The Rasmussens, 2014 edition

Another year down on my goal to take family portraits every year. Another year of children not wanting to sit still, keep their shoes on, smile, or look at the camera down. Only... all of the years still to come.

 All of us

Daddy Kyler and the kiddos

Momma Jeanette and the kiddos

The kiddos by themselves (yes, Calista is taking off her shoe and Craig has tears in his eyes. He didn't want to be out of our arms at the moment. However, we were able pacify him...)

Happy Craig alone!

Clapping Calista!

In spite of the stress that is family pictures, I'm happy we've gotten them done. And I think I'm going to start saving now to get them done by a really good photographer in a couple of years. However, these will definitely do for this year.

Someday

Someday Calista won't need any prompting to go to the bathroom to avoid accidents.

Someday Craig will be able to sleep (again) without being held in my arms.

Someday I will have a little bit of alone time during the day (go to the bathroom?!?!), without anyone crying or calling for me, begging to be picked up, given something to eat, changed, helped, rescued, washed, played with, trying to eat things that aren't actually food...

Yes, Calista is licking the soccer ball, Don't ask me, I'm just their mother.

But someday Calista won't let me hold her hand and request to jump over cracks. Someday she won't find my hugs and kisses to be to solution to every problem.

Someday Craig won't let me cuddle him as much as I want. Someday he won't give me that smile that says I'm his favorite person in the whole wide world.

Someday they won't want to climb on my lap and read books. Someday I will have to share them with friends, teachers, significant others, children of their own.

Someday I will look back and miss my babies. At least until I smell a poopy diaper.

Happy Birthday, Craig-O!

Well, my favorite little boy turned one last week. It's amazing how time flies. I feel like he is still my little baby, and then I realize that he's crawling up my stairs and eating cat food. Not quite so little and helpless anymore...

So, because it was his birthday, we had to celebrate!

Put on your party hat!

Obviously, this party had to include presents.

Are these for me?

Wow! The paper rips!

Presents are so much fun!

Kyler took the day off from going to school, and we decided to head up to the Dinosaur Museum.

The birthday boy loved crawling around with the prehistoric amphibians.

Then, it was time to come home and eat cake! First, though, we stripped him down. No way he was going to eat all that chocolate frosting with clothes on.

Kyler and I sang Happy Birthday, and I swear Craig was having a good time. I think he was just tired of having the cake in front of him, but not being able to reach it.

 We solved that problem, though. As you can see, at first he was a little hesitant.

But he figured it out in no time.

 Definitely a fan of cake, this one.

...and it's time for a bath!

Happy Birthday, Craig-O. We love you and your smiles!

Calista's Year Three Retrospective

Favorites (I asked her "Calista, what's your favorite...?"
Food: pizza dough and banana bread
Color: blue
Movie: Frozen Heart Movie
Song: Child of God. I am a child of God, and He has sent me here....
Game: Tigers game! And bunnies game. I need to play it, Mommy. Grabs iPad and tries to unlock it... when that fails, Where's my card game (Hearthstone)? I need to finish my card game...
Fruit: Grapes
Animal: I don't know... Horses!
Breakfast: eat milk and Cheerios
Book: The fish one! (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish)
Piece of clothing: Dress!
Place to go: Zoo


Likes

• The iPad. Videos, games, taking pictures.
• Going to church. Specifically Nursery. She loves it there.
• Actually, going basically anywhere. Yay, zoo! Yay, library! Yay, grocery shopping!
• Running around, either playing a chase/tag/hide-and-seek combo, or running from monsters
• Building castles and rocket ships with duplos
• Watching movies
• Singing songs. Sometimes these are real songs, sometimes they are completely made up songs.

• Bread
• Craig... most of the time
• Hugging the cat
• Parks
• Museums

Dislikes

• Green bell peppers
• Being told her iPad time is done.
• Being scratched by the cat
• Baby Craig touching her
• Situations she can't control

I asked Calista what she wanted to be when she grows up. "Ummm, a Calista!" Excellent, a dream we can succeed at.

August 2013

September 2013

October 2013

November 2013

December 2013

January 2014

February 2014

March 2014

April 2014

May 2014

June 2014

July 2014

What a wonderful year this has been. I am so grateful for this amazing little girl that I have been blessed with. She is my joy, pain, happiness, frustration, humor, and everything. I love her so much it hurts sometimes. Thank you for being my baby girl, Calista!

A Little Bit Blue

This amazing baby girl... was three yesterday!

Starting to not be so baby-like any more.

Calista's been talking about her birthday ever since Kyler's in May. She tried to say she was three already, so we told her after she blew out a candle on her cake, then she would be three. When it got closer to her birthday, I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. "A BLUE cake!"

So, a blue cake it was.

