"Quotable Quotes"

When I was dating Stewart and we were planning on getting married I found this"Quotable Quote" in the Daily Universe (BYU's news paper). I cut it out of the paper and taped it to my wall in the dorms. When I moved to the next dorm it survived, when we moved to the duplexes it survived, when we moved to Reno it survived. It has been six years since I cut out this quote. Now it is brown and stiff from dried spilt soda but it still has its home right next to my computer. It struck me as I picked it up off the floor, along with all the other pieces of paper my kids threw about, just how long it has survived. Against all odds it still exists and perhaps it has done so for a reason. I read it every couple of months and once again it touches my heart but always with a little more meaning then the last time. I cherish that it still has paint from the walls of the now non-existent U-Hall on its back. It reads,

"A marriage may not always be even and incident-less, but it can be one of great peace. A couple may have poverty, illness, disappointment, failures, and even death in the family, but even these will not rob them of their peace. The marriage can be successful so long as selfishness does not enter in."

Spencer W. Kimball

Peace resonates with me. I am always drawn to people who create peace. That's why I fell in love with Stewart. He gave me peace when I thought I might never find it. Today reading about how I can always have that even if he is far from me for extended periods of time settled my heart and gave me what I needed. Peace.

I think it could also be written,

"Life may not always be even and incident-less, but it can be one of great peace. A person may have poverty, illness, disappointment, failures, and even death in the family, but even these will not rob them of their peace. Life can be successful so long as selfishness does not enter in."

Picture Time

With the kids having their birthdays recently it was time to hit up JC Penney to get their pictures taken. Here are some of my favorite pictures we got. I wish we could have gotten Benjie in them too but the kids were done before we got to him. Next month we'll get his three month pictures taken and maybe we can get all three of them in there.Aren't they so grown up!?!?

Miss Gwen

My Niece, little Miss Gwendolyn, is a total doll. She is the absolute girly girl version of Bridger. One step in her room and it is obvious that she is a princess. :) It never ceases to amaze me how well Bridger clicks with his Smith cousins. There aren't many kids that can match Bridger's fun loving intensity and endless energy but those Smith kids are all just as "Bridgery" as he is. ;) While we were in California last month Bridger and Gwen had a fabulous time playing together. Whenever the kids see her pictures they shout "MY FRIEND! MY FRIEND!". Its really cute. There are few things as sweet as seeing your kids discover that they share kindred spirits with their cousins.


Gwen made this absolutely adorable mermaid while I did a ceramic impression party at her home. I finished it off for her by firing it and glazing it. I tried to make it look like her. :) I had to post it because I was so proud of her 4 year old artistic genius! Watching her love working with the clay and finishing it off for her made me want to start teaching ceramic classes for little kids. When I get a bigger house I'll be all over it! We love you Sweetheart!

Is it just me?

Is it just me or is he way too grow up to be two months old?
He is so sweet. We love this kid like crazy.

Look at how well he holds himself up!
And he is no lightweight 14 + pounds.
This one he is smiling at Angie. He loves that girly.

Anniversary Number Five

On our date to celebrate our anniversary and Valentines day it finally occurred to us that anniversary number five was sort of a significant year....you know, one of those bench mark years. For years I said that for our fifth anniversary we would do something bigger then just a dinner date but it came and went and nothing big happened. :O) We are both way too low maintenance when it comes to our anniversaries to have even noticed. Maybe for our tenth year we'll go all out. ;) But despite its low keyness we had a great anniversary. While we snuggled during our movie I thought it was nice to realize that after five years of endless school, relative poverty and having three kids we are even more in love. We still make each other's hearts skip a beat or two by simply walking in the room. So here's to another great five years!

Mormon Messages

Biggest Loser Comes to Reno!

Stewart and I have decided to get creative with our weight loss. In my desperation to get motivated to lose the many pounds I want to lose I made a biggest loser competition up and thankfully my hubby has agreed to meet my challenge. I think this will be fun and maybe someone else out there might be up to doing it with their spouse too. :) I hope you track us and keep up with our competition so we have the added incentive of peer pressure! May the Biggest Loser Win!!!

Ramussen's Biggest Loser

Phew! ....i think

So Stewart matched in Reno for as much time as possible. We were so relieved. I guess this year it was pretty even and only one person was sent to Las Vegas for the entire year when they didn't want to be. So yay for most everyone. :O)

One of Stew's classmates asked if he'd switch with him so that he'd be in Vegas at different times and have a different layout of rotations. ie. surgery first, then obgyn vs. peds first..... So we tried to look at what would be best for Stew's school and for the family and we finally decided to switch with his classmate. Instead of feeling relieved that we are in Reno so much I feel worried and apprehensive. I now know what we will be facing in detail and I really am not sure how I will cope. Stewart will be gone from July to the end of September. Then he will be home for October and the first of November then he'll be gone until mid December. He will go from taking the first boards right into his surgery rotation up here for three weeks and then be in Vegas for the rest of the summer. The longest I have gone without my husband was a week and that was when I only had two kids, none of which were toddlers plus I had lots of family around. Well, I guess this will be a growing experience!!! Now Stewart has started to talk about the away rotations he'd like to do his fourth year...Maybe Utah, Ohio, and Thailand. Oh, boy!!!

I really want to say that despite the inevitable stress of being separated I am so grateful to Mom and Dad Ras. They have made this so much easier for us. Of course they have opened their arms and home to having Stewart with them but his friends too! And the kids and I are welcome there as much as we'd like!!! How nice are they!?!?!? When I asked Stew if he was sure they were ok with all of this he said they said, "We might pay you to stay here if you bring you wife and kids too. " Oh, I am so happy they are so generous. It is no small thing to have five extra people come live at your house for months!!! But its so nice to know they want us there as much as we want and need. Mom Ras even offered that I send a kid done with Stew when I cant come down myself to lighten my load. So generous! Come November when my business is crazy busy I will surly take her up on that. Thank you Mom and Dad! If I had to worry about where Stewart was and there was no room for me to visit him it would all be that much harder. But he'll be spoiled down there and wont ever need to be lonely at all...he'll be able to do great in his rotations. And knowing that when I need to get away from Reno to advert a breakdown of motherhood overload I am welcomed too. All of that is huge!

We are counting our blessings big time! :O)

Mini-Match Day

This Wednesday is what I have dubbed Mini-Match Day. Normal match day is when you find out which residency program you have matched with. This mini-match day we will find out how long Stewart is sentenced to Las Vegas and at what times. At UNSOM you have to do at least four months of your third year rotations at their campus in Las Vegas. We love Las Vegas and all but it is almost an entire state away from our home! Scary because I cant have Bridger away from his speech and me away from my business for that length of time, thus Stewart will be separated from us for quite a bit. :( That really is my least favorite thing ever! Wednesday we will find out if Stewart gets the four month deal or the worse case scenario - his entire third year spent in Vegas! Thinking about him gone for four moths let alone almost an entire year freaks me out. It is a random lottery so who knows how it will turn out. One girl at the school (who adores our kids) told Stewart she would switch with him if he got all rotations there and she didn't. So that gives us some hope. PLEASE join us in crossing our fingers and saying our prayers that Stewart doesn't get stuck separated from his little family for more then four months!!!!

Hello Neverland!

So we had our Neverland extravaganza today. We crammed all our kid's friends into our house to experience our recreation of Neverland. In total we had 23 people here including kids, parents, and babies. If you've been in our house before then you realize how tight that must have been. :) When it was all said and done Stew told me he thought it was a big success. I was relieved to hear him say that. He was a little unsure when I started making plans to build a teepee and a pirate ship. Oh, Yee of little faith! ;0) Honestly I am really tired. As I am sure Stewart is as well. I feel bad for making Stewart do all my projects...because, lets face it, he is the one who really ends up building the teepees and the pirate ships in these sort of endeavors. I just sort of direct. But he was a great sport despite the endless crazy tests he must prepare for. This week he has been such a good support to ALL the the things I seem to busy myself with. This week I helped throw a baby shower, made dinner for a friend, had several business appointments, ran a million errands, had doctors appointments and Bridger's speech.... When I got home from the baby shower last night Stewart had constructed the pirate ship I told him I was going to try and make complete with a pirate flag and steering wheel. What a stud huh?!?!?

So our party had the biggest teepee we could fit in our tiny house, we turned Angeli's room into a fairy retreat, made our dinning room as junglely as we could, and did a treasure hunt. Our Hook battle and our Teepee painting never went down though. I don't think they would have gone too well with how the kids did with the treasure hunt....there were just too many kids to try and orchestrate those ones.

I honestly think my favorite part was seeing the kids faces when they woke up this morning to see their decorated house. Here are some pictures we got of our Nerverland bash.

