What's new with you?

As sacrament meeting ended, Lisa took Sydney and Tanner while I got the diaper back all packed up with Natalie and got ready to head to Sunday school. I looked right, looked down for the diaper bag, then did a double take. It was another fun time where an old friend was visiting for his sister's baby to be blessed. It seems so innocent to ask how things are, be so excited for the great things they're doing, have done, and who they've become. Inevitably, the question is "what's new with you?".

Well. Don't count this as a midlife crisis. I find my best blog entries (and sadly most ramblings) happen after 10pm.

If you want the short version, here's what I'd say if we weren't close:

1. Remodeled the kitchen. Cabinets, cupboards, floor, bannister/railing.

2. Tanner's starting to really crawl. Natalie doesn't seem to care. Daddy is close enough to anything she needs anyway.

3. We're going on a cruise of the caribbean the second week of April from a free trip we won through our realtor.

For those who want what's really going on, here's the long version. For those who I don't talk like this to, here's your chance you know what's really new lately.

1. Improving. Becoming.

It's been a great new year so far. Our family has become great at having Family Home Evening. I decided we should do it, be consistent with it, and we really have. I'm sad to say the most troublesome thing going around and around my head is that I want to be more consistent once I've changed for the better. Lots of irony in that. :) I've been better about exercising (keyword: better), reading the scriptures and getting more out of them, as well as just feeling progress in who I am and liking it a whole lot more. I'm finally realizing the main consistency I want in my life is to be constantly changing for the better.

2. Goals being accomplished

At the first of the year, I set some crazy goals (as every year) and stuck to a lot of them. I'm not getting the 1:1 time with the kids I wanted, but I'm spending some quality time. I've been doing better with reading my scriptures, better on temple attendance (still work to do), but have been doing much more around the house. I'm a hilarious oddity for so many reasons, and am learning more and more of them each year. For example, how many people do you know that start their new year's resolutions in September so they have it right for the new year? If it was so important to get it right, wouldn't you think you'd want to change immediately instead of waiting for a specific time of year to make major changes? I'm learning (and trying to unlearn) the ways I work around doing the things I really want done, but fail the courage, brainpower, or energy to do it right the first time. It's amazing how doing the right thing the first time really is the easiest thing to do.

3. Your wife is always right, even when she's not right

In general, this is good advice. I seem to only listen to what I want to hear, but I seem to be listening and hearing more lately. Lisa had a great observation a few days ago. I seem to need to worry about things. If I'm not worrying about something, I'm looking for something to worry about. I think about what people will say at my funeral. "Man...he was weird, but he sure loved his family." One of the kindest things God has even done for me is let me change a step and a time and not show me the long road behind or the long road ahead. Sadly I've realized how much I've taken Lisa for granted lately. She is amazing to do all the housework, take care of the kids, cook, pretty much everything minus getting paid. She's kind, loving, gently honest, and the best thing that ever happened to me.

These are the things that are new with me.

Easter

One of my favorite things about Easter is the outfits. It was so fun to get Sydney and Natalie matching dresses and Tanner was hansome as usual. Once again I did not get any great pictures of all three of them. Someday, someday. I attempted to get all three of them outside after church to take their picture. But Sydney threw a tantrum over something I don't recall. That girl can get the tears flowing over anything. And then Tanner tipped over while he was sitting on floor and smacked his face right into Natalie's which made both of them cry and gave Tanner a nose bleed. So anyways, one day I will get the perfect picture of all three children and I will put it in the frame in our living room that says "This is our Joy" across the bottom of it. Then people will stop asking "what is your joy?" when they see the empty frame. Well we did get several very cute pictures of them in their cute clothes to put in their scrapbooks.

We missed the Moore family egg hunt on Saturday which we were very sad about. We spent the whole day putting in our new kitchen flooring. My parents offered to help us take care of it that day and it is SO nice to have a floor again. On Sunday, we went to my parent's home and had an egg hunt which mostly consisted of adults watching Sydney walk around a pick up eggs. We need a few more kids on that side to make it a little more interesting I think.

Tanner and Natalie thought the baskets were lots of fun to play with though. They were entertained with those for quite a while.

The Easter bunny is not a really big part of our Easter. In fact, Sydney totally forgot about putting her easter basket out the night before but I did it and the bunny filled it. My mom asked her that day who we celebrate on Easter and she said Jesus. It's nice to know she understands that.

