PHOTO SHOOT!!!

A couple of weeks ago I got to take Shelby and Carter out to shoot a few pictures...hoping some would be usable as Senior Pics for Shelby.  I'm not sure yet if they are "the ones" she will choose for her Senior pics but some of them turned out pretty cute!  Course that was a fairly easy accomplishment when I had such cute peeps to photograph! 

Sooo, after viewing the pictures I just know you are all definitely in agreement with my previous statement about such cute peeps!  I really enjoy taking pictures, especially when I get to 'shoot' my most loved peeps in the whole wide world!  I am truly blessed to have such great kids, such a wonderful husband and the loving extended family that I have! 

Happy 21st Birthday Dalton!!

How can time fly by so fast without the least bit of warning???  I can remember the day we welcomed this sweet baby boy into our family like it was yesterday ... and now here we are celebrating his 21st bday.  That just ain't right!

He only lives a little over an hour away but he doesn't make it back home very often--probably because he has a life beside being my son!--but we were blessed to have him home with us the weekend before his big day.  We had yummy cheese cake and key lime pie complete with a, as in 1, candle (multiples would have rendered the pies a bit liquified!).  He was actually pretty easy to please this year.  His only desire was a new phone.  Which, of course, we were able to get for him! 

We are missing two of our children in this traditional birthday picture.   Dustin is in Afghanistan still and Shannon is in Texas.  But we still were able to have a grand time and had a wonderful weekend with our now completely adult in every sense of the word son!

Had to capture a shot of his "most desired" phone.  Dalton is not known to be one that phones last long with so if that proves to be the case once again, we at least have a picture of it for eternities!!!

Every weekend that Dalton comes home causes Cale to be way, way excited!  He absolutely adores Dalton and loves to spend time with him.  Thought a big/little brother picture was appropriate!

Like I said previously, Dalton was pretty easy to "shop" for this year...BUT he didn't end up with any presents to actually open.  So, I put together a number of things that I knew he could use/enjoy and sent it all home with him in a package that he could open only on his actual birthday.  I also stuck in a bag of doggie treats for my granddoggie, Koga!

Like I said at the top of this post...where has the time gone?  My 9 1/2 pound, 23 1/2 inch baby boy has grown  into a 200 pound, 6 ft. 4 in. handsome and independant man in what seems like a blink of my eye.  Dalton, I love you and am so proud of the man you have become.  You have such potential and so many talents to share with this world.  So even tho I am sad to see how fast you have grown up, it gives me goose bumps as I think of all that is still to come for you! 

***Shelby's Salute***

Shelby and two of her color gaurd friends do this salute to signal the beginning of the performance. 

(fingers crossed that it actually posts onto the blog!) 

SHELBY ON TV.....Well kinda!!

Some of the kids at school have come up with a cool idea.  They put on a "show" highlighting things going on at the high school that Shelby and Carter go to.  One of the "shows" they feature an interview that they conducted with Shelby as the drum major for the Crimson Cadets.  She was REALLY nervous and stumbled over a few things but I think she did a pretty darn good job of representing the band!  I have included the link for you in case you want to view it and decide for yourselves!

http://www.youtube.com/cvillehsav

Band and Football is in full swing! LOVE IT!

I apologize for the rather long post but had to catch up on three games and a scrimmage!  As you can see our lives revolving around football and band has begun its yearly three month run!  Just thought I'd ad a few highlight shots of the year so far. 

This was a crowd pleasing catch that Carter caught on the three yard line that set up the first Cardinal score of the night against Oologah.  (A funny side note to this picture--as I was editting my pics after the game was over I started working on this one and a de ja vu moment occured.  I remember when Dalton was a senior and wore #85 he was defended by a guy wearing the same #11 jersey that defended Carter all night!!)

The highlight of every single half time at every single football game we go to is getting to watch our Collinsville Crimson Cadets, led by our beautiful daughter Shelby, perform their show!  They look pretty darn good too!  Last night was the first night they were in their uniforms and it looked even more impressive as a result!

