Ames hosted a Family event called, "Oh What a night". For a fee, we had access to several events around town. We started with some art creations and a magic show. Ben was chosen to be the magician's assistant. He had a great time. Next, We headed to the indoor football practice facility for the huge blow up bouncers. You know the ones... the kids get in and jump to their hearts content. Only one problem..... Ben fell and hit his eye. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the ER for 5 stitches to the top of his left eye. (I would show you a photo, but he asked that I protect his privacy. I think he is a little embarrassed.) If you are counting.... This makes 3 sets of stitches for Ben in 2 years. We settled down at home for the rest of the night and watched movies. Oh What a Night!

Here's a copy of our Christmas card. I completed it today, I know, a little late.
I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas, without our card.

Here's a computer Layout that I did today. Enjoy.....

Journal block reads: I wish I had an exciting tree story to share with you. One that included freshly fallen snow at a tree farm maybe even a sleigh ride with bells. Our story will never make the story books, but here’s our story: We piled into the van and headed to Lowe’s. It was really windy and cold. We hurried to choose our tree and headed back to the van to warm up, while Dad paid for it and tied it to the top of the van. That’s our story

Supplies used: Britt-ish designs template Shabby Princess Seasonal Sampler Holiday RowenF - Aquafont TXT Santa font

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas.

Late last week, we had a winter storm moved through. It started as freezing rain on late Thursday evening and changed to snow over the night. By Friday, we had about 6-7 inches of snow. The Temperature also dropped. It was really cold, Not Winnipeg cold, but cold all the same. Christmas vacation started early. The boys got out of school early on Thursday and school was canceled on Friday. Wednesday, before the cold arrived, we went sledding. The boys had a complete blast. Nadia had more fun when Ethan pulled her around. She loves the slide in the summer, but could not convince her that sledding was just as fun. Here's few photos of our day.

Just finished this digital page. I need to finish up my 2007 Christmas photos before Christmas 2008 arrives.

Supplies:
Free Digital Scrapbooking Template
Summertime designs - Giving kit
Century Gothic font
journal block reads:
Joy:the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying. Many signs of Christmas joy could be seen at our house this year: Ethan’s giggles after opening his socks; Nadia’s hugs given to her Cabbage Patch baby; Ben’s new Hockey sweatshirt. I am so glad that we have these special times of joy spent together as a family. I cherish these special moments and I hope you never forget the true Christmas joy can only be found in our Savior Jesus.

Another busy weekend in the Tulp House. Saturday morning we started decorating our house for Christmas. Andrew, Ben and Nadia headed to Iowa City on Saturday afternoon for a couple Hockey games; Ethan and I headed to Story City for a Basketball game. Sunday was just as busy; Kid's Own Worship and Church in the morning, Ethan's hockey in the afternoon and the piano Christmas recital in the evening. The boys had a very successful weekend. Ben had 2 hat tricks and 4 assists. Ethan had a hat trick and he does not remember his assists. They both played their piano songs beautifully!
They played a duet Titled "Building a Snow Fort" and actually stayed in time with each other most of the song! Ethan started the song a little bit slow and Ben tried to speed him up! Ben played: Dance of the Irish, Deck the Halls, and Joy to the World. Ethan played: Jingle Bells, Jolly Old St. Nicholas and Good King Wenceslas.

Just a quick note to wish Opa (Andrew's Dad) a very Happy Birthday. He turned 77 today! Ben was excited to play the Birthday song on the piano for him. The photo was taken when they came to visit this fall. It's a typical photo... a book in hand... a hat on his head and a smile on his face. Love you Opa!

Here's a few photos to highlight our Thanksgiving day. We all meet at Mike and Leah's house around Noon. We ate a traditional Thanksgiving feast with Ham, Turkey and lots of extras. We celebrated our family Christmas with Grandma providing the white elephant gifts and gifts for the kids. The big boys got an MP3 player and the little girls were blessed with stamps, sticker and a camera. The kids also received a fleece blanket, which all my kids slept with. All the Adults were given a pig. We have been eating pork for several weeks already. We had plenty of time to play the dvd version of Family Feud and catch a quick nap. We left Leah and Mike's around 9 pm
with a reminder of all we have to be thankful for. Tired and happy, we arrived home and went to bed.

Rachel, My sister, is celebrating her Birthday today. If my calculations are correct, she is 35. She is probably celebrating on a Panama Beach, while we here in Iowa experience snow! Even though I am very jealous, I wish her a very Happy Birthday. I love you! Rosalie

I had a little fun this afternoon while everyone was taking a nap. This scrap page is completely digital. I ran across this template and thought it would work well for a title page. I will probably go back and add a christmas photo later. I really need to practice. I love these templates though. I hate to look at a blank screen...

