Our New Living Room Set, a Home in Omaha & Ramblings!

I just realized I forgot to post a picture of one of our family's BIGGEST Chrismtas Presents! We actually bought it all on a Black Friday sale and just LOVE it! We snagged a Leather Couch, Leather Love Seat, Rug and a super fun Trunk to nicely hide away all of the boys toys!

Darren is in love with our new picture wall!

The boys LOVE playing with the toy trunk! They think it's a toy in itself! lol.

Of course a few weeks after we bought this set we find out we need $5,000 worth of dental work including re-doing all of the dental work I had done 18 months ago! Isn't that just how life goes!? I got my root canal taken care of a few days ago and it was surprisingly a good experience! I was super antsy sitting in a chair for 2 hours though. lol. It is still a little sore, but thats what Ibuprofen is for! =D

On a positive note, we think we found a great place to live in Omaha! It's part of a Cooperative Housing Community! You can find out more about what that is here. Pretty much we buy a share of the townhome community, not necessarily the townhome itself. In short, we'll pay $500 a month and at the end of 3 years if we sell our share for what we bought it for, we will be positive $5,000!(Way better than wasting $36,000 or more in rent!)

Most of the units are poorly taken care of and most don't even have a dishwasher, however we totally lucked out because the person living in the townhome we are looking at, has recently updated the kitchen and bath and I am in love! She also had the place professionally painted!

It's a touch smaller than our townhome now, you can especially see it in the bedrooms, but it has a finished basement! Of course there is a down side, only 1 bathroom and squeaky floors! But, I guess you could pay us $5,000 to live there! lol.

My MIL says its the nicest unit she has seen in that development! For this reason we dont think it will be hard to sell! Hooray! We also get to paint and accessorize and remodel it in any way we wish! (Goodbye random wall paper on the stairs! lol) And since its Cooperative Housing they have a maintenance guy you can call on any time for any reason! The communtiy is 75% LDS, they even host Institute at the Clubhouse! They also have kids music classes, kids tumbling classes, etc right at the club house!

The location is right next to a botanical garden and surrounded by trees! It's also 5 mins away from the Henry Doorly Zoo (hello season passes!!!!), 10 minutes away from Creighton University, 15 minutes form a Super Target and 20 minutes away from Darren's folks! Sounds good to us! We are working with the current owners of the share and with a financial company as we speak. Hoping to move in May 1!

Little did Darren, or I, know I came with a dowry! lol. My dad is helping us to get the loan since you need 20% down! Apparently he had been saving some money to help us with a house one day! We plan on using the money we collect on the loan for a down payment on a nice house once Darren has graduated and secured a job!

It's Christmas Time!!!!

For Christmas this year, my dad, my sister, her fiancee', and their dog, Moe, came up to spend the joyous holiday with us! Kaiden took to Mo right away! He is a mix of lab and other such breeds so for a 6 month old puppy he was pretty big! Kaiden LOVED wrestling and playing with him. lol. And for a big puppy he was very well behaved and very sweet and playful with our Kaiden-roo! Jaxton would crack up when Mo and Kaiden wrestled too! Jozlyn was so jealous of Mo, she acted like a crochety old lady the whole time. Haha!

My family came up friday night and left monday morning so it was a rather short trip. Oh and did I mention our oven died thursday night!? We had to use our neighbors, who recently moved out, the whole time because the part we need has to be ordered in and can take a week or more! But all of my food turned out great and we all ate until we were sick!

On Christmas Eve the boys all headed up to Grand Targhee to play in the snow! Ash and I stayed home to wrap presents, cook, bake and watch the little boys! The fellas had a lot of fun on the slopes and were exhausted when they got home. lol. I'm do gald Darren got to snowboard this year because it might be the last time he gets to in Idaho! And he loves it so much!

Christmas was so great! I knew it would be because the night before I let the boys open up their Christmas jammies and a book, "Twas the Night Before Christmas!"

The boys loved tearing the wrapping and looked so cute in their matchy jammers! My dad did the honors of reading the book. kaiden snuggled up to his Grandpa for the story and passed out half way through. Cutest thing ever! I read a story to the kid EVERY night and he has never fallen asleep while I was reading. lol

Santa came that night and he brought with him LOTS of presents! More than half for the boys! lol. I was so excited that I woke up at 7 am and waited for Kaiden at the bottom of the stairs for an hour! lol. While waiting for the boys to wake up we all went through our stockings!

