Happy Birthday, Grandpa Ricks!

We wish we could be with THIS magnificent bunch as many of them gather in love around your grave this weekend. Hopefully it will be warmer there than it was the last time we saw it...

We miss you.

But we will remember you like this:

like this:

like this:

and look forward to the day when we can meet up with you again and we'll all feel something like this:

We are so glad you were born. We love you!

Priceless.

This is what Ethan said this morning, while looking at a picture of "Aunt Lindsay." (She is wearing a formal dress with tennis shoes on the day of state cross country, and it's snowing outside.)

"What I would do, when she gets back to living and not died ever again...I would just hug her or something."

me: "I'm going to hug her too, Ethan. :)


Since Kyle's Dad passed away, we have had lots of opportunites to talk with Ethan about the reality of the resurrection. I love the way he words things like "when we get done being died we will get our bodies back" and one time he even asked me, "how did Aunt Lindsay get her body off?" It has been so comforting to hear him talk about our loved ones like it will be just a short time until we see them again. Even ones he has never actually met. Faith like a child...


He also said this morning:
"I love Aunt Lindsay. And I wish everyone that was died could just come back alive right now."

me: "Me too, buddy. Me too."

My 75 point turn. And no, I don't think I'm exaggerating.

Well, we all have our comfort zones. I'd like to think mine is fairly large...

You want me to sing in front of a thousand people?
Sounds fun.

How about emceeing a large event?
Cool, I'm in.

Open up to people I may not know super well?
Yeah, I can handle that.

Give myself injections?
Bring it on.

Come in and teach class at the last second with no preparation?
Sure.



And yet, there are a few things, that, of course, fall OUTSIDE the line of my comfort zone.

Do any kind of maneuvering in a car that involves driving in reverse?
Um, I think I'd rather...well, I'd rather do just about ANYTHING.


I have struggled with driving backwards from day 1. I have backed into a friend's car in my cul-de-sac, I have backed into my OWN car while driving the Yukon of the family I nannied for (Yeah, THAT was the best day of my life), and I have backed into my neighbor's car just a few days after having my second baby. (At least I SORT OF have an excuse for that one.)
My husband, (who grew up driving potato trucks on the farm and could probably drive backwards on a freeway with his eyes closed) has tried to coach me. We've done obstacle courses in parking lots, we've had practice sessions backing out, and verbal explanations. I once thought I was a relatively intelligent person, but I think if my life depended on being able to parallel park I would literally DIE.

So today I went to a doctor's appointment and headed into the parking garage. "8 dollars? For the first HOUR? Are you kidding me? My info sheet said there was a place to park for 2 bucks." SO I rolled down the window and asked the lady in the booth if there was another place to park to go to the hospital. She explained where.

"Can I just do a U-turn here and exit, then?
"Yeah, sure, go ahead."

And then, I proceeded to make a complete fool out of myself and try the patience of at least10 other drivers. It was a really really tight squeeze to flip from the entrance around to the exit and I was embarassed that the lady in the car behind me would have to wait while I made my 5+ point turn. And then it turned into 10 point, and then 15, and then 20. Seriously, the lady got out of the booth and was trying to help me back up and then go forward and then back up and then go forward and pretty soon there were 5 cars behind me trying to get out and 5 cars waiting to get in, and I was blocking every single one of them. I was sandwiched between a yellow pole in the back and the curb on the other side and I could only move in one inch increments or I would have hit something. I was about ready to get out of the car and hold my keys up and just scream, "CAN ONE OF YOU WHO HATES ME RIGHT NOW PLEASE JUST COME DO THIS FOR ME???????"

Ugh.

So that's that.


But, once inside the hospital, I got hooked up to a Continuous Glucose Monitoring system that I get to wear for a week. My insulin pump gets injected right under my skin, and this sensor does the same thing, in addition to the pump. The sensor is basically a wire, painted with an enzyme that reacts with the glucose in my blood. From this reaction, it records my blood sugar every 5 minutes--and after a week, I will go back to the Diabetes center and they will download the results, match them with the record I've kept of everything I eat and when, and hopefully we will end up with some helpful information on how to get things under better control. So that's worth total embarassment in a parking garage, right?

But in a week when I go back, that valet parking is looking pretty tempting.... :)

Do Not Bleach

Okay, so the other day in the shower I looked at my completely white washcloth and read the tag--"No usar cloro." What? Do not bleach? I must have read that wrong. In English: Do not bleach. Seriously? If I can't bleach a white washcloth, what CAN I bleach? Isn't that the point of buying white washcloths--so you can bleach them and get them clean?

Whatever.


