Ki's Doctor Visit

Monday the 19th, we went swimming like we always do, but this time had a little bit more excitement then normal. Ki was doing some back flips off the side of the pool and didn't quite make it one of the times, oooooppppps! He calmly came over and asked me if he cut his head, so I didn't think much about it, but guess what? It was not just a little cut, he did a pretty good one. It always could have been worse, and we are glad it wasn't. Ki was much nicer to me then Taylar and Knightin he had his accident during office hours. Yeah for not having to pay yet another ER visit this year. He did good after he calmed down. My brother innocently, freaked him out by telling him "cool you might get to have staples" I guess that is the wrong thing to tell a 9 year old. He freaked out and was pretty freaked until the doctor told him he could get either staples or stitches. Ki of course choose stitches, especially since he already knew all about those. 7 stitches later we were ready to go back to get the other kids at the pool. Thanks Shawn for watching them so I could take care of Ki, also thanks for letting me use your phone to take some pictures. I haven't managed yet to have my camera when going into the ER or doctors office. I need a good Camera phone!

Tomorrow Todd will be taking his stitches out, maybe I'll have some more pictures to share.

Pioneer Celebration and Mona Days!!

Saturday was Pioneer Day as well as our little towns', Mona Day Celebration. The morning started out with a parade, which Todd took the kids up to, so that I could go help my sister Mindy and her family finish up their last Camperworld breakfast, it need to get done and cleaned up so everyone could get back to Mona for the Talent show later in the day. All the kids, except for TJ were in the parade. Our ward was in charge of the flags this year. The scouts did the flag raising ceremony and the cub scouts were in charge of walking with the flags in the parade. Ki was so excited to be a part of that. The other 3 kids rode on the Mona 3rd ward Primary float, well Taylar and Knightin rode and Kelten rode his bike along side it.I love the picture of Knightin, he has figured out that Todd is Taking pictures and is pointing to him. In some of the other pictures Knightin is is trying to tell the teacher that he sees his dad.

We didn't get many pictures at the park, because I spent most of the time at the pavilion at the talent show. But the kids had fun on the bounce house, blow up slides, the rock wall, face painting, balloon animals and many other things. They had lots of fun.

We were so proud of Taylar, she choose to do the talent show this year, this was her second performance in front of a group. This was a much bigger group then her first one. She was so scared. But she did it and each time I think it will get easier for her. This is huge for my shy little girl. She did a Hula Hooping routine that she has taught herself over the last few weeks, and she did amazing. She has the crowd cheering, and many that weren't already watching stopping to watch this cute little girl show her stuff. She wowed them all. Today at church she was still the talk of everyone. Many people came up to her and told her they thought she should have taken first place. I don't think I've ever seen Tay smile so much as I have seen her smile in the last 2 days. She didn't take 1st, but she did take 2nd out of 30 kids. I'd say that was still pretty impressive. We are so proud of you Tay!!!!

She was a little sad after she went up to accept her 2nd place gift of $25. I couldn't get her to tell me why. She did finally tell Todd. I guess she was a little disappointed, she thought the winners would receive a trophy or something like that. She wanted something that she could keep forever that she would remember the experience by. She figured the money would just get spent (true, true). So we took everyone into Prove and we found a silver metal, medal that Todd could engrave the information on the back. Now she has something to remember the day by.

I loveeeeeeee, the smile she has on her face in the right picture!!!!

My niece KaDi performed in the talent show as well. She sang for the crowd " I have a dream". She didn't place, but she kicked some serious singing bum. I thought she sang better then all the others, but what do I know I'm just the aunt. Good Job KaDi!!!!

Last but not least, my niece KC and Nephew Bryant performed a swing dance in the teen section of the talent show. Bry and KC both love dancing and have performed a few times now. Bry was taking ballroom dance when we still lived in Provo, but it is not offered here, so they do it when ever they can. These two rocked the stage and took home 2nd place as well. Love you guys, it is so fun to see you dance!!!


After going into Provo and spending some time at the park there, we

finished off the night with Watermelon and a .......

Big BANG!!!!

I love the picture of Knightin the upper right corner! He was showing me his scared face!

Happy Pioneer Day Everyone!

More rafting, fishing, and playing

We went to Burraston Ponds again this week, the kids have a lot of fun there and it is close to home and free. This log that was out in the pond was a source of entertainment for an hour or so. They were doing some log rolling and feel in the pond often. There was a lot of laughing. It also rained on us while there. There is something fun about being outside in a warm rain.

