Halloween

I don't know if it was just me or not but Halloween went on for days and days!! We started with a party on Thursday and then school parties Fri followed by a trick or treat at Racine Law office (thanks Dana for inviting us) and then some trunk or treating on Sat (we hit 2)!

For school Sheldon dressed up as a cheerleader (still need to get the pictures since I didn't have my camera) and Shelby was a 50's girl (so fitting). Then Sheldon said no to dressing up again and went as a football player (big stretch for him!)


Lexi was a fairy princess, pretty cute with a little sass!


Luke was a SWAT agent on Friday and then Spiderman for the trunk or treats.

Another Birthday BOY!

Luke turned 3!! This was a big day in the Romriell household...Luke has been begging and begging for his birthday to get here so he can be 4. That's right I said 4, so there was some disappointment when we had to keep telling him that he was only 3.

We started the day with a little present at breakfast, a Lightning McQueen car. He was so HAPPY! Next up was a Spiderman cake and more PRESENTS!! What a lucky kid!!

We celebrated his birthday on Sunday with his cousin Lance, such a great time. He got a special Spiderman cupcake cake that he kept leaning all the way down to get a SMELL. It was after a few times of doing this that I realized he was LICKING the tops of them.



Luke is an amazing and very busy little guy. He is on the GO from morning till night when he finally PASSES out. The only one of our children that I think is SO sweet when he is ASLEEP (it's the only moment I have to take a breath). Luke is definitely the baby of the family (even though he is sure Ella's the baby), so much fun to have around, FUN FUN FUN, Lexi's best friend, Shelby's favorite little guy and Sheldon's little buddy. We are so grateful to have you in our family, you bring excitement to every day!

Sheldon turned 10!!

Hard to believe that my baby is already 10!! I can still remember the day he was born and the excitement and joy Matt and I shared knowing our little family was just beginning. From the 1st day he has wowed us (9 lbs 8ozs, 22 1/2 in.)!! Sheldon is thoughtful, caring, smart, athletic, handsome and above all a great example.

For his birthday I always ask what special dinner he wants and what kind of birthday cake he wants. This year he requested meatball sandwiches (the ones we make at home) and nothing special for his cake. Such big demands...what is a mom to do?? Because he, of course, had football practice we had an early dinner of meatball sandwiches & then he took cupcakes to his entire team. We were able to celebrate with a brownie cake and ice cream football on Sunday!

Always a boy, Sheldon eats, sleeps and dreams football. When he isn't doing that it's all about basketball, what his favorite sports teams are doing and how he can pick his Uncle Cody's brain with strategies. He has such a strong testimony of the Gospel and is always willing to share it. Sheldon loves spending time throwing a ball (any ball) around with his little brother Lucas and his Dad. He is truly an example to all of us, his little sisters' hero and BIG BROTHER!

San Diego!!

So Dana on the spur of the moment thought we should make a quick down and back trip to San Diego to introduce her dad to Ella...of course I was on board, CRAZY!! So there we went, Dana, Ella, Shelby and ME!

At the very last minute, while we were getting ready to load stuff, Tyler decided he wanted to come too...

It was a quick trip but nice and enjoyable!! We met Nancy and Rodney. So appreciative of them for inviting us into their home with open arms.
They had such a fun pool that Shelby just LOVED and would have spent every minute in it if I'd let her.

It was unbelievable how much Tyler looks like his grandpa, guess we won't have to wonder what he'll look like in a few years. :)

United States & Freedom

Our family has taken a few days to reflect on our life the past couple weeks. One of the biggest moments of reflection came on September 11.

On September 11, 2001, Sheldon was almost 1 year old, I was at work VERY early at Albertsons and Matt was on the road with his new business. Customers and coworkers began coming in talking about all the confusion and mass destruction that we later learned to be terrorist attacks on our great nation. What a poignant memory for our young family. We were in the beginning stages of so many aspects of our lives and right before us we were watching our world collapse.

Through the past few years we have watched this great nation of ours pull together in ways we hadn't seen in my lifetime and then just as quickly return to destroying ourselves and this land we treasure so much. Our freedoms are being jeopardized every day and in the wake of it we have soldiers, loved ones and friends fighting and sacrificing for us to maintain the freedoms we take for granted every day.

