February list Instagram Style

February was a good month and one of my new favorite past times, Instagram, was how I captured the great moments that made up February for our Rasmussen household.

1. A GNO with one of my dearest friends started off great in such an inspiring parking lot. Each stall has a meaningful message.

     

 2.The best part of the chinese meal we ate on Valentine's Day (Pick Up Stix really let us down this year! why can I not find good Chinese take out in Orange County?) was this fortune from my cookie. Easier said than done but true none the less.

  

3. Cousins can really bring the best out in us. When Sadie's cousin Zane is at class with her she is much more outgoing.

      

4. Sleep is a true waste of time when other cousins are spending the night and they brought a fun game to play! We had Adam, Jake and Evan over for a sleepover so that Anna and Allen could get some one on one time before he leaves for deployment. It was a lot of fun! Sadie loves her cousin Evan but I'm not sure how long Evan will play along. We're so excited that Al and Anna are expecting another baby!

5. Having a little fun with how much I want to be skinny.

 6. Sadie loves to ride her bike she got for Christmas but I think its too small for her already! Darn kids grow too fast.

 

7. About once a month Ethan brings home a book he is asked to do a little report on. There are questions he has to answer. When he gets like this I just see Steve. He is totally his dad.

 

and Sadie likes to interject and make sure she gets some attention when I'm sitting down with Ethan.

 

8. Every once in a while the stars align just right and I get the chance to go for a run, by myself, by the ocean. You'd think I'd be able to do this more often but life just doesn't work out that way, as much as I'd like it to. This time I had to snap a picture of beach I was running at. It was glorious and I felt so lucky in that moment. The icing on the cake was that I found my first ever whole sand dollar! 

9. Silly faces at lunch time. Love them!

10. A trip to the temple and a tasty lunch. I find so much peace at the temple and I'm one of the lucky ones to have a temple just 10 minutes away. Again, like running at the beach, I wish the stars would align more often so I could spend more time there but that is just not the phase of life I'm in. My favorite lunch these days is my favorite wheat bread (alpine valley) with avocado, tomato and some salt. Yum.

11.  Cupcakes and pictures. I had the opportunity to bake some cupcakes for some actual paying customers! Ok, they were friends but it still counts right? And the boys made some pretty cool drawings at church one Sunday. Of course, Ethan's is all military and Luke's is Harry Potter. I love these boys and their drawings. Please, someone slow down the time.

 12. Silly dads and a beach day. I know its February but we live in Southern California and sometimes we just get to go to the beach. The ocean is FREEZING but does that stop my boys? Um, not one bit. Sadie won't touch the water with a ten foot pole, she's terrified, but she loves playing in the sand. And she loves wearing her swimsuit. She dances around the house in that thing and I have to convince her to put some clothes on top of it when we have to leave the house.

13. February is mostly wrapped up by the time my birthday rolls around. This year it fell on a Saturday so we packed everyone up in the car and headed to Los Angeles to the California Science Center. It was spectacular and we didn't even get through half of it. We watched an IMAX movie "Born to be Wild" that left me wanting to go take care of cute little elephants in the Serengeti. After they kicked us out at closing time we headed to the best place to get Brazilian food, when you're not in Brazil...Cafe Brasil! Mmmm...it was delicious and tasted just like the real thing. And just like being in Brasil, I was absolutely stuffed.

14. Ok, well, to wrap up February Sadie and I went to Disneyland and I couldn't believe it when she asked to wait in line to see Rapunzel. Even after waiting in line for 30 minutes she still wanted to wait. She was so excited but I don't know why I was surprised when she completely clammed up as soon as we were in Rapunzel's presence. I just love my little princess and that I'm completely ok with calling her my princess.

Valentine's Day

A hundred hearts would be too few
To carry all my love for you.
~Author Unknown

  

What we did in December

I know I'm a little late with this (its February?) but let's rewind a little and talk about what we did in December. We made powdered donut (or is it doughnut?) snowmen to give to classmates. A cute idea on Pinterest. Yeah! I can say I did one!

Sadie road the train at the mall. She's in the caboose in the back.

Luke's class decorated gingerbread houses (Ethan's did too, on the same day, but I didn't hear about it somehow). Hooray for sugar! ;)

The boys sang in their school's Christmas program. There was such a crowd I could not get a good picture of Ethan but they both did awesome jobs.

I baked a cake for our Relief Society party. This one was a pumpkin cake with brown sugar SMBC that was pretty tasty. Here's the link if you feel like trying to do it too.

We visited a few friends and neighbors with a little bubbly to put some "sparkle" in their Christmas celebrations.

Sadie graduated from nursery. This one makes me kind of sad. She's holding her picture taken when she first entered nursery, doesn't she look so grown up?

And, of course, we had to squeeze in a visit with Santa before we headed up to Utah to let him know where to find us.