(Darren is the Big Buck! And he knows it! lol)

Finally Kaiden woke up all sleepy and confused as to why we were waiting for him and why there was so many wrapped presents laying around.lol. Kaiden opened his first present and just wanted to play with it, we had to coax him into opening another and then of course he wanted to play with that and then we;d have to coax him into opening another and that's how our morning went!

(Later we watched a Cowboy movie and Kaiden spent the whole movie on his horse! lol)

Kaiden's very favorite toys are ride ons, so my dad got him a big wheel! It was his favoritem by far! He got a fun toy with locks, doors, and keys, a zoo playset, a dino matching game, TONS of tub toys, a rocking horse, movies, clothes, a new car seat to sit more upright and more!

Jaxton got a really fun gumball machine toy, a super cool kaleidodisc toy (which was super hard to find since the company is in England!), tub toys, a cute lilttle puppy that plays lullabies and lots more!

(Kaiden thinks he got a double Christmas, because he thinks he's entitled to all of the babies toys as well!)

Darren got an electric razor, the game Call of Duty WW3 for his XBOX, TONS of clothes, movies and more! I got TONS of stuff for my pink kitchen, a new laptop (remember back in October!), movies, LOTS of clothes, a cute cupcake tray, fuzzy slippers and much more!

(Jaxton has been teething recently. No teeth yet, but he is super fussy and really sleepy all the time. Poor kid. He is usually really happy go lucky and extremley gentle and sweet!)

We also scored on great gifts for the fam including 2 Blu- Ray Players, 2 Portable 9 in. DVD Players for the car, (this was a double whammy because I got to make this case!) a digital photo frame, some games and movies and a new living room set!!!!

Wow, we totally scored! I guess we were REALLY good this year! lol

(The boys enjoying some Pop Rocks! lol)

The best part was spending it with the family! Our family tradition is to get a ton of movies on Christmas and sit around and watch them all day while snacking on junk food! So of course we kept the tradition alive! And then, everyone passed out! Haha!

Between you and me, one of the VERY BEST Christmas Presents this year was this!!!! No snow!!! And super sunny too! It's nice enough to go outside with just a hoodie on! I'm guessing this is Rexburg's goodbye gift to us! It's been like this for weeks! =D Hey, we'll take it!!!!

I was so sad to see my family go, but I'm sure they were beyond ready because our 2 little guys can be quite the crazies! lol.

What a great Christmas!!!!!!!

Decisions, DECISIONS!

So with all of the Law School Acceptances and AMAZING scholarship offers from several schools, we finally know where we will be moving to next summer! We thought about skyping Darren's parents on Christmas morning and having him wear a shirt from the school we chose. So we ordered the shirt and it got here a touch early and Darren can't wait for ANYTHING! lol. So we told them the other day! It was pretty funny because at first his parents didn't get it. We were all talking about our favorite Christmas memories of which Darren shared a story from his mission in Mexico and then proceeded to say "and the second would probably be the Christmas I told my parents where I was going to law school!!!" To which he stepped back so our webcam could catch his whole shirt. The shirt had the school in HUGE letters, but they didn't get it. lol. Dallen was in the background chuckling, because he got it! After a few seconds Dena was like "So where ya goin!?" Darren was all "Dallen you better get dad's reading glasses!" And then of course they saw it:

CREIGHTON LAW!

We are pretty excited about it! Darren is super happy about living so close, 15 minutes, away from his folks and I'm thrilled for a big city! It's of course not Texas, but maybe one day Darren will land a job there! Hooray for knowing where we will be fro 3 years! When we look back at it, there really was no competition! What with the $20,000 scholarship each year, making tuition only $10,000 a year, and knowing a friend in the law department who finds all the LDS Boys jobs after graduation! My parents are very excited for us as well! There is an airport in Omaha so it makes visiting us so much easier!

After all the crazy studying and time away from home, I'm so happy to see Darren's hard work paying off! We are also so very happy to have finally made the decision!

OMAHA HERE WE COME!!!!

The Annual Romriell Family Christmas Party! ..... in Inkom!

Last sunday was crazy busy, let's just say I was definitley Super Mom that day! On top of Darren being sick (sleepy), Kaiden sick (sleepy, whiney, pukey) and Jaxton has started teething (sleepy and super whiney!) I made TONS of goodies for our friends! Actually I made 13 plates! With brownies, fudge, cookies, candies, etc and honestly if I had had more time there would have been more!