I love it when I walk by the band bleachers during a game cause these kids are always so upbeat and having such a good time!  They love what they do and love helping to get the crowd pumped and excited!

First official, full costume, on the mark salute marking the beginning of the marching band performance.  I just think that Shelby has the perfect form and the perfect look of a drum major!  (No bias there whatsoever!)

This is a shot of one of the featured solos of the performance surrounded by the cute color guard!

Now back to the game!  This is a kinda weird shot I got of three Cardinals tackling this guy.  Carter has his back to the camera and it looks like his head is spun backward...it wasn't tho, I promise!  It was actually the third Cardinals who is on the reverse side of the tackle. 

Carter plays wide receiver, line backer, deep snapper and is on the kick off and kick off return ... which means that he is pretty much out there the entire game.  This is a shot I got of him making his way down the field after a pass reception from the QB.  He is my absolute favorite wide receiver on the team!

Another picture of Shelby doing what she is so very good at!  This was before all the kids got the uniforms so they had to perform a couple of games in the Echos reflected tee shirts. 

Look close and you can see the football hanging in the air between the QB and Carter.  Carter did make this catch and got a few extra yards afterwards.

Here Carter is playing linebacker and managed to get this openfield tackle.  And the added bonus was that he did it on the side of the field that I was taking pictures!  He has so many good plays but most of them seem to be on the other side of the field so the pictures I get are either too dark or blurry so it makes me happy when he obliges me with good photo ops!

Two of three senior band girls this year.....Sweet Shelbi & Shelby!  I love these two girls!

Carter and his teammate TJ combine strength to push this Mannford opponent back on this play.

Ok this is quite a story here.  This little "baby" became a weekend member of our household the weekend of the first football game.  Shelby named him Jackson....I nicknamed him Goober...and Lee nicknamed him Morti (for rigamortis!).  He was to be properly cared for from Friday through Monday morning which meant that a baby sitter would be needed during the band stuff at the football game.  Well, I am on the field taking pics the whole game and Lee is in the stand watching closely to get proper stats for the newspaper so that left only Shelby's best friend, Sydney, to care for this sweet little plastic baby doll that could have shattered windows with his eardrum breaking screams!  Poor Syd had her hands full!  Goober spent the whole weekend with us...Shelby learned that babies are kind of a pain in the butt...and that she really loves her sleep!  Poor Shelby was afraid to even go into the chapel at church on Sunday fearing Goober would out scream all the seasoned screamers in church so she sat in the foyer during the entire sacrament meeting.  Goober didn't utter a peep....then she went to Sunday school and Young Womens and he was either crying or needing fed the entire time!! Welcome to "motherhood" Shelby!

\

Carter was obliging this day for me as well!  He made a beautiful catch RIGHT in front of me and even ended up taking it into the endzone for a TD!

Another great Rasmussen catch!

This was on the other side of the field so I didn't get a good picture of him running this TD in but I did get this great shot of his excitement after the fact! 

And this last picture is of an annual "Meet The Cards" event where each player and cheerleader is introduced individually.  They each get to run through the tunnel as their name is being announced and then all line up around the 50 for a group picture. 

WOOT!  I'm caught up once again!  Well kinda....I have a few pics of Cale I need to add and will do that next time.  Hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather cause I sure am! 

ITS BEEN WAY TOOOO LONG!!

First day of school this year was different for us....all three kids had to be at school at such different times that they weren't all awake at the same time to get a group pictures.  Shelby had to be up way early...Cale at regular time...and Carter didn't have to go till 11:30.

Sweet, Sassy Senior Shelby!

My BIG 4th grader...CALE!

And here is my cute and confident Junior, Carter!

Media day was the first Saturday afer school started so I was able to get some cute pictures of my kiddos!  Shelby will be serving as the drum major again this year and Carter will be playing football in the traditional Rasmussen "85" jersey.

What a tough looking football player!

After the pictures were finished, the players got to have a short scrimmage.  Carter made a sweet catch up the middle.

