My Mom is OLD!

My mother's most recent comment after visiting with her father (Grandpa Rasmussen) was, "If I live to be as old as my Daddy, I still have 30 years ahead of me!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

Here's to 30 years more Mom, you are the best 64 years worth of mother I could ever ask for!

Moral Wanderings

Since I have been at the Ricks home, I have learned a few lessons "out of the mouths of babes" as it were.  

Near the beginning of Day 1 babysitting adventure, Rowan triumphantly entered the kitchen announcing that he "stopped it from running out!!"  He has a runny nose.  I could see the slimed wad of tissue paper out of the right nostril yet no sign of paper in the left.  First conclusions would be that the left nostril did not need to be plugged; however, within seconds Rowans finger started fishing up the left canal.    I quickly dropped to a knee to explain to Rowan that we blow the buggers out instead of stopping them and removed the visible tissue paper.  I then took the sub level view of his nose, definately white paper in the upper regions.  I started a search for tweezers while trying to keep Rowan from putting his finger farther up his nose and convincing him that he needed to blow the tissue out.  Finally I found an old suture kit with long handled tweezers.  Rowan was extremely patient as I put them up the nose 3 times to extract the slippery wad.  Once out, we all did a happy dance for getting it out while chanting the moral of this episode : "Don't stick paper up your nose"

We spent a lovely Saturday morning in my neglected garden to find produce yet to be eaten.  The boys were rather excited that we could pick the food and eat it, particularly that all the red tomatoes would make our very own salsa!  I also have two pepper plants.  That evening we were all helping Grandma cut up the tomatoes, onions, and then peppers.  Aidan was the main man at the pepper task.  At least every second we were reminding him not to touch the peppers with his fingers.  Aidan is a hands on guy, so he picked up the pepper top and rubbed his fingers along the seed line.  We then cautioned not to touch anything with his fingers since they would make his skin, and especially eyes, burn.  Aidan wiped his hands on his shirt.  Not a minute had passed, in the midst of several more severe cautions not to touch anything especially eyes, when Aidan lifted his finger to his eyes (thinking we were looking the other way).  Now, Aidan is not deliberately disobedient, he just likes to try things for himself.  Recognizing that his eyes started to burn a little, he lifted his shirt up to his eyes to wipe them out.  The shrieks of pain were simultaneous.  Both Grandma and I looked at him, then at each other with that hands in the air type of expression, and then asked Aidan "did you put your finger in your eye?"  "YES!!" was his reply. 

 The next 10 minutes we spent dosing water in Aidan's eye, reassuring him that he would still be able to see.  I asked him while over the bathroom sink, "Aidan, did you hear us warn you about the seeds burning your eyes?"  "Yes" he responded beaten.  "Were you just experimenting with our words?" I asked hoping to have some sort of learning moment.  "Yes" he said unabashedly.  Moral of this story: Sometimes experimenting is not a good "eye"dea.

Noah is practically a man.  At age 7, and oldest of the family he has everything figured out just the way he likes it.  I asked him Sunday night if he could help me by taking the cardboard boxes out to the recycling bin.  He went straight for under the sink, which I knew was the staging ground for trash and recyclables.  I asked again, "Noah, can you please take that out to the recycling bin?"  His rambling train of reasoning began, involving a few stretched truths to protect the speaker from having to go farther than he wanted.  Such explainations always involve a never and always in the description.  I started to banter back with him a bit, showing my superior reasoning skills,  before stopping to realize it was pointless.  With a few more superlative statements from my nephew that were obviously true in his mind, I asked, "Noah, do you think I am stupid?"  He paused a moment, hesitating to answer, sensing there was a trap there somewhere, "No."  "Then why do you tell me lies?"  I know, I pretty severe statement that only matched the maturity level of the one I was speaking with (grow up Nancy! I know you are but what am I?).  Noah began a slew of "But I..." beginnings, but couldn't get his buts much farther.  His final rebuttal was a grumbling sigh has he slumped his shoulders forward, rolled his eyes back, and stomped out of the room, finalizing our conversation.  Moral of this story: Although Aunts are not stupid, they are not always mature.

my type of nightmare

I tend to have vivid dreams. I have tried to reason whether they are meaningful or not, but take it for what it is worth:
Last night I dreamt that I leant one of Josh's nice white dress shirts to Matt Lauer (NBC Morning Show host, also one of the top 10 best dressed men). This caused a great comotion in my life since then Matt Lauer thought it pleasing to him to try and entice me to enter into a sinful life with him, which I knew he had no intention of making anything permanent. The shirt borrowing also created a more serious effect with my relationship with Josh: a high school friend was the messenger that returned the shirt and she convinced Josh that because I had lent out the shirt he could no longer trust me. She then did not allow Josh to forgive me by constantly reminding him how I had betrayed him. I kept trying to talk with him and he would say really cold and mean things such as "How could I ever talk to you." I was devestated and desperate. I had to talk to him. I begged and pleaded that he meet me on the roof of our builidng so I would have the opportunity to apologize. To get to the roof, the stairs from one floor to the next were in an elevator shaft with fire ladders from one door to the next, and then you had to jump to the other side of the shaft to go up another floor. I had to jump past Matt Lauer's door, which he promptly opened and motioned again to me to enter. I burst into tears and climbed faster and higher.
When I reached the roof the expanse opened up to a Siberian freezing wasteland (quite the view for a roof, I know). Josh did come up to the roof and as he aproached, about 10 feet away the convincer girl caught him and tore him back down letting him know that I had nothing to say that could save our relationship. As the horrid scene closed I poor and starving Russian couple in rags came over the nearest snow heap and shared a tattered woolen blanked with me, which I wrapped over my head and around my body against the cold while sobbing. The kind starving girl tried to console me as I jolted out of sleep.

I awoke apologizing to Josh. The dream was so vivid. I wanted to never NEVER do anything that would drive my husband away from me. The dream was so scary because Josh has never turned his back on me. In fact, if we ever get in an argument, he is the first to come back and apologize just so we can be together again. This has endeared him to me more and more over time. I can never imagine him staying angry with me, and more so, I never want to do anything that would give him reason to. It is a very intense feeling to be so in love with this one man. Josh is my everything and I am beyond blessed to have such a humble and loving husband. Thank goodness that I have strange dreams to remind me of what I have.
BTW: when I told Josh the dream, he laughed and asked if I were pregnant because it reminded him of the dream I had with the Mongolian war lord who was building a train across china as my wedding dowry since it was an arranged marriage and I could see the tracks coming closer from my view in the castle tower in which I lived. talk about vivid!

Danny's First Hairs cut

We waited for almost a year to give Faith her first hair cut, and I was settled waiting for Danny's first, yet it came. On Sunday we turned his soft wavy baby hair into a little boy crew cut. It was so precious while with Gr. Grandpa Rasmussen, Grandpa would reach out and run his fingers over the top of Danny's hair whenever I brought him near. Danny's hair IS so soft..however his towering locks refused to get combed, were growing strangely over his ears, and had a reverse die-job effect (blonde roots and dark tips). His new cut suits him. We have all adjusted to seeing him more blonde now.

Great Grandpas, Green Bean Museum & Peaches

September 21st my grandpa, Ellis Theo Rasmussen, turned 93 years old! To celebrate we drove down to Orem with my parents to visit them. It was super sweet to see how tenderly Grandpa looked at my children. I am glad that we finally got down there to visit with him. It was at Grandpa's 90th birthday party that we officially introduced Josh to the Rasmussen family, and then we haven't really seen the grandparents since (although they were at our wedding). Although some of Grandpa's memories are fading, he is incredibly sharp and spry. We are certainly grateful for the legacy he has passed through our family.


While there we took the kids to the Bean Museum (it has green carpet throughout so my mother calls it the "Green Bean" museum) with a crazy large collection of stuffed animals (they DO stuff giraffes Skye!) including Shasta, the liger from Idaho Falls.

On the way home we took the famous Utah fruit way and found peaches for $10 a half bushel. We stacked 8 boxes in the van thinking we would get pears too. We didn't get the pears, but we did bruise a lot of peaches! So when we got home late Saturday night Mom and I made 8 batches of peach jam as well as 28 bottles of peaches. It was a long night of fruit that started our fruit marathon. We have been preserving peaches and pears non-stop until today, totaling 200 bottles of fruit and 40 pints of jam. Hurray for Mom for haggling with Broulims to get their boxes of ripe pears for $10 a half bushel as well.

Dangers of Texting

It has been front page news in Rexburg the capital T that ryhmes with T that stands for Trouble! Right here in Rexburg city! Texting. All sorts of disruptions come about from trying to keep in touch via text. Such dangers as running into signs. That's right, running into signs.
I had requested while Josh has been doing his late night shifts that he text me when he is leaving the hospital so I know when to start worrying that he is dead on the side of the road. Monday night as he was texting me, walking through the hospital parking lot, he suffered a minor injury - he walked himself right into a pole! He found solace in the fact that he had not been the only person to have found the pole, it was obviously bent from someone backing into it. His forhead did not put a similar dent in the pole, just a dent in Josh's pride. He did a double take to make sure that none of the other zombie like people in the parking lot at 1am noticed he had just had a very close encounter.
Gratefully, Josh was able to continue walking to the car, not having to return to the ER for treatment and he made it home safe. I am still glad to have the night time texts that tell me that Josh is alive, albeit a bit bruised, and on his way home.

Tub-O is 3 Months Old

Danny is 3 months today (going from June 14th to Sept 14th), and my how he has grown!

Someday my prince will come, hopefully with a bigger horse

Faith finally got all the way to the end of Snow White and found it so inspiring she was ready to ride of into the sunset on her "pony." We should probably wait for the prince,unless of course, he too is a minature.

Why the British think all Americans are Rednecks

As I was following the latest on Hurricane Ike, I found a report from the BBC. Here is the direct quote:

But some residents were ignoring the dire warnings in Galveston, where Ike threatens to bring a 20ft (7m) high storm surge.
"If it ain't your time you ain't going anywhere," Emory Sallie, 44, told AP news agency, while walking and drinking a beer near his home.

Thank you Emory Sallie for being the spokesperson for all America. I am pretty sure that he does not remember the theory of "survival of the fittest," or did he get that far in school.

You know your in Rexburg when....

you look outside and see there is sun and the trees are not blowing in the wind and decide it is time to play at the water park. No matter the real temperature outside, there is no wind so it must be warm! I may not be the smartest mom, but I am fun!

East or West, which is best?

Wednesday was our family day! Once Josh woke up we were in full Fair mode. I rather enjoyed the Eastern Idaho State Fair, more so than the Western. Reason being:
1- It still has that country fair feeling with crowds of people walking around with cotton candy and tiger ears wearing tight pants with a little bit of manure on their boots
2- the animal barns are really barns, and there are a variety of sizes for the variety of animals
3- Faith is beginning to believe us that the cow really does say ‘moo’ as does the sheep say ‘baa’ and the rooster say ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’ As we were walking through the sheep barn there was one insistent ewe that kept baaing which cracked Faith up! We basically had to drag her to the next isle. One very wonderful young farm boy allowed Faith to pet his baby goat.
4- We watched goats being judged. Since Danny still needs frequent feeding, we stopped in the pavilion where the goats were being judged. It was enlightening to hear, finally, why one goat got a blue ribbon and one got red, and always the last place goat was commended for its beauty, or something or other insignificant for judging purposes, but nice to be mentioned so they didn’t feel like the looser.
5- The had more for the kiddos. There was a petting area with at least 20 minature goats running around pestering the kids. There were ostriches just beyond the chain link fence, which is the closest I have ever seen them and they are certainly dinosaurs. Those necks are freaky. There was also a science center display with all sorts of stuff for the kids to try, including giant bubbles.
6- The carnival part of the fair is on a different side of the fairgrounds than the animals so you could completely avoid it if you wanted to. Luckily, we are not yet to the begging for rides and candy stage so we were able to just enjoy animals and then see the artistry and be off.
Thanks to Dad for being a member of Westmark Credit Union and getting us free tickets in and some dry barbequed chicken. It was a full day of fun for absolutely free!

Righteous Traditions

As I have been studying Cheryl C Lant's conference talk, trying to understand how to best form good traditions for my family, it struck me: some traditions just happen. Such as Jacuzzi time at the cabin. It seems as though I cannot pass a stay at the cabin without engulfing myself in bubbles to the hue of blue. Well, now Faith is in on the tradition! As Sis Lant says " The most importan traditions are connected with the way we live our lives and will last beyond us as our children's lives are influenced and shaped." Maybe bubbles wasn't on her agenda, but it was comforting to me to realize that graciously, there are so many things about me that I will gladly pass on to my kids. With all the questions Sis Lant kept asking I got a bit flustered. I had never considered whether or not the things I intended to pass on to my children would "make it easier for (them) to follow the living propehts" or if the are "mostly material in nature." Comfortingly, I found the statement that connected me to bubbles; "traditions are formed over time as we repeat the same actions over and over again."

Check it out (by clicking on the title of this post), it is a wonderful talk to ponder and great tool for creating a family action plan for the future.

Night shift?

We did a mild test run to see how well Josh functions after our regular bed time on Thursday night. After returning home from cleaning the temple after midnight, Josh proved his moonlight prowess:
Seeking a snack to statiate his incessant hunger, he went to the kitchen. He figured one spoonful of cottage cheese would do the trick. He served out and ate, after which he found the lid to the cottage cheese container, however he could not locate the larger body. He looked all over the counters, on the table, and even in the fridge (thinking he had perhaps absentmindedly put it back without the lid). It was the obstacle that impeded his opening the fridge that reminded him where the cottage cheese was; it was, and had been the entire search, in his left hand.
Good luck this week in the ER from 6pm to 2am Josh. We are praying for you, earnestly.