Supplies:

Fluffy Bunny Feet template - perfect 10
Paper and embellishments - Scrap with Nikki - Tranquil day kit
Title alpha - Cottage Arts Destinations - Rusty Copper
Subtitle - TXT hoopla font

Cold Weather has officially arrived here in Iowa, and I am afraid that it is here to stay. We have had a rain / snow mix for the past 2 days, and temperatures hovering right at freezing. Fortunately the snow did not stick because the ground temperature is still quite warm.

The snow fell the hardest from about 6pm-10pm on Friday evening. Right during my Roland-Story football game. The only bright side to that evening was a big win which sends us to the Indoor dome at UNI for the final 2 games in the state playoffs. They have had a fantastic year with an undefeated record. It has been really fun to watch, and to get paid at the same time is not too bad!

We had a very productive Saturday. The Boys and I raked the leaves;just imagine how wet and heavy they were after 2 days of moisture. They did not care how wet they were, they were going to jump in them. It really did not last long, everyone was cold and ready for some hot chocolate.

Andrew cleaned out the garage to make room for the van. All summer the garage is full of bikes, scooters, hockey nets and lot of other miscellaneous items. During the winter months, all that stuff miraculously finds a home somewhere else, so the Van can park there. I really love not having to scrap the windows every morning. Our old van had remote start.... boy do I miss that on cold winter mornings.

Andrew spent the rest of the day building the boys a wooden stand to hang their Hockey equipment. That will be nice to get that stuff off the basement floor. Ethan's first game is tomorrow, He is really excited! Ben has his first game next week.

Enjoy the photos. Rosalie

Nadia has been running around today singing the Laurie Berkner song, "I'm not Perfect" I think God must have placed that song in her head to remind me of that little truth. Here are the lryics:

I'm not perfect, no I'm not.
I'm not perfect, but I got what I got
I do my very best, I do my very best each day
I'm not perfect and I hope you like me that way.

If you read my July 30 post, you will know that we started potty training. I actually gave up for several months and am now back at it. She was dry on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Monday we have at least 4 accidents and today we have had 1 accident!

I need the reminder that she is trying her very best

Halloween was tons of fun this year, but we have way more candy than any family needs!
Nadia understood exactly what was going on; she said, "trick or treat, you got candy?" She went strong for the whole 2 hours.

The Boys requested Star Wars costumes several weeks ago. My opinion was that Darth Vader was completely unoriginal and that we should try to find something a little more original. But after I found the Yoda costume for Nadia.... Star Wars themed seemed the only way to go!
Maybe we can be more original next year because she did look adorable in her Yoda costume. She was the perfect size and made comments like, "I, Yoda."

Anyone need Candy?

My online digital class taught by Jessica Sprague ended this week. I learned so much, I am looking forward to taking another one of her classes in the new year. Here's my last 2 digital layouts:

The supplies to create this layout were all provided by the Class.


I also completed a paper layout this week.



I used 2 of ChrisDurnan's files. The swirl bracket, and the Just for fun title. The other supplies are KI patterned paper, autumn leaves journal stamp and miscellaneous orange cardstock.


Just wanted to share. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoy creating them!

I have a confession.... Deep down, I am a farm girl. Especially during the fall harvest. I love to spend the day riding in the combine or tractors and watching the corn flow. The kids and I went to spend the day at the farm yesterday. It was a bit breezy, but otherwise a beautiful day. Here are a few photos of our day.

Photo1 The 2 year olds: My nephew Abram, Nadia
My Niece AnnaB.

Photo 2 My brothers, Dad and most of the Kids

Photo 3 Great Grandpa, walks with a cane,
But climbs up the tractor ladder!

Fall has arrived here in Central Iowa. The temperatures have dropped and the colors are rapidly changing. I wanted to share this photo with you, because it is so interesting. This is our neighbor's tree, and a single branch has turned.
The rest of the tree looks like spring. Anyone know why? I would love to know.

I wanted to share a few soccer photos with you. Both boys have been playing soccer through the Ames Parks and Recreation program. Andrew is helping to coach Ethan's team. Both boys are really enjoying their seasons. Ben' teammates are boys and 1 girl from the neighborhood, who have played together since 1st grade. They have made amazing progress; they have fantastic passing and truly work together as a team. It has been really fun to watch. They have won most of their games. Ethan team is improving every game. They have not been as successful as Ben's team, but that will come. The kids are having fun and learning, and that's great.

2 new layouts from the Jessica Sprague digital class. I am learning more than I can actually absorb. It is loads of fun, but I really need to get away from my computer and do some house work! I also have about 7 paper pages that need titles etc...

