Friday, January 29, 2010

2010 Resolutions and Goals

So I've been doing this for the last couple of years and it's really helped me and so there's no sense in stopping now. I'm a little late, but it's still getting done. I've had some insight from friends about setting goals. One of the main things is a goal needs to be measurable. Another is to separate them into different areas of your life like spiritual, physical, career, family, financial, mental and social. So I've tried to incorporate this more in my 2010 goals. They are still big, which I like best, but all attainable I believe. So here they are and I'll check in from time to time to give updates and possibly add more if I think of others.

SPIRITUAL
Read scriptures daily
Read the entire Book of Mormon twice
Go to the temple AT LEAST 12 times
Read Preach My Gospel
Write in journal weekly

PHYSICAL
Complete the 100 push-up program
Be able to do 50 push-ups in a row
Run a 5K in under 25 minutes
Run a 10K in under an hour
Get my cholesterol under 200
Floss every day

CAREER/FINANCIAL
Start a website that brings in residual income
Close at least 4 real estate deals

FAMILY
Date night with Jess every week
Take family camping
Take kids fishing
Take Kaylee on a daddy/daughter date
Take Austin on father/son night

That's about it for now. I know there were some others, but I better just get started on these while I have time.

"The future you see is the future you get."
Robert G Allen

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The many faces of Carter - Christmas '09 Edition

This post is pretty basic and way past due. I meant to add the photos just after the Christmas post, but due some technical difficulties, and procrastination, it took longer. I still wanted to get these up because Carter is the funniest kid ever with all of his faces. He has one for everything and on Christmas day they were in full force. Enjoy and if you'd like to see more, visit my sisters blog where she also did a more in depth post about Carter's faces.







Monday, January 11, 2010

Christmas '09

Christmas this year was a lot of fun. The kids were super excited and Carter actually understood what was going on. He was a present MONSTER! All he wanted to do was open more presents and he did it with vigor. It was great. It was also a great time to reflect on our Savior and what he means to us. We read the story of Christmas with the kids and emphasized why we celebrate this time of year. We only hope they will always remember.

Now on to some pictures to share the fun we had Christmas day!

McKaylee was the first to wake up at around 7:30am. The boys didn't get up until 8am so Kaylee kept Jess and I company in bed for a while. It was great to see her giddiness. I also borrowed our company camera to see how well we liked it. We are hunting for a new camera before the baby comes this summer. Some of the pictures look a little different than others, but that's just me playing with settings. Overall I think it's a really nice camera.

Jess and the kids waited patiently while I made sure everything was ready and I was in the family room ready to capture the moment.

Carter started crying right before they came out because I walked away and he wanted to come with. Kaylee and Austin were nothing but happy.

It didn't take long for Carter to catch up.







One of Kaylee's favorite gifts was her EZ Bake oven. She couldn't wait to use it and has really found a love for baking over the past year.

Austin's favorite gift was actually 'used'. He's really been wanting some video games, but we don't have a game system in the house. Well, at least not a recent one like a Playstation 3, XBox 360 or his favorite...a Wii. I do however have an old Nintendo 64 in the closet and we were able to find some games for it at a used game store. He was confused at first at why he got games and nothing to play them on. Little did he know that hooked up to the new tv downstairs (Jess's dad brought over one of their old tv's the day before) was my Nintendo 64. This was his look as he came back upstairs. We didn't see him much after this.



This was my favorite gift of the day. I got Jess a new wedding ring this year. We had talked about it for our 10th anniversary in August, but decided not to get it at the time. I'm really glad I did it now. She loves it and so do I.

After having Christmas at our house we headed over to Jess' parents house for dinner and more celebrating. It was a great time with the rest of the family.

This is Jess and our sister-in-law, Jenny. We call them the Doublemint twins.

Grandpa is always in heaven when surrounded by his grandkids.

Love this picture. Kaylee saw me taking pictures and decided to spice it up a bit from across the room. She's such a good. Wonder who she got that from. Must have been her mother. :)

Carter digging in once again. He couldn't get enough.

We love this pic. Jess' sister, Carrie, has a rather loud laugh. I caught this moment mid laugh as Austin couldn't take anymore and had to cover his ears. It was hilarious! Sorry Carrie, it was.

Jess will be mad I posted this, but I love the look on her face. :)

How can you not love this picture?

Carter LOVED getting his new tricycle and we love that it has the extension on the back for us to push and even guide him!

Austin was in heaven with his Optimus Prime and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. Wait a sec, is this the 80's? Wasn't this the exact same things I wanted as a kid?

Kaylee has found her new calling in life with this gift. Not only is it a cd player, but it has two microphones for her to sing along and boy does she sing. Her only problem is trying to keep Carter from using the other mic.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Catchin' Up

Catchin' up is hard to do so one of my goals for this new year is to keep up with the blog better. I want to do at least one post a month. The first thing I want to do is to catch up really quick. We've missed Carter's birthday, my parents visiting, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Austin's birthday and Christmas. So to start it off I'm just posting a bunch of pics from just after our trip to Powell all the way up to Christmas. I'll get Christmas pics uploaded and posted soon.


Austin got to go to the pumpkin patch with his preschool class. He always loved going with McKaylee and now it's Carter's turn to have fun as the little tag-a-long. They loved it!






I love this pic of my boys.


Kaylee getting ready for her transformation into Snow White for Halloween.


Transformation complete!


The kids loved having my parents in town. It was even better that they were here for Carter's birthday and the next day was my dad's!

Carter LOVES opening presents and couldn't wait to start ripping open.












Carter ALWAYS has the funniest faces. So glad we were able to catch this one of him as he was blowing out candles.



The kids (and their cousins) on Halloween. Austin as Snake Eyes, Kaylee as Snow White and Carter as Batman.




Carter always wants to be by us. He decided to make himself a little bed next to the desk while we were working one day.

One of my new favorite pics of the kids. Jess had them outside helping rake the few leaves we had so they could play in them.







The boys enjoying one of the first snows of the season.

Kaylee was a HUGE helper on Thanksgiving. We got to Jess' parents house and she just wanted to help cook, bake and clean everything.

I can never get enough Jess so I decided to tie myself up in her apron. This is definitely not one of the times where the apron strings needed to be cut. :) Just a week or so before we had told her family we were expecting baby #4 in June!




We lost Austin for a while. He's a Wii freak!


After Thanksgiving we put up the Christmas tree that weekend and the kids totally enjoyed helping with the ornaments.

READY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!