We are about 1/2 through our first week of Back to School.   All 3 are in school this year.  Which is quite a change for me.   The House has been quiet.  I hope that means I can get more things accomplished during the day.    That is yet to be seen, I tend to get a little distracted by shiny websites and glittery scrapbook pages.  

B is in 7th grade and once again has a pretty full schedule.  He is still playing the Bass for Orchestra, and Percussion for Band.  He is also trying out for Jazz band where he hopes to play his bass or borrow the bass guitar from church. 

He likes his teachers and has had a fairly light homework load.   So far is biggest complaint is that school is dumb.   What else could a 12 year old boy say.  

He still takes the bus, which makes it super easy for me. 

E is now in 4th grade.   It's really had to believe that he has only 2 more years of elementary school.    He really likes his teacher and I have heard great things about her from other people.  

He is still reading, reading, reading.  Often instead of completing his other chores, but I guess it could be worse. 

He is disappointed that he will be walking to school this year instead of taking his bike.  But he now has to walk his little sister to and from school.  I suspect that will be his biggest challenge this year.  

N is in Kindergarten!  I can't describe to you how excited she was for her first day.  The kindergarten has 2 days of meet the teacher before they come for the whole day.   She did not need the time to transition.   I wonder if the school district should consider a easy entry for the 7th graders.   They seem to need more adjustment time!  

She loves her new teacher and is making new friends. She is currently working on tying her shoes.  She almost has it figured out.

I hope and pray that they all will have a great year.

By the way,  I start teaching on Friday.   I will have a heavy load with 12 credit hours.  High school football is in full swing.        So life is already busy. 

August 12,1921 - Cornelia Van Zee Vos was born. 

August 12, 2011  She celebrated her 90th birthday with Friends and Family. We really enjoyed our afternoon and evening together as family.   To explain the magnitude of this event,  I will give you a few numbers.

• 10 children and spouses
• 30 grandchildren and spouses
• 25 great grandchildren with 2 more announced for early 2012

We are only missing about 7 from that total.
Our family also collected a few frequent flyer miles.  We literally arrived from all over the world.  Here's a few places:

• London, England
• Panama City
• Los Angeles
• Atlanta
• Philadelphia
• Kentucky
• Denver
• Grand Rapids, MI

With many of us driving from parts of Iowa.

I can't really describe to you how much fun it was.   I saw cousins that I had not seen in years.  I met their spouses and children.  I heard stories about their lives.   We all told stories about Grandma and reminisced about how our lives very shaped by Grandma.   It was extremely evident how much we all love this dear woman.    Happy Birthday Grandma.  

The 5 children

The children and spouses

Grandchildren and spouses

Great Grandchildren.  I am not sure why B and P missed this photo. 

Our family.  

Hello my dear Family, Friends and Followers,

As you can see,  somewhere in late spring and early summer,  I lost my interest in this blog.  I am sure that is not a big surprise to you.  Recently, I have heard from several of you that you miss my blog updates, and I am truly sorry.  I  have missed the way this blog has helped me keep track of my life. 

I am hear to tell you that I am back.   I can not guarantee a specific number of  posts per week or other such craziness, but I will try to get  little more regular with my posts.  


Thanks for sticking with me.  

Rosalie

Have you seen this book? 










I have 2 layouts published in this book.   I was pretty excited when they selected these pages about 1 year ago.    I can finally share the pages with you. 
On page 83, you will find this page:  

On page 76, you will find this one:

Back in January,  I earned 2 free photo books from Shutterfly and Best Buy.  
Needless to say, I had Grand intentions, but needed to quickly get those books finished since they expired on June 30.   The first book is our 2010 year in review.  I used Jessica Sprague's One Year templates to make this one quickly.  

Click here to view this photo book larger

The second book is our family vacation from July 2010.  We took a big trip to Ottawa Ontario.  This book documents our days on the road.  

Click here to view this photo book larger

 We had several big events is May.  Ben's 12th Birthday,  Nadia graduated from Preschool and Ethan ran is his first 5K.   I was motivated to quickly capture these moments on a scrapbook page.  The computer pages have been much easier for me right now.   Paper pages seem to require more set-up and clean-up, but I do have several paper pages waiting for me to finish up. 

Woodruff Design hosted it’s first annual 5K charity run, with the proceeds supporting local youth organizations.  You and Dad decided to run for Ames Hockey.  That morning at the run registration you found several hockey friends to run with and off you went.  I was surprised to see you & your friend Sam rounding the corner to the finish line so soon. You finished your first 5K with a time of 26:38.  Placing 50th out of 189 runners. You were incredibly proud of your finish & are already looking forward to next year. By the way, you left Dad in the dust.  Congrats!  I am proud of you. 

Here's the page of the 12 year old.  I used the digital template that I created from a Let's Scrap sketch.  If you would like to have this template,   See this post:  let's scrap

You completed Pre-School on May 20,2011.  United Preschool was an excellent choice for you this year.  You had great teachers, made good friends and learned every thing you need to be a successful Kindergartener next year.  Congratulations! 

The last few weeks of school and the first few weeks of summer have gotten the best of me. 

I will do my best to update you over the next several days. 

I have been sorting through the piles of paper that arrived home the last few days of school.  I ran across this little gem.  Ethan's writing class worked on some poems.  Several were published on the Raising Readers in Story county website.

This is Ethan's submission: