Catch up

Yep, I've fallen behind again. Waaaay behind. Jess works at the salon on Fridays and her sister usually watches the kids, but called in with the flu. So it's SUPER DAD to the rescue! Well, not that super since right now the kids are still in their jammies, watching cartoons at 11:30am and I'm catching up on the blog. Oh well, we'll have fun this afternoon.

First I wanted to catch up on the snowstorms we've been having. Holy whiteouts Batman! It's been crazy. It seems like one storm finishes and a few days later you feel the wind picking up again bringing in another. Sometimes there's a ton of snow, others it's just really wet and icy and others it's just a light dusting, but it's still snow. I'm done with it. The last few days have been sunny and I feel like running around outside without my shirt on, but I don't want to scare the neighbors or have them call the loony bin on me. So for now I'll save my neighbors eyes and resist the temptation.

I just wanted to share a few pics from the last big storm we got.

Got snow?

I literally had to plow my way into the garage coming home from work. The tires were spinning and it came up onto the hood because there was a drift in the middle of the driveway 2 and a half feet high!

Mid-thigh and I wasn't even all the way down to the ground.

This was a few days later. The pile behind the kids was actually 5 foot tall the day of the storm. They loved having a huge hill of snow and Austin kept calling it his 'castle'.

V-Day!!

I LOVE VALENTINE'S DAY!!!! Yep, it's my next favorite holiday behind Christmas. It always has been. Not sure why, but it is. I'm a pretty sentimental guy and I love giving gifts of love (otherwise Thanksgiving would be my second favorite with all the food and football). I love the surprises. I love seeing everyone else doing something special for their significant others. I love that it's exactly 6 months from when Jess and I were married so that we get to celebrate together every 6 months. It's kind of like an extra anniversary. I look back to a year ago from right now and a lot has happened. It's crazy how much your life can change in the course of a year. I just wanted to send out my love to all my family and friends and thank them for a great year. Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Anniversary! (c;

Hmmmm.....

I'm super confused right now with why some people can see my posts and some can't. I'm wondering if it has to do with what operating system each person is using because I don't know why else it's happening. I can see it just fine whenever I go there. Some people say they haven't been able to see them for a pretty long time. Some people said it's been since I changed my template from Christmas. I may have deleted something I wasn't supposed to in the code while switching templates. I'm doing some tests so if my page continues to change, please be patient. I hate that it's not showing the posts like it's supposed to. ANNOYING!!!!

Fixed?

So some people could see the posts and some couldn't. I switched the background to see if it helps at all. I just grabbed something real quick from pyzam, but it works. I've had Hawaii on my mind a lot lately and this is Hanama Bay on Oahu where we went snorkeling for hours last April. It was a great day full of getting our tans on, swimming with a sea turtle and chasing a huge parrot fish. Good times were had by all. So my blogging buddies, please let me know if this has fixed the posting problem. I hope so. I'm sure it was annoying having to go around and clicking on links in the archive just to read my latest post. Thanks!

Missing blogs?

Okay, so I had a friend tell me that she couldn't see my blog posts. I think she had to click on the title of the post to actually read the post itself. Is anyone else having this same problem? The reason I ask is because on my computer everything looks fine and dandy, but we were at my in-laws tonight and on their laptop, all the blogs are missing! What in the world? It would be so boring to visit my blog if that's how everyone else sees it! What a pain in the rear too if you have to click on the title of the blog each time just to read it instead of having it right there and ready for you when you got to the blog. It kind of irks me and I'm hoping there is a way to fix it. I was trying to figure out if maybe it was only certain PC's that couldn't see the posts. Anyway, please let me know if you have to go clicking around the page just to see any new posts or if you can actually see the posts and pics when you get to the page. Thanks!!!

P.S. - YAY GIANTS!!