Most of you know that politics and respect for our great nation are common topics around our house. In order to earn his Wolf for boy scouts Sheldon was required to write about why he thinks America is important. It brought my emotions very close to the surface to know how at such a young age he recognizes how great America is.
"America is important to me because we are FREE. We're free to go to any religion. We're able to play any sport. Black and white doesn't matter. You can live anywhere and work any job or go to any school because we have the right to choose.

You don't need to serve a king, emperor or anybody but you do need to RESPECT everybody. We're always FREE to make choices and decisions and no one can take that away. We have GREAT communities and above all we have SOLDIERS who protect us EVERY DAY.

AMERICA is GREAT because we ARE FREE."

Lexi started Preschool!

It's hard to believe she is already old enough to start preschool, hard to let her go is probably more like it. I look at her and am just so excited to see her growing up but broken-hearted that my baby girl is just all GROWN UP!
Setting goals with a 4-year old is SO different than talking about them with Sheldon and Shelby, so we just talked about what she thinks she'll be learning and doing in school. These are a few of the things she came up with:
**I'm gonna play with glue, A LOT!
**Pretty sure I'm gonna make friends, you know my best friend Taylee is coming with me.
**I'll make pretty things like Shelby brings home.
**Soon I think I'll be able to read my OWN books.
**I have a nice teacher that will help me learn LOTS and LOTS!!

Sounds to me like she's got it all figured out. We are so excited for Lexi to be starting this part of her life!! And seriously how CUTE is she??

The 1st Day of School

So once again I'm not right on top of this blogging thing...what do you do.

September 2 was the 1st day of school for Sheldon and Shelby. Sheldon is so excited about starting the 4th grade and Shelby can't wait to get back to her friends and learning.

I sat down with each of them and we talked about goals and thoughts of things they want to happen this year.

This is the 1st year Sheldon actually has letter grades and his biggest goal is to earn straight A's from here through high school! How happy is his mom...Incredibly!! He followed this goal up with being on winning sports teams and knowing that his good grades and hard work on the field will help him reach his ultimate dreams of playing ball professionally. Where did he come from??

Shelby, starting the 3rd grade, says she just wants to get better at math. (She does really well in school, so I guess she just isn't worried about grades! :)) She hopes she can make good friends and keep her friends from last year. She is very excited for music class with her favorite, Mrs. Liz, and getting back to cheerleading and tumbling.

I can't hardly believe I have an almost 10 year old and 8 year old. Time really does seem to fly by. I am so lucky to have them!!
I had to work the 1st day and Matt was out of town...they were so lucky to have Dana step in to play mom for them! :)

Shelby's favorite part of her day was being able to play with Ella in the morning!

Fun in the Creek

What kid can resist playing in the water and the mud and squishing that yummy stuff between their toes??

Definitely none of the Romriell grandkids...

Happy Birthday Lexi

Another overdue post...

Lexi, our beautiful, energetic, dramatic, fun loving little girl celebrated her 4th birthday!! What a fun day we all had, an opportunity to show her how happy we are that she came to our family.

We wanted another baby for so long after Shelby and at times wondered if it would happen. To our great surprise and joy we were blessed with Alexis Tiffanie Romriell. From the 1st minute she was born she tugged at our heart strings and would do anything for a smile!


Now she seems all grown up! Lexi loves playing dolls, Polly Pockets and computer games. She loves playing anything she can with her older sister Shelby and enjoys getting hugs, kisses and cuddling up to mom or dad!

For her birthday she wanted a princess cake and she was lucky enough to get 2 of them!! What a lucky occassion for her to have most of her Romriell family in town, Lexi celebrated with cake and ice cream with all of them!Then she celebrated with her Sparrow family! What a loved little girl, she got dolls, clothes, makeup, a movie and lots of other fun stuff.
Lexi, your laughs, your smile, your looks and your hugs are such joy to have around. It has been so fun watching you grow into a little dancing, tumbling, music loving girl.

Happy Birthday little Princess!

12 Years Strong!!

Happy Anniversary!!

So this post is a couple months overdue but while watching one of my favorite flicks the other night I was completely taken back...

It was 12 years ago on June 19th that Matt and I took an eternal drive to the Idaho Falls temple. There before our closest friends and family we were sealed together for time and all eternity...no it hasn't been an eternity yet but some days we both wonder!! Just Kidding

Most of you know the story behind Matt and I, how we met, when we got engaged (the 1st time & 2nd time) and when we got married. So for those of you who know bear with me...

