Our Full Christmas Report

We are finally back from our trip. OUR CAR MADE IT!!! :0) We had a wonderful time and overall it was a surprisingly relaxing vacation considering the the fact that it was a 13 day long road trip with two babies under two, three separate car repairs, and that we had eight different destinations. Here is a short list of our vacation high lights:

-Drove to Vegas: the kids did great, we were so excited to see the family, kids loved loved the fish and doggy too.
-BYU Bowl Game: Dad Ras got tickets to the BYU bowl game. It was so much fun! It was Bridger's first foot ball game. And what a Finish!!!! Bridger doing"Touch Down"!

-Christmas Celebration: It was truly memorable, many tears of gratitude and joy Christmas morning especially with the announcement of Kolby's birth :0)

Us Christmas Eve

- Stew found his new favorite game: "the Skittle Game", Basically he got to eat as many skittles as he would ever want. :0)

- Liz's Temple Day: We loved being able to share that with her!
-Then we had our long saga of trying to get to Utah. We finally got our car thanks to many Good Samaritans.

-We got to stay with Grandma Larsen: which meant we got to see Doug and Jen's fun family and see grandma a lot. We felt like we were back home in Provo again.

- Hang'n with Grandma and Grandpa Ras : it felt like we were back again doing our regular Sunday visits.












- Hang with Megan and Dan: always good times and congrats on being pregnant!

- See KOLBY!!!!: he is so cute. He gave me my first baby hunger since Angi's birth.(no I am not going to announce anything soon) :o)

-go to the Larsen Christmas party: we loved playing ticket to ride and seeing everybody

- go to the temple with Liz and tons of family again: it is so good to be in the celestial room with so many family members.

- we got to go to our old ward: It felt like we had come home. We loved seeing everyone again and catching up

- Had Sunday dinner with David and Sherri: the food and company were out of this world!Grandma and Doug's family were there too!
- New year's Eve with Bob's beautiful fun family: We adore them and love teasing them about all the kids' love interests

- Hang'n with Eden and John: We loved hugging on their adorable new baby and their house is so beautiful, we are a bit jealous! :0)
- Eden cut my hair so so so cute: She should really do hair on the side!!! For now on she is going to be my hair stylist!!!

Thank you everyone for your love, hospitality, and generosity! We had a really great trip and are looking forward to when we can invade your homes again!

911 X 3

We are currently on Vacation and it has been so much fun. We drove down to Las Vegas which went pretty well except for a stolen diaper bag scare in which we called 911, filed a police report and canceled all our credit cards only to get in the car to leave and realize it was there hiding in the car all along. How dorky are we!?!?!?!? Once in Vegas we had a blast partying with the Ras crew for Christmas and then on the 26th we went with Liz to get her endowments in prep for her mission in Italy. Yay, for Liz!!!! :0) It was so good to be there with her. She looked so beautiful!

Everything was going great until we started on our journey up to Utah. And then it seemed everything went wrong. About an hour out of Vegas our car simply died. It of course died right when we lost reception and thus had to call 911 for the second time in our lives and had a very expensive tow truck tow us back to the nearest town. We got the car in the shop and then got a hotel and spent the night there trying very hard to be positive about the whole thing. The next morning the car was done and we were eager to get on the road once again. But almost as soon as we got on the freeway our car died again!!! We couldn't believe it. Luckily it worked well enough that we could sputter our way back to the shop. And it was a completely different problem too. An hour or two later we were piled back in the car and finally feeling like we might make it to Utah after all.

But, as fate would have it, just as we passed Mona we noticed our gas thingy was open so we pulled over to close it. And when we tried to start up again on the freeway our car sounded like it was being tortured to death. So we called 911 for the third time in our lives and had yet another drive in a cramped tow truck to yet another car place.

Dad Ras came and got us so we finally made it to Provo! It took us over 25 hours but we are here. Our car still hasn't made it but we are praying and hoping that this is our final repair and that sometime we will make it home to Reno. However, we are learning it can always get worse. :0)

We do feel grateful that we have gotten all the help that we have needed and that we haven't been hurt and kept safe. So I guess even in our misfortune there is always much to been grateful for. :0) Through this we got a lot of firsts: riding in a tow truck for the first time, Angeli had her first fast food, the kids had their first stay in a hotel, and we called 911 for the first three times in our lives. We are hoping that this will be the last firsts for this trip! :0) We'll post pictures and update on our car/vacation drama as it continues to unfold! Love ya all!

