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.

Road Trips, Rodeos, and Reminiscing

When I finally pulled together my footage from July to September, I had well over two hours. TWO HOURS! Let me tell you, paring that down to four minutes took me forever. But here you have it! Observations I made while editing:

1) I am in this round's movie way more than I ever have been before.
2) My voice sounds higher on camera than it does in my head.
3) Sam thinks I am attractive when I look really pathetic.
4) Rodeo falls are much more entertaining than rodeo successes.
5) The kids obviously get their dancing skills from me. Have I mentioned my dance talent before? Oh yeah, I have. All the time.
6) WOA! Sam's beard used to be huge! I knew he cut 4" off, but I don't think I quite appreciated the difference until I saw some of these clips. He says it's a really nice scarf now that things are getting chilly.

You saw it here first!

I always think it's dumb when news reporter say, "You saw it here first!" Because if they really are the first ones with the story, obviously I'm seeing it here first. Thank you for pointing out the obvious. On that note, I have a quick vid that you will definitely see here first. Hopefully you will only see it here, because I would feel really dumb if it somehow leaked.

When Sam got home from his very first shoot, I asked him what the other actors were like. Among all his stories, I got two random details.

1) The actor playing Matthew does a killer Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2) The actor playing Jesus is a trampoline jumper. Apparently that's a thing.

I later got proof of both. Here you go! Hopefully seeing these guys like this doesn't ruin the movie for ya (whenever it comes out).

Stream of Consciousness

I feel like I need to blog, but I have nothing to say. So I compiled a list of short drafts that I had in blogger, and voila! a stream of consciousness post.
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Occasionally when I leave phone messages for people I don't know, they hesitate to call back because they think I'm crank calling them. Apparently Janae Ricks sounds a lot like "generics" and my phone number includes the sequence "01234x678." So I come across as a phony. No pun intended.
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This last summer a builder here in Utah built an exact replica of the house from the movie Up! I wanted to buy it. Desperately.

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When I was pregnant with Seara I craved and drank pickle juice and soy sauce. True story. I think I must have been sodium deficient. At least I didn't lick walls like giraffes do.
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First day in the first grade. Anyone else singing the song from the Veggie Tales Jonah movie?

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Sam and I don't argue. Ever. But not for my lack of trying. I come from a verbal family, where nearly every emotion is stated and all opinions/disagreements/frustrations must be hashed out. I never feel anything I don't say, at least to Sam. He, on the other hand, comes from a really quiet family who never really talk about, well, anything when it comes to what they think or how they feel. And to top it off, he's a peacemaker. Hence we don't argue. But man, if I was married to anyone else on earth, we'd surely have it out at least once a month!
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Seara finally lost her first tooth this last summer. After she lost the second, she wrote this letter to her kindergarten teacher:

Der Ms. Hokinson
I lost 2 teeth. Plez mark 2 lins on the wigte tuth that sez my naime.
Love Seara

Apparently she thinks the teacher still has the blank tooth up marking how many teeth Seara lost during Kindergarten. So cute!
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I have no clue what or where this is. My kids on a moose?!

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Did you know that I had never heard of the last name Ricks until I met Sam? Really, I hadn't. Oh, I had heard of Ricks College up in Idaho. But it was Rick's College, see. First name, not last. Yes, I really am that smart.

Worst Days of my Childhood

Barring personal tragedy, I would venture to say that most of us had pretty idyllic childhoods. Most of our really tough trials probably didn't come until we were older.  That said, I can still recall with vivid clarity the worst days of my childhood. Like the day I was put on public display to graduate from Primary, or when my mom told my dad I had finally become a 'woman' (kill me now), or when I *spoiler alert* found out Santa was not real. (Although that last one cleared up a lot of confusion about Santa's connection with Jesus--I could never figure out whether he was an apostle or prophet, and I could only assume he was given the same living forever thing like John, but did that mean that John gave out gifts too? Yes, I was entirely too old when I found out the truth about Santa.)