Matt had just returned from his mission and attended an institute dance. It just so happened that I gave in to peer pressure that same night and attended (yes you guessed it) the same institute dance. I remember going home that night and telling my mom all about seeing him and dancing with him a couple times. That was that. I didn't see or hear from him. Then just before Thanksgiving (about 2 months later) I got a phone call. He thought it would be fun to have a date. I remember going to hang out at his parents house with Susan and Paul and I'm sure there were a few friends there but really no one else mattered outside Matt and his family.

From there it was pretty much dating exclusively and then he just couldn't hold back and asked me to marry him at the end of January. I was in a fender bender earlier that day and I think he was just trying to make me feel better. We were sitting on the couch and he gave me a vase full of flowers and then just said, "Will you marry me?"

Really I thought he was just joking and replied, "Sure." Then I realized he was serious and we were engaged.

For a lot of reasons I don't need to go into we ended up calling off the engagement but I had already planned our entire reception so I just left all of it in place. For the next month we continued dating and figuring some things out. Matt sent my ring off to be sized, not sure that he was ever going to propose again. After a few on again, off again moments I could see that Matt wasn't going to take the chance again. That was it...it was up to me...I was going to have to propose myself!

Although I'm sure it didn't come off quite as eloquent and not nearly as staged, I can give you a little glimpse into what our moment was like...I knew if I didn't I would regret it for the rest of my life!



So here's to the best decision of my life! Although we have had our struggles and certainly wonder what we are doing sometimes, I cannot imagine going through this journey of life without you! I love you Matt and hope everyday that you know you are my whole world!! Thank you for 12 wonderful years!!

Activities, Activities, Activities

Along with summer at the Romriell house comes lots and lots of activities! So much fun and such a great time seeing each of the kids growing in their various interests. So to share a few of them I am posting some of our favorite videos thus far.

Family Fun Day

At the ZOO
Another Saturday without Matt around...what should we do with our time...the zoo is having a family fun day, we should go!

My mom and I ended up being all on our own for the day so we decided to take the kids to the zoo. It was a lot of fun just walking around and being together to see fun things. The kids were able to jump in a bounce house, see a HUGE snake and a couple of them even wanted to get their faces painted. Luke became Spiderman and Shelby turned into a dog.




After the walking and checking things out we got to go on a trolley ride with Uncle Cody. It was so fun to see him in his element, driving a bus (or trolley in this case). So funny to see him all grown up acting like an adult! SMILE

HORSE RACES

OFF TO THE RACES!!

When I was younger my family spent oodles of time back and forth between horse races. We traveled to the Sandy Downs track in Idaho Falls regularly and spent many weekends camped out here at the Pocatello race track. Of course as I got older and got busier with my own life it just seemed I didn't get back very often. It was such a fun experience and one my own family hasn't been able to be a part of. You can only guess how much fun it was to take all of the kids to the track to see their grandpa Shappart's horse race. I'm pretty sure Luke has the racing blood or at least the absolute love of horses running through him. Definitely a childhood memory that was fun to share with my own kids. I think Matt even had a good time! :)



You can only guess how much fun it was to take all of the kids to the track to see their grandpa Shappart's horse race. I'm pretty sure Luke has the racing blood or at least the absolute love of horses running through him. Definitely a childhood memory that was fun to share with my own kids. I think Matt even had a good time! :)

Time Flies!!

It only feels like a week ago I posted Shelby's baptism but as life goes it has been much much longer than that! We have had so many things since then that I thought maybe I should get this little blog updated at least a tiny bit.

The week after Shelby's baptism we celebrated Easter. What a wonderful time for all of us. It gave us some much needed time for reflection and a chance to be so thankful for the knowledge our Heavenly Father has given us. It was a very full weekend with Leslie's funeral and enjoying all the family that was in town. So grateful for the time we got to spend with everyone, especially Paul! Matt seems like a more complete person whenever he has his little brother around to talk to and hang out with.

Given the circumstances we didn't miss the chance to have to kids do an Easter egg hunt, Grandma Leslie wouldn't have wanted it any other way!! They were all so cute and fun to watch as they searched through the little patches of snow for some brightly colored surprise.




Then Aunt Annabeth planned some fun games for the kids complete with some awesome prizes!! Just a wonderful experience and a fun time.