Bouncing Beans

As some of you may remember we lost our swingset a year or so ago to a freak windstorm that took down several trees -- one of them right onto the swingset.

We loved that swingset even though it was never used for it's actual purpose. It was something to do in the backyard and it served a variety of jobs; most significantly the leave-mom-alone-for-a-few-minutes job.

But we couldn't justify another swingset with two 11-year-olds. So instead we got a trampoline
Yes, you read that correctly. I got a trampoline for the two girls who can break an ankle jumping on their beds.

Here's a couple of photos. Since these were taken we did put the enclosure around the thing, to make a little safer. But I've still got the ER on speed dial!

High-Five on the trampoline!

 How high can you go? (Really lots higher than this!)

Happy, tired girls!

Model Citizens

As most (all!) of you know, I take a few pictures of Hannah and Lizzie here and there. They get annoyed at me AND I don't have to be in the photo, so it's a win/win. :)
However, with the pageant coming up I decided to pay someone else to take photos and to even get me in a couple. I wanted to see how someone else saw my daughters and what he or she could get out of them in a photo.
We got great pictures ... not necessarily greater than the pictures I take of them, but it was exactly what I wanted - a different perspective on them.
AND Lizzie wore a dress, so that was a bonus.
Here are the pictures:

First, my two favorites. This one of Lizzie took my breath away. I am always telling her how pretty she is and she is always disagreeing with me. But even she had to agree this is a great photo of her (and the real her -- the sort of intense, deep, tomboy her):

And this is Hannah, smiling, happy, always game to have her picture taken. She said she felt more like a model when he was shooting her, and wasn't sure if she liked it. When I shoot them, I just try to make them laugh so they look natural. But I do love this setting and the barn-wood against her coloring. 

Hannah, in black and white.

And in living color. It's hard for her to look serious in a photo, but Randy did manage to capture this one of her looking sort of pensive. Or pissed:

Okay maybe this one is my favorite of Lizzie  -- I call it her Mona Lisa pose. Hannah hates it because she's blurry and that makes no sense to her fashion diva self:

Lizzie looking all artsy. And it's a great shot of the dress. She loves it, but when she wore it on Easter she complained the whole day (THE WHOLE DAY) that it itched her.

 Lizzie in black and white:

The girls ... I love this photo and it made the whole session (an hour of walking around St. Peter's Village) well worth it:

Anyone recognize this chick?

So that was our adventure in modeling. I may actually pay someone else to take picture of us again in the future and Rob can come to and we'll have an actual photo of ALL FOUR OF US. Wow ... :)

Holy Smokes!

Was the last time I blogged really March 15? Wow.
Okay, so it's time for some catch-up.
First up ... the Lincoln Center Weekend.

Lizzie's dance company was invited to participate in an event at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall waaaaaay back in March. She rehearsed for it every weekend and she made the trip by bus while the rest of us Rasmussens were in the car.
It was ALMOST like Lizzie was with us, though, since she texted me about 15 times and sent me TWO videos of her on the bus. She called me a few times. For those of you doing the math -- this was all in the 2ish hours it takes from our house to NYC.
She was most impressed with the bathroom and the televisions on the bus. Oh, yeah, and NYC was kind of cool, too.
We arrived a little before the show started which was good because while Rob parked the car 17 blocks from LC (he had a coupon!) he also dropped me off about a mile away from the entrance. So it took Hannah and I a good 20-minutes to find our way. I did have to ask a subway cop how to get to Avery Fisher Hall (much to my chagrin he did NOT say "practice.") because we had taken so many twists and turns.
And I got a blister.
It was worth it though. Lizzie had a great time, looked beautiful and the other performances were good enough to hold my interest.
AND, we got to spend the rest of the weekend with the New York Garritys!
Here's the photographic evidence:

Lizzie, guess where? :

These are the somewhat iconic fountains at Lincoln Center. (And by iconic they were there when I lived in the city in the 1980s!)

