Christmas goodies

This week is full of excitement at our house.  The countdown to Christmas has been going all month and we are finally on the home stretch.  I have been making lots of Christmas goodies this week.  Not sure why exactly other than it is really the only time of year I make some of these things.  Had to borrow my mom's Cuisinart (sp?) to make the oreo truffles and peanut butter balls a little easier to make.  Also made something called peanut butter candy and added some chocolate to try and make something like what Jeremy told me about from someone else bringing it to work.  Does that make sense?  Oh well!  Today I made my famous carmel crispix and just baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies - these were in a pretty jar and my gift from bingo at the Numark Christmas party.  They smell wonderful just havent tried one yet.  Yesterday Nile had a lot of fun helping me while Aubrey napped and then Hayden got to help a little too in the evening before we went out to dinner with my parents and my grandma.  Doesnt get much better than that!!

Right now Nile is a preschool, Hayden at school, Jeremy at the dentist, and Aubrey and Evan (the little guy I watch on Tues.) are napping.  Nice to have a few moments to myself when it is actually light outside.  Here hoping for a little more snow yet today and tonight otherwise it isnt looking good for a white Christmas here.

Jeremy and I have been really working with the kids a lot this season on what the real reason for Christmas is and why we celebrate it.  I know they are super excited about the present under the tree and what they will get at the grandparents' houses but it is nice to know that they do understand Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth and he came to die on the cross for our sins and so we can live with him in Heaven forever when our time on earth is done.

From our family to you and yours - Merry Christmas and may your remember the true reason for the season.

God bless!
The Rozenbooms

Snow

We had our first real snow last night.  It was nice to wake up to a world of white this morning but not to hear the snowplow at 4 AM!  The house is decorated and presents are wrapped and under the tree.  Tonight we have Nile's Christmas program for preschool and Sunday we have the Van Wyk Christmas and the church program.  Should be a busy but fun weekend.  I am just happy to enjoy the time off.  I finished up my Fall semester a few days early and am enjoying reading just for fun and spending extra time with the family and keeping up on the house. 

Hayden & Nile will both be in the program at church Sunday night and that is always fun to watch.

The kids are very excited to open presents and enjoy some time off school.  We are trying to keep them focused on the true reason we celebrate Christmas - the birth of baby Jesus who came to earth to die for our sins. 

counters

the counters have been done for right around a week.  they are not ready to have everything back in place and I am able to run my dishwasher and such.  I am pretty happy with how they turned out.  there are some spots were you can tell it isnt perfect and if you stare at them long enough I am sure you could tell they arent really granite but who really should be staring at my counters that long other than me!!  Jeremy has been working hard after working all day to get the new white outlet, switches and covers on and also started putting on the new cabinet handles too!  we made a quick stop at menards on sunday night after the basketball game to pick up the supplies.  I am very happy to have this project nearly finished and be able to focus on school more.

I took my final test for the classic mythology class last thursday so I have been focusing my time on my Islam class and lots of fun readings for it.  I just have a few more things to read along with a quiz, final exam, and research paper left for this class.  I will be pushing hard to get it all done before the one semester cut off date of december 9.  then I will have a month off to relax before starting natural resources conservation and lab at NICC and marriage and family counseling and psychotherapy at Iowa in Januray.  The fist class will fulfill a core requirement and I am not terribly excited about it but the second class sounds very exciting to me and is right up my alley with my love of psychology and possibly a career someday in counseling or something like that!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving this week - I know we have a lot to be thankful this year, as we do each year. 

I am really looking forward to my first real black friday shopping expirence with Jeremy this weekend too!  hopefully it goes well and wont be our last!!

God Bless and lots of Love from

The Rozenbooms

Kitchen update - again

Well we have come along way in the kitchen remodel this week.  The walls were finally ready to be painted after texture and priming late last week.  I am really happy with how the colors turned out and how nice the wall look after all the work we put into them.  After painting early in the week we found out they were ready to install our new floor Thursday so we tore up the old sticky squares floor and did what we could to prep the floor for the new floor.  After a long day of either being trapped in the living room or the basement while they worked on the floor it was finally in.  I have to say that I am thrilled with how it has turned out so far!  Now I will be painting the kitchen counters with a kit I ordered online.  Hoping to get that done this week.  After that it will just be picking out new handles for the cabinets, new outlets/switches and covers, and decorating!!! 

                                                          new paint and kitchen floor

                                                            ripping out the old floor

2011 Christmas cards!!

Photo Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Hawkeye Halloween

Homecoming 2011 - Hawkeye victory and lots of fun w/o the kiddos for the day

shes a Hawkeye - just like her mom!!

our pumpkins - tigerhawk, Nile's shapes face (since he has been learning about shapes at school), letter R for Rozenboom, and Hayden's bat

Happy Halloween - and remember we are like a pumpkin. God picked up from the patch, cleaned us up inside and out, and put His light inside us for us to show others!