Supplies for Smores:Kpertiet papers, tag & overlay, JSprague grunge frame, Jsprague round template, journal font - Century Gothic, Title font - Asman

Supplies for Climb layout

Template - free digital scrapbooking
Love the Sweet Shope Carnival kit
Txt Abrasive font
The staples on the stars Jessica Sprague

Thanks Rosalie

The kids and I headed down to Oskaloosa on Saturday afternoon to spend some time playing on the farm. Unfortunately, we arrived pretty late in the afternoon and our time was short. We will have to head back. Dad and Mike mentioned that I have at least 6 weeks left before they will be finished. My cousin Margaret and her 2 kids were visiting from Michigan. It was really nice to catch up with her again. Here are a few photos from the day.

Nadia rides the combine with Grandpa.






The 3 girls were fast friends: Nadia, Anna B (my niece), Kelsey (My cousin's daughter)
The few of the boys are included in this photo: Elijah (my nephew) Anna B, Ethan, Adam (My Cousin's Son) and Kelsey.

We had a busy, busy anniversary day. That has been pretty typical for us. We have set aside next Thursday for our Anniversary outing. The babysitter has already been hired! Funny story about our babysitter.... She is a student in my night class at DMACC, although, neither of us knew that. I received her name from a friend and have talked to her several times on the phone. We only put it together when I went to my friend's house and saw her there. Light bulbs flashing!!!
DUH!

I am looking forward to our date, we are going on a Boone County Scenic Train Ride. I don't know the last time we went out alone.

I just wanted share with you that I do get flowers... every once in awhile!

Today, Andrew and I celebrate 13 Years of married life. Wow how life has changed. We are older, hopefully wiser. We have grown together and I am blessed to have Andrew in my life for all these years. I love you, Andrew. Thanks for sharing your life with me. Rosalie

This layout is just a little reminder of how special Andrew is in my life.
The layout is the last assignment in Jessica Sprague's "Up and Running" digital scrapbooking class. I have started her second class "Now We're Rockin" I started the first lesson last night. She has already taught us how to recolorize a photo. I can't wait to work on it some more today.

Oma and Opa (Andrew's parents) have been and gone for almost a week now, and I am finally getting a chance to blog about it. They arrived on Thursday, September 11 and left on Monday, September 22. Our life was crazy busy while they were here, which meant they got to spend loads of quality time babysitting Nadia. She especially enjoyed their daily walks to the coffee shop and their trips to the park. They boys always look forward to their trip to the Dutch Oven Bakery.


Oma has started a tradition of making each Grandchild a quilt. Ben and Ethan have owned their's for several years, but Nadia's was just recently completed. The photo of the kids is a little far away, but I wanted you to see the quilts. She spent hours and hours, truly a treasure.

Happy Birthday Grandpa! I hope you have a fantastic day. I love you!

Another installment from Jessica Sprague's digital scrapbooking class. This is the first time I started from scratch and created. I am really happy with how it turned out. For you digital girls, Here's my supply list.

KPertiet_StampedMoments

SummerDriggs_ Limeade

ateets_whitietighties

The alphabet is from her class materials.

Monotype Corsiva font.

Ben asked if he could be part of orchestra at school. Of course we could not say "No" to learning more music. The catch with this.... He chose the Bass. The instrument is larger than he is!! The school is ordering a smaller bass for him, but for now we have to negotiate how to get this instrument back and forth to school. His first lesson involved plucking each note several times. I must say I really love the deep warm sound of the bass. Close your eyes and imagine.....
Boom, Boom.... That's the sound from my living room.

Here a few of my favorite photos from the weekend spent with my family. The first picture is of Ben holding my niece Sienna. She is adorable and looks exactly like my sister's baby pictures. I included my favorite photo of my sister and her family. Aren't they adorable? Please be sure to notice the rare photo of me on this blog. The puppy in the photo is Jack, he is a Toy Australia Shepherd, and belongs to my brother's girlfriend. He is adorable, very well behaved and completely loved by the Kids.

DMACC started today. My first day teaching after taking most of the summer off. It was a bit rough to get going this morning. I am teaching a total of 3 classes; 2 sections of Introduction to Athletic Training and Personal Training 1. I have average of 15 students in my classes. I think we should have a great semester. I need to spend some time getting organized, always a challenge for me.

I have been taking an online class about digital scrapping. It is creating your scrapbooks using mostly the computer. I just finished the first 2 assignments and thought I would share them with you. It you are interest in digital scrapping check out this website: jessica sprague
It has been fun so far, but I don't know it I could ever give up the paper. Although, it is much easier to fix your mistakes! Enjoy.