 Here's the Lincoln Center Gang. We gave Lizzie the elephant Beanie Boo for her collection because we were going to Somers after the show:

Hey, who are those people waaaaaay up there outside the third balcony?

 It's these three. Lizzie and the rep company watched the show from way up here, while Rob, Hannah and I had orchestra seats.

 Did I mention it POURED the whole time we were there. (Even in the fountains picture above, you can see her squinting into the rain!)

And then it was on to Tommy and Brenna's house (as I was told 14,000 times during the show...) Here everyone is eating homemade waffles with chocolate chips.

 And being generally silly. It always amazed me how much taller Tommy is than the girls since he is only 5 months older than they are!

 Hannah, getting her hip hop on for the TALENT SHOW!! Yes, even though Aunt Anonymous was not there to coordinate (and you'll see how much we needed her, in a few pictures...) the kids sallied forth with a talent show:

The dog was already scared and it hadn't even started yet!

 There was a sword fight:

 Tommy constructed something (i have no idea what) from legos while Hannah did some sort of interpretive dance behind him:

 Lizzie was the emcee for the show:

 Brenna provided the cuteness and a few songs (and possibly a magic trick):

 But then suddenly, it all went horribly wrong:

I have no idea what's going on here ... but we did make the kids promise to never again attempt a talent show without Aunt A. :)

Way Back Weekly

I really do want to start up with these again ... especially inspired by these two videos. They will probably be of no interest to anyone other than family, but they are pretty priceless.
We all gathered at my brother's home and on the night of or before my mother's funeral three years ago the Garrity/Rasmussen kids put on a talent show. Aunt Anonymous is usually the instigator and this one was no different, except that I am certain it helped us all get through a rough few days. I found the videos when I was looking for some early videos of Hannah singing, so it was kind of a nice little bonus. Tommy, Hannah and Liz are 8 and I think Brenna is 3.

She's a Finalist

Hannah's made it into the finals of Pottstown's Got Talent, a fund raiser that will support the Relay for Life Team in Pottstown (which supports the American Cancer Society.) This is the video that the official videographer posted and it is much better than mine (in case you saw it on facebook). He, being a professional and all, did not cut off her head like I did.
One of the judges asked her some questions after the performance. He asked her age, then her name, then her full name, then if she'd ever sung before and then if she'd ever been in any productions. Then he said that he just wanted to find out a little more about her. I think they told him after that not to ask anyone questions, because he didn't do it again.

Right now Hannah has no idea what she wants to sing for the final so she may do this song, or "This Is the Moment" or something entirely new. The problem right now is stemming from the fact that she doesn't want any of the songs that I like and all the songs she likes are completely inappropriate for an 11-year-old to sing. So we are at an impasse!

The final show is April 27 at 3 p.m. at the Sunnybrook Ballroom in Pottstown. Tickets are $10 in advance and I can hook you up. They're $15 at the door. 

Powerless

We woke up the morning of February 5th to find that the power had been snuffed thanks to an ice storm over night. Rob said we lost power at about 6:40 a.m. Yet somehow, without power, without alarm clocks and with NO SCHOOL that day, Hannah and Lizzie were both up and at 'em by 7.

We've lost power before and it's usually back on in a couple of hours. I think the longest we've been without power in this house is something like six hours. So I told the girls we'd just wear extra sweaters and wait for the power to come back on.

Little did I know that blessed event would not happen until Feb. 9 at about 2:45 p.m.

I learned many things during the power outage.
The first is that I have become completely addicted to my devices. I lost my home phone at about 9 a.m. and my cell phone started to swerve in and out of power by about 3 p.m. The internet and phone went out completely by about 7 p.m.

The second thing I learned is that my daughters are not people who like to cope with ... well ... anything. We played games, we told stories, we did crafts and when all those things were exhausted (by about 10 a.m.) they resorted to their favorite pasttime: fighting with each other and whining to me.

