Happy Birthday Opa.


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!

Give Thanks



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.

Happy Birthday Rachel

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

A little quiet

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

Playing in the Leaves


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


I'm not perfect.....

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

Trick or Treat





































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?