2011 Christmas cards

Warning!! There are a LOT of pictures in this post. 

I got the idea from a friend's blog to put up pictures from our Christmas card photo shoot. I love seeing these pictures and our family together. My sister Mae captured some sweet moments. Of course, we had a little rough start. Sadie would NOT take her fingers out of her mouth (she LOVES those two fingers).

But she eventually warmed up, with a little help from her daddy. I love this picture. You can really see how much this man loves his little girl.

 And he loves, LOVES, to tickle her. If you hear her laugh, you'd want to tickle her too, just to hear her laugh again. Its pure joy in a laugh.

Of course, there are the boys. These boys and their dad are three of my favorite people in all the universe. 

Especially when they get their goofy on!

 Sadie and I couldn't resist a little goofiness too.

 But I really live for the kisses...

 and hugs...

 a few more kisses and...

 that means the Christmas season is off to a good start!

We hope you all had a JOYful Christmas season!

a burglary and some cookies

We got home from church today and our neighbors across the street had a cop car parked infront of their house. We proceeded to just get everyone inside and the normal post-church routine of changing clothes because they were headed to my parent's home to spend the afternoon (one of their favorite Sunday activities...and maybe its nice for me too). Our neighbor crosses the street to let Steve and I know what had happened - they had been burglarized! Someone had broken in through a window and rifled through their things. After we were done talking with our neighbors we went into the house and Ethan began telling Steve and I how concerned and saddened he was for our neighbors. He got the idea (from my dad) that he could do something nice for them and take them something. I told him we could make some cookies and deliver them but that he would have to stay home with me and make them but I would take him over to my parent's house afterwards. He thought for a minute and then said that's what he wanted to do. We pulled out my recipes and made some chocolate chip bars after Luke and Sadie had left. He helped mix and break eggs and measure flour. We haven't really baked together because I have little patience with it. I rarely go into the kitchen for leisurely baking but this time there was no one else demanding my time and I was thankful to have that experience with Ethan. The cookies finished and we walked across the street to deliver our treats. Ethan let me know his legs were shaky on our walk across the street and that I was to be the mouthpiece and he would deliver. He's such a funny guy. Needless to say, our neighbors were touched and appreciated the gesture. We walked away and Ethan told me he had a warm feeling all over. What can I say? As a mom this was one of those priceless moments. I knew I had to get it down in writing. I love you, Ethan!! Thank you for being sensitive to the Spirit and following through, that was a great lesson to me.

Construction updates

This is for those of you who can't come over and check out the construction updates.

Our new floors in the master bedroom, living room and hallway. I love sweeping floors instead of steam cleaning carpets all the time!

Our master bedroom. We still need curtains and closet doors but thats cosmetic for now.

The master bathroom 

The new paint colors in the dining room.

Christmas in Sundance, UT

Our trip to Utah was a blast! I have been dying to go back ever since returning home. We loved the snow and the cabin and everything in between. On our drive up we actually got snow in Cedar City. So we had to pull over and drain the water from our windshield spray to put in some good snow resistant spray. I do have to admit, I don't love driving in snow but this storm wasn't as bad as I've driven in before...and Steve was driving so perfect for me!

I had to take this picture of all the hair gloriousness going on in the car! It was all over the place.

Our first activity, once we got to Sundance, was the North Pole express train ride. It wasn't the best start to our trip but we tried to make the best out of it.

And Santa visited so that was cool.

My favorite part of the trip was snowboarding and the skiing lesson my boys got to do. They did an awesome job skiing! This is Luke in the center of the picture, practicing his pizza pie stance he was taught in his lesson. Ethan actually got to go down the big slope with his Uncle Clay after his lesson. Pretty brave!

Spending a morning on the slopes was the perfect Christmas Eve for me. And I got to see NieNie and Robert Redford, that was kind of cool.

Of course, who can forget Christmas morning and all the presents? Many happy faces...

but my favorite reaction was this one. He was thrilled. Guess Santa got it right? The kids actually slept in until about 7am, which was shocking! The morning before they had all woken up at 4am (which would have been 3am our time).

Christmas Day we headed up to Temple Square after visiting with some old friends in Orem. We were only at Temple Square long enough to get this picture and then everyone decided they were done. Sadie needed a bathroom and everything was closed because it was a Sunday. The boys were too cold to be happy about anything else. So we headed over to visit my grandma and warm.

An out of place picture, the kids getting ready for their ski lesson.

We also went to Solider Hollow and went tubing. Sadie's favorite part was the tow rope. She sat in her tube, singing songs or waving at cousins.

Steve got to go with us this time (didn't make it skiing because of his back) so we were all pretty happy about that.

I love playing in the snow! It was an awesome trip and I wouldn't mind making it a tradition. I love me a white Christmas.