Happy again

Carter has been a bit under the weather for a little over a week. The whole family, well, except Austin, got this horrible cold and we kept passing it on to each other. Carter would get a lot of phlegm, start coughing, then choke and throw up. I know, not a pretty picture. It was so sad. The few weeks before he had been gaining about a pound a week and had passed the 16 lb. mark at just over 2 months, but then he lost 1.5 lbs. from being sick. He's still not back to 16 lbs. but he's at least gaining again.

Anyway, it's great to see him happy and smiling again rather than be a zombie. He's also trying to talk up a storm. I want to catch it on video and put it on here so we'll see if that happens soon. I just can't help but wonder what he's trying to say. He gets pretty animated and excited, but only if you talk back to him. Here are a couple pics of him being his happy self again.

Resolution update

Seeing as an entire month of 2008 has flown by, I thought I'd give a quick update on some of my resolutions/goal for the year. Mainly too keep myself in check, but also because some people who read them are wondering how they are going and also don't think I can do it. I won't go through the whole list because it was pretty long. I'll just hit a few of them.

• I'm almost done with my first book, The Little Book of Value Investing. I didn't finish in Jan. but it's close enough.

• Been reading some of the Book of Mormon almost every day.

• Got better from being sick and started playing basketball 2-3 times/wk again. Run extra hard to get ready for the 5K. Running outside isn't going to happen right now. Me breathing really hard and cold air don't mix well. Good news is that Jess has decided to do it with me so we'll motivate each other.

• Haven't worked too much on the push-ups and need to start. I hurt my shoulder, but it's better now so no excuses.

• Don't have a pull-up bar yet, but will get one soon.

• I've definitely been more assertive so far. Haven't waited around or procrastinated too much. Makes for a much busier life though.

• I feel like I've been a better husband. Been more helpful, surprise treats, etc.

• Also feel like I've been a better father. Usually I don't like taking the kids to the store, but I'll offer to take one each time I go and they love it!

• I've lost a little body fat so far, but more surprisingly is I've lost 6 pounds!

• The website is coming along, slowly but surely.

That's it for now. We'll see what this month brings.

Significant other tag

My friend, Kristi, tagged me to disclose info about my significant other.



Her name: Jessica J. Price

How long have you been married?: 8 years, 5 months

How long did you date?: almost 1 year (from beginning to wedding, but we did a ton together for a whole year before that since we dated each others roommates)

How old is she: 28 1/2

Who eats more? I do

Who said "I love you" first? Me

Who is taller? Me (I'm 6' and she's 5'6")

Who sings better? Her definitely. Sings at church, recitals, in H.S., in Europe. I've only sung in the shower, but I'm not too bad.

Who is smarter? Me with Sports and a couple other things - Her with the other 95%

Whose temper is worse? mine

Who does the laundry? We both do it, but I tend to help fold more than wash.

Who does the dishes? Neither of us. JK, we both do.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Whichever side we're both on is obviously the RIGHT side. LOL!!! jk. I'm on the right, she's on the left closer to the door. She protects me from the boogie man.

Who pays the bills? She does. Has a real head for numbers and money.

Who mows the lawn? I do. Sometimes Austin helps.

Who cooks dinner? Jess about 90% of the time. Okay, 95%, but I do most of the breakfasts and lunches.

Who drives when you are together? Me. Jess has driven a few times when I was really sick or tired.

Who is more stubborn? I'd say her. Not sure if she'd agree. She's too stubborn.

Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Probably me. She's hardly ever wrong. It's true. Drives me nuts.

Whose parents do you see the most? No question, hers. Mine live too far away and we see hers several times a month.

Who proposed? I did. Took her up on the side of the mountain in Logan, gave her a book I made called "151 Reasons Why I Love Jessica Robinson" filled with reasons, pics and momentos from the past year and a half. She read each reason and reason #1 was "For accepting these flowers filled with my love". I gave her individual fake tulips filled with X & O confetti. The last one had a plastic ring in it because we always joked that I had no money to buy her a real ring. Then I gave her a real rose and as she was trying to look inside it I pulled the ring off my pinky and got down on my knee.