Allison

Fall fun

kitty!!

nearly impossible to get all three to look the same way and smile!! but they all loved the hayrack ride!

Hayden, Sevanna, Trace & Nile painting their pumpkins

Kitchen update

Dad scraping off the green paint in the dinning half of the kitchen

lovely pint paint under our green paint. nothing sticks well to the pink paint so we have to scrape off all the other layers and skim coat, texture, prime and hope for the best!!

dinning half skim coated. the room already looks a lot brighter!!

Aubrey 18 month checkup

Hard to believe my baby girl is 18 months old already! She is such a blessing to our family and she keeps us all on our toes!!

Stats

25#

34"

She has really shot up since her one year check up. I have a feeling she is going to be tall and thin like her brothers! Aubrey is wearing 24 mon/2T clothes and I love all the pink, princess, frilly girl stuff!! It is so fun to see her becoming more independent and grown up but it makes me sad too since she is our last baby and it has gone so fast! I am however looking forward to no more diapers in the not so distant future!

Visit from NYC

my brother and I will my three babies I like standing next to him since it makes me look "short!"

Some of you may or may not know that I have one sibling - a younger brother. He lives in NYC so I dont get to see him as much as the kids and I would like. He came back for a visit last week so we spent lots of time with him at my parents house. They boys loved playing legos with him as much as possible. Aubrey wasnt really a fan of Uncle Daron but I think if she would have had another week around him she would have been fine. She isnt overly friendly as it is.

Nile and sometimes Aubrey went to Grandmas to play several times last week to play with Uncle Daron so I could get some studying done. Things are still crazy busy with three kids and a house to run while taking college classes. I am pretty sure that at this point I couldnt handle more than two classes at a time. Hopefully it doesnt take me forever to finish school at that rate!!

On a side note not related to my blog post title we are going to start working on the kitchen walls tonight so I am super excited to get that ball rolling and have a "new" kitchen before winter!! Then we need to start seriously considering some options for a bedroom in the basement for the boys and maybe fixing up the bathroom down there a little too.

Hayden is 7!!

Happy 7th Birthday Hayden Cole Rozenboom!!!

Well I have officially been a mother for 7 years and all my children are still alive, healthy, and have not sustained any serious injuries. I guess I must be doing something right!! :-) But seriously I didnt plan to become a mother when I did but it is very clear to Jeremy and I that this was God's plan for our lives and we are so grateful!! I am so very blessed with a great husband who works hard to support his family and it a very hands on dad. We have three awesome kids that I wouldnt change for anything! I thank God daily that I am able to be at home with them right now and enjoy it immensely!

Hayden has always been such a great kid - he is by far my easiest baby and child. I guess when you have a tough labor and delivery it makes everything else easier?! I am amazed when I look at him at how big he is getting and he is reading and learning like crazy in first grade. He has made lots of friends at school and church and loves all his extra activities. He is very excited to start flag football in a few weeks too.

Here are a few pics from his Angry birds party and opening presents from us on his actual birthday - October 3.

time to crack open the pinata and get some candy!!

cake made by my talented SIL!

pinatas I made - so happy with how they turned out!!

windows, windows and more windows

Well the last few weeks at our house have revolved around the beginnings of some minor and some major remodeling for our house. We now have all new Precision Fit Double Hung Pella windows in our house!! It is so nice to not have to mess with the storms anymore and I am hoping to do a better job keeping the new windows clean, inside and out, than I did with our old ones. We got the interior trim back up this week so they are more or less finished! Perfect timing since my "handyman" decided they needed a vacation, my mom and dad are off to CO for a week. Next we need to work on the kitchen walls so we can paint the walls, ceiling, counters and have the new flooring installed!!!! I can't wait!!!

Nile's in Preschool

Nile and Aubrey before Nile's first day of school at Creation Station

playtime

I had the pleasure of being the snack mom for the first day for preschool. Nile hadnt been feeling well earlier in the week but I was hopefully he would pull through and been feeling better before his first day of school. Luckily I was right and he was back to his normal self by wednesday night. He was sad to miss his first night of WOW at church but we watched Rio instead so he didnt mind too much.

Nile has now had three days of school and seems to be enjoying it a lot! Next fall it is going to be pretty quiet at this house!! But I am sure Aubrey and I will find something to fill our time!! :-)

New additions to the Rozenboom household

Well it has been a little while since my last post so I thought I would take a minute to update you on some of the happenings around our small piece of the world. I have been super busy with school - what was I thinking taking three classes, on of which being Latin!! The kids and I were checking on our fish tank last weekend and our final fish was no where to be found so I decided it was finally time to completely clean the tank out and start over. We drained the tank and washed out the rocks as best we could - and by me I mean me of course. The next day we headed to Wal-Mart to get a new "bubble system" for lack of a better term and got the tank refilled and let the water set before picking up some new fish the next afternoon. We picked out four fish and added them to our tank - only to discover that one was dead the next morning :(

Fast forward a week or so and we just happened to be in DSM today to go to the zoo and pick up something for Hayden's upcoming 7th (yikes) birthday and there was a Petco nearby so we stopped in and picked out four new little fish! They have been added to our tank and hopefully they will all be swimming right side up by morning!!

