Quote of the day

Jake: "Mom, can Jesus break our new house?"

Me: "Why do you want him to do that?"

Jake: "So we can live in our old house..."

heartbreaking.

The Sock Monkey Costume

I love this costume I just want to eat it up. I handstitched it to an existing onesie because I didnt want to install buttons or a zipper for diaper changes, next time Allen's mom comes (sewing extraordinaire) I might have her put something in so that you dont have the green showing. Then it will be perfect. I was a little crazy and started this homemade costume a week before Halloween, but I got it done and love it. I want someone else to wear it so if you have a baby, feel free to ask to borrow it, the "size" is like 18 months cause that is what Evan wears right now.

And here are the other two boys as well, we had a couple costume malfunctions on the day of Halloween when we realized that Adam's Indiana hat was at the school (we got it later that day at the school carnival so he had it for TorTing) and that we had left Jake's cape at our cousins an hour away the week before (we improvised with another Nana homemade superman cape we had on hand, it says Super Adam on it. :) I think Jake prefers it to the one that came with his costume. Fun fun fun!

Evan : Seven Months

angelic . happy . laughing out loud . roller . sitter . tasting the world . binky lover . gabber . people lover . teething . darling . solid food lover . my joy .

Okay you know it has been a crazy time when my baby is 7 months old and this is only his second "real" photo shoot. Dont worry, I have plenty of "normal" pictures of him, but I just see a difference when I sit down and say okay this is for real. I need to figure out how to bring more of my profession into my everyday shots. I am just lazy sometimes. I cant believe how big he is, I really cant, I let a little tear roll down my cheek on Sunday when I saw his first tooth popping through his gums. They grow up so FAST! We just had his well baby : stats : 21.2lbs, 30 inches long. See the rest from his shoot here, and they will shortly be featured here as well.

Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year. The fun just never stopped (well until about 10 pm Halloween night when it came to screeching stop, but I will get to that later).

This year's festivities started off with Allen's annual awesome pumpkin carving. Here he is about to start his first pumpkin!

And here are the creations. My favorite is a tie between Indiana Jones and the Wild thing. Love them and I love the Halloween traditions that my little family has, this is just the best time of year. Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I love them all and for all different reasons. Thanks honey for this reason to love Halloween!


The week before Halloween the boys got to go to their pseudo-cousin Ellie's (cousin of our real cousin) house for a Halloween party. Ellie's grandpa did some magic there, and Jake has been doing "magic" ever since. Today he hit a balloon into the air for his magic trick, it was pretty amazing. Then the week of Halloween the fun really hit, it was drug awareness week at Adam's school and he loved participating in the different clothing events every day. His favorite was "knock the socks off drugs day" he wore my Christmas toe socks. I just love how he is so excited for each new thing that school brings, and he is always so concerned that we are going to miss things. My mom says he is a perfectionist, who knows where he gets that.

Friday night we went to our Ward's trunk or treat. It was fun with a chili cookoff, a couple carnival games for the kids, a pumpkin carving contest and of course the trunks. Congrats to Allen who took home first prize in the carving contest for "Patch Master" (that is the one above that looks like a scarecrow with the pumpkin head), his prize is a gift cert for a pound of candy at See's (just what we need at this point, jk he is excited of course). It was a fun night.

Actual Halloween day started bright and early with Adam's last soccer game of the season. He had such a fun time playing with the "Tough Little Pirates" this year, we will see what the future brings as far as sports goes. Right now he says he doesnt want to do it again because he cant be with his same coach and friends. We will see.

I finally decided to make an effort for my business here in California, and had a "Halloween costume portrait" event on Friday and Saturday. I have had a hard time feeling the motivation to get it going again since we moved here. I love photography, but sometimes when I am buried in work and feeling guilty that I havent done this or that with my kids I just cant figure out why I do it. But this weekend my love of it was renewed again as I shot pictures of darling kids in their costumes. Look to the photo blog later this week to see all my new little friends. It was a fun time. I also got good pics of my kids in their costumes, but that will be its own post on here. :)

Saturday afternoon we all went to Adam's school for the South O Elementary carnival. It was huge and amazing. I could not believe how much there was to do. It was a fun event.
Me and the sock monkey

Hayden and Adam (one of his best friends from his class)

Delani (Hayden's little sis) and Jake, the two supers!

Our whole family on Halloween!


After the carnival and a pizza dinner I took the boys around the block for their first "real" trick or treating. We had never knocked doors before, always done the trunk thing in Vegas. It was fun, our neighborhood gets quite a lot of kids (we probably had 100+ trick or treaters), and there were lots of houses with fun stuff. We kept the kids up a little late eating candy and having fun (plus with good ole daylight saving coming), and after they had been in bed about a hour the fun stopped.

Adam ran out of his room and threw up all over the floor. He proceeded to throw up all his candy, sugar cookies, and pizza through out the night. His last time was about 5 am this morning, and he has been good ever since. Of course he hasnt eaten anything really, so we will see how it goes, we are hoping for a 24 hour bug that will skip all the rest of us. :) Could I be so lucky? The good news about this is when you clean up the candy on the other side of a stomach it makes your sugar cravings go down considerably. So that is good for my supposed diet. :) It was such a great day and after we got home from TorTing Adam said "this is the best day ever!" So that made me happy, hopefully the throw up will just become a distant memory soon.

PS. This picture is just an afterthought. It is from the airshow a couple of weeks ago, and is just so darling of the four cousins. These are the great four Rasmussen California cousins!

Is it "B" "O" "O" yet?

This is Adam's favorite question as of late.  He has picked up on that Allen and I spell things we dont want to say in front of him.  He cant quite spell Halloween all out on his own, but he likes to ask me about BOO ("that means Halloween, mom!")  He is trying to wait patiently, but when it is still two weeks away and he is asking 2-3 times daily it starts to make you wonder if we are going to make it.   It makes me laugh.

The boys could not have been more excited about getting out the Halloween decor this year.  It has been so fun, they are still a little "scared" of one witch decoration I have, but they seem to be getting used to her.  I love this time of year.  Allen has started on pumpkin carving extravaganza 09.  He did three pumpkins this weekend and has more planned between now and Halloween, I love the tradition and how much he loves to do it. 

Disneyland is a place that blows my mind.  We got our season passes and have been twice since getting them, the first time we went on a Saturday (because that is when my family was in town), then this last week we went on Friday.  It was less crowded on Friday, but we still havent experienced the true beauty of actually living in So Cal and not having to go with everyone and their mom.  Too bad Allen has to work and Adam has to go to Kindergarten.  Anyway, both times I have been there I have been so weirded out by how many people there are in the world.  It is like mind boggling as you watch everyone file out down Main Street.  And then you think this is so few people compared to how many live in this area of the world, compared to Mexico City, Manhattan, China....blows my mind. 

Saved by the blog...

This morning Adam woke up with a slight fever, which of course meant I had to keep him home from school. (They basically threaten our lives if we try to take our kids to school sick). Of course after some Motrin he feels just peachy and is up to all sorts of bad tricks.

I got the boys all set up with a popcorn snack and a movie to keep them occupied so I can shower. Half way through my shower (as in the conditioner is on my hair), Adam comes bursting in, "Jake put something up his nose and it is really, really, really hurt!" I cant see or hear Jake at all, "Okay, Adam tell him to come in here." Jake walks towards me all casual like with blood streaming out of his nose. He seems fine, luckily Adam tells him right about when he gets into my bathroom, "Jake you are really hurt, look in the mirror!" Jake sees the blood and goes into frantics, thanks for the help Adam.

I get out and take a look up the nose while cleaning up the blood with Kleenex, sure enough, popcorn kernel stuck up there, but obviously still visible. I first try to tell Jake to blow out, of course being three he sucks in, wrong direction. Then is comes to me and I remembered reading on my friend Nicole's blog about when her son put green peas up his nose. Now this friend Nicole, I have known since about 1st grade, we went to high school together and have been good friends and I love her, but she lives in a different state, has for most of our married lives, and if we didnt have blogs I probably would just talk to her once every couple of years when we both were in Vegas. I love blogs! I am so glad we get to stay connected, and I am so glad we can share stories, ideas, and our lives. Thanks to Nicole I remembered that she had blown in her sons other nostril to get out the peas, pop out came the popcorn kernel!

Jake's nose stopped bleeding pretty quick and we went out to have a talk about not putting things up our noses. Turns out the reason it was bleeding is because Adam tried to "scratch" it out for Jake. (Doesn't that give you a pretty picture). Very helpful....any votes on whose idea the whole kernel up the nose scenario was anyway.....Adam insists it was Jake's idea.

I am just grateful I didnt have to go to the doctor and that it didnt end up in Jake's lung, yada yada yada...

...

This last weekend was so fabulous. I love general conference, it is just such a great weekend and I always feel refreshed afterwards. We had a really fun weekend, starting with the Mirmar Air Show on Friday afternoon. A little boys paradise. My boys loved it! Made me nice and nostalgic for Top Gun, which we watched that night when we got home. Charley's house from the movie is right around the corner from me (Mindy, we rode right past it and didnt even know it! Come again and I will show it to you). You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips.....

On Saturday we had fun going to Adam's soccer game, and he scored his first goal in a game! He has taken a little while to warm up to soccer, and still isnt super aggressive but he is having fun for sure and that is what is most important to me in the long run, although the competitive side of me has a real hard time keeping quiet on the sidelines.

We also went and had a picnic lunch on the beach on Saturday, it was our first time going to the beach as a family since we have moved here believe it or not. Allen is not a beach bum, but we had a blast building an awesome sandcastle. Go to Allens facebook to check it out.

Saturday night we met up with some friends after Priesthood for pizza and kept the kids up a little late hanging out. It was fun. Then of course Sunday was just chill. I was so relaxed all weekend long and just went with the flow, it is a nice feeling. I think my favorite talk was Elder Bednar's. I almost always feel like he is talking to me. It was great.

In other randomness....Disneyland with my family was so fun, I love it there, it doesnt seem to matter how much I go or how old I get, I love Disneyland, it just makes me happy! Adam is so big, he went on everything and says his favorite was Splash Mtn, I cant believe how grown up he is. Evan enjoyed his first time as you can see.
The boys loved seeing Grandma and their cousins. I love family! We have missed everyone so much. Luckily MTM survived this lunch, it looks like they have her surrounded!



And Jake turned three and started a Karate class at our community center. It is seriously the most darling thing I have ever seen. That is Sensei Sal and Jake's little friend Ethan. I love watching Jake with Sensei Sal, he is doing really well with it and I think I will need to get Adam into the martial arts.

Sunday Morning

1. Today is Jake's Birthday! We love you Jake! We just finished a tasty birthday breakfast and he and Adam are playing nicely in their room. I love it when they do that!

2. Confession: I have an eating disorder (dont worry it isnt starving myself, it is stuffing myself), I have a breakthough in my post baby weight loss on Friday. How do I celebrate? Do a little extra P90X, go for a run.... NO, how bout go out to eat at a steakhouse (early anniversary dinner), eat appetizer, salad, main dish, dessert and soda. Then the next day eat like a pound of frosting as you make it for Jake's cake, and then top off the night with choco chip cookies. Great plan.....

3. Great news about the steak house though! My favorite restaurant in high school was a steak house in Vegas called the Hungry Hunter, it closed down sometime while I was at BYU, there is a Hunter Steakhouse 5 minutes from our house here. Tried it out and yeah! Exactly the same! It is a California chain, they have several here. I couldnt be happier! (By the way I am NOT a vegetarian)

4. Allen and I will have been married 7 years this week! I cant believe it, I love you honey! We celebrated by going to the steakhouse and the temple. It was such a great date night, thanks to the Bringhursts for the babysitting trade, and so so so sorry about the incident...

5. The incident is Jake having an "accident" on Todd and Anjie's bed! He has only wet the bed like one maybe two other times since he was potty trained, and of course he does it in the 2 hours he was sleeping on their bed. Major mom embarassment moment!

6. My family is coming on Thursday and I am counting down the moments! I cannot wait to see everyone and show them where we live. We are going to Dland on Saturday, so of course that will be great fun.

Some house projects

Anyone who has been to my previous house knows I like color. I am not a girl for white walls, with the way this Historical Home we are living in is, my mom and I decided no wall painting. The kitchen is already green, just like my old one in Vegas so I have that going for me. Well after looking at this blog I decided a good way to bring some color back into my life was furniture painting. Here is what I have done so far.

Piano before


Piano After

My favorite part of the piano are these knobs, they are all over the house on the built ins, and I adore them! Lets be honest, I adore this piano now. I love it, so dont tell me if you dont, just dont comment. :) jk


Funny story with this furniture piece, we are packing up in Vegas and of course have way too many sharpies around just tempting Adam. One morning he comes running into me "Mom, Jake has the marker and is drawing on the furniture!" I run into the LR and find Jake marker in hand, his marks are the straight ones on the right, apparently Adam didnt think this one through...needless to say, it needed a face lift.


After a new paint job, I love color! Now I just have to work up the motivation to do the boys furniture. I can do it!

Calicoma

Anna, Jessica, Wendy and Mindy



3 of my best friends and roomies from college, no kids or husbands (okay my family was around a little), and a house on the beach = Calicoma! It was fantastic. We spent 5 days together for an extended Labor Day weekend, all we did was sit on the beach, read on the beach, swim at the beach, go to dinner every night, talk and laugh into the wee hours, one night we went to a movie and we did a session at the San Diego Temple. (My first time there, I had of course seen the outside and everyone talks about how beautiful it is, but really it is beautiful! It was great to go all together.) Really there are no words to describe how fabulous the weekend was. Girls I adore you, and am so glad we are still close, wish we could make it happen every year....someday!