Who has more friends? I'd probably say me. Not that she doesn't have any, but I usually keep in touch better and play ball with a lot of friends.

Who has more siblings? She does. 2 brothers and 3 sisters. I've got 2 younger sisters.

Who wears the pants in the family? I'd like to say me, but probably her. Doesn't bother me. She's right 95% of the time, remember?

I now tag Kristie, Becca, Tyler, Natalie, Raina, Cindy and Megan. (And whoever else wants to do it)

We Thank Thee Oh God For A Prophet

I was just given some horrible news. About 4 hours ago our beloved Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints past away due to complications with old age. He was 97 years old. He was an amazing man. He not only was a great president of the church, but a great man in general. You always felt at peace when you heard him speak and he always had some great counsel. I don't have much time right now, but I just wanted to do a post real quick to let family and friends know that may not get the news for a while. Here is a link I found real quick. Haven't even read it yet. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080128/ap_on_re_us/obit_hinckley

The Boston Three Party

(The title of this blog is in reference to an ESPN commercial about the Boston Celtics three All-Stars this season, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.)

So Jess is an amazing wife. She knows my love for basketball and has had many surprises and made many sacrifices over the years to make me happy with a basketball game. It's not like it's a huge sacrifice because she enjoys the games a lot too and screams and yells. It's pretty hot. It's still a sacrifice though. Especially the first time she did it.

First example is when we were about to go out on Valentine's Day for dinner and her parent's happened to say in passing that nobody was using their season tickets for the game that night. Well, that night the Jazz were playing the Washington Wizards. Not such a big deal except that this was when Michael Jordan was playing for them! Jess looked at me and said "Do you want to go?". I obviously did, but I wasn't going to ruin our V-Day dinner for it. Without hesitation she said, "We'll take the tickets and go out another night for dinner". What a woman!

Second time was last year when Jess had a client offer to bring in his season tickets which were on the front row and let her pick a game. She told me that the day she wasn't at work was the day he came in and so she missed out. Well, on Christmas day she surprised me with two front row tickets to the Jazz/Lakers game (I'm a big Laker fan). She really did miss the guy that day, but he came back in to let her pick and she didn't tell me. We sat on the front row right behind the Lakers. We were on Sportscenter that night and I even got a high five from Kobe Bryant. Awesome!

The third time was this Christmas when the same client brought in his tickets and Jess knew how much I wanted to see the Celtics this year with their 3 All-Stars. She quickly grabbed those tickets and we went to the game a few weeks ago. We were on the 15th row and it was awesome. It was a great game too. The Jazz just about pulled off the victory against arguably the best team in the NBA this season. So thank you Jess for all the wonderful basketball games over the years (and I hope there are many more) (c:

Two of the best power forwards in the game today.

KG warming up with Ray Allen in the bottom left corner.

KG warming up again and for the guys from Ricks College, recognize the guy in the blue Jazz shirt to the back left of KG? It's Jeff Hertzler from Ensign Hall. I've seen him there before and talked with him. He works with the TV station or something.

There's something in the air...

I forgot to write about something that happened on Carter's blessing day. I was in the kitchen doing something that morning and thought I saw something fly by the window in front of the sink. It was out of the corner of my eye, but I figured it was a bird. Then I thought 'That's weird. Most birds migrate and it's snowing like crazy outside'. So I didn't think much more of it until 20 seconds later I walked over to the table and saw this.......

A HAWK ON OUR PATIO CHAIR EATING ANOTHER BIRD! It was actually an American Kestrel (I looked it up) and it was awesome. It sat there for about 2 minutes pulling off feathers and eating. I was able to take a few pictures, but none of them were too great. I didn't want to scare it away, but then the kids got excited and ran up to the door and it took off with the little bird leaving behind a ton of feathers and some blood on our chair. The kids thought it was pretty cool. Austin kept saying 'Look dad, BLOOD!'. It was an exciting beginning to an exciting day.