Austin and Taylar had some fun carving sticks into little spears. We also found a crawdad and that was a good time for the babies/

TJ is just to much fun to take pictures of!

Fishing has been so much fun for Ki and Kelten. They will just sit there for hours catching nothing and still want to go back. These last couple times these little Blue Gill have been biting like crazy. They are to small to be good for anything, but it was sure fun catching them. They caught between 20-30 within a couple of hours.

Another fun things the kids do every time we go to Burraston is make a rope swing. Kelten so carefully made 2 this time.

Tuckered out!

After a busy week, and a lot of late nights it was time to get some rest. The kids were so tuckered from the weeks activities. Sunday morning the babies woke up and I told them to go wake up daddy, the both climb in bed with him, but instead of waking him up the fell back asleep. When they didn't come out, I went into find them and found this. Knightin was asleep, but the flash from the first picture (that woke him up) turned out blurry. HE fell back asleep and they all 3 slept for at least another hour.

Such cute moments!

Family Reunion

Our Family Reunion was over a 3 day span. The first day only a few were going to be there so choose to work. Friday I took the day off and went up to Camperworld for a few hours spent some time with the cousins, then we headed over to the carnival after Todd got home. Saturday was the big day, so we headed up to start the day with a big breakfast that is put on by my sister's family through camperworld. Yummy stuff, the rest of the day was just spent visiting, swimming and checking up. Not many were able to show up, but the ones that did it was fun to see them. I didn't get many pictures because the kids were off playing and we were visiting, but one of te pictures I did get was just way to much fun not to share.

My cousin Shannon who is close to a year older then I am, has a daughter the same age as Taylar. Not that anyone would ever guess that by meeting them on a street. Taylar has been teased for being short often through her 11 years of life, and Shannons daughter Avery has been teased about her height as well, but for the opposite reason. The cute, sweet girl, happened to be the tallest female at the reunion. What a fun thing to have going for you when you are only 11 years old. So of course us as parents had to torture the girls and make them pose for a picture.

What do you all think?

I love it, what a fun picture!

This was also a fun picture, there were 7 kids born that year to the cousins. They happened to be within the groups that came to the reunion, so we were able to get a picture of the group. 3 girls, 4 boys.

Taylar, Brendan, Brandon, Avery, Spencer, Austin and Holly.

Ute Stampede Carnival

Nephi has every year, their Ute stampede. This is their Rodeo week. They also have all their other festivities that go along with it, a carnival is one of them. This is the 4th summer we have been here and we have never gone, because lets face it, carnivals are never cheap, but we promised the kids last year that we would take them this year and we added in that it would probably be our only year to go. So we did go and we spent 4.5 hours there and I must say it was some of the most fun 4.5 hours that we have done in a long time. Still expensive and we still won't do it again, but at least we didn't waste our money on the kids whining and crying. They laughed and squeals and smiled they whole time, Well the big kids probably didn't squeal, but the babies definitely did. We probably could have stayed longer, but I was tired and the crowds were crazy and I had a huge headache from the people that choose to smoke.

We got there a little early because we thought it started an hour earlier, so we had about 30 minutes to waste. Over by the fair ground buildings there is a homemade merry-go-round and that is were we spent our time while waiting for the ticket booth to open. They almost had as much fun on that as they did the big mechanical rides.

We walked through the gates, and Knightin be-lined it for the car rides where he spent most of his time. His love of cars and things that move is quite entertaining at times. Nephi also had a car show in the park the next day that we took him to. I wish I had a video of his reaction when we got there and there was like 50-60 cars. He was jumping up and down and had the hugest smile ever. When I ask him which one he wanted to see first, he looked at me, and said "I want to see all of them" while waving his hands out big. He ran from one car to the next looking them over like a kid in a candy shop. I love that boy!!

A few more pictures, I got Kelten in a couple. The big kids didn't get any pictures because whoever was with the babies had the camera, since the one with the big kids were going on the rides with them. Little hard to take pictures when you are on the rides. This big slide in the picture was Knightin's second favorite ride. He would get off and jump up and run to get back in line for the next go. When he started butting in line and doing whatever to get to the front, we called it quits. He wasn't to happy with us, oh, to break a kids heart, so sad!

This picture was so that we could have some proof in the future that the others were actually at the carnival.

This will be Tay in a few years, crazy how time flies.

Genealogy

This weekend we had a reunion on my mom's side. So to prepare for this my mom spent many, many hours scanning in stories and pictures, then cleaning them all up, so that she could put together a CD for everyone of our family history. This first CD contains the first five generation, for my Grandpa Rasmussen's maternal line.