Our Christmas Card

Counting Our Miracles of
2007

1.)By far our best and very first miracle this year was the birth of Angeli Noel after 18 long hours of labor. She was born on January 26 weighing in at 5 lbs. 10 oz. She came almost a month early and brought a lot more joy, work, laughter, and richness to our little family. Emily is a mixture of being totally amazing and a bit crazy to have two babies only a year apart, but she loves it and wouldn't ask for it to be any other way!

2.) That Stewart graduated from BYU! Stewart put graduation off a year so that Emily could finish. His sacrifice not only ensured that Emily could graduate but also made it so we could have two babies while still in school; again making us a mixture of amazing and crazy!Finishing at BYU brought a variety of feelings for us. BYU held all our favorite memories: meeting each other, getting married, our newly wed time, Bridger’s birth, Angeli’s birth, and of course the learning part was good too but we were happy to finally be done and move on. :0) We walked as a family in April and it really was the perfect finish to our time at BYU.

3.) That Emily survived her “summer of surgeries”. After Angeli’s birth it was apparent that Emily would need a series of surgeries to deal with her blood clots (a foot long clot going up the side of her leg) and also her very painful varicose veins. Five surgeries/procedures later Emily can still walk :0) and we hope our next pregnancy will bring less pain. Stewart was the sweetest care giver during my recovery and some of our sweetest memories of the year were during that time.

4.) That we bought a house. This was a major leap of faith for our little family. But we felt like that was what the Lord wanted us to do so we put all our energy into it. Just days after one of Emily’s surgeries she boarded a plane and headed out to Reno for only one day to try and find a house. After many offers and many many ups and downs we were able to buy Emily’s favorite house(in our price range of course). Hurray!

5.) That we survived our move to Reno. We were excited, nervous, and sad to leave Utah and start over again in Reno. But it didn’t take long for us to realize we were in the perfect place and make new friends. We have a great ward and both enjoy our callings. People in our neighborhood are so nice. Our neighborhood is made of 400 little houses out all by themselves and thus there is a small town, close knit feeling. Emily feels like she has a full on cheer leading squad every time she goes running with the kids and even the trash men make it a habit to say "Hi" to Bridger. Bridger loves it. :0)

6.) That Stewart is excelling in med school! This semester he had 9 classes and got “A”s in all but one of them. We are so proud of him. Right now he is leaning towards pediatric surgery which, lucky for us, is one of the hardest programs to get into. J But if he wants it badly enough we are sure he can make it.

7.) That Emily started her business. Emily’s business has been a refiner’s fire for our little family. We have had to go forward with her business totally on faith. So seeing it struggle and then take off has strengthened our faith in so many ways. At BYU Stewart would go every night to UPS to work in essentially a cold garage to make sure we were provided for and so I could finish school. Now it is my turn; I bundle up every night and work in our garage so he can finish Med school. We must like each other or something! :0) You can check out my website out at www.timelesstreasuresbyemily.com to see exactly what it is that I do.

8.) That Bridger is finally learning how to talk! We have been a little impatience with him and wanted to dub a “my son can climb better then your talking son” bumper sticker but he is learning now. Yay! He has always been so affectionate, happy, active, and tender hearted. We adore him and love him more each day! Although his art work on the walls is a bit annoying. :0)

9.) That Angeli is ours. She is a carbon copy of her father. With Bridger being a copy of his mom we really needed a calming, patient, little sweetheart to balance us out. :0) She does that and so much more; she is quick to smile, hug, and laugh. She demands very little and gives tons. We love her so much.

10.) For the knowledge we have of the restoration of the Gospel of Christ. We have so much comfort, guidance, strength and purpose in our lives because we are blessed to know that Christ truly came to earth to redeem us all and make it so that someday we can live Him and our Heavenly Father again.

11.) That we have all of you! Not a single one of our miracles could have been possible without your support. Things like Mom Ras coming up after one of Emily's surgeries, Dad Smith helping us buy our house, Grandma Larsen letting us live in the duplexes at such a discount, Grandma Angeli helping me get my business off the ground, and all of your calls, prayers and emails have blessed us endlessly. We are so grateful to have you by our side. We owe so much of our happiness to you. Have a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! We love you all! Love, The Stewart Rasmussen Gang

Our Cute Christmas Kids

Angeli's First Word!