Okay, here are some of Ethan's greatest quotes lately:

[playing with a friend outside, and the friend suggested that he buy a new truck since the battery on his is dead. ]"I dont WANT to buy that because we don't have any money. I have to wait until my daddy gets a job."

[Randomly, in the middle of dinner, he gets up out of his chair and lies down on the ground, not moving.] "Daddy, stagnant means this."

We have, as my mom did, a "Mad Bag." If toys don't get picked up, they get put into this garbage bag with a grouchy face on it. Today, after several toys were placed in there, Ethan said, "Turn the Mad Bag upside-down so it won't have a sad face. Then we can get the toys out."

We asked spiderman to tell Ethan to come for Family Home Evening. When he came back (without the mask and cape) he said, "I put on my Ethan stuff."

Me: Ethan, when we get home, we need to do our Monday chores! I need someone who can help me empty the garbage and fold lots of laundry!
Ethan: "Oh! I know how to do that! But first, I will need to put on my Dash costume so we can really work."

Oh, and just for the record, he can now differentiate between daydreams, dreams, and memories. That's complicated stuff for a 4-year old, huh?

Well, if you're reading this then I think you're great! Have a swell day.

Howdy Partner

I love my cowboys. :) This one is a little wobbly, but it's a little tough to walk with a hat covering your face.

The truth about a rainy Monday

I wonder why, as I drove home from Target, yesterday, there were voices in my head saying, "you didn't do anything today. You just cleaned, folded a bunch of laundry, and took care of kids. Your day was pretty much worthless. And hard."
Where does that garbage even come from?

Here's what I say to those voices in my head. Today was an AMAZING day.


I woke up, and stuck some little things in my ears attached to a machine the size of a cracker that let me listen to anything I wanted to, while my kids were asleep.
I dumped all my dirty clothes and some soap in this awesome contraption that swishes them around and washes them for you.
I have two really cool devices where you deposit all your human waste and then you just push down a lever and all the yucky stuff gets magically taken off to a sewage plant, and you don't ever have to deal with it again. After I cleaned those, I turned a knob and stood under clean, hot water, for about 10 minutes.
I transferred my clothes into another machine that dries them. Yeah, I know. 5 minutes of effort and you get clean clothes! All I had to do was fold them and put them away.
I used a machine that sucked up all the dirt and hair and gucky stuff from my floor. I hooked it up to a hole in the wall, turned on a switch, and basically stood there while it cleaned off my carpet.
I unloaded my dishes from the large box that washed them for me the night before.

I carried on conversations with a living, breathing, running, laughing boy who, 5 years ago was inside my uterus, the size of a pickle.
I danced with said 4 year-old, in his cowboy hat and winter boots, after we "gallopped on off too the ball."
There was a lot of laundry at the ball that needed to be folded, so we took dance breaks to do that too.
I watched my other living, breathing, wobbling, laughing boy learn how to make a fish face.

Outside, it rained and rained. And I, completely insulated in my little apartment, stayed 100% dry and warm.

I pressed a button and carried on a conversation with my mom. She lives several hundred miles away.

I went outside and got in a transport pod that can make a trip that used to take days take minutes. I have no idea how it works. I just stick my key in a push a pedal down with my foot and I can go just about anywhere I want to.

I went into a building that has furniture, home decorations, clothes, office supplies, hardware, and fresh food right there on the shelves for the taking. I swiped a little card through a machine and wrote my name and then took home everything that was in my cart.

On the way home, my boys and I listened to cowboy songs that someone sang into a microphone and then converted onto a disc a few millimeters thick. I push a button and I can hear the exact performance they gave in that little room where it was recorded. (okay, the enhanced, produced, version).

I got home and ate lettuce, avocado, tomato, chicken, olives, cheese and sour cream. I did not plant one seed, harvest one plant, raise/kill/skin/prepare any animal, or millk one cow. I just cut up the ingredients and had a feast.

I got to hug a little boy after he said, "I'm sorry, mommy," and see the light in his eyes when I said, "I forgive you."

And right now, I am moving my fingers around on a strip with letters on it, and looking up at a screen that turns it into words, and in a second I am going to push a button that will make those words available for anyone who wants to, to read them.


And, that's the truth about my rainy Monday.
Miracles have not ceased... but so many days I am blind...

Ethan's Slide Show

Hey guys, this is Ethan. Mom missed posting some pretty important stuff--like my spiderman birthday party, for example. So, this is me and one of my friends shooting our wrist webs.

Jake really liked our red cupcakes with blue frosting. We got to put on our own

spiderweb with white frosting and stick a spider on them!





Spiderman spun a web the night before my birthday party. It was pretty sticky!

It was a fun day!

