HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! HAVE A G-R-E-A-T YEAR!!

Merry Christmas All!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Have a great day, and PLEASE remember the TRUE meaning of Christmas this holiday season! Jesus..He was the perfect gift! The Best gift ever! And I can't WAIT to be with Him in heaven someday!
Merry Christmas to all..and to ALL a good night! =)
~NIKKI

This is our Christmas Letter for 2009!! Enjoy!!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from the Rittgers family! For the first time ever, I (Nikki) was told, that I could write the Christmas letter this year! I’m trusting you are having a WONDERFUL Christmas season so far, as are we!
This has been a very busy year for us! Dad has continued to stay pretty busy. He has been on many revivals this year and has seen many lives changed and truly blessed! Praise the Lord!! When he is not out on the road, he does some screen printing at Karen’s Print Rite and Prosign. Dad always enjoys doing stuff with his family such as, playing games, having family devotions, and even a occasional volleyball or basketball game!
Mom also continues to stay busy! She continues to home school me and Tori, and does a great job! She really enjoys making Christmas goodies…makes the house smell so yummy!! Mom really enjoys the snow that is falling to the ground. We love going outside and building a snowman together, or going sledding as a family! Mom is a wonderful influence on us three girls!
Deanna… oh, where to begin! Deanna has been very busy lately! Last July, Deanna attended a Bible camp in West Virginia. She was a girl dorm parent! When she got home, with many prayers prayed, she decided that God wanted her to attend a college in Kentucky, Kentucky Mountain Bible College. She heard of the school through friends and some camps that she had attended. She decided to go not too long before school started. We scurried around to get things in order so that she could attend! We know it was God’s will, He worked everything out just right! She is doing very well at college! She is the piano player for the choir and has made many friends! We have enjoyed having her home for break! For part of the Thanksgiving break, she brought a young man, Paul Poe, home with her. He is a great friend of ours! He lives in IA, and, he attended the Iowa Holiness camp, which we attend yearly. He also attends KMBC and he gives Deanna rides to campus and back. He came up for part of the Thanksgiving break. While he was here, Mom and Dad gave their permission for them to start courting! So.. as you can see, Deanna is doing very well at school! With God, anything is possible! He worked everything out so perfectly!
Tori has been doing well! She has taken over a lot of Deanna’s responsibilities. And has started taking piano lessons again with me! She also is now a fan of the Florida Gator football team! So now, she has to keep up with not only the Black Hawks but the Gators!! She also is still rooting for her Waterloo Black Hawks! We still have season tickets, and she really enjoys watching them play! She recently bought a Waterloo Black Hawks jersey to wear to the game. She had her favorite players name and number put on the back. It looks like a game worn jersey! Tori also got her driver’s permit this year so watch out! She continues to suffer from middle -child syndrome! I’m sure many of you who are a middle child know what she is talking about! She adds a little more humor into the household with her jokes, and occasional “Rants.” : )
Now me.. I’m doing good! Staying pretty busy! I continue to like hockey as well as going to some Volleyball and Basketball games. I’m in this year’s Christmas program and enjoy going over my lines and working on the songs. I play the commentator, Karen Kline! I also enjoy cooking, and playing a good ol’ game of Scrabble, or Stratego! I’m always up for the challenge! I also still enjoy playing the piano and taking lessons!
We also added a new addition to our family which I’m very happy about! We got a new little black kitten named Boo! 3 black kittens showed up in our garage the day before Halloween. We found homes for two of them and kept one! She is so sweet! And we love her! Prinny and Boo love to play together they are so funny! Now if she would just stay out of our tree!! : )
So that is what has been going on in the Rittgers’ household! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year! Please take some time to remember the true meaning of Christmas this season!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Del, Chris, Deanna, Tori and Nikki =)

LOTS AND LOTS OF SNOW!

We have had..LOTS AND LOTS of snow this week!
We have had between 12-15 inches! And BITTERLY cold weather!!!
Brrrrr.... That's Iowa for ya!

More snow!!! This is our deck!

At about...oh...midnight, I decided to go out and measure the snow...and that was the first day of our blizzard!

Me all decked out to go to a friends house!!
I got even more bundled up today! It was -6 but with wind chill it was -20!!!

This is just a little glimpse to hold you over tell later!!
I'll be posting more pictures of the snow, and our Christmas decorations later!
Right now..it is 11:12 PM..and I'm going to bed!
Good-Night!

Setting up the Christmas Decorations!

Merry (early) Christmas everyone!

I'm back in the blogging spirit! I've been really in the mood to post more and stuff! So..I did a lot of different stuff on my blog! And I hope you enjoy it! Be prepared to have a lot more posts ! Maybe a post a week! =)

I'm trusting you all are having a GREAT Christmas so far!

We had a lot of fun yesterday, as we started putting up all the Christmas decorations! Including the tree!

I hope you enjoy these pictures!

And..as a reminder...I LOVE COMMENTS! Haha!

Don't ask me.. lol
We had a lot of fun taking pictures!

