Rambling thoughts

* I have recently become slightly addicted to Lifetime/Hallmark/abc family Christmas movies. Not the sad, weird ones, just the cheesy romantic ones. It's pretty embarrassing, but I promise some of them are super cute. Although some of them not even I can stand and I end up deleting them ten minutes in when it becomes clear that both the acting and writing are dreadful. I can take bad acting if it's somewhat well-written, and I can take a ridiculous plotline/dialogue if it's well-acted, but bad acting + bad writing = not worth it. (I know, my standards are obviously sooo high, right?)

* Chuck is officially off work until the Monday after Christmas, hooray! I love having a one-to-one ratio of parents to children in the house. We're headed to Elko to spend a few days before Christmas, which should be a good time, especially since we haven't really been there since March. And we're going to attempt a family picture, since our last 'nice' one was three years ago and we've added five family members since then. Let's see, a group picture with ten adults and eight children, four of whom are under three? Wish us luck; as always my plan will be to look at the camera and smile, even as I'm wrestling Will, so that I'm not the one to ruin a shot!

* I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love my calling in Cub Scouts. Where else do you hear gems like this:

Little Cub Scout: "At school we're going to have an ice cream party at the end of the year for math, so every time we pass something off we get another topping. I just got some whipped cream, now I just need to earn my nuts!!"

Oh, Brother Marsh and I could barely hold it together, it was soooo hilarious. And it gets better. That night I let the boys play with the light sabers at the end of our meeting, and the same Cub Scout came up to me complaining that another boy had accidentally hit him in the 'privates'. I turned to Brother Marsh and quietly said, "It's okay; he hasn't earned his nuts yet." And then we both died laughing.

* Our fantasy football season is wrapping up and guess which team is currently in first place? That's right, Jana's Returning Champs! I had a bye last week, and this week take on my mom, which should be no problem. Then I just need to beat the winner of this week's Big Will/Leslie matchup and the bragging rights are mine for another year! I am having some quarterback issues, however. My main QB all season has been Aaron Rodgers, who suffered his second concussion of the season in last Sunday's game - so he's probably out this week. My backup QB is Matt Cassel, who had an appendectomy two weeks ago and hasn't played since. I think he's more likely to play, so I'll probably put him in, but hopefully Rodgers is good to go the next week to win the whole thing for me. I heart Aaron Rodgers.

* In more evidence of my husband's influence over me, my next bullet point is football-related as well - we are pretty psyched for the Las Vegas Bowl next week. Not as psyched as if we were actually going, but whatev. I keep telling Chuck that thanks to his insistence that we stick extra money in a retirement account every month (thanks to the county for matching it, too!) we will be able to afford to travel to some games when we're nice and old. Let's hope Coach Pete is still running things in 25 - 30 years, okay?

We do have some friends going to the game, however, and I took the liberty of creating a pretty sweet bet between Chuck and Big Will, a noted Utah fan. If by some weird apparent change in the earth's rotation (see the Nevada game) Boise State loses, Chuck has to obtain and wear a University of Utah shirt for an entire day on our next visit to Smiths'. If (really, when) Utah loses, Will has to obtain and wear a BSU shirt for an entire day on our next visit. Awesome bet, right? Especially since naming rights to my future children aren't on the line!

* Chuck's dad stopped by last week on his way (kind of) home from a trip to Eastern Idaho. It was fun to have Pops here for a couple of days and the little boys needed next to no time to warm up to him again (a major benefit to shorter durations between visits!!). One night he and the boys ventured to Cabela's while Chuck and I did sealings at the temple and then he took all of us (including my mum) to dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant in Boise. Awesome, right? The downside is that now all I want to eat is mandarin chicken, pork fried rice, and crab rangoon. . . . Mmmmm.

* Clyde and Will are super into wrestling right now. They've always wrestled a lot, but it's usually been initiated by Clyde . . . well, not anymore. Will has jumped headfirst into the fray and had some pretty serious tackling power. They giggle and giggle and cry and then giggle some more, so I continue to fight my girly instincts to make them stop (although I do step in from time to time to caution them against certain moves/holds/etc).

Well, that's what's running through my head this morning. Happy Wednesday!