Our girly might be catching up with her big brother sooner then we thought. Today she spoke her first word, "Baby"! I am still a little undecided that she really knows what a baby is, but seeing how she keeps saying it over and over again I am hoping it is here to stay! We were sitting playing together when our screen saver popped up a picture of her as an itty bitty baby and she then smiled huge at it and said as clear as day "baby". I wouldn't make much of it but the past few days I have noticed her studying my mouth when I talk to her and practicing her sounds. Even now as I am prof-reading this aloud she is coping me every time I say baby. I even got her to say ma ma a couple times too. So maybe this really is the start of our littlest kiddo talking. Hurray, for our Angeli!

Our Yummy Tradition

My favorite traditions revolve around food: Easter candy, gluten at Thanksgiving (don't ask), and minty chocolaty heaven at Christmas time. We are currently fully indulging in our favorite Christmas treat and I am so in love with it that I thought I should share it with all of you guys so that one or two of you might try it and find yourselves a very easy very very very yummy tradition too. All you need is Keebler Elves' very yummy Grasshopper cookies, and hot chocolate. Mix your selves up some hot chocolate and then open up your cookies and select one that is to your liking. :0) Make small bites in opposite ends of the cookie and then place one end of the cookie in the hot coco and then suck the hot coco up it using it as a very short, fat chocolaty straw. One or two suck will do it, depending on how hot your coco is, and then pop the whole cookie in your mouth. What you'll find is warm, minty, and very creamy melted cookie goodness. We love it! I always have a cup of water to go along with it because I have a low sugar tolerance and need to "cleanse my pallet" to ensure the optimum gorging. If you try it let me know if you like it too. We love it and you might just love it too!

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Minty Chocolate Heaven!!!

To Santa or Not to Santa?

This week has been a reality check for me. I have realized that Christmas is in fact coming whether I am ready or not. I think it was spurred by our first real arrival of snow. Yay, for our pretty snow! Stewart would be the first to tell you that I have been running around like a crazy trying to meet my deadlines for my business and keep us all feed and clothed while not having a car most of the week. And now with my business seemingly under control I have decided I better start Christmas shopping, planning, and tradition making. In all of this I keep returning to my on going dilemma about what to tell my children concerning Santa Clause. I realize my hesitance to tell my children that some fat man is going to fly to our pretend chimney and shove Christmas presents into our house makes me a bit of a Christmas loser, but I was raised knowing it was all just fun pretend so it is really hard for me to give into telling my kids there is a Santa. I know this is a highly sensitive subject as it delves deep into some of our most tender memories and traditions and I see both sides of the argument. Pro Santa: Its fun, it helps create the magic, its a national tradition, my kids will be missing out on some magical childhood experiences, and that they might be like me and grow up a little faster then most kids.
Anti Santa: Kids get way to wound up in a pretend God when they have a real one they should be focusing on, I don't want to put energy into lying to my kids, having to worrying about when they realize he is fake, and I turned out fine without a fat flying man in my childhood. So here I am undecided. I remember being in third grade and my friend sitting at lunchtime telling me that she saw Santa flying by her window. I just said, "don't lie". I never told her he was fake but I thought she was so lame. All the other kids believed her and wanted all the details. I didn't like feeling disconnected from my peers by not believing in Santa, but I didn't want to give up on logic and believe in something so obviously retarded either. And that goes for the easter bunny and the tooth fairy too. I did kind of believed in the tooth fairy when I was really young but the easter bunny was super lame to me. I just couldn't believe a huge bunny would leave me eggs. What was a bunny doing with a bunch of eggs anyways! But back to Santa; maybe I will not put energy into the application of either side of the argument. I will mark gifts "from Santa" but I don't have to make them write him letters if they don't bring it up themselves. I guess for now that is what I have decided I will play along but not try to make my kids believe, if they want to then I wont wreck it for them but I wont push it either. I hope then when we sit down to talk about Christmas I can tell them about Jesus and not a pretend man who will never make any of their wishes come true no matter how much they believe in him. So sorry to be a Christmas downer. :0) You can all carry on with your cherished traditions and know I don't think ill of them, I am just trying to figure out what will be my family's Christmas traditions. thanks for letting me have a platform to rant on.