She even "helped" me make it, mostly by excitedly repeating, "My BLUE cake! I eat it now," every step of the way and stealing the lemons to lick them ("Yummy," she said as she made a face).

But she couldn't eat it yet. She had to wait until her after her presents!

What a haul this little girl got.

 More train sets, movies, bubbles...

Life is good when you're three!

Especially when you get to have all your favorite foods and play at parks with Daddy, Mommy, and Baby Craig!

But don't worry, Calista eventually got her BLUE cake.

And it did not disappoint.

 Once she blew out the candle, it was time to dig in.

Yum!

Happy Birthday, (not so) baby girl!

The Grand Road Trip 2014, part 3

When we last left our adventurous heroes, they were preparing to leave Utah, the land of their eldest's birth, and return to Canada, the land of the clan leader's birth. So, we shall continue with The Grand Road Trip, part the third: our trip back to Canada and Canada Day celebrations.

So, the return drive itself was fairly uneventful. We spent the night in Montana to avoid doing the 14 hour drive in one day with two kidlets... yuck.
Craig absolutely loved the hotel because it was some place new to explore. The rest of us just appreciated the break from the car.

What I didn't appreciate: while in Montana, I... threw up again. For those keeping track at home,  this is the third time since the morning we left Calgary I threw up. Yeah, I'm not a fan. But I've survived, and we survived the driving with 2 kids under 3. We made it to Raymond, and all is well.

We got into Raymond on June 30, so the next day was Canada Day.

Obviously we went to the parade, sitting with a couple of Kyler's siblings and their kids.

Calista sure loves hanging out with her cousins. We gave Calista this lecture about the candy during the parade coming from cars, and needing to be careful, so she didn't get hurt... and then she was afraid to step of the curb without Kyler holding her hand. Whoops.

Maybe next year we won't give her the lecture and just see if she needs us to set limits first. In spite of her fear, she still got more than enough candy and had a lot of fun.

Craig also loved watching, just taking in all in. We didn't give him candy, because we were mean.
In the afternoon, we headed to the carnival or whatever it is by Raymond High School. They had some yummy buns,

music to dance to, and sand to play in.

The sand ended badly, however, when a boy about 11 threw sand at his friend and instead hit Craig (who wasn't even in the sand!). Kyler and I totally became those parents who yell at other's people children. Thankfully, Craig is just fine, but we still took it as our cue to leave.
Calista also got to stay up and watch fireworks for the first time. She started out outside with her cousin Brooklyn, then it was outside with Kyler, and then she came inside with me, too. She didn't act afraid, but was just being a little cautious.

The next day, we all went out to lunch with Maria - her favorite, sushi - and then to see How To Train Your Dragon 2 at the theater. There were moments that Calista got a little scared, so she sat on Kyler's lap and every once in a while would say, "I need a hug!" It was cute. She loved the movie, though. And afterwards, Maria went to Toy R Us and bought her a little Toothless dragon stuffed animal. Calista definitely loved that.

On Thursday, I think we're at, we went to the pool.

Calista loved it and went down the slide all by herself multiple times.

Craig hated at first, and then decided, actually, this isn't too bad, and did really well.

The mosquitoes, though, were HORRIBLE. Being in the water protected you, but when Craig got hungry part way through, instead of sitting in the lounges poolside, I retreated to a wooden bench in the dressing room to avoid being eaten alive. Ugh. I hate mosquitoes.
After the pool, we went and had dinner with Krissy and the missionaries. Calista loved playing with her cousins, and mostly let them boss her around.

She does have her limits, though, and let them know when she was done being their little doll.

Craig got to interact with little Brock, born Aug 1. It was pretty cute to see them play and touch each other.

Craig got his mohawk pulled a bit, and couldn't even retaliate, because Brock has almost no hair. Ha.

On our drive back up to Calgary, we took a little detour and went to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. It's a Provincial park and interpretive center. It was really interesting. We told Calista about it, and she kept saying, "Buffaloes fall off rock. Buffaloes fall off sedimentary rock (her addition) and get hurt. Buffaloes die." Yup, that about sums it up, kid.

Of course, in the days since, Calista has been "falling" down every once in a while, and then saying, "I falling like the buffalo." She is also saying, "Buffaloes fall down and get hurt... we got to help the buffalo!" I'm not sure she quite understood the concept of the buffalo jump.

It was cool, though, they had a movie of a buffalo hunt, and a whole bunch of stuff about the Native American tribes in the area, and their cafe, which we didn't eat at, had bison burgers. I was satisfied with that.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip, though we are glad to be back home. So is our cat. I think she's forgiving us for leaving her all alone (with friends to check on her and feed her, don't worry!).

Now planning for the next big trip begins. What will it be? Christmas? Next summer to the Oregon Beach for the May Family Reunion? Hawaii after Kyler gets his PhD? All of the above? Vote in the comments below!