On my actual birthday, I got to go on a treasure hunt for clues that led me to...

... my awesome new bike. I ride so fast now on a two-wheeler that mom can barely keep up with me even if she's on rollerblades. I am faster than a speeding bullet. That's why my bike has flames on it.

This is just a fun day we had in preschool where we talked about keeping our teeth healthy.

We even got to touch a model of some teeth. It's cool when you're Dad is in Dental School.

We also talked about how P is for preschool, pajamas, and PANCAKES!!!

I am becoming a pretty good picture taker, too. Mom says I need to learn how to not cut the tops of people's heads off, but I think she's too picky.

One more cool thing we did was to go see the REAL Super Why when he came to the zoo! It was awesome.

And, I was a pretty mischievous little leprechaun on St. Patrick's Day...

And Jake was too...

Alright, everybody, I've got lots of work to help Dad with, so I better go, but I just thought I would fill you in on some of the highlights of what we've been up to lately. Oh, and we don't have pictures of this, but I gave my first talk in primary and I also bore my testimony in sacrament meeting. It was fun!

Well, see you later!

Letters to Heaven #4: Kite Flying

Dear God,

I loved taking Ethan and Jake to fly a kite yesterday. I was thinking of You as we just soaked in the fresh air and the open space and the green grass and the dirt. (Jake, especially, was appreciating the dirt.) My two boys running, and smiling, and the wind in my face...and I felt joy. So thanks for that.

What made me think of You the most, though, was what I learned from teaching Ethan how to fly a kite.

[Ethan holding the string, me holding the airplaine kite, ready to launch]
"Okay, Ethan! Now face the wind! Yep, you gotta go right into the wind, okay?"

Alright...ready, set, RUN!!!! RUN!!!!!!"

As I watched him run right into the wind, and watched the kite launch into the air, (and clapped and screamed 'good job!' ) I smiled and thought about some of the biggest winds I've had, and how I've felt when You've told me to face them head on and run forward. It was neat to watch Ethan learn how to let the string out, and see that as he learned how to fly the kite, he could make the string longer and longer and fly higher and higher. I thought about only really having one more year before he goes to school and felt the bittersweet tug that Ethan's emotional string to me is getting longer as he learns to do so many things on his own, and that from here on out, we will just keep letting out more and more string, and watch him fly...


Thanks for teaching me to trust, face the wind, listen, and fly. Thanks for picking up my kite when it comes crashing down and throwing it back up into the sky and telling me to run. And yes, thanks even for the big winds...

Love Em

I used to hate cleaning bathrooms.

And then, I got an ipod. My life is changed forever. And my bathrooms, too. :)


Remeber the days of loathing my bathrooms?



Well, after some research, interviewing, brainstorming, and experimenting, I would like to announce that on Sunday night, as I planned and thought about cleaning my bathrooms, I got excited. Yep, it happened.

So here are a few of the problems that my ipod as indirectly helped me find partial solutions to.


The problems:
1. Housework nags at me. When I walk around the house, the floors say, "I'm gross! Vacuum me!' And the dirty clothes say, "I'm dirty! Wash me!" And the clutter says, "Organize me! What's your problem, lady?!"
I feel guilty if everything isn't clean, yet I also feel guilty for whatever I put off (like my kids!) in order to clean everything. Yeah, I know. I have issues.
2. Not only do I not like to ignore my kids while I clean, I also don't like to mop the floor and then 2 seconds later have 2o little toys strewn all over it. Is it really worth cleaning your house if it's going to make you frustrated at all the little hands that sabotage your work?
3. I overanalyze just about everything to the point of complete dizziness, and I constantly wonder if the who's how's what's and when's I chose during my day were the best or if I could have chosen better. My (unrealistic) expecation is that I will somehow magically accomplish everything, and when I don't, I look at whatever I didn't do and let it tell me that what I DID wasn't enough.
4. When I listen to music, I get involved. Words or not, I can't do music as background because I am anazlying the chords and the structure of the song and anticipating what will come next. I find myself rarely putting music on, because the unwelcome interruptions of 2 charming boys make me so frustrated that it's not really worth it.
Okay, enough psychoananlysis.

Here's the point:
I have decided to do all my major housework on one day, Monday. That's right. Laundry, bathrooms, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, dusting, garbage, cleaning out the frigde, grocery store, everything. I've been doing this for 3 weeks, and already I feel such a liberation from guilt. On Monday, I don't have to feel guilty for putting housework first, because all the other days it will be at the bottom of the totem pole. And on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I don't have to feel guilty for not doing laundry, because it will get taken care of on Monday. It's great. So, I have convinced my nocturnal self that it is worth getting up super early one day a week to get a head start on cleaning, so that what I do won't instantly be undone--and, now that I have an ipod, I can crank up the music and enjoy it, uninterrupted! The other day I downloaded some scripture discussions from BYU religion professors and I listened to one of those while cleaning as well. Totally awesome. So, we'll see how this goes. So far so good, though I was totally exhausted by the end of the day yesterday.