This was the first year Sydney painted eggs too. I have bought egg dying kits every year and we just never get around to using them so this year I made sure she got to do that while the babies took naps one afternoon. She really enjoyed that and we only had a couple of egg casualties.

On the Mend

Well...after a rough day and a half of fever, flu, and pink eye, I'm on the mend. It's the first day I've taken a sick day for quite some time. We're wondering where we got it from (Lisa has pink eye too, but gratefully not the other two). Tanner had the same thing over a week ago, but we were told after a day of antibiotics it wasn't contageous, and that it wouldn't take a week for the symptoms to manifest themselves. The main thing is for everyone to be healthy in two weeks when we leave for the caribbean.

One man band

I'm so glad I had Sydney before having twins. There are times when she totally keeps them entertained. We had quite a party the other day! Complete with live music (Sydney) and dancing (Tanner and Natalie).

Scooby Doo: Where are you?

Good question. Why haven't I been blogging much, you ask? We've been redoing the kitchen cabinets, flooring, bannister/railing, Natalie had a double ear infection and one ruptured (she wasn't pulling her ears or anything), Tanner had an ear infection, pink eye, a fever for a few days, etc. The kids are all healthy now, but I'll continue blogging once the kitchen's done and I have something else to blog about.

Princess Sydney

Sydney is so into princesses lately so I took her to the Disney on Ice Princess Wishes show that was in town last week. It was so fun to spend some one-on-one time with her. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my little camera to take to the show and most likely they wouldn't have allowed my SLR in so the only pictures I got were on my phone. They didn't turn out great. One of my favorite parts of the evening was actually the drive there and back. We took the corolla with no dvd player so Sydney actually talked to me instead of zoning out with a movie. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Are you excited to see the princesses?

Sydney: Yeah. Baby dragon and baby piggy are coming too. (She has imaginary friends.)

Me: They are? That's great.

Sydney: Yeah, but baby monkey is not coming. He's sick. He's been sick for three days.

Me: Oh that's so sad.

Sydney: He's staying home with his daddy and he's been throwing up in a bowl.

She's got quite an imagination. The show was a lot of fun too and we ate way too much kettle corn. Next time we go though I'll be sure to order tickets earlier. Our seats we way up there.

Hometown celebrity

I must admit I've never really gotten into a season of any tv show until they come out on dvd and I can watch all episodes one right after another. I find that I can't really organize my life around tv. But this year I'm definitely watching American Idol because I sort of know one of them. David Archuleta is friends with my two youngest brothers, Nate and Adam. If you were to ask David if he knows me he probably wouldn't, but if you asked him if he knew Adam's older sister who plays the piano he might remember me. I used to teach piano at my parents' home and there was a time or two I think I went downstairs to ask if he could keep his singing down. I should have just sent the piano student downstairs to learn about music from him instead. Oh and one time he told me I was his hero for being able to play Clair de Lune. Anyways, he is one of the nicest kids I've ever met. So if you think there's no way he's actually as humble and sweet in real life as he appears on tv then I'm here to say that yes, he really is. He so deserves to be the next American Idol. He performed all through my sister Rachel's wedding reception a year and a half ago. Apparently, someone recorded him there and posted it on youtube. 15 seconds is all I could get to download for some reason. That little cutie in the background working with the sound equipement is Adam. If anyone needs a good D.J. he's your guy!

LDS Quotes

Okay...okay...you've heard about my other blog. But here's the fun part: it's getting regular page views. At first this was all about a way to keep my favorite quotes in a good spot and a good reference for talks, lessons, etc. The reason for making it a blog is for others to enjoy the same, as well as get a good thought going through your head in the morning. Well...here's some great feedback for me. I've posted (the equivalent of) every day since April 6th, 2007. Well...I'll miss four or five days, then post date the entries for when I have time. I really try to get one each day, but work's getting busier, we're totally redoing the kitchen, etc. Check this out (Google Analytics of http://glamiacquotes.blogspot.com/:

A few stats since Nov. 11 (when I started tracking using Google Analytics):
Visitors: 1015
Visits: 1184
Page views: 2512
Pages per visit: 2.12
Bounce rate: 60.92%
Avg. time on site: 1:47
% new visits: 85.39%

How the visitors found the site:
Search Engines: 999
Referring sites: 101
Direct traffic: 84

I like to see the upward trend (that and my retirement plan)! I've been reading The Miracle of Forgiveness and that's what I've been blogging lately. It's been good and bad. An understanding of where you failed and encouragement to become better, not dwell in the past.