Close ups of the Jungle
I had fun with the Jungle snacks.
Beetle wings - potato chips, worms - gummy worms, spider eggs - yogurt covered raisins...
The TeepeeThe Pirate Ship

One of Bridger's and Angeli's favorite things was the amazing Peter Pan Birthday cake our awesomely talented friend Mallory made. It was like the one I had in mind to make only ten times cooler. There is no way I would have had time to do a cake too, I am so grateful she volunteered to do it. Check it...

Angeli as a Mermaid

Bridger as a PirateSome of the kids awe struck by the cake and ice cream. :)

Now we are all tired out!

10 Confessions About Me

I was tagged.
Bare with me. I am a bit Mopey.
Dang PMS!

Confession Number One: I have been having nightmares every night that I come out of the shower to find a bunch of people in my room and I cant find my clothes. As I desperately try to hold my towel up and get my clothes back these people keep getting in my way. They keep offering to take me shopping for new clothes and dragging me to the mall and all sorts of things like that. Its very frustrating. What does that say about me?

Confession Number Two: Whenever I think someone thinks I am "White Trashish" I find a way to bring up that my husband is in Med school and that I graduated from college. That is a paranoia I acquired when we moved near a trailer park. It happens a lot with my clients. I am really embarrassed that I do that. :) But today it worked to my advantage. It turned out that the client I was trying to impress was one of Stew's teachers. She then felt sympathy for me instead of what I thought was judgment and she ended up buying tons of gift certificates. I'll take that sort of perceived sympathy over perceived judgment any day. LOL

Confession Number Three: One of my biggest priorities and motivations in my relationships is to make people feel good...loved. Whenever I see someone sad I immediately want to help them feel better. I don't think I am very good at it though. I try. :)

Confession Number Four: I hate not knowing where I stand with people. I can handle it if they don't like me...its the not knowing that kills me. I then feel like I don't know how to act around them. Thus I get shy, which is not in my nature.

Confession Number Five: I just ate three bowls of ice cream, a bowl of white chicken chili, butterscotch topping, three pizza pockets, half an orange, and drank a can of diet cheapo orange soda. And that is normal for me. Oh, my. Why aren't I obese by now?!?!?

Confession Number Six: I am open to a fault.

Confession Number Seven: I am really just wasting time. I wonder if I am self obsessed that I like writing about myself so much. Is blogging a pompous act? Thinking that people actually want to read about my life? hummm....

Confession Number Eight: I am a church nerd. I really love church stuff....you know how most people hate church meetings and giving talks in sacrament, not me. I secretly like them. I could talk about church and Gospel doctrine stuff all day long. I really am Mormon through and through...although I was a California Mormon snob. Sorry. :O) Deseret book was a little too nerdy for me. LOL

Confession Number Nine: I watch Disney Chanel and I secretly worry that being friends with me is a chore for people...like they do it out of the goodness of their hearts and not because they want to. (I promise I am not ADD. ;)

Confession Number Ten: I really want to teach History at BYU someday. Ugh! This really is scary for me to admit! I wonder if the stars will align that way or not. I worry that when I tell people that they will think "yeah, right!". But it is one of my life dreams. I really love BYU, I really love History, I would love to write and publish and I really love teaching. I know I would be good at it, but I don't think people feel I am smart enough. I worry that all they see is a super young air-head mom with too many kids. I hope I am a BYU professor someday. It seems somewhat impossible but I'd love it. :)

I tag all those who have things to confess! :O)

Two Months Old

Our littlest baby is two months old today. He sure is growing up fast. Benjamin really is the sweetest little baby man ever. I remember taking the leap of faith and getting pregnant despite our poverty and insane pace of life :) and feeling the reassurance from the Lord that the little spirit we were getting was going to be a strength to our family. That somehow with him we'd be stronger then we were without him. And honestly, I am not sure how, but since he was born I feel like we really are stronger, like we can handle more then ever before. Anyways he has won our hearts. Not only is he sweet but he is learning and growing so much. He is cooing, holding up his head even better, smiling, recognizes our voices more and more, and meeting all his benchmarks. Here are his stats and some cute video of our Benjie and his big brother (sorry my voice sounds like a five year old's) :).

Head: 16 inches (50 percentile)
Weight: 14 pounds (90 percentile)
Length: 24 inches (90 percentile)

Favorite Things: nursing, cuddling, and being talked too