3 hours

As you walk into my house, you face the great room. Kitchen, dining room, and living room all in one. Space wise, this is awesome. But it also means that you see everything in one fell swoop. While I was morning sick (which, yes, to all your snarky folk, does last all day long) the whole thing fell apart. But on one particularly good day (in which I thought I had lost the baby because I felt so awesome), I decided to tackle the mess and time myself. Not only did I clean and organize, I also dusted, swept, and mopped. Even under the couches. The whole thing took me 3 hours.

Now I just need to decide if 3 hours is impressive or excessive. Am I really fast, or really slow?

Navidad, Natal, and Noel

After several days of road tripping/National Parks visits, we ended up in grand ole Winslow, Arizona for Christmas. (My poor, poor husband. I was talking to the receptionist at my midwife clinic and told her our Christmas plans and she commented, "Oh, you guys must love road trips!" "Well," I replied, "I love road trips. He just likes to keep me happy." See, Sam? I know the truth. And I appreciate your cooperation.) ANYWAY, Christmas.

The kids got slippers Christmas Eve. Sam made one authentic shepherd. We hung out with Grandpa Hancock. After envying our awesome Oakleys, the kids got their own Disney sunglasses in their stockings. And here's the rest of the loot:

On a complete side note, what exactly is the new old-fashioned way? Have any of you ever really had chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Has anyone ever tried, or liked, figgy pudding? Do you ever celebrate Christmas by telling scary ghost stories? And really, have you ever gone a wassailing?

Catsup

What we did with our leftover Halloween candy...

After watching The Santa Clause, and previously knowing the truth about Santa...
Seara: Mom, do you believe in Santa Claus?
Me: No.
Seara: Well, I do.

On that note, it's a good thing Seara isn't Santa, since she wrote her own nice and naughty list...
Nice List
Elijah
Sam
Me (meaning Seara)
Janae
Grama B.
Grama K.
Grama (my mom)
Grampa Matt
Grampa (my dad)
Nody List
Enoch

BYU Football game. Everyone else froze. But we were wearing pjs, then clothes, then snow bibs. Two socks, two gloves, two hats. Plus blankets. I don't do cold.

While trying to plan my very busy day aloud...
Elijah: [watching me funny] Dad's not here.
Me: [ignore him and keep muttering]
Elijah: You're not talking to us, are you?
Me: No, I'm talking to myself.
Elijah: Then maybe you should talk in your head.
(This was especially funny because none of my kids talk to themselves, so I've never told anyone not to do it.)

And on that note, Elijah celebrated his 5th birthday in November. My kids have cumulatively celebrated 14 birthdays, and I still haven't thrown a friends party. I'm lame like that.

Last, but definitely not least, this guy went into the MTC at 1:30 pm today. He's serving his mission in Madagascar (Malagasy speaking). We're super excited for him, but super sad for us! Gonna miss you tons, Liam!!

Read Carefully

This is our Christmas postcard for 2011...

Surprise! After desperately wanting a baby for two plus years, I'm finally getting my wish! Hallelujah!

Christmas Movie 2011

I dropped our Christmas cards off at the post office at 4:00 pm Monday night, thinking they wouldn't be delivered til Wednesday. But yesterday at 1:00 pm, I got a call from a friend who had already gotten it. Less than 24 hours! Post office people, what on earth are you up to?! Well that, of course, meant that I was going to have to finish our Christmas movie earlier than I anticipated (because I had put a note about it on the card). So I stayed up til 2:30 this morning finishing it. Here you go. You better enjoy it. :) Curse you, aqua scum post office.

If you can't see the movie, CLICK HERE to watch it.

ps. If you have already received our postcard, please wait to comment on it. I'll post the card itself on the blog in a couple days.

Statistically Speaking

Beach in San Clemente

 Sam doesn't speed. He's righteous like that. I, on the other hand, repent daily. And get places faster. When we're late, I insist on driving. The only times I drive 65 mph on the freeway are when I'm listening to General Conference cds. It would just be plain evil to speed while listening to a prophet, you know?

The thing is, Sam has a bad track record.  He's only really sped one time: in the middle of nowhere, 100 miles from the nearest city, at 1:30 am. We weren't sleepy yet, but we were gonna be driving til 4:00 am, so I convinced him that it would be better to get there faster and thus have less sleepy time on the road. So he went 85 mph in a 65 mph zone.  And he got a ticket.

Sorry, babe.

(Parenthetically, that lucky cop also got to watch both my boys tinkle in his headlights.)

Hence Sam insists that statistically, it's better not to speed. But au contraire mon cheri, you are mistaken.  Your stats are bad.  See, I've sped practically every single day since I got my driver's license.  So that's about 4750 times.  And I've only ever gotten one speeding ticket, as well.  See? You're 1:1, and I'm 4750:1.

So statistically, it's better to speed all the time.