Family

As you may have already seen, my parent's were able to fly our for Carter's blessing after Christmas. I just wanted to include a couple more pics from them being here. Also we were able to go up to Lewiston, Utah to see Great Grandma and Grandpa Rigby. They couldn't make it to the blessing because of grandpa's chemo keeping him down so we decided to make the trek up. We always love going up there to spend time with them and should do it more often.

Mom couldn't get enough of this while she was here.

Neither could dad.

We always love going up to the attic and seeing grandpa great's train set.

The kids always love going to Grandma and Grandpa Rigby's, even if grandpa great won't smile for pictures.

Comments

I just wanted my friends and family to know that even though you may not be a member of blogger, you can still leave me comments. Just click on the comments link at the bottom of any blog and you can leave me a message. I'd love to hear from all of you.

Carter's blessing day

Carter was blessed during church on Jan. 6th. We were so happy that so much of our family could be there. My parents were even able to fly out and spend some time with us beforehand and then had to leave the day after the blessing. Carter was great and happy almost the entire day. He's just a good kid. He let's you know when he's hungry or tired and the rest of the time he's pretty content.

It was a great day. I had meetings in the morning and wasn't able to come home before the rest of the family came to church, but everyone came on time and the blessing went great. Afterwards we all came back to our house for some pictures and a luncheon.

Carter before waking up on his big day.

All ready in his blessing outfit.

Our happy little family.

Our happy BIG family.

Back row (L-R): Amanda & Mike Swain (Jess' sis and husband), Allie (Jess' sis), Mark & Kim Robinson (Jess' parents), Janet & Doug Price (my parents), Jon & Nate Marrott (our bro-in-law and nephew-Jess' side).

Front row (L-R): Mike, Hallie & Jenny Robinson (Jess' bro and family), Us, Carrie, Madison & Riley Marrott (Jess' sis and girls).

My boy, Jon West. Thanks for coming man!

It was a really long day, but Carter was a trooper and still smiling at the end.

Surgery day

Well, we've been anxiously awaiting this day and a little scared of it. My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer this fall and had surgery today to hopefully remove all of it. My mom just called and said he is in recovery and everything went well. We hope you are doing great dad and recover quickly. We can't wait to see you again. Love you.

2008 Resolutions/Goals

Warning: before reading this blog you may want to take a seat. Well, that only goes for those of you who stand at your computers.

Here is a little secret I'm about to share with a lot of you that you have never known about me. Partly because it's only started happening the last 4 or 5 years and I don't usually share it with too many people. I'm a goal/resolution junky. I'm not just a junky, I'm an addict. I'm anal about it too. I'll break each one down into mini goals that help me to reach the main goal. I won't include all of that, but I will include what I think the main step for me is to achieve that goal. I don't share it with many people because when I have in the past most of them asked me why I would set myself up for so much failure. That usually bugs me and pushes me even harder to achieve my goals. So if any of you want to help me out, just post a comment telling me that there is no way I'll achieve all of my goals for 2008. This will also give me some accountability.

As you will soon see, I go a little overboard with goals. Sometimes there are just a lot and other times they are just a bit far fetched. This is what I like though. If they were easy then they wouldn't really be goals. It would be more of a to-do list. Goals are meant to push you and I like pushing myself and seeing my growth over a year. I set a lot of high goals for myself last year and some I achieved and others I didn't, but even with the ones I didn't reach I did better than if I had never set the goal in the first place. Does that make sense? For example: I made it a goal to lose 15 lbs. and get to 15% body fat. Well, I lost the 15 lbs. and it was hard to measure the body fat with our scale (which I don't know how accurate it is), but I lost around 4-5% body fat. Now if I had never set that goal I wouldn't have even tried. Some other goals I set last year that I was able to achieve were:
• Read 12 books
• Read the Book of Mormon
• Get Jess pregnant
• Don't be so self conscious
• Play less fantasy sports

I definitely didn't reach all of my goals, but most of them I at least got half way. That's why I don't see it as a disappointment. As one of my old mission companions once said "It's better to shoot for the stars and land on the moon than shoot for the moon and land in a pile of crap". In other words, shoot high and either hit it or land in the middle OR shoot low and don't achieve anything. So here are my goals/resolutions for 2008.

