My New Year's Resolution

It's the time of year when people start making plans on how to better themselves. I'm no different in the fact that I want to be a better in a certain area: juggling.

Here's my goal for the coming year - I want to learn how to juggle 4 balls. And after mastering 4 balls, I'm going to move on to 5 balls. (Thanks to Julia for getting me a juggling set for Christmas)

Here's the video from day one of juggling training. Enjoy!

The most wonderful time of the year

This was the day Julia realized that tomorrow is Christmas Eve. With the added sugar bonus of four bowls of cereal and a bowl of ice cream, she ran around the house all afternoon and well into the evening singing "tomorrow is Christmas Eve!" and all variations that she could think of.

Suddenly she stopped dead in her tracks in mid-sentence and proclaimed, "we almost forgot the cookies for Santa!" So that was how we spent the remainder of the night, making chocolate chip cookies for Santa, big ones because he's going to be really tired from flying all over the world. And how can Santa fly around the whole world in one day? He must be magic.

The joy of Christmas and seeing the sparkle and excitement in Julia's face is pretty dang cool.

I thought kids loved Santa

Apparently, Reed is a typical baby who is completely afraid of the big man in the red suit. At only a year old he's got stranger danger anxiety and kind of freaks out when we hand him to somebody new. Even Santa couldn't work his charm and make Reed smile. But Julia loved it and gladly told Santa all she wants for Christmas.

Gotta love Josh

The other day Josh Groban was singing a Christmas tune on the TV as Julia walked in the room. She heard the music and stopped, looked at the TV for a long moment before saying, "Mom, who is that? I like him. Is he married? Maybe I could marry him when I grow up."

Hard to believe he's one already

Yep, Reed's turning one. For you it may have gone fast, but that's how it is when you're not changing a dirty diaper at 3 in the morning. Well worth every minute! Enjoy the pics.

Thanks to Christy Faiola for being the photographer.
http://faiolafamilyphotos.blogspot.com/

Yet another reason to be cautious on Facebook

This is a post that will hopefully make you think twice about what type of information you divulge about your online self.

Facebook is a cool website that lets you keep in touch with friends, both new and old. I enjoy talking with friends who I haven't heard from in years. But there are some things that my friends (those to whom I talk regularly and the other ones that I don't really know too well) don't need to know. I'm talking about privacy and personal information and what can be learned about just about anybody out there.

Facebook likes you to take surveys to see how many people know 43 things about you.
What is my mother's maiden name
What street did I grow up on
What is my shoe size
What color are my eyes
What was my high school mascot
What is the name of my favorite pet

Now, exactly why should I care if my friends know these things about me? Should I lose sleep if you don't know that my favorite food is Turkish Bulgarian, or that my dream job is to be an underwater basket weaver in the Arabian Sea?

Take a look at the above questions. What's interesting is the similarity between these questions and the ones you'll find on your bank's website when it asks you to create a security question. If you forgot your bank's password, just tell us the name of your favorite movie and we'll let you reset your password and log right in.

So, what you're saying is, if one of my Facebook friends knows that I have all my money at the Bank of New Zealand, they can use the information from my Facebook profile to try and login to my bank account. Not sure what my password is? It doesn't matter because you can look at my Facebook profile and guess what the answers are to my security questions and gain access to my personal bank accounts.

Pretty scaringly slick. Not everybody is as nice as you think they are.

Need a hundred bucks? Just tell me how many kids in your family wear blue jeans, and I'll upload the money to your Facebook account.

If you don't know who I am

My work had a costume contest for Halloween, so of course I dressed up. I would've done it even if there hadn't been a contest, but with a $10 gift card on the line there was extra incentive. My little boy was going as a monkey, so I figured he could be Curious George and I'd be the Man in the Yellow Hat. We were a perfect duo.

I found it kind of interesting that a few people at work asked me, "so, what are you, a southern businessman?" or, "hey farmer, where's your straw hat?" I just had to look at them and wonder how they made it through life not knowing about the man in the yellow hat.

And no, I did NOT win the costume contest, about which I'm still a little bitter.

And Pippie Longstocking was the cutest ever. If you don't know her story, she also has a monkey sidekick named Mr. Nelson. How convenient that her little brother was wearing a monkey costume!

What a view

The family cabin in the Tetons always proves to be a fun getaway. Riding motorcycles up the canyon, visiting the spot where I proposed to Natalie, frisbee golf at Targhee ski resort, and pizza at O'Rourkes are some of the highlights of the Labor Day trip.
I snapped a few shots of the peaks during the trip and am always wowed by their awesomeness. The morning shot was 30 degrees outside, and much colder on the Grand. And the sunsets up there are about as pretty as you'll see anywhere.

C'mon dad, turn it back on

Kids have their own little personalities. Reed likes watching me when I mow the lawn, or more importantly he's curious as to what's making all that noise. Recently he's started to notice the vacuum, and since he can crawl he likes to investigate it. But he doesn't like when the noise stops, and goes bazonkers.

Tub time

This little boy loves the water. He turned into a fish in the pool at our last trip to Park City.

Sort of sleeping through the night

This little boy is 9 months old, he's finally sleeping in his own bed, and for the past 3 nights has slept all the way until 6 AM. I know some people love to hold babies and all, but it's really hard to be happy and calm at 2 AM.
I love my sleep, and I know Nat has missed out as well over the last year or so. But kids are fun, right? Ah who am I kiddin, I love these little cabros.

Track & Field Regionals

Jace Nye, bro-in-law, ran the steeplechase at the T&F West Regionals in Austin, TX this weekend. He qualified for Nationals by running 8:49, placing 10th overall. Good luck in Eugene!

Family pics

My little break-dancer

my little singer

I've been nicely criticized for not updating my blog very often (you know who you are) which I completely recognize and will admit to. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I will do better. As long as you keep reading that is.

With that, here's a video of Reed. One of these times I think he'll actually put his whole fist in his mouth and get it stuck.

Weber State Track at Big Sky Championships

Continuing in Weber State's long-standing tradition of excellent hurdlers, Jace Nye (bro-in-law) defended his 2009 steeplechase title in this year's championship meet on Friday. I think Julia's hand made "Go Jace" flag really gave him the extra boost he needed.
To keep your attention, here are the last two laps of the race.

Sleep is overrated anyway

It's 12:15 in the AM, I have to be at work at 8 AM, and Reed is still wide awake. Even after he goes to bed I know he'll wake up 2 more times. With any luck I'll get a good solid 5 hours of sleep tonight.
Lately he's been quite the night owl, and he likes company. Being only 6 months old the closest company he can find are his parents. Sometimes he'll wake up 5 times a night to eat. It's kind of getting a bit old.
Reed also likes to start his day early, between 5-6 in the morn. The other day he decided to wake up at 2:30 AM, and didn't go back to sleep until 7 that night. It was a long day.
Parenting books will tell you that when you're ready to have a baby start to sleep through the night, you can put him in bed and he will magically learn to cry himself to sleep. Of course, the flaw in this belief is that you are led to believe that YOU are in control of the situation, when in reality we all know who's calling the shots.
Reed's down. I'm debating on whether or not I should go to sleep again, only to wake up in another 45 minutes to feed him again.
This feels a lot like those Friday the 13th movies...don't ever fall asleep!

Editors note: I did not get the 5 hours like I'd planned, it was more like 3 1/2.

5 months old

Reed is 5 months old and doin great.