An idea on being a better person

OK, so I had to teach a lesson in church last week and it was about pride. I was basing the lesson off a great talk about pride which you can find here:

http://lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/pride-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng

It is probably obvious that the goal of the lesson was to not be prideful and I realized that not being prideful is a pretty good idea because it actually makes you happier. Doing that, however, is pretty challenging and I thought I would illustrate why with this little diagram:

The problem is that balancing ourselves on that point of humility is almost impossible. On one side of the hill, we have the envy. This is where short people like me live. On the other side we have the "I'm better than you" type of pride. That is where the tall people live. It is really difficult because there are constantly things pushing us from one side to the other. That is unless we are really pitiful or really awesome and then we just camp out on one side.

Now, don't fear because I thought of a solution to the problem. Well, OK, the person who gave the talk actually thought of the solution but I thought of an analogy that helped me understand the solution. Think of balancing a stick on your finger. Have you ever tried that? If you have, you might know that if you look down and concentrate on where your finger is, you can't balance the stick. However, if you simply focus on the top of the stick, you'll find that you are much better able to balance the stick. I compare this to concentrating too much on ourselves. If we TRY to be humble by focusing on ourselves, then we can almost never do it. However, if we focus outside ourselves (specifically, if we focus on helping other people) then actual humility is within our grasp. This is like looking at the top of the stick (the furthest point away from ourselves) instead of our finger. Anyway, that is it. Now, if I can just start doing better at doing good stuff for other people...

Kynda and Kaydence singing Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

The other day, Rachelle noticed that Kyndall could sing almost all of the words of "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas". It was actually pretty impressive because she actually knows the lyrics better than either of us do. Then it turned out that Kaydence knew the words too so we got the video camera out and recorded them. Kyndall was kind of being a stinker. She just didn't want to hold still.

Why I thought Tangled was a great movie

Yes, Tangled is a Disney musical...and yes, I thought it was awesome. There are several reasons for this. One of the first reasons is that Tangled essentially made Han Solo the main guy. I have a theory that the Han Solo character makes any movie better. Nobody likes a weak guy. Han Solo isn't a weak guy. He is a guy that is a little bit bad but deep down is good and he is a manly guy. Lately, some of the movies I have seen have guys that are not all that manly. No guy wants to be like those guys. That is why chick flicks are generally unpopular with guys. This is all my theory of course. I just thought it was nice to see a Disney prince that was, well, Han Solo.

The other thing I really liked about Tangled was the fact that the animal side kicks didn't talk. That always bugged me a little. The dragon in Mulan was an exception but that was only because Eddie Murphy was funny and because he was supposed the be a sort of spirit thing. All those talking animals are really just annoying...like Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars episode 1.

The other reason I liked it was that the princess wasn't a self absorbed jerk. Ariel...total jerk and rotten daughter. Jasmine...spoiled jerk. Snow White...more or less brainless. Belle...well, I guess she was mostly OK. The princess in Tangled seemed a genuinely nice, albeit a little sheltered, girl. She was just likable.

The other thing I really liked about it was that it didn't rely on potty humor. It just didn't need to go there and that was actually pretty impressive. Dreamworks tends to put a lot more of that in their movies. Not that I don't laugh at some of the potty humor in other movies. I am a guy after all. However, I am always much more impressed when they can manage to make a good movie that doesn't rely on it so much.

Aside from those things the music was good although not as memorable as some of the other movies. It didn't really have that signature song that sticks with you like "Beauty and the Beast" but the music was comparable to other Disney movies. In the end, it was just simply a very good movie and you should go see it.

A video with our photographer friend

I shot a video last weekend for a friend of ours, Kristen Duke. It was fun to go do. Kristen is a mostly self-taught photographer here in the area that has a good eye and can really make people look good. She also does a good job of snapping off photos when you aren't looking. These candid photos are often my favorite because they show something different that the smiling at the camera photos. I honestly get a little tired of the smiling at the camera photos because after a while, they all look about the same and they lack real personality. Anyway, here is the video I made for her.

Kristen Duke Photography Session from Jayson Wilkinson on Vimeo.