We skipped church because of the boys feeling icky, so I had plenty of time to make most of what I planned! I also made homemade rolls for the Romriell Christmas party and cooked dinner for 2 girls in our ward who just had babies! (This was all done before 3 pm!) We got everyone loaded up in the car and it took us 30 minutes to deliver all the goodies and dinners! lol.

How SWEET is this boy!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Even though the boys were sick earlier that day they took a good LONG nap in the car and woke up in Inkom with High Spirits and ready to party!And of course play with Grandma Joyce's classic bag of toys! Kaiden's favorite is this dinosaur! lol

Darren and I were so proud of Kaiden this trip! He was so well behaved we didn't have to hover like we normally do! He does like to play with Grandma's phone and press buttons and leave it off the hook but he has definitley matured over these past few months! Darren and I couldn't be more happy for the boy!

Jaxton took to his cosuin Aspen really well! They played so cute together! They both had a blast chewing on whatever toy they could grab ahold of!

I was especially curious as to how Kaiden would react to Santa this time! We've tried to introduce him 2 other times and Kaiden wasn't having it! (This is the same kid who high 5's the Chainsaw Guy in a Haunted Maze!) So when Santa showed up knocking on the door I had Kaiden go and greet him! He loved Santa at first and even held his hand and walked him to the living room. But when Santa tried to get Kaiden on his lap he got all shy and ran to Darren. He very carefully took the gift Santa gave him and ran back to Darren.

Jaxton has loved Santa evertime he's met him! lol He is also very intrigued by the big white beard! He almost pulled a beard off of the Santa at the mall! lol.

Jaxton also took to Uncle Steve! These 2 were best buds by the end of the night! Jaxton also cast his sweet spell on Aunt Heidi! Jaxton is such a cuddle bug, he warmed everyone's heart up right away!

You can totally tell Steve loves playing Grandpa!

At Grandma's house NO ONE is too old for Santa! EVERYONE got a turn on Santa's lap! Except for Uncle Tommy, who I think had to run home for something and totally missed Santa! Darn it!

It was a wonderful Christmas Party! We love living close to Darren's family! They are all so wonderful! We will definitley miss them when we move! However, it's really nice they all live in the same town because it makes visiting them all soooo much easier! =)

Making Christmas! Fa La La!!!!!!!

Since we are having Christmas at our home this year, YAY!, I've gone a bit crazy with decorating the house, inside AND out! And also with activities to keep us busy! If you know us, then you know we really, REALLY dislike the cold! So I figure what better way to keep the cold hating Romriell's busy than an Activity Advent Calendar! We have had so much fun this past week I might have to make one up for the rest of the winter months! lol!
I will just share with you a few of our highlights!
On Dec 1st, our very first Activity was to bring Snowden, our Christmas Snowman, out of our basement and greet him with warm Cinnamon Rolls and hot chocolate! Yum! I must have made the cinnamon rolls smaller than normal because I had enough to share with 4 other families! lol.

Dec 2. was Christmas Craft Night! I spent ALL day driving all over Rexburg looking for cool/ perfect figurines to put in our Homemade Snowglobes! They are so much fun! I keep them on my windowsill and shake them every time I walk by! Can you guess whose is whose!?

(Mama's, Kaiden's, Jaxton's, and Darren's!)

Dec. 3 was suppose to be "Go see Santa at the Mall," but Kaiden was super tired and wanted nothing to do with Santa, so I switched it for "Go Out to Eat as a Family!" Red Robin......... YUM!

Dec. 4 was "Decorate a Gingerbread House." Let's just say Kaiden is a candy fiend. As soon as he saw the candy he quickly gobbled up as much as he could as FAST as he could! I thought I would let Kaiden decorate the roof so I put a little bit of frosting on it, but he was too busy eating ALL the candy! Don't worry, Darren and I are still heartily working on our lil Gingerbread House! I'll post pics when we're finished! ;)

Dec. 5 was "Play a Family Game!" I had a really fun game planned that Kaiden could do, but I was super sick and I ended up dying all day on the couch instead! We will probably save this for another day instead! lol. The kid also loves Duck Duck Goose! He NEVER tires of that game! =D

Dec. 6 was suppose to be "Create and Ice Cream Flavor and eat it for Dessert," night, but Darren and I were hard at work with our 2 boys who did NOT want to go down that night! And the rest of our night was spent on homework and the gingerbread house! =)

I guess since I am the "Keeper of the Advent" I can change things around when are days are kinda crazy!

In other news Darren has been accepted to a few colleges now! University of Missouri Kansas City has offered him a $15,000 scholarship! St.Mary's in San Antonio has offered him $8,000 a year! And Creighton University has offered Darren $20,000 each year! It looks like we have some TOUGH decisions a head of us!

And I will leave ya'll with some SUPER cute pictures of my VERY handsome boys! I just love their guts!!!!!!!!!!

TTFN!!!!!!!!!!!

A Romriell Thanksgiving!

We had our Thanksgiving dinner a few days late this year, but that's okay because my folks were able to drive up and spend it with us! My kiddos just LOVE their Grammy and Grampa!

Darren and I were excited to host it at our house so we wouldn't have to travel with our lil ones.If you have ever traveled with kids, you will know why we were so stoked! Not to mention Jaxton started crawling last week so we've got 2 mobile kiddos now! The best part of having Thanksgiving at our house this year is that I got to decorate! I did all the decorating the day before they came!

The Living Room's Main Window!

The Living Room's Side Windows!

On the front door!

Our Christmas/ Peacock themed Kitchen! The purple ornaments have Peacocks on them!

The Peacock Bouqet I put together!!

Jozlyn even got a fancy new bow!!!!

My parents drove up Friday night. Just in time to get the kids all riled up before bedtime. haha. When guests are around the kid's schedules gets all askewed, but I guess it's worth it!

Jaxton was super excited, can't you tell!? p.s. Don't you just LOVE that Skunk Hoodie!?!?!?!?!

Saturday was super relaxing! I made Pumpkin Pancakes for breakfast. My dad just loves pumpkin and these are the BEST! The combination of a full belly and our new super comfy couches put my folks right to sleep! lol. Kaiden didn't care though he just climbed over them and got himself all comfy in between them! lol.

And we had LOTS of snacks ALL day!

Grammy even got jaxton to fall asleep in her arms! This is wild, because Jaxton likes to put himself to sleep! lol

To keep Kaiden busy we made indoor smores too!

Later my dad asked me to make cake bites! lol. He LOVES them, and wanted me to teach him how I did it. "Teach a man to fish..," as they say!

Kaiden kinda helped too, even if he mostly just sat there and ate the sprinkles! lol

And then sunday arrived, also known as our Thanksgiving Day!! My mom and I were busy cooking the sides and my dad and Darren were working on the turkey!

Kaiden must have noticed the lack of attention because he found a crayon and was drawing on the walls that morning! Luckily they washed right off. And when we put him down for a nap he made his usual mess, and refused to go down. lol. Kaiden sure keeps us on the edge of our seats!

Luckily, Grampa stepped in with an early Christmas persent! Elf on the Shelf! It's a little toy elf that comes with a book. This is Santa's special elf sent to watch Kaiden and Jaxton and report to Santa if they are being Naughty or Nice! Kaiden was good the rest of the day!

Earlier that day I had asked what everyone was thankful for and then I typed them up, wrapped them in tin foil and placed them between the rolls before I cooked them. Then at the dinner table we all opened our rolls and read aloud what everyone was thankful for! lol. Here's the notes!

"I'm thankful for my handsome boys and that my parents were able to join my lil family for Thanksgiving!' ~Chelsea

"I'm thankful I finally get to eat Thanksgiving dinner and for my beautiful wife!" ~Darren

"I'm thankful for my family!" ~My Dad

"I'm thankful for my family, food in my belly and a roof over my head!" ~My Mom

"I'm thankful for my Monster Truck" ~Kaiden

"I'm thankful for my mommy and delicious food!" ~Jaxton

The turkey was divine! Even my father said it was the best one he's ever had. It was really moist and flavorful! YUMM!

Darren was really stoked about the dessert! I'm not a fan of fruit pies so Darren and I compromised on a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Cake aCheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory! And yes, it is as delicious as it sounded! Darren was in heaven!

Kaiden passed out on the floor! lol. I guess it was the turkey! lol

My parents had to leave later that day, it was sad to see them go, but we are so glad they made the trip!