Okay, this post is getting long, but here are 3 little practical bathroom cleaning gems that I wanted to share.
1--Rubber gloves. Duh, right? Where was I all these years?
2--Magic Eraser Bathroom Cleaners with Febreeze. Get 'em wet, and they squeeze out soap and you can scrub them all over the whole bathroom. Worth a dollar to me.
3--This handy trick is from my husband. Don't try to clean hair off the floor with a wet cloth--it will cause misery and grossness. Instead, wipe the whole floor down with a DRY paper towel and then throw it away. THEN you can sweep and then mop the floor.


Okay, I'm putting this on my list of great life accomplishments. In one year, I learned how to enjoy cleaning my bathrooms. :)

Blogging is like...

...keeping in touch with a great friend. You know how it is when you haven't chatted with someone in a long time? Every time you think to call them you go,

"Oh, I would love to catch up...but I don't have 3 hours right now and that's how long it would take to get up to date on each other...I'll see if I can drum up a huge block of time someday to re-connect."

And then the time between calls gets longer and longer...

On the other hand, if you are already relatively up to date with someone you can call them in the car when you have 3 minutes and just say, "hey I saw the funniest thing that made me think of you today. K, bye!"

So, my great friend Mr. Blog, I have thought of you a few times during February and March but just never made that call--and now there is way too much to ever catch up on. And life goes on. So, over the next little while, I will give some quick updates and from now on I'll make a few quick calls just to check in. Sound good? Good.

My Friend Ethan.

Well, today was one of those days where you just kind of gut it out and nothing is really so horrible but you're just kind of in survival mode to make it through. I had a particular case of the grouchies at lunch today and Ethan said,

"Mommy, why are you making that grouchy face?"

"Well, because my body hurts right now (menstrual cramps), and I'm just really tired and I get frustrated that I spend so much time cleaning things in our house and I look around and I can never really tell that I did anything."

"Why do you get frustrated?"

Man, I don't think he really knew the profundity of THAT question...
Anyway, at some point he said,

"Well, you can have one of my woobies! Here, you can have O.T. He makes people feel really happy."

(O.T. is an orange teddy bear that we got at walmart while we were pretend playing the arcade games and a well-groomed hispanic teenager walked up, played the crane stuffed animal game, won a teddy bear, handed it to Ethan, and then walked away before I could more than blubber a bewildered thank you...I felt guilty for wondering if he had ulterior motives of some kind because in the end I really think he was just being a nice person--and you know, being nice to a stranger is practically a crime these days and makes you suspicious. Random Tangent.)

So I held O.T. while I made lunch. When we sat down to eat, Ethan said:

"Mommy, do you feel better?"

"Um... yeah. A little bit."

"Then, you can have Bo, too. He helps people feel really really happy. If you have TWO friends then you will feel better."

"Thanks Ethan. And you know what I really really need? I need an Ethan hug, because you are my best friend EVER."

Man, I love that kid.

PS--just as a footnote, I have a friend whose daughter has a "woobie." It's a small little blanket with some different textures sewed onto it and little loopies to play with and stroke and hold. When she and Ethan play together, her "woobie" is one thing she is not expected to share, and Ethan doesn't have to share his dog Bo. So, at our house, "woobie" has come to mean a stuffed animal that is VERY special to you. K, the end.

Digging for Daisy...

Well, after several days of using Ethan's old training toilet, donning gloves, and digging, we just wanted to announce...




Eureka!!




After every BM episode over the last several days we have performed a ceremonial digging for Daisy Duck. This morning, Ethan said,
"Mom, I need to go poop." and started for the bathroom. Then he turned back and peeked his head into the kitchen with a raised eyebrow and asked,
"Will you dig for Daisy Duck?"

"Absolutely." ("I'd be happy to" was the first thought that came to mind, but it didn't seem completely honest)

And so, dig I did, and find her we did.

And after a Clorox bath, Daisy got to pose for a few pictures, and then reunite with her friends in the Monopoly box. Man, are we having too much fun, or what?





Yep, that's her alright. Same duck.



These are my two favorite Ethan quotes from afterward:

"I'm so glad we got Daisy Duck out of my tummy, Mom."

"I get to use the big potty again!"


Stay tuned for more adventures! H
Hopefully the next few fun stories won't involve ambulances...

