Moving

We have been so busy this month!! we were in Dallas for a week (which I'll post about later) then Michael and I have been busy finishing his last 2 classes for his MBA, I include myself in that because I've been doing his on-line class myself, and Michael has been trying to get a job lined up for when he graduates. Well Michael applied for a job with Marriott in Palm Desert California and had two interviews, yesterday he called to check in with them and got in touch with the Project Developer who is higher than who he interviewed with, and he graduated from BYU-Provo so he wanted to talk to Michael personally since he graduated from BYU-H and the next thing we knew Michael was offered a job there! We have to be there by August 13th and Michael's commencement is on August 8th so we'll be moving pretty quickly hopefully we'll be able to find a house or something over there soon! I just wanted to keep everyone updated and if I don't blog for a while that's why! we are so excited and feel that this is a right move for us.

Happy 4th of July!

This year we went to Fort Davis (another little town about 25 minutes from Alpine) for a parade and "Bank Robbery" show with lots of loud gun fire! the city had tons of vendors so we had fun walking around and looking at everything and enjoying funnel cake! I had my camera out but forgot about it and only took one picture while we were there. Michael had to work in the afternoon but I took the kids to the park in Alpine where there were more vendors and fun things to do like jump in the bounce house, fish in the ducky pond, and face painting. Later in the evening Michael joined us and we watched the fireworks display at the park then went to my brother-in-law's house to shoot off more fireworks and play with sparklers. we had so much fun but I wish Michael didn't have to work, I was running around like crazy trying to keep Jonah and Ryker where I could see them and still let them have fun. I had several people come up to me and tell me they had been watching me and that they thought I was doing a good job, I felt really frazzled by the time Michael joined us, but at least it looked like I was doing a good job wrangling my boys, I am so thankful for the sling, at least Evva was happy the whole time and couldn't get away from me!! All in all it was a very fun fourth of July! I love living in our country and having the freedoms we do!

Evva's Birth Story

we finally found the cord we needed so we could load our videos onto our computer so here is the first video we have ever uploaded, the birth of our little girl Evva. Michael put this together, I think it turned out really great so I thought I would share it.
p.s. don't worry there are no gross scenes!

Evva Sofia Rasmussen

Oh man I can't believe it has already been one week! well On June 10th I went in to be induced and was dilated 4 cm I had antibiotics in for a few hours before they started me on pitocin and I had progressed by myself to 5 cm. a few hours after having the pitocin I was 6 cm and another hour or so later I was still at 6 cm, the contractions were getting kind of hard and since I hadn't changed for the past few hours I asked for pain killers in my IV thinking it would probably be a while for me to get to 10 cm, WRONG!! within 15 minutes of getting the pain killers I felt like I needed to push, the nurse checked me and I was fully dilated, I wish I didn't have the pain killers so I could say I did it all natural, oh well, so two contractions and a few pushes later little Evva was born at 4:01 pm. She was 6 lbs 10oz. and 181/4 inches long. She is healthy and very happy. I felt great after the delivery and have recovered very quickly! we got home from the hospital Thursday the 11th and on friday we all went our for dinner then Michael and I got a babysitter for the boys and took Evva with us to see a movie. I went to church on sunday and everyone was amazed to see me there minus the belly, plus a baby. Evva is a wonderful little baby, she sleeps so well at night and only wakes up about 2-3 times each night to eat then goes right back to sleep. Jonah and Ryker love her and Ryker always comes to give her kisses. I was really worried about Ryker but he is doing very well. I only have tweo pictures loaded on my computer right now but I'll post more later.

Dr. Appointments and hospitals

I went in for a Dr. appointment today and found out that I'm 3 centimeters dilated, my Dr. wants to induce me tomorrow morning if nothing happens tonight, since during my appointment he also stripped my membranes hoping to induce labor but nothing so far. I also had to go to the hospital for fetal monitoring because I told my Dr. that I didn't feel the baby move very much yesterday but her heartbeat is strong and steady and she has been moving today so everything should be just fine. So, the big news is, tomorrow I'll be a new mommy again and have a little girl for the first time!! We are very excited to see our little Evva Sofia!!

Camping, playing, and Jonah's Birthday!!

The past few weeks have been full of fun! We went to the Monahans Sandhills State Park, about 2 hours from where we are in Alpine; we brought our tent and gear and bikes. we had fun but didn't stay as long as we originally planned since it rained most of the night and drizzled all morning while we ate breakfast and packed up our stuff. Fortunately we were able to play on the sand dunes the day we got there, we couldn't really slide down them like we thought using our storage bin lids but the boys had fun rolling and running down the hills anyway. We had a lot of fun riding our bikes around too! Ryker loves the seat his daddy built for him on my bike!







Since our camping trip was cut short we drove another 35 minutes to Odessa and stopped at the Odessa Meteor Crater, there wasn't really anything to look at and the museum part was closed so we walked around the crater edge that isn't very deep anymore after years of erosion and rainfall, but it was something to do.

One fun thing they had was a pile of dust-like powder called meteor flour. Michael had fun painting the boys' faces with it. Jonah thought he looked like an Indian warrior.





Last week it rained and hailed! we had fun watching it! after it stopped, Ryker liked to point at the piles of hail on the ground and say "Mmmm, yum, yum" needless to say he ate quite a bit of ice!
Another one of Ryker's shenanigans! It was a little too quiet one afternoon and when I went to see why this is what I found! No it's not a bloody nose it's my lipstick! Isn't he handsome? or should I say pretty?



Last but not least, wednesday June 3rd was Jonah's birthday! He is now 5 years old! He is getting so big!!

This is Ryker watching Jonah open his presents, does he look jealous or what! Poor kid, lucky for him we got him a little toy too!

For Jonah's birthday this year we didn't plan a party since we weren't sure when this little girl of ours would be making her debut but she is being very patient and might wait til her actual due date (only 6 more days!) unlike her impatient brothers! Anyway Jonah wanted to go bowling for his birthday so that's what we did, it was fun and they even had a little ramp that Ryker could use to roll his ball down so he could "bowl" too! Michael won and Ryker actually got second place! Unfortunatley I beat Jonah but we told him he beat me so he wouldn't be so upset about losing to his baby brother on his borthday, he hates to lose! All in all he had a good birthday and is very glad that he is 5 and can go to kindergarten this fall.

Improving Talents

I never thought that I had much talent in anything but I have periodically taken (and slacked off on) piano lessons. Michael has always been very supportive in my desire to play the piano even if I feel like it's a hopeless cause, he has bought me pianos and keyboards through out the years and found people willing to give me lessons but although I enjoy playing little tunes I have never learned anything very useful, until recently. My sister-in-law Amy who lives a few minutes away from us is an excellent pianist and teaches all her kids how to play Michael asked if she would teach me too and I have been taking lessons from her once a week since last October or so, well she has taught me so much and helped me actually practice because I have to report to her every week, but I have been learning how to play some hymns and on Sunday May 17th I played the piano during our branch sacrament meeting, I played all of the prelude music, the three hymns for the meeting, and a rest hymn. I was scared to death and shaking hysterically, my stomach was in knots all morning before church and during the first half of sacrament! I did make mistakes but luckily I was able to keep going and they weren't disastrous. I am very grateful for Amy in helping me to learn a useful skill and encouraging me even when I don't believe I'm ready for such a task as to play for sacrament meeting. I'm very glad to say that I have done it and I'm also very glad to say that its over now! I am still working on learning how to play new hymns since I only know how to play 5 right now but it's fun to work on a challenge and witness the results.