A little round-up, and a gift to you

What can I say, I'm still feeling that Christmas giving spirit. I've made these gingersnaps for a few years as neighbor gifts. I usually make about 300 cookies, and then I never want to bake again. 

No joke, whenever I make them, I get multiple comments on them. Comments like, "Those are the best gingersnaps I've ever had in my life." They're chewy, not hard. I'm no baking genius- this recipe is just really good. It's from a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook my mom gave me when we got married. So, here's a gift for still reading this blog. You too can be a neighbor Christmas-gifting hero!

The girls had a Christmas Sing at school. Here's my little Happiest Christmas Tree.

On Christmas Eve, my brother took us all on a caroling hayride in the rain. It was fun, wet, and lasted about 10 minutes. :)

Addie, Aani, and Ava take tumbling from our friend in the neighborhood. It's so fun! I love how much they've learned. They're constantly practicing handstands, cartwheels and kick overs. I can't believe what those little bodies can do- even tall, gangly Addie.

There are 37 days a year that the kids' ages line up to 2 years apart. I just saw this on LDS Tools and thought I'd document before it changes in 6 days.

I keep seeing on the internet what a crappy year 2016 has been. I guess it has been a rough year for this old world. It's been a pretty okay year for us Rasmussons, though. Everyone is healthy, learning and growing. We're still trying to figure out how to be parents, especially as we have embarked on this teenage parenting  deal. We're almost always confounded on that one. Happy 2017 to all. May we all be pleasantly surprised by it. :)

No more running por moi (sads)

Warning: LOTS of groin-related talk coming up. Also, I know this isn't interesting to anyone but me, and all the people I've whined to over the last year and a half bout this. Probably not even to those people.

I can't run anymore. I can run really short distances, like from the car into a store because it's freezing, but I can't go on long runs these days. It's fine. It's only taken a year and a half to realize this and be fine with it. Here's what happened:

One day in the spring of 2015,  I woke up and I couldn't walk without tons of pain in my groin. There was no traumatic injury or event that I can recall to cause this pain. The only thing I can link it to is putting in our yard, digging trenches for sprinklers, etc., but I really don't know. Anyway, as the day progressed, I thought maybe my uterus was falling out. I waited a few days to see if it would improve, and it did. A couple of weeks later, I went for a run, and felt like my uterus was falling out again. (Spoiler, it's not.)

Ever since then, I can't run without feeling pain in my groin or pubic bone area. I know, it's embarrassing and awkward, but what are ya gonna do? I stopped running for a few months and things improved. On my birthday, which is January 14 if anyone wants to buy me a present, I decided I wanted to run. I ran 3 miles on the treadmill, and I walked like a cowboy for about 3 days afterward. What the heck?

Soon after this, Nils and I were invited to join a team for the Red Rock Relay, which was supposed to be in September of this year. I informed our friends that 1) I'm a pretty crappy runner, even when I'm not injured, and 2) I'm injured & having issues with my groin and pubic bone region. They insisted that they didn't care if I walked or crawled, and gave me the easiest leg of the relay. I figured I would have 6 or more months to figure out what was going on and get better, so I agreed to join the team.

I went to many a doctor; a GP, a sports medicine doc, and an OB/GYN. All of them said, "Hmm, everything looks normal." There were x-rays, ultrasounds, cavity searches (the uterus is high and tight!) and everything looks just great! So why does it feel like I'm being cracked in half? I went to physical therapy, where my inner thigh muscles were scraped. The PT said, "It shouldn't hurt so bad that you cry." Needless to say, there were bruises and clenched teeth for the 8 or so sessions of that. Nothing helped. The only thing that helps is not running.

In addition to the groin/pubic bone pain, my hamstring is chronically tight and painful on the same leg, and my IT band on the opposite leg gives me fits regularly. Because of the running! I trained for the relay all summer, and it was horrible. I never had a good run, I always felt like crap and had to run so, so slowly. A couple of weeks before the race, we were notified that it had been cancelled because not enough people signed up for it. I was disappointed, because I was planning on just muscling through the race and then never running again. The Red Rock Relay people made it so our team just runs another relay instead this coming Spring. The thought of going through all the horrid training again was unbearable, so I'm out. I haven't run since August, and I'm fine with it!