This is Shelby with one of her best buds...Shebi.

For some of the pictures, they brought in these totally awesome cars and so we snuck in to snap a few pictures while there was a void!  This is four of the senior band members...Shelby included.

Another shot I got of three beautiful band nerds! 

I hope that I will be able to make the time to update my blog more regularly. I feft I had missed so many blog posts that I MUST somehow make them up....Now I am realizing that is just not gonna be possible.  So hopefully I can just keep on top of the current Rasmussen News for you all! 

I am looking forward to this school year.  Shelby as a Senior and Carter as a Junior is still something that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around.  My babies are getting so big!  And they are growing up into such amazing people!  I love them so very much...and very proud of them and the good choice they are making and consider myself extremely blessed to have the family that I do. 

Proud WOO HOO Moments of a Momma!

  Just in case you didn't get it out of the title of this post....This is gonna be a bit of a braggin' kind of post!!! I have some pretty talented kids, (I take full credit for them when they do these kind of things!), and I have to document for future reference these major achievements.  (This documentation purpose is two-fold-- 1: to preserve for all posterity the amazing achievements that this generation of Rasmussen's conquered & 2:to serve as a gentle reminder of good that Lee and I might reflect back on if &/or when this same Rasmussen generation might make some of those typical-teenage-genius-decisions!)

Now let the braggin' begin!!

Last Saturday, October 16, 2010, the Collinsville Crimson Cadets headed to Stillwater, Oklahoma to compete in the annual Oklahoma Bandmasters Association (OBA) 2010 Marching Band Championship.  This is like THE big event during marching band season. It was a pretty long day for the band kids, the awesome booster club parents/volunteers and of course the band directors.  This year our school moved up a class from 4A to 5A and as a result, there was a bit of apprenhension with not knowing how well they would do against the bigger schools.

Here is a picture taken during their preliminary performance.  The show is called "ZEN" and has an oriental theme to it.  Shelby has the honor and privilege of  serving as the drum major this year and so to keep with the theme, she and the color guard wear chop stick in their hair.  

 This is a scene from the show where they gather into the middle of the field. 

 The above picture is after the drumline puts on this amazing performance (on the left side of the picture) and at the end of this part Shelby and all of them end it with their hands up.  It is so very cool and my favorite part of the show.

 At the very end of the performance, Shelby turns to the judges/crowd and bows....a great tie in with the theme!

 Collinsville was fortunate to pull the 21st performance time out of 22 so only had to wait for one more band to show their stuff before the awards presentation and the announcement of which bands would be going home and which would be staying for finals.  For the awards presentation all the drum majors come out on the field and if & when their bands names are called out for an award they then step forward, do their individual and unique "salute" and then accept the award.  Out of all the class 5A bands there, Collinsville secured the 3rd place honor!  That means they placed 3rd in the state of Oklahoma for class 5A bands.  So much for being worried about how they would do up against bigger schools huh?!?! 

 After Shelby did her "salute" she stepped forward and gladly accepted the trophy for the band! After the top three bands from 4A and 5A were announced the top twelve qualifying bands were announced. And yes, Collinsville made it to finals!  

I will spare you most of the details .... here are just a few: they found out they scored in the top 6 bands :-), they found out their finals performance would be 11th out of 12, they also found out they would be performing in between the two first class finishers :-(

After their final performance, (which I took 0 pictures of cause I really had to just wanted to watch it completely and take it all in!), they only had a few minutes to wait for the final assembly. 

 This pictures shows Shelby as she leads in her band for the final assembly/awards presentation.  They call it Massing of the Bands and it is a pretty cool thing to watch. The announcer starts with 12th place and makes his way up to first.  With the calling of each band and not hearing Collinsville, I got giddier and giddier!! You would have thought that I was one of those who performed for this award!! Anyway, when they announced 4th place belonging to Collinsville we were all just so happy!  That is the highest the band has placed since Shelby has been in it....8th grade I believe.  Shelby got the honor of accepting yet another trophy for the band and each member of the band also received a medal for their 3rd place State finishing!

