembers which gifts they get from year to year, but everyone can remember specific moments spent with people we love.  Anyways...online I found a father's day gift made with paint hand prints as leaves on trees, but I didn't have any paint, so I used green and pink construction paper instead.  After I cut out their hands, I let them color on their hands and then I cut out a tree trunk and glued the tree together.  I let Malachi write and draw a picture on the back and Sapphira also wrote "messages" on the back.  We had fun making them and I hope the recipients enjoy them as well.

 This message writing stuff is serious business

 I helped Malachi by telling him which letters to write

 ♥ ♥ ♥

 His letters are getting so much more legible.

 If you look closely it says "I love you, Malachi".  He drew a dump truck on the left hand side and Sapphira wrote a message below the drawing.  

 Can you tell how much fun Sapphira had decorating her pink hands? ;)

Ta-da!!

 Boppa's picture

 Malachi also wrote "I love you, Malachi" on Papa's picture, but drew a tow truck on this one.  You can see Sapphira's extensive message below the drawing.  After this picture was taken, she added about five more lines of "writing".  As she wrote, the mumbled words and gibberish like she was reading what she was writing.  So sweet.  Once Malachi was done with his writing, he didn't care to stick around and went to play elsewhere.  But as you can tell below, Sapphira became really engrossed in the message writing process. 

 Deep concentration

 She was really telling Daddy something

 This is her "What?" face.

 Love that bottom lip

 Oops...not quite done.

How I love this girl.

Oh and yes I know that Sapphira had no clothes on and Malachi was still in his jammies well past lunch.  That's just how we roll at the Ramos house.  Hey...less laundry and arguments for me! ;) 

We spent the Saturday evening before Father's Day with Papa since they were going to the beach on Sunday.  We played outside, the kids "washed" cars and just enjoyed being together.  On Sunday, we ate yummy mexican food for lunch with Boppa, Gaga, and Bobo and then came home and had a quiet afternoon and evening together.  We are so thankful for such wonderful fathers in our lives.  We have such great family and support and our children have good role models to look to.  We couldn't be more blessed!!!