Yet, I was still hopeful that the power would come back. That the house would burst into light when we were hauling blankets into the family room to pile in front of the fire place that threw out zero heat. Or that it would awaken us at midnight by coming on. Or at 3 a.m. Or, you know, SOMETIME.

But the next morning we were all awake by 7 or so in a house that was still dark and 45 degrees. So we did what any family on the brink of burst pipes and frost bite would do: we went to McDonalds for breakfast. It was shortly thereafter that I was able to get us a hotel room: one room, with one king bed, into which we'd fit two adults, two children, a dog and a cat.

We were thrilled to have it. (Okay, I was thrilled with the constant stream of coffee in the lobby) It became our home until Sunday, except for the 14 million times that we went to our actual home to see of the lights were on. And to get the air mattress after I ended up sleeping on the floor the first night...

I am happy to report that we moved home Monday morning (two hour delay after the girls had been out of school since the previous Wednesday - joy!) and the house has been toasty warm since then. THe pipes were fine (I think it got as low as 35 in here, but never below freezing) AND I now know where every blanket and pillow in the house are.

In retrospect, the girls were really good in the hotel (because we had the animals we had to stay in the room or else bring them with us) and I'm sure SOME DAY we'll laugh about this.

Here's a few photos from those 105 hours.

This is the cause of all the trouble -- for much of Wednesday morning all you could hear were snapping twigs. By the time all was said and done something like 715,000 PECO customers were sitting in the dark (and cold):

The thermometer in the family room on Thursday morning:

Cash and Bella getting in a nap at the hotel. As you can see, they weren't giving up any space on the bed:

 

 Lizzie with the napping animals (I have a picture of Hannah with the animals, too, but I can't find it so pretend it's here):

An ice tree a couple of doors down from our house:

 

It's pretty for sure, but from now on, the only place I want ice is in my Dunkin' Iced Decaf!!

We survived with no lasting problems and I am ever grateful to the friends and family who opened their doors (and their showers!) to us while we were battling the elements!

Pageant Queen

This past weekend Hannah competed in a Cinderella Pageant in Lancaster, PA. Usually we do our preliminary in King of Prussia, but I thought something a little different might be in order. As usual the girls and the adults were so nice (seriously, if you ever want to do a pageant, it MUST be Cinderella -- not a tiara-ed toddler attitude in the bunch -- www.pacinderella.com!) and since there were far fewer girls, the pageant was pretty much over by 1 pm.

Here are a few pictures and, of course, Hannah singing "This is the Moment" for her talent competition.

Hannah, shortly after being crowned the overall winner and the new Lancaster Cinderella Miss:

 One of my favorite things about Cinderella is that it embraces girls of all races, sizes ad shapes. Hannah made friends with this girl, Larissa, who went on to take the Beauty title:

 And here she is with the reigning  Cinderella Teen, C. C. :

Caitlyn was also another friend Hannah made. She was the overall winner in the teen division and has already told Hannah she'd see her at states. (Teen contestants get to wear floor length gowns). This is also a picture of Hannah's beauty wear, which was the same as she wore at states last year. We'll probably get something new for states this year, if I can find something I like (and Hannah likes!) for my usual budget of under $15!

 Here's a line-up of all the older contestants:

This is Hannah modeling her (under $20) casual wear. The woman holding the microphone as Hannah introduces herself is Miss Tanya, the state director for the Cinderella Pageant and a really great lady. She struck up a conversation with Lizzie during the break for judges' deliberation and they talked about ballet. Then she thanked  her for being such a good sport so Hannah could do her thing.

Rob was there, too. And here he is with the contestant just before crowning:

And here is Hannah singing her heart out:

 Her next performance will be at the end of February as she entered Pottstown's Got Talent. She is probably going to do "On My Own" from Les Miz for that one, but we tend to make those decisions the day before so she may have learned something new by then.

Oh and let's not forget Miss Liz. She's deep in rehearsals for her dance rep company's performance at Lincoln Center in March. It will be a busy winter and spring (and summer and fall!)