 Consider this the "After Party" pictures!  Above is a picture of Shelby and her best friend, Sydney.  If you look close at the picture you will see a purple bandaid on Syd's upper sleeve......you see, she is a band aide for the Collinsville band!! She is so funny!  And I have to say that she does a wonderful job taking care of all the little extras that people don't even think about unless you are involved with bands!  Love you Syd!

And this is a picture of the very proud and extremely happy Drum Major!  I am so very proud of her and all the Crimson Cadets for the committment and focus.  They put in more hours than most people would ever imagine and work so hard on memorizing music and learning each step of their performance.  They start their practices before school ever starts--spending countless hours out in the heat working on getting things just right, they are at the football games maintaining the crowd spirit throughout the game, they give up their Saturdays to travel to and compete at different places, every Tuesday evening since school has started has been sacrificed to spend even more hours perfecting their show.  These kids (& their directors) are some pretty tough and amazing kids! And my daughter is one of them!  I just love this young lady so much!

SECOND BRAGGIN' SESSION!

Carter is just a sophomore this year so we have been extremely surprised and excited to see how much varsity football this young man has earned the right to play!  This evening just happened to be the last JV game of the season and Carter was allowed to play in it.  (When he starts Varsity, they usually don't let them play JV).  He had a pretty darn good game too.  

Ok....here is where I have to forewarn you.  My dear husband is out of state working this week so had the misfortune of missing this amazing game our son played.  I kept him updated through text messaging most of the game.....Thank goodness for modern technology!...but also promised him I would post ALL the pictures I could of Carter onto my blog so he could log on and have the next best thing to being there kinda moment! SOOOO that is what I am doing.  If you think there are too many pictures, or that some of them maybe aren't blog worthy because they are grainy or blurry, let me just say "oh well"!  My husband just has to see these!

What a beautifully thrown pass..Huh?  And look at that pocket he is making with his hands.  Yes, Dad, he was listening and it was registering!! Well done both of you!

This has to be the highlight of the game!  Carter caught this pass on the 4 or 5 yard line, broke through 3 defenders and made it into the endzone for the first of three Cardinal touchdowns!  He was almost as excited about it as I was!!

 Carter is a very talented football player and can play very effectively both sides of the ball.  Here he is on defense chasing down a Claremore Zebra!  I like to think he gets his athletic ability from his mother!

Not the best picture but, (see above for clarification on why this picture is included!) behind those two white jerseys in the middle of the picture you can see Carter in there making a great sack that resulted in a fumble. 

A great/bad picture combined.  This is a pass that Carter caught and hauled in at the two yard line (Great part of it).  It was thrown with only 2 seconds left in the half.  He got to the 1 yard line and was shoved out of bounds just as the buzzer sounded. (Obviously the bad part of it).  But look at him drawing that ball in after making the catch.  He definitely knows what he is doing as a  receiver!

Sorry...this is another must see for Dad.  Back behind all the players you can see someone on the ground.  That is Carter.  One of his teammates pressured the QB so bad that the QB made a bad toss to this unfortunate chap whom Carter proceeded to knock the tar out of ... all behind the line of scrimmage I might add!  Pretty awesome to watch!

Ok...another one.  In this group of football players you will find my Carter.  This was a sack that he got.  If you look close you will see him in between 64 (in white jersey) and 45 (in red jersey) Carter is closer to #45 and has the QB and is forcing  him down.  Another pretty awesomely amazing thing to watch!

This is his touchdown catch before he made it into the end

zone.  Perfect form and focus as he brought the ball in!

He had quite a few passes thrown his way tonight.  Unfortunately not all of them were catchable.  This is a shot of him stretching out as far as he could in hopes of getting the ball. 

 With the end of this game comes the end of his JV career.  I can't believe that he is going to be an upperclassman next football season.  How in the world does that keep happening to my kids??!!  He is a great young man who is a lot of fun to be around and has so very much talent!  I must echo my sentiments from earlier in my post....I just love this young man so much!!