Our kiddos Achievements!

Well, as any parent is I am very proud of all my babies' achievements and quirks so I wanted to share my excitement of their little strides with you all. Here they be!

Bridger is learning more words every day. The other day he actually called me "ma ma"! And the next day he called me "mommy"! I honestly almost cried when I heard it. It's been a long time coming. I have been Daddy forever so I am hoping he starts calling me mommy for good now even though today he wouldn't say it. :0( I'd say "Say mommy" and he'd say "no, no, no". That Toddler! Yesterday he learned to say "cookies" that is all he asks for now, I think "toes" and I am sure something else but I don't keep very good track these days. Being stuck in the house has been especially hard on him and everyday we have a "Waunt go!" "Wanut go!" episode as he knocks on the front door asking to go. It makes me so sad for my little guy. Today his friend Patrick and his mommy came and loaded us up in their car and took us to go to the park with them. It felt so good to socialize and let Bridger get out a bit. These days his favorite games are races with his trains (we start at one end of the house and race to the other side pushing his trains, he loves when mommy and daddy crash), and playing ball, which is mainly him throwing the ball all over the place while laughing at me scrambling to catch it.

Angeli now has four teeth! Way to go Angi. :0) And she has four on their way in! Poor little thing that must hurt. :0( She is also learning to walk. Of course she is baby stepping her progress to actual independent walking (I'm so funny!) but it is still very exciting for us. However, it's a bit sad for me to see her growing because, on some level, I want her to stay my little baby forever. She also had her third hair trim. Her hair, as Eden has told me, was looking a bit too much like a really bad comb-over ( she could even challenge Donald Trump's ugliness) so it had to be trimmed again. But now I think she looks like a boy. Oh, well. :0)

So there you have it I think my babies are great! Here's a little home video of our Angi taking on her walker. And sorry its a little long; I just think she is so cute I couldn't cut it shorter.

The Pattern of Our Lives

Consistent with how things seem to be going for our little family we have been riding the roller coaster of ups and downs these past weeks. At times it really seems that the Lord is giving us little dramas just so we can exercise our faith and see how much He loves and takes care of us in our times of need. Here is our latest exercise in faith...

A couple weeks ago we got a call from our bishop asking if we wanted a free truck. I felt a little unsure that we needed it more then others in our ward. But Stewart felt we did so we excepted gratefully. We had to wait for the paper work to get done before we could get it but we were excited that now I could have our little Honda to myself and not be stuck at home so much. On Wednesday night Stewart got in our Honda to come home from school and it died. :0( It then was very apparent why the Bishop thought of us when looking to place the truck. We really did need it! Our little Honda in now undergoing a $2,600 repair. It is only worth $5000 so that is a bit annoying to have to have to pay that much but we need a car the family can fit into so we have to get it fixed. Once again we find ourselves stuck between feeling sorry for ourselves and feeling overwhelmingly blessed. The same day the car died I got a letter in the mail telling me I am not allowed to have my business. It was a hard day for us to say the least. I have plowed through lots of rules and grumpy HOA people and I am going to be able to do my business just on new annoying terms . But just as before I also have received some miracles where I realize Heavenly Father wants me to take my business in a little different direction that I am sure will bring greater success and fulfillment. I think I will now have to get locations where I come to their store once a month to do impressions instead of doing them out of my home. I will thus be the traveling impression lady and therefore it's necessary for me to have my own car. So you see the Lord is watching out for us. It might be annoying initially to have things not go as we think they should but knowing that ultimately He is striving for our happiness we can sit back and enjoy the ride even if it is a bit more like the "Matterhorn" then "Its a Small World After All". :0)

Well, there are our little miracles and dramas that has recently testified of the Lord's hand in all the minute details of our lives. I hope it helps you also see how much He is watching out for you even if it happens to be that your car is dead too! :0) And check out Stew's HOT new ride!!! We aren't sure if we should name it "Carlos" because it has very Mexican inspired seat covers or if it should have an all American name like "Bob" because it has a ton of patriotic stickers inside it. I get the giggles every time I see Stewart driving it. Its a cute endearing little truck and we are very grateful for it!

The Family that gave it to us are the Poppinga's. Yup, their son is on the BYU football team. Cool huh?!?!? Well, it was for us at least. :0) (PS it is only four years younger then me, but it runs!)