My first 911 call...

So this is the Mickey Mouse 75th Anniversary Collector's Edition of Monopoly (a cute gift to Kyle and me because my mom told me never to settle for anyone who wasn't as good as Mickey, and Kyle, of course, passed the test and wrote a story about Mickey and Minnie and read it to me as part of proposing... )



Anyway, this is the game.

And instead of a hat, a shoe, a thimble, an iron, and a wheelbarrow as the little pieces, this edition has

Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck, and...

...and Daisy Duck.

You see her in there? Yep, that's not a sticker, folks. That's Daisy Duck. Sitting inside my son's belly.

What a day.

So Ethan and I decided to play Monopoly for the first time ever during Jake's nap this afternoon. We of course modified all kinds of rules but Ethan was able to roll dice, count dice, move spaces, count money, and go to jail. He even grasped the concept of the get out of jail free card and couldn't wait to land on the policeman again so he could go to jail and get out right away. It was a lot more fun than I even thought it would be.

Once Jake woke up, I told Ethan I was very worried about all of the little pieces and my mother radar started to freak out about little houses, dice, and silver figures getting stuck in a little throat. So, we cleaned up most of the game and Ethan said he wanted to play for just a little bit longer on his own. I said that was fine, and decided to just hold Jake in my arms until Ethan had a few more minutes to let the characters talk to each other and march around the board. Two of my original plans for the afternoon had fallen through, and I was just sitting wondering to myself, "hmmm, I wonder what we're going to do tonight..."

Suddenly Ethan came over to the couch with his eyes WIDE open and started gagging. I started patting him on the back, and tried to figure out what was going on. Ethan choked for several seconds, with a look of complete horror on his face, and then screamed as the object went down, down, down, his esophagus.

My memory is a little bit hazy since there was so much adrenaline, but I know I called 911, and by the time the ambulance came Ethan was breathing fine but was really scared. I filled in a few pieces of the story by asking some questions, which he tried very hard to answer while he was crying and shaking.

"Did you swallow it?"

"Yeah."

"Was it one of the pieces?"

"Yeah... I don't know if it was Mickey or Donald."

"Why did you put it in your mouth, Bud?"

"I dropped it."

"Were you holding it up high?"

"Yeah, I was holding it up here and it fell."

So from what I can tell, he was lying on the ground on his side, zooming the pieces up in the air having them fly around and talk to each other, and all of the sudden, Daisy Duck went from his fingers straight into his throat. Poor kid! When he actually swallowed it he was so mad--he was shaking his head and stomping his feet and saying NOOOOOOO!!!

Anyway, the paramedics came and checked him out, and by then things looked pretty much okay, but they asked me if I would like him to be seen at a hospital to take an x-ray. He said sometimes, if objects are sharp they can cause tearing in the intestines, or there are a few other risks. I really hate to cry wolf as far as hopital visits go, so I called Kyle to see his opinion and he said that in the dental clinic at school, if anyone ever swallows a crown or anything like that, you always do an x-ray just to be safe. So, a friend came and grabbed Jake, and Ethan and I rode on an ambulance to the hospital. By then he was totally calm and I felt a little bit guilty as he looked around and started talking about how cool everything inside the ambulance was. Be it known that for Christmas this year Ethan got a play firehouse with a firetruck and firefighters and he has two different firetruck movies that he can quote almost word for word. So, a ride in an ambulance could practically have been a birthday present. James, the paramedic/firefighter who was taking care of us was showing Ethan all of his cool stuff and asking Ethan if he wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up, etc. I almost wanted to say, "Hey, let's not make this too fun! I don't need him to stat swallowing things on purpose to get a cool ride in an ambulance!" But at the same time I was grateful that he was helping Ethan not be scared and have a good time.

Anyway, the rest of the story is fairly uneventful, other than the incredibly supercool x-ray we got that shows Daisy Duck, clearer than even the bones themselves, sitting right there in his tummy. Here it is again:

So, everyone is okay. Unless Ethan suddenly starts to have bad stomach pain or vomiting, things will run their course and the doctor said after we fish it out of the toilet we can clean it off and put it back in the game. Hmmmmmm..... or in the baby book, he said. :)

And to think, I was so worried about Jake. That's life for ya, huh?

Well, we're counting our blessings...

This guy is incredible.

Wow. This is a video of a man with no arms or legs motivating people to get back up when you fall down. Humbling, inspiring, and amazing.





I love at the end that he can witness of "God's glory, and grace and perfection." Even in his mortal condition, and quite possible because of it, this man can proclaim that God is perfect.

Thank you, Nick Vujicic.