Well, I would like to add yet another worst day to that list: the day that I realized that David and Goliath was the same guy as David and Bathsheba. Why do they never tell you that lion/bear/giant-killing hero boy also had at least 8 wives, 10 concubines, was a cheater, and a murderer?!

Yeah, that was a bad day.

my handwriting

All Hallows' Eve

Sam had to work tonight (lame), so he ran home (literally), put on the kids' facepaint, and then ran back (also literally) to teach his class. There are some major perks to living two minutes (literally) away from his work.

So, presenting our kids in their 2011 glory! We have a cat, a skeleton, and a genie. None of which I ever was. But Liam was the cat, Trenton was the skeleton, and Lissa was the genie. Thanks, mom, for having an awesome costume closet so that I don't have to ever buy costumes. And sorry, kids, that we don't own a single costume because we always borrow grandma's.

And, of course, here we are. My sister has crazy cool Halloween parties every year, and this year's theme was decades. With this hair and beard, how could we not be the 70s?!

Peace, man.

Quotable Quotes

Since we moved to Draper six months ago I haven't been so hot at writing down the funny things my kids have said. But a couple weeks ago I ran across some random scraps with these quotes, so here you go. Six months in one [very small] wallop.

Right after he woke up one morning...
Enoch: I had a dream that I had to go peepee, and then the peepee comed out in my undies.

During the dinner prayer that he was offering...
Elijah: Thank you for all the sickness in the world that we share with each other.

Complaining about sitting by Enoch in the car because he wipes spit ('yuck') on them...
Seara and Elijah: But Mom! He has the power of yuck!

Waking up completely distressed in the middle of the night...
Me: Seara, what's wrong?
Seara: What is a fedora?!

Trying to compliment me...
Seara: You are the biggest mom in the whole world, and you have the largest arms, and the biggest hands!

Trying to get Seara ready for bed...
Me: Come brush your teeth, Seara.
Seara: But I'm pregnant!
Me: Seara, brush you teeth.
Seara: [incredulously] I have to brush my teeth even when I'm pregnant?!

Driving home from school...
Seara: Mom, did God have to touch fire to create the sun?
Me: No, I think he just made it with his words.
Seara: He can make things with his words?!  That is awesome! [pause] I wish I were God's wife so I could make things with my words, too.

 

How old do you think I look in this picture? I'm thinking 17. That's what I looked like at 17. It was taken last month.

The show must go on!

Well, my friendly friends, I have news. See this fellow? He got a haircut. And a beardcut. And this is what it looks like. It's not a great picture, but I have to tell you, he came home from work that day, and the very first thing out of my mouth was, "Oh my gosh, you are gorgeous! Can I take a picture of you??" Flame is stronger than ever with this manliness going on.

So you say to yourself, "Beardcut? It is super long!" Well, actually, it is missing three inches. CUZ GUESS WHAT?! The first presidency saw what they filmed so far, and loved it so much that they decided not to release it quite yet. And now they have approved another eight weeks of filming - this time mostly with just with Jesus and the apostles. There's talk that instead of shorts, this may be made into a full-length feature. Don't know that it's true, but that's the gossip. So, Sam basically cut off enough to grow it all back by April, and this coming spring it's back to filming!

The show must go on!


ps. Did you know that babies love the beard? I seriously thought kids in general, but babies in particular, would be afraid of Sam because of his beard. I was HUGELY mistaken. They love it. Kids in general. Babies in particular. Honestly, though, Jesus and Santa both have beards, so what's not to love?

Ratted Out - TWEET!

When Twitter came out in 2006, the whole thing seemed absurd to me. Mass text messages? Seriously?  That's the next big thing?!  LAME. Sam joined three years ago and he liked it, but I still didn't get hype. Then suddenly this year I started hearing about huge announcements made via Twitter: Newt running for president, German election results, Will and Kate engagement, Lance Armstrong retirement, Ecuador state of emergency due to a coup attempt, and more. Enough was enough! The only way I was going to figure out why people loved Twitter was diving in head first.

So two months ago, I joined Twitter. For those two months I tweeted to a huge void. No one read, that's how I liked it. And guess what?!  I kinda loved it. A lot. I have no idea why, but I did. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end: this week I was ratted out. Two people found me and started following. (You know who you are, Jodi and Sarah. :) My secret was out.

I make no guarantees for how often I'll tweet or how interesting I'll be, but if you're on Twitter, let me know. I'm @theSAMAEshow.

Cinderella makes them look so cute.

I have a darling little kitchen, but it doesn't have much storage space. So in an effort to use every corner, I keep my hot pads and kitchen towels in that lower oven drawer. Thus it was that at 11:00 at night a couple months ago, I entered a very dark kitchen and opened that drawer to put some neatly folded towels in. Sam and I were just finishing up our 'date night,' which typically involves a movie and laundry folding, and I wanted to get everything put away.

As I opened the drawer I saw something move. Suddenly a brown mouse scurried over my towels and ran to the back of the drawer! I just about died of a heart attack. I screamed for Sam, and he ran over to formulate a plan of attack. "Maybe we could pick up the drawer and carry it outside, then dump it!" I suggested. "Well, you'll have to get dressed to do that," he quickly replied. Sam stood watch while I threw a robe over my undergarments, pulled my hair back (wouldn't want a mouse to get caught in it!), and slipped on combat boots. I grabbed us two brooms, cocked mine up like a bat, and hesitated. Man I looked awesome.

Suddenly the mouse ran out from the side of the oven (he must have climbed over the back of the drawer), across the kitchen, and in a small hole under the cupboard beneath the sink. And Sam and I? We froze up. We just watched it run across. But how were we supposed to kill it?! It's MAMMAL! It has lungs and hair and blood! I can kill invertebrates, but not mammals! AHHH!

I checked the drawer, found droppings over everything, and threw it all in the washer with a truck-load of bleach. After disinfecting the drawer, we hit the sack. What else could we do? For the next couple days doing the dishes required several "jump around in panic" routines as I felt imaginary swipes against my feet. Three days later, after dismantling the frame under the cupboard and setting up several traps, we caught our mouse. Sucka.

That same day I found a 10" diameter air intake vent with no cover. NO COVER! What were they thinking?! Well that would explain the four dead mice our repair guy found in the unfinished basement ceiling insulation before we moved in. And the dead mouse we found in a trap under one of the cupboards. And the small metal scratching sounds Sam heard two weeks before our current mouse incident.

We've now covered the vent, and we're 100% certain we are completely mouse free. But that should explain why I'm keeping those snakes around. Not sure which I dislike more: snakes outside the house, or mice inside. Here's hoping heaven has neither.

What Would Jesus Eat?

Let's just admit straight up that most of our Family Home Evenings are nothing spectacular. A few of them are even colossal failures. But we keep trying, and I'm really hoping that my efforts pay off in the end. A few weeks ago, though, we had a particularly awesome FHE, and since I worked so hard to put it together, I'm sharing. You're welcome.

Our topic was eating good food - that our bodies are presents from Heavenly Father and we should take good care of them. I did that introduction, we sang a round of "For Health and Strength and Daily Food," then we did a scripture study about foods that Jesus would have eaten. I read the scriptures, and the kids' job was to listen carefully and raise their hands when they heard a food. (Of course I shortened the scriptures, so for example, 1 Corinthians 11:28 reads "But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup." But I'd just read, "Let him eat of that bread.") As we read scriptures, Sam made a list on a large sheet of paper and drew pictures, that way at the end the kids had a visual of everything we talked about.  Here are the scriptures:

I made the activity multi-sensory, so that after reading each scripture the kids could eat bread and grapes, drink milk and water, taste mustard and vinegar, smell garlic and cumin, touch flour and wheat, etc. The kids loved it!  I ended by bearing my testimony and voila! we were done.  Absolutely perfect.