This is our little new kitten! Boo! She is so sweet! I'll tell you more about her in the pictures down.

COOKIES!

Boo and her 2 sisters, showed up in our garage on Halloween Eve!

All black!

They were all SOOO sweet!

We had NO CLUE where there mom was or anything!

So..we kept one, and found homes for the other 2. The other 2 kittens got to stay together.

Boo LOVES it here! She is always purring! Her and Prinny love to play together, and get along really well!

We took her to the vet probably a week to 2 weeks ago. and then they said she was 10 weeks old! so she is probably 11 or 12 weeks old! And she is perfectly healthy!

It was really strange not having Deanna there to put up the tree with us.

But we kept the ornaments off, we all have personal boxes of ornaments, that we made or bought. And we saved them so all three of us could put our boxes of ornaments on together!

Tori with her Ale 8! It is a Soda that is only sold in Kentucky, and BOY IS IT GOOD!

We took these so we could put them on Face book and on here, so Deanna could see them!

me...=)

Haha! Dad did this just for fun. he knew it was upside down. I thought this was the picture that was up correctly. LOL! Oh well...you get the point!

Boo loves boxes!

Hehe!

Tori and me are BIG Florida Gator fans! Go Tim Tebow!

a sticker from a branch fell off, and she cut it and put one on each side of her face, I'm guessing to look like a football player!!

Boo climbed up our tree! She was up so she was about as tall as me! I'm 5'3"!

Haha!

Sisters by chance, Friends by choice.

No Comment. LOL!

I was trying to put the skirt on the tree!

Tori putting the Angel, which was on my Dad's tree when he was a boy, on top of the tree!

Our Tree! can't wait tell we get to put the ornaments up! The sign says,

"Wish you were here Deanna!"

Also, It started snowing yesterday, and has continued snowing off and on sense then! I love it! And it is sticking around as well!

Thank you for reading!

Be prepared for more posts very soon!

Feel free to comment!

God Bless you all!

~Nikki

:)

Hello Everyone,

I'm so very sorry for not posting sooner!!

We have been SO busy!!!

But... anyway, here are pictures of 4Th of July..... sorry about that mix matched order. the way blogger does pictures confuses me!

Here is a picture of a firework to start us out with!!

There were these cool glasses that made fireworks look different colors.

Rachel and Bob!

we also went to a bucks game!!

YMCA!

Andria and Austin

GO BUCKS!
We went to a parade but I didn't get pictures up of them... sorry!

Before 4Th of July we had our cousin over and made HOMEMADE pizza and watched a movie!

The Nanny Express!!

GO TORI!!

That's about it...

Here is that pizza recipe! It is DELICIOUS!

1 1/2 cup of warm water

2 Tablespoons of sugar

1 pkg of yeast

2 Tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Mix until yeast is blended. Mix in 3 cups of flour (more as needed)

Go slowly with the last cup and then keep adding more until the dough is soft but not sticky. (it is always a little sticky) You can use whole and half regular flour if desired.

Spread on lightly greased pan. Will make a very large pizza or 2 medium.

Mix one package of spaghetti seasoning with one 6 oz can of tomato paste and one 6 oz. of tomato sauce. add water until sauce is easy to spread, but not to watery. The amount depends on personal taste. (you can freeze any leftover)

If you have a favorite pizza sauce just use it.

add favorite topping. Bake at 450 degrees for about 15 min. or until the crust and cheese is sorta brown.

This is a recipe you just kinda have to experiment with and make it how you like!!

These are the basics. make it the first time and then the next time think what could I've done better?? Tell it is just right!!

Sorry if this was confusing!

Have a nice day,

~Nikki

ps. let me know what you think of the pizza!

4th of July Pictures

4Th of July was a wonderful day!

There are pictures of the parade but it wouldn't let me upload it.

So here are these ones.

We went to a Bucks Baseball game. This is Andria and Austin.

Amanda and Trace.
A lot of people from our church came.

YMCA of course!

John and his camera!

Fireworks. They were kinda duddy this year.

Rachel and Bob had these weird glasses that turned fireworks different colors. They were neat!

Being goofy. Those are not Deannas glasses. She does not were glasses.

This firework picture turned out well!

Hope you had a good 4Th of July as well!

Have a great day, and God Bless,

~Nikki

Weather/Fathers Day/Concert :)

Well, we had some very interesting weather the other night, totally NOT fun, sirens blew, basement, really windy, thoughts that a tornado had touched down. Stuff of the sort that comes with Spring and summer that I hate!!!! Well... we got through it, and there was no tornado.

Just some limbs down and STILL very windy!! SO HERE ARE SOME PICS..... I actully took this at the concert. the weather was so beautiful outside, I took this picture.
This is a small branch

Almost half of this tree fell that night!!

Well... this is dad with his fathers day gifts!

These are us three girls, with the browns. The mother was talking so she wasn't in the picture!

We love this group!!

So there you have it!

Have a nice day, and a Wonderful,

4TH OF JULY!