• Read a book each month (below are some that are on my list for this year already)
The Twilight Series (Stefenie Meyer)
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
(4th book comes out this fall)
Think Big and Kick A** (Donald Trump)
Faith of our Fathers Vol. 1 (Nancy Campbell Allen)
Chesapeake (James A. Michener)
Wooden on Leadership (John Wooden)
Some sort of book about Stonewall Jackson since I’m related
• Read The Book of Mormon
Use Readthecriptures.com to send me an email every morning with my reading for the day
• Run 5K
Continue playing bball twice a week and start running in the spring
• 50 push-ups in a row
Start out doing 50 push-ups/3 days a week (not consecutive). Then 75. Then 100.
• 20 pull-ups in a row
Get pull-up bar and do it opposite days of push-ups.
• Take Jess out at least once a month
Pick a night at the beginning of each month and stick to it.
• Be a better husband (dates, surprises, helping)
Remember what it was like in college
• Be a better father (read, play, play dates)
Remember all the things I wanted to do with the kids before ‘getting too busy’
• Learn a song on the piano
Pick a song and practice some each week
• Be more assertive
Just do it
• Don’t procrastinate
Act immediately
• Close a commercial real estate deal
Make calls and network
• Lose 5% body fat
Check starting body fat%
Eat better
Exercise
• Do sprint triathlon
Find out the distances and start training for each event
• Start drawing again
Draw the picture for my grandpa that he’s always wanted
• Build/design a website
Start with making new website for robinson-brothers.com
• Take the family camping
Get sleeping bags and go
• Read more to the kids
Make time and do it at least twice a week
• Be more clean
Don’t be as messy in the first place
• Be able to grab the basketball rim again
Add more jumping routines and leg exercises into my workouts
• Learn to waterski/wakeboard
Go out on the boat more this summer
• Go snowskiing again with Jess
Go before the snow melts!
• Take the family fishing
Maybe combine with camping or a Lake Powell trip
• Get Austin fully potty trained
We’re working on it
• Jess pregnant?
We’ll see (I think this is more her goal, but not until Dec.)

Well, there you have it. I'm sure a lot of my friends are asking who the heck this is and what did I do with their friend Seth. Yep, if only I had been this way in college. If anyone has any suggestions for books (or any of my goals) I'd love to hear them.

Sad

I'm so sad right now. I went to watch the Rob & Big video clip that I posted on Jan. 9th and it is no longer available. I did a quick search of the internet to find another link, but the only one that I found was of someone videotaping their television and the sound and quality is horrible. I'm so sad. Wait!! I still have it Tivo'd!! Yahoo!!!!! Okay, I gotta go watch it right now. I wish those of you that didn't get a chance to see it could have. I loved it. Hey! Maybe I'll go get our video camera and videotape our television! I'm such a genius.

Christmas!!!

Yes, I'm finally getting to the Christmas blog. It's only about 3 weeks late, but better late than never. Let's get straight to the pics.

I swear this age has been the hardest to get decent pics of Kaylee and Austin. I'm not kidding. We seriously took about 20 of these and this was the best one. Austin has this thing of doing a fake smile and also turning his eyes away from the camera. Oh well, they're still cute.

They finally did better after adding the baby into the picture. Go figure.

Had to add this one. Carter was just sitting on the couch, ready for church and smiling away.

This is at Jess' parent's house on Christmas Eve. We open all our gifts from each other and Kaylee got an American Girl doll along with her cousins. She didn't really know what it was besides a regular doll, but she loves it.

Austin's main gift was a chair from Pottery Barn that has a Batman logo on the bag. I thought this face was priceless. He was SOOO excited and had been asking for this for weeks.

The calm before the storm.

Austin ran straight to his bike and would continue to get on it between each gift.