Riley's controversial Reflections contest video

If you have seen Rachelle's post, then you know that Riley and Kaiya recently participated in the school Reflections contest. They won in their categories (photography for Kaiya and video for Riley) which isn't totally surprising because they were the only ones to enter those categories. They have got a lot better though and I think this year they have a chance to go a little further. Anyway, the thing I wanted to mention was that it turns out that Riley's video is a little bit controversial. See if you can spot the controversial part (hint: it's near the end)



Did you spot it? It was the part where Riley took the plastic bags and threw them in the trash. The controversy was in the fact that he didn't appear to throw them in the recycling bin. Now, just so you know, we usually save the plastic bags for use with other things. However, I have to admit that we don't do this 100 percent of the time and I also have to admit that we often save the plastic bags because they make great trash bags for throwing away disposable diapers. I suppose that this makes us fairly rotten people in the eyes of some. That is actually fine with me. I'll admit that I don't feel like I have a moral obligation to recycle (even though I think it is a good idea). To me, being a good person has very little to do with whether you recycle or not but much more to do with how you treat your fellow human beings. If you had to choose, would you rather have a kid that tries to do nice things to others or one that always remembers to recycle? I would take the nice kid every time...even if he does throw away a few plastic bags every now and then.

Kyndall the Lock Picker

Kyndall is a stinker. That is just how it is. However, she has proven time and time again to be a very smart stinker. One of the funniest things happened the other day that proves this. For some reason, I was finding that kids were getting in to Kaiya's room. We have the standard door knob covers that are supposed to prevent kids from getting in to rooms that we don't want them to get to.



These are fairly effective at preventing most kids as well as many adults from getting to these rooms. However, for some reason, Kaiya's room kept getting vandalized. I had originally thought it was just because Kaiya kept forgetting to close the door but I was proved wrong. Ryder was frustrated one day at nap time (when we read them stories) because he wanted to get a story from Kaiya's room and the door was shut. He was getting really mad when I came over to him. Just before I got there, he yelled, "Kyndall! Break it!" I turned around and saw Kyndall come over and whip out a little screw driver. She then proceeded to break open the "child-proof" door knob cover with the screw driver.



I was amazed that this little girl that refuses to be potty-trained was smart enough to figure out how to break in to an off-limits room. We made sure all of the screw drivers were out of reach and have had much fewer break ins.

Cleaning house

There are a few things we do nearly every day. One of them is wake up, one of them is eat, and the other is clean the house. I can't tell you how tempting it is to not clean up the toys every day. I think our quints are at possibly the worst age for making big messes. I have to hand it to Rachelle, though. She is determined to live in a clean and mostly clutter-free house.

When we originally signed the papers to buy the house we currently live in, it just felt right. We were going to have an upstairs room for kids to play in and the rule would be that toys were never allowed downstairs. It was going to be a perfect house with a storage room and a slightly bigger garage where we would have enough room for two cars as well as the lawn stuff and my tools.

Jump forward 3 and a half years and we find a few big bins full of toys, a hamper full of dress up clothes, 5 tricycles, and a big metal teeter-totter shaped like an airplane...all downstairs. We also have taken the storage room and made it a bedroom for the boys and used the extra garage space to store various food and kid things that we will need for the future. We also have a van that is a little too big for the garage and a bunch of strollers and other things that would make it impossible to fit anyway.

The good part is that the current house is almost perfect for what we need. All of those original plans are gone but we are left with a house that could potentially last through all of our kids. Kind of nice how things have worked out even though they are not as we originally planned.

Keeping it all clean though is another matter. On most nights we all pitch in and try to clean everything up before going to bed each night (some help more than others). The dishes, the toys, and the clothes are the main things that need to be picked up every night. This has become harder as the quints have gotten older and have been able to go in more places in the house. On any given day, we will end up finding toys from the same bin in 5 different areas of the house. We try to let them only play with one bin at a time but they are at the age where they can pull the toys out themselves so it is harder to keep them to just one set.

They nearly all like to hide toys so that they can feel some ownership. I think possession is a big deal with these kids because there are very few things that they actually "own". Because of that, they like to take toys (like little cars) and hide them in their tricycle seats or in bags that they carry around. Find a bag that Kassidy is carrying around and you are almost guaranteed to find a bunch of purple blocks, a doll, and maybe Rachelle's Ipod.

Tonight was particularly rough for some reason. It just seemed like everything was everywhere and it was hard to look at it and get up the motivation to clean because I know that in just a few hours, all of the toys I have just cleaned up will be taken out again and spread all over the house. However, thanks Rachelle for making us do it because it always feel better each night when things are clean, the house is quiet, and I can pretend like I am a normal person who can just sit here and write a blog entry in peace. Ahhhhhhhh......