I can do lots of other exercises that don't cause injury. I've been enjoying lots of strength training and HIIT cardio. I love being done with workouts in about 30 minutes. I actually feel stronger now. My hamstring and groin still flare up from time to time, but not nearly as badly as before. Running has always been my go-to exercise. All those years of track ingrained in me that it's the best exercise. I think for some people it really is. There are people who are made to run. Sadly, this is not me. I've always, always been super injury-prone, and quite frankly, I've never been a "good" runner due to my turtle-like pace. I'll always enjoy the idea of it and respect people who do it. I've always loved a good run, so it's sad, but I also enjoy not walking like an injured cowboy, so there's that.

The lesson in all of this: YOU DO YOU. :)

The Flave is 7

Ava turned 7! These darn kids and all of their growing. I decided to spring for a (used) real American Girl doll, because she plays with her dolls all the time. Ava loves her, and named her Rachel. It's so fun to see her and her friends and sisters play with dolls.

I finally made her a blanket. She picked out the fabric 6 months ago. :)

Birthday breakfast with Dad

She wanted to go swimming for her b-day activity. We woke up bright and early the Saturday after her birthday to beat the crowds. We almost had the pool to ourselves!

Ava's writing is pretty fantastic these days. We LOVE the phonetic spelling. She wrote this note about her teacher.

 
She wrote her testimony down last fast Sunday, and read it in front of the whole congregation. So amazing.

We love this kid. She's sweet and fun, still loves snuggling, still loves mac n cheese, and still loves playing with friends. She also loves watching Kids YouTube in her "down time". She mentions to me a few times a week that she wishes I would drive them to school, instead of them having to walk the whole .4 miles. I know it's rough, but all that walking will make you a stronger person one day, my child.

Randoms since last time...

First things first: We're growing up and doing grown-up things sometimes. We've entered this strange and magical life phase where we can leave our kids for a few hours and nothing catastrophic happens. We also live on a street with people who are fun and social- so weird! We like people, but we don't ever plan things, because we're boring. Anyhoo, our fun neighbors planned a night out together to go see Jim Gaffigan. Oh man. So much laughing. My smiling muscles were sore. Yay for fun people! 

Some of the fun people! 

We just gotsta document this high honor roll situation. Neither Nils or I ever experienced this, but Anders will probably never NOT experience it. He checks his grades daily- I never have to.

On a related note, I need to document a conversation I had with him not too long ago. We've been quite open with our kids about how we were both terrible students back in the day, and how we're blown away with how smart they are, etc. We've muddled through life alright, but we definitely went about it the hard way and learned our lesson, and we both believe strongly in the value of edumacation. 

SO...one day out of the blue, Anders said to me, "Mom, I think you and dad are both geniuses. I just don't think you had the support that we have."

*Blink blink* First of all, he thinks we're geniuses?? Oh, how we have the poor child fooled. Nils and I were blessed with loving homes and loving parents, but there was some chaos going on in both of our households growing up, and I do think school was put on the back burners of importance. Illness, financial worries, general survival, and gospel-related things were more important than grades. Still are. Nils and I have been very blessed in our current lives, and our lives growing up. And, we'll see how long we can keep up this "genius" charade. Me thinks it's slipping already as the years tick by with this one. He's getting so teenager-ey.

Addie's class held a Greek Mythology Wax Museum, and Addie was Pandora. Such a giggly Pandora. Also, 6th graders in a large group smell like farts, FYI.

Helped some of the fun neighbors lay their sod 2 days after Thanksgiving. That hill was a real treat, so we all formed a bucket brigade, which worked much better.

Thanksgiving breakfast with cousins Wyatt and Levi who slept over. 

Then, we were in charge of mashed potatoes for the big dinner. 15 lbs this year. 

Thanksgiving was great fun, but we lost the garden gnome competition. AGAIN.