Thanks Mom, you are awesome!!!This is the CD label that Todd and I help my mom put together.

This is my Rasmussen Grandparents on their wedding day.

I don't know when this was for sure, but it is more how I remember them. My grandparents have been gone for many, many years now.

5 generation pedigree chart that my mom put together.

Edith is 90.

I actually just met this sweet lady about a week ago. She is a friends grandma, and I was asked to take some pictures of her and her friends and family at her birthday party. It was a good evening and I got to see a little glimpse into this cute ladies life and how very loved she is by her family and the community we live in. Happy Birthday Edith!!!!

This was Edits birthday cake, very cute. She loves pink and the gym was decorated all in pink. Pink balloons, pink table clothes. The backdrop for her pictures was in pink, there were pink flowers and of course she was wearing pink.

Tay's ER visits

Within in the last month we have taken Tay to the ER twice. Neither were for terrible things, but they happened on the weekend and still need to be taken care of. The first of the 2 was for a head injury. She was at a friends house slip on their jungle gym, hit her chin pretty hard and the it slammed her head backwards into the bars. She said her head was spinning, that she felt pretty sick, and her jaw and neck were in a lot of pain. We weren't going to go at first, but wait it out for a little bit and watch for signs of concussion, but she wouldn't calm down so we decided to go check it out. She ended up having a mild concussion, and the doctors were worried about a fractured jaw bone so we got her x-rays. All was good and the bone was intact. Thank goodness, what a miserable bone to be broken. She was stiff and sore for a few days then it started to get better. she did also have a cut under her chin from the first hit, that now has left her with a small scar. It's fun to be a kid. The second ER trip was for her arm. Tay loves to hula hoop, but the weighted inexpensive hoops keep losing their water, so we found out how to make hoops our self. She was cutting some of the piping to make one and was pulling the carpet knife towards her and slipped and it cut her arm. Todd and I usually don't take our kids in for cuts, but this one was small but very fleshy and wouldn't stay closed. Todd told me it would leave an ugly scar and they would have stitched it up at the jail. So to the ER we went. She was pretty freaked out about the whole thing, stitches seem so scary at first. She did great and now the stitches are out and it is healing good.

Hiking in Bear Canyon

A couple of Saturdays ago we took the kids hiking up in Bear Canyon. We have some beautiful places in our backyard, just waiting to be discovered.

I was busy helping with one or the other of the 2 little ones, so I didn't get to take many picture, but here are a couple of the ones that I did take that I liked.

TJ was so facinated by these big dandelion things. As soon as she realized that you could blow them she was hooked. So cute!

After about 45 minutes the babies were tired so we headed back down, and decided to go play in the creek to cool down.

This creek is called "Salt Creek", we found a lot of salt deposits around.

Next few collages are just pictures I thought were cute of my kids. I ususally can't get enough of taking pictures of them.

I love the faces that I can catch on Knightin.

I can't believe Taylar laid down in the creek, it was freezing. Kids are crazy!!!!

My Boys!

Todd's new suit!

Todd was feeling very out of place in his new calling at church. Both his counselors always wear suits and he as the President never wore one. He actually didn't own one. He got one when we got married and it got ruined and we just have never gotten around to getting him a new one. He has wanted one, but it wasn't on the top of our financial priority list. Well, we finally broke down and went and got him a suit, we found a pretty good deal at JCPennys and are very happy with it. Though he still feels very inadequate to be Elders Quorum President, he says he does feel like he looks the part a little better now, and I think he looks quite handsome!

Maybe a little stiff in the picture, but handsome all the same.

Happy 4th of July

We took our kids to the 4th celebration in Nephi at the city park. We did this last year as well. The kids really do have a lot of fun. It is just a small town, down to earth, family friendly fun! There are games and homemade rides for the kids, as well as many of the big blow-up slides and bounce houses. They have food concessions, a craft boutique with things made from the towns people from Nephi and Mona, they have a couple auctions and there is local entertainment. What is great about this celebration is that is is put on by our stake and the money goes to the youth and scouting programs. It was a fun day and we came home happy and sun burnt, especially my poor husband, who helped run the merry-go-round and stood in the sun way to much.

That evening my 3 older kids went with their cousins to the high school football Field to watch fireworks. They had fun watching all the little fires start and have to be put out. The wind keeps things interesting for the fireworks, Good Times!

TJ's new haircut!

Knightin and TJ decided to try their hand at hair cutting. They were a little ruff around the edges, but managed to get most of TJ's hair off. I thought that was pretty impressive. I have to admit, both Todd and I were at work when this happened, so yes we are terrible parents, but what do you do. I had to go into work early and Todd wasn't home yet, Taylar was out, so we took the chance and left the kids with Ki. I'd like to say he won't get to babysit again for a little bit, but hey It could have happened when I was at home too.

When Kelten called me at work, I asked him how bad it was, and he told me it was a very short boy haircut with a few stringy long pieces. I thought, now that doesn't sound very good, but was hoping he was exaggerating. I called Todd to tell him and asked him if he could bring her up to the salon when he got home and they would clean it up for me. I was still hoping at this point that we could make it a short cute spiky haircut. Todd called me before he came and said that it looked like Poovy's hair right after he gets groomed except for the long strings of course. I was was not very happy to say the least. This had already been a bad day, and that just made it that much worse. Why must scissors be a necessity? Well as you can see from the pictures, Keltens explanations was pretty good, and my hopes were dashed away and we buzzed her hair right off.

I am trying to look at the bright side, they say that her hair should grow in thicker. This would be nice sice her hair is so thin, as for right now she is my little bald girl that will be wearing a lot off bows, headbands and bandannas for awhile.

Little Miss Summer Days

Nephi has has a little Pageant every year called " Little Miss Summer Days". This is for ages 2ish to 12. They get to model a summer outfit, answer some questions and then for the 9-12 year old age group they get to do some sort of talent. We are working with Tay to get over some of her shyness. She does singing lessons which is helping a ton and we thought this would be another good opportunity for her. She decided to do Hula Hopping. The Crowd loved her and she did so great. She didn't mess up once and had a huge smile on her face the whole time. Her cousin KaDi also participated and she sang and did amazing too. Neither one of them won, but they had a good experience and each time hey get up in front of people it gets a little bit easier for them. I was so very proud of Taylar. Even though she didn't win she made huge steps forward.

This is the Place Heritage Park!

After we went to the zoo about a month ago,we stop by "This is The Place Heritage Park" It was not open for the season, but we got to see enough that the kids wanted to come back at a later date. We finally had a Saturday free last weekend and it turned out to be a fun experience for the kids and they got to learn a little more about our pioneer heritage!

We didn't actually go to the monument or the other statues until the end, but they were fun to see and read up about the people that these monuments were created for.

So this park use to be just the monument, that is the only thing my parents experience when they went as kids, but it has grown into a lot more then that now. They have re-created a small town that represents what early Utah towns might have looked like. Some of the buildings and cabins are original that they have re-located, but a lot of them are replicas. They have workers that play out the parts of the pioneer people. They have even learned many of the skills and the history of those that worked and lived in these buildings and homes to make it a more real experience for us.


The kids made puppets that might have been similar to those they might have made. They got to have pony rides. Watch a blacksmith at work, see how the pioneer women cooked. They made their own candles. Watched one of the worker/pioneer women make pottery. They got to learn how to put out a fire like the "Bucket Brigade" would have. They went to school and learned about they differences of school then to what it is like now. They all learned how to write their names in the Desseret Alphabet.

They panned for gold, rode two different trains. Got to go into a tee pee and a hogom, talk to some real Indians, and learned how they make, put up and take down their homes. They did a few other crafts

Walked on stilts, helped with the printing press, and enjoyed taking some old time pioneer pictures.

TJ is so big to Knightin.

Some of the building at the park!

This was a Butterfly that was right next to our van when we went to leave. Not only did I get really close to it to take its picture, but it also let me put it on my finger. It was pretty cool!


Next we went over to Temple Square.

We had learned that the made model replica of the Salt Lake Temple, down to some of the finest details and we thought it would be fun to see ourselves, but we also wanted to have our kids see it. It was really cool. The team that did this did an amazing job.

Those who are close enough to go there, should go see it. I believe it is worth it.

Of course if you go to Temple Square you have to wonder the grounds, which we did and took in all the beauty! We also went over to the conference center to take the tour. The kids wanted to be able to go up on the roof and it appears the only way to do that is to go through the tour, but we went to late and didn't have time to go up. The kids were so disappointed. We went through the whole tour, which was kind of boring for them and then were finally at the point where we would have gotten to go up and the tour guide was informed that they just shut down the elevators up, Dang!! I guess we will try it again sometime, but make sure we go plenty early so there is no chance that we won't be able to go up.

I don't think there is a temple much more beautiful then this one. It is amazing!