Someone actually recognized me from the show

On Saturday, I was coaching Riley's YMCA volleyball team. We only had 5 players show up but our team is really spunky and they did a great job even though we won one and lost two. Our team has half boys and half girls which is the first time there has been more than 2 boys on the team.

Anyway, after we were done, and getting ready to leave, one of the mom's from the other team came up to me and said she recognized me from the show on TLC. It was funny because she started by saying "You probably get this all the time but...". It was funny because I DON'T get that all the time. In fact, that instance was the first time something like that has ever happened.

Remember when you were a kid and thought that if you were ever on TV, you were automatically famous? Well, as you probably know, that is just not true. In the last few years my family and I have been on every news station in Austin, on a TLC special last year as well as a commercial for a local grocery store (HEB) in Texas and nobody has ever recognized me before unless I am with ALL my kids. Even then, they often confuse me with somebody else. In fact, if you think about it, if you were to see somebody from one of the families on one of the TLC shows on the street would you recognize him or her? Chances are you wouldn't have any idea who they were (unless it was Kate or Jon). Who remembers all of the various people from the various TV shows? I would guess that nobody remembers them except their families. And that is just fine.

What not to wear for Halloween

I was looking through the paper this morning and noticed something interesting. If you are a woman and want to buy a Halloween costume, you primary decision will be which kind of prostitute you want to be. Am I just old fashioned or did anyone else notice that? You can choose to be a pirate prostitute, a princess prostitute, a super hero prostitute, and many more! What a great idea! Lets go ahead and encourage the women of our world to make themselves into objects. I wonder if any guy looking at a woman wearing one of those costumes is wondering if that woman can carry on an intelligent conversation. Probably not.

Great News! I found a few more funny comments to share

OK, so the first one is based on comparisons with our friends show, "Quints by Surprise". The Jones family is a great family and their show is probably the best multiples series out there (mainly because they have a good marriage and are genuinely good people). However, some of the fans had some pretty interesting things to say on the Jones Life Facebook page here. One wrote a letter to TLC and felt the need to "throw us under the bus" which was pretty awesome!

Here is what she wrote:

Dear TLC, I am a frequent and faithful viewer of TLC programs. Thank you for the interesting, heart-warming, educational, family-friendly and relational programming you air. I recently fell in love with one show in particular: QUINTS BY SURPRISE. Every member of the Jones family is endearing. They are inspiring as ...a family unit, and particularly as a married couple. ---The only thing that I cannot understand is the name of the show! It's pretty silly, as my husband remarked "Of COURSE it's 'by surprise!’ NO ONE sets out to have quints!!' The family's last name is Jones. The show title writes itself: KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES!---As I have been bothered by the silly title, I was excited to see ‘Texas Quints’ on the line-up, thinking that at long last, someone else agreed with me about the name!

Well, the word disappointed doesn’t cover my reaction when I found out that the two are NOT one and the same! As I posted on my Facebook status, ‘Texas Quints’ seems like a prequel to a ‘Nanny 911’-type show. The parents are very sweet, but they need parenting help--yesterday! It’s painful to watch (which, I won’...t be any more) ...

...Thank you for your time, [Name Withheld]

In response to that, someone else commented the following:
I agree with you I will not be watching texas quints ever again their kids are wild and out of control! [Name Withheld]

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Now I have to agree with them at least on one point which is that the Jones family is great. In all likelihood they will have a second season on their series and I think that is great because they honestly might need the extra money a bit more than we do. The other thing I have to agree with is that our kids are some times out of control. That is part of what makes it funny though.

Here is another comment that I thought was priceless. It comes from here (you have to scroll down pretty far to find it):
I watched the Texas quints last night and a bigger bunch of screaming brats I have never seen! WHO wants to watch that crap at 10pm at night! I would like some peace and quiet at that time! This certainly wouldn't replace the Jones Quints or any of the other multiples shows for me! I won't watch it again!
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Anyway, if anyone finds any more, please send them to me. I honestly think they are pretty funny.