God Bless!
The Rozenbooms

Remodeling started

sink window from outside

new window from the outside - on the front of the house

new window in the dinning area

new window over the kitchen sink

we got two of the three new kitchen windows put in last friday. hoping to get the last one in today and then order more for the bedrooms and bathroom. I also started ripping off the border in the kitchen so we can get things moving on the updating in there.

Last day at the pool

Hayden coming down the blue slide

He loved being big enough for all the slides this year!

Nile going down the family slide

Sis at snack time

the boys ready for a snack too

Hayden's in 1st grade!!

State Fair 2011

Loved all the little painted cows everywhere!

Miss Aubrey

no house divided here but we liked this half of the cow!

Hayden and I on the giant slide - Nile didnt want to try it

three sets of helping hands on the farm!

As summer comes to a close...

Well it has been a fun, busy summer for our family. We have taken a few small vacations and done some fun things with the kids. This was our first official summer break from school and with me being home full time now I wanted to take full advantage of spending lots of fun time with the kids. Next Monday I will have a First grader and then Nile will start preschool two afternoons a week after Labor Day.

The kids and I spent a lot of time at the Pella pool this summer and we all have nice tans to prove it!! I dont think I have been this tan for many years! The boys have a lot of fun with their diving sticks and other water toys and Aubrey just loves the water too!!

We had some fun at a few different car shows this summer as well. We started out with Good Guys over the weekend of the fourth of July. Then we had our car show here in Pella and that was lots of fun too! Last weekend we had the Rumer Tumer car rally and show to raise money for my old job share partner and it was a lot of fun.

We went to KC for a long weekend at the end of June and that was a great trip. We also made a trip up to the Iowa State Fair for lots of fried food and walking!!

We took a one day trip up to Adventureland with the boys and all had our fill our rides and fun there for one year.

All in all we had a great summer and are sad to see it go but we are looking forward to the return a routine and of course - FOOTBALL SEASON!!!

University of Iowa

Well I have officially completed my first class a few weeks back and finally got my grade for my last test and my overall grade for the course. I am happy to say I pulled off an A- for the class and thoroughly enjoyed it. Hear hoping that my next semester goes as smoothly since it will be longer and I will be taking three classes rather than just the one!!

Friday we headed to Iowa City to do some tax free shopping and so I could get my student ID made. Wow if that doesn't make a girl feel old standing next to early 20 something/late teens kids then I don't know what does. I suppose it didn't help to have my husband and three kids in tow either. But I got it done and am really hoping we can use it to score some good deals on wrestling and b-ball games this fall/winter!! I asked Jeremy if I could buy and Iowa Alumni sticker for my car but he said not yet - oh well, something to strive for I guess. I suppose the saying is true - "better late than never!"

I already have my books for this fall and start the same day Hayden heads back to school. It is crazy that I paid as much if not a little more for my one psychology book as I did for the books I need for three classes this semester!! My tuition is set to be paid from our checking account this week so if any of you out there are interested in donating to a great cause - ie my education - just let me know and I will get you my address to mail the checks to!! HAHA I suppose it doesn't hurt to dream right?!

Well that is all for now. Hopefully soon I will be blogging about all of our successful renovations and new windows but until then....God Bless and have a great week!!

Allison

Swimming at Grandma Cathy's

Aubrey and Grandma Cathy - didnt get any pictures of the boys since they were so busy jumping in and splashing around but a good time was had by all!!

Napping in the swing

Playing in Jacob and Emma's hot rod stroller at the Osky car show

Go Fish!!

Hayden and Treyson at the concert

me

the boys sitting on the stage before the concert

When Hayden brought home a paper at the end of the school year about a concert by a band called Go Fish I have to admit that I really didnt look at it too close and sent it straight to the recycle. The a few weeks ago we got an email from church about a Backyard Bible Club they were going to do similar to VBS so I went ahead and signed Hayden up since Nile was too little. Since Hayden went to the bible club he got a free ticket to the concert, a backstage pass & a CD. So I went and bought tickets for Nile and I to go too and we listened to the CD and I have to admit it was really good!

The concert was this past friday and it was awesome!!! I am so glad we went and we are now fully stocked on their CDs and listen to them everyday!! It was fun to take the boys and two of my cousins kids to the concert and watch they dance and sing and just praise God - it was an amazing experience and if Go Fish is every in this area again I will for sure be getting tickets to see them again!!

Last TIP for 2011

Last Thursday was the final Thursday night in Pella for 2011. It was one of the boys' favorites - Ag in the City.

Aubrey enjoying a sucker since she was a little to small for all the fun this year.

The boys at the top of the little ferris wheel.
ready for a train ride!!

Nile riding a horse from Dan D Farms

Hayden riding his horse!