What little girl doesn't love a kitchen set with tons of food. For some reason it seems like most of our friends got their little girls kitchens and food. The year of the kitchen?

Carter was just happy to be here and we were happy to have him.

I just like this pic of Jess and Carter.

This was later on Christmas Day. Austin was all ready to go to Jess' parents house for dinner and he wanted to sit in his chair and watch basketball. We came out a few minutes later and this is what we found. So cute.

Austin's (belated) Birthday Blog!!!

I guess this is as good a day as any since exactly one month ago was Austin's 3rd birthday. He had a wonderful birthday and was spoiled as always. Grandma and Grandpa Price sent some pj's, toys and a shirt that I personally enjoyed. It said "If you think I'm handsome you should see my daddy". Way to go mom! Grandma and Grandpa Robinson got him a toy chest, clothes and some tools. Don't ask me what we got him because I can't remember. I keep getting it confused with what he got for Christmas. Oh well, the joys of having his birthday 11 days before Christmas.

I went to the store early and got him his favorite breakfast....doughnuts. He definitely takes after his mother. Not that I don't like doughnuts, but I think Jess and Austin would eat them for every meal if they could. I also picked him up a set of cars. There you go, I remembered one thing we gave him.

Jess always goes all out and makes a special cake for the kids. Austin has been on a superheroes kick and since he was Batman for Halloween she thought this was appropriate. He loved it.

Excited much? I'm pretty sure he screamed like a little girl in this pic.



Here he is with his haul of Spiderman stuff.

G&G Robinson bringing in the toy box. If you look underneath the toy box you can see Austin is having his eyes covered as they brought it in. He just giggled the whole time because he was so excited.

Austin decked out with his new tools.

Baby steps

No, Carter is not walking yet. Come on people, he's only 11 weeks old! 11 weeks today actually and he's more than doubled his body weight! Yep, he's getting to be a chunk, which reminded me I haven't put any pics of him up for a while. So in my attempt to catch up in our blog I'm taking 'baby steps' and trying to do a bit each day or every other day. This one is just about some random pics we have taken over the last couple of months and the stories behind them.

So Austin has a habit of waking up in the middle of the night for no reason and doing random things. The night before Carter was born he woke up in the middle of the night and began to turn on the lights in the house. We woke up and asked what he was doing and he said 'I hungry again'. I reminded him it was the middle of the night and to get back in bed which he did very willingly. Well, a few weeks later there was another incident. This time it was when I got up at 5am to go play basketball. I walked out of our room and noticed his door open. I went and peeked inside and saw his bed empty, but all the lights were still off in the house. Hmmmmmm, this was confusing. So I walk into the family room and the picture below is what I saw. Who knows when he got up or how long he had been asleep, but there he was cuddled up on the couch dreaming of Transformers, race cars and treats galore. I thought it was funny and had to take a pic.


Here's one of me and the kids that Jess took. It was right before Christmas and the kids picked 'books' to read before bedtime. The 'books' they picked were the toy catalogs from Toys 'R' Us and they proceeded to point out that they wanted about 87% of the magazine.

Kaylee has really embraced the role of being a second mother to Carter. She loves being able to sit next to him in the back of the car and help when he gets a little fussy. One night he was whining a little before falling asleep and Kaylee grabbed the pacifier to calm him down. Next thing we know all is quiet and she had fallen asleep holding his pacifier in his mouth.

Kaylee has also liked that Jess has started exercising since Carter was born. I walked in one day to see this in our family room. Kaylee was trying her hardest to keep up and it was so dang cute.

Jess' sister gave Carter this outfit. I thought it was pretty funny.

The beginning of a lot of smiles. I'll get more up soon.

Rob & Big

This is why I love the TV show Rob & Big. It made me and the kids start laughing and for a while and I found myself wanting to get into my own car and start dancing.

Stay Tuned......

New blogs will be coming shortly. I promise. Austin's birthday, Christmas, Carter's Blessing, parents visiting, etc. etc.