Jayson

My first "funny comments about our TV show" post

One of the things that is inevitable when you put yourself in the spotlight is that people are going to pass judgment. This is really just human nature and I don't totally blame the people that do that. Heck, you can't really help yourself when we see something that causes some strong emotion. I decided that a really fun thing to do would be to share these comments with everyone on my blog. You may be asking yourself, "why would anyone in their right mind draw even more attention to the negative comments?" Well, if you know me, you already know that I am not in my right mind...so there we have it. I have been tempted in the past to write responses to these comments but have found that it just gets me frustrated. One of the frustrating things is that often these comments have little grains of truth that I can learn from. In the end, just sharing them makes me feel a little better.

Overall I don't think they are all that bad but I'll let you be the judge. Here goes...

First lets start with something that isn't actually that bad from here:
http://www.cafemom.com/group/416/forums/read/12467730/texas_quints

Someone says: I dunno what I thought about it, maybe its just the way they cut it but the parents seem like complete pushovers. The kids have control.


Here is a few from this web site:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101013064112AAiBIf1

One person said: The show just made me cringe. Would you just let your 3 year old climb up into their own highchair unassisted with the tray still on it? I was also cringing when they were climbing back and forth between cribs... get some toddler beds if they are climbing like that, how dangerous.

Another said: I try not to watch this reality cr@p! Especially the ones where the mother takes a bunch of fertility drugs and pushes out a liter of kids! One is hard enough, but controlling 4, you'd be more successful trying to herd cats!

They're on these shows so they can somehow get some sponsorship to pay for raising them! More than likely us tax payers will end up footing the bill for raising them!


Here is one that isn't so bad. It contains some inevitable comparisons to our friends, the Jones family, who are the Austin family in "Quints by Surprise" on TLC:
http://community.thebump.com/cs/ks/forums/43775530/ShowThread.aspx?MsdVisit=1

One person said: There kid's names are Rustin, Kyndall, Kaydence and others of course. Those just stand out for me because I can't stand the name/spellings. :x

Another said: "Quints by Surprise" is my all time favorite family of multiples show. This one won't beat that just from the dumb spellings alone.


Some of the best are on this site:
http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/index.php?showtopic=3198981&st=0&


One person said: The kids are three and still in diapers and cribs? Really?

Another one said: Dad feared bumping into his aborted fetuses in heaven and having to explain to them why he'd killed them?! Seriously, can't we just stop believing this nonsense?

Yet another one said: I think it's annoying and cheesy (and kind of Duggaresque) how all of their girls have K names and all of the boys have R names, even the non-quint older kids. I don't know which name I hate more, Kyndall or Rustin (seriously, Rustin, as in rusting?).

Here is one from a Facebook page:

As a nanny to triplets I am always working to make sure each boy has his own identity... I had to turn off Texas Quints because I got so annoyed with them only calling their children "the quints".

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Well, there you have it. I guess it isn't so bad after all. The relatively small amount of negative comments is probably a sign that not that many people saw the show. In the end, it was a totally fun thing to do and it gave me the opportunity to show everyone how funny my family is. That is really what matters to me.

Rap video for Texas Quints

I almost forgot I had a blog but decided that this would be a good time to put something up there. The Texas Quints show on TLC is coming and as part of the shooting, we made a rap video. It was a lot of fun to do and it looks like they had fun editing it too.

Riley and Kaiya commercial based on Old Spice commercial

Riley and Kaiya made a commercial completely by themselves which turned out pretty good. Riley recently Acquired a small video camera and he has been making all kinds of movies. Most of these movies are pretty silly but this one was actually fairly impressive because of the clever script. It is based on the Old Spice commercial. I call it, "The room your room could be like" and was inspired by the three days it took to clean Kaiya's room. Here it is:



If you haven't seen the original commercial, here it is:



Anyway, I was totally impressed with Riley's idea to do it and Kaiya's funny performance.

Second part (of three) of the Quintathalon!

Finally, we got around to finishing the second part of the quintathalon. Here it is:

Our HEB commercial on Vimeo

Update: It looks like they took the commercial down. Not sure why but I guess they didn't want it to be as public as it was.

If it ever comes back, here is where it will probably be:

:30 Wilkinson Testimonial from heb.com on Vimeo.

Snow in Austin!

Another video

Last August, I got Rachelle the American Idol Karaoke game for the Wii. Apparently, we have been using it enough that the babies have absorbed some of the songs. A few days ago, I was sitting at dinner when I realized that Kyndall was singing the chorus to Stayin Alive. I went and got the camera and this is the result: