Last night, Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, died. He was a great man. Here is an article about him: article.
He was 97 years old and was one of the best men I have ever had the chance to be in the presence of. The reasons why he was great are many. One of my favorite was that he was funny. Anyone who knows me knows that I really value humor. In our church, we have a biannual conference that we usually watch on TV where various people from the leadership of the church speak. With President Hinckley, you were almost always guaranteed to have a really good laugh some time during his talk. You were also almost always guaranteed to leave the meeting with a desire to be a little better or try a little harder. I had the opportunity to hear him in person several times and he actually seemed to have a light about him. His humility, his love for people, and his amazing wit were a few of the things that were really inspiring about him. If everyone could be like that man, our world would be a much happier place.
I just wanted to mention it today because I feel like, nowadays, there are very few people in the public spotlight that are really heroic and deserving of respect and serious admiration. Most popular or famous people lead lives that are filled with really bad stuff. Gordon B. Hinckley was someone that we could truly look to for an example of what a good man should do. He loved his wife, he loved his family, he loved God and was true to what he believed. I will forever remember the things he taught me through his example and his service.
Here is a video of Glenn Beck's tribute to him:
Monday, January 28, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Some non-baby related sad events and an update on the sleep training
Well, I don't have a new video yet but I do have an update on a few things. First, I want to devote a few lines to my Grandpa Wilkinson who died yesterday. I think he was ready to go but I was a little sad that I didn't see him more often before he died. He is actually the reason why my first name has a 'y' in it (his first name was Jay). Anyway, I really think he is a lot happier now so that is the good part.
Another thing I want to mention is that my Uncle Ken, my aunt Victoria's husband and the driving force behind a lot of the donations we have received, recently found out that he has cancer and will began treatment very soon. We are all praying for him and he is writing a blog that you can read here at http://kennethcarlson.blogspot.com/.
Next, I would like to give an update on the babies. I mentioned in some of my last posts that we are doing sleep training. This was a very unpredictable task for us since there isn't a whole lot of data or books out there to tell you what to do with 5 babies. However, things are going pretty well. We started off in December with just doing a strict routine and putting them down at night awake and letting them fall asleep on their own. This took a few nights but now is very nice. In the beginning, a few of them, Ryder in particular, cried for a few hours before finally giving up and falling asleep. Over time, they cried less and on the third or fourth day, there really wasn't much crying at all. Now, we just do the big routine and then put them in their beds with smiles on their little faces and they go right to sleep without making any sound and without us doing anything more.
The next big step will be to actually help them sleep all the way through the night. More on that later...
Another thing I want to mention is that my Uncle Ken, my aunt Victoria's husband and the driving force behind a lot of the donations we have received, recently found out that he has cancer and will began treatment very soon. We are all praying for him and he is writing a blog that you can read here at http://kennethcarlson.blogspot.com/.
Next, I would like to give an update on the babies. I mentioned in some of my last posts that we are doing sleep training. This was a very unpredictable task for us since there isn't a whole lot of data or books out there to tell you what to do with 5 babies. However, things are going pretty well. We started off in December with just doing a strict routine and putting them down at night awake and letting them fall asleep on their own. This took a few nights but now is very nice. In the beginning, a few of them, Ryder in particular, cried for a few hours before finally giving up and falling asleep. Over time, they cried less and on the third or fourth day, there really wasn't much crying at all. Now, we just do the big routine and then put them in their beds with smiles on their little faces and they go right to sleep without making any sound and without us doing anything more.
The next big step will be to actually help them sleep all the way through the night. More on that later...
Monday, December 24, 2007
Merry Christmas!
Well, it is Christmas and I decided to post another video (I posted Episode 6 of our show below). This video was made by Rachelle a few years ago for some event at church. The song she used was written by Rachelle's aunt Jeannie and it is called "Little Child". We played it on Christmas Eve and our kids liked it so I thought I would let everybody else see it.
***Update, I took the video off of YouTube but if anyone really wants a copy of it, they can let me know and I can send it to them***
***Update, I took the video off of YouTube but if anyone really wants a copy of it, they can let me know and I can send it to them***
Wilkinson Quints Show Episode 6
OK, so I made another video. I actually took a lot of the video I had made over the last few months and made a longer video. It includes video from our stroller ride with Aunt Linda, our trip to Rudy's, Riley's award ceremony for the Reflections contest, and our visit to the National Instruments company meeting. I also came up with a new beginning to the show. The beginning ends with "WQ+2" which I made in an effort to include Riley and Kaiya in the title.
I think the next video I am going to make will be about the sleep training stuff.
I think the next video I am going to make will be about the sleep training stuff.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Getting ready for Christmas
Well, it has been a while since I have written or posted a video. I plan to post a video soon. Well, I had planned on doing that a month ago but just haven't had time. The main thing sucking up my time has been the calendar we made earlier this month. We are selling it for 20 dollars as a fundraiser and it is pretty great...if you like babies. Anyway, you can read more about it on our website at wilkinsonquints.org/calendar.html.
Here are some pictures from it:
Something interesting things have happened recently. Last week, Rachelle went and ran the Trail of Lights 5K near Downtown Austin. That was fun and I think next year we will ALL run it. That should be quite a spectacle. I was really proud that she could be running a 3 mile race four months after giving birth to quintuplets.
Also, we have had a bunch of people over. First, Candice, the doctor who delivered the babies, came to visit for a few days and helped us all get a little fatter. Next, my aunt Victoria came to visit and that was helpful. While she was here, we got to go see Enchanted which I can definitely recommend.
We also got to go to the little ceremony where Riley got his award for his video. He was the first student in school history to submit a video which was fun.
As I am writing this post, we are doing the sleep training. There are a bunch of books out there about how to teach your kids to sleep through the night and I think Rachelle has read all of them. I am not sure of the name of the method we use but it basically starts with creating a routine that you follow very strictlyeach night when you put them to bed. The idea is that they will start to recognize that it is time to go to bed and get sleepy. Our particular routine consists of feeding them at 7:00, taking off their clothes for a little diaper only time, changing the diaper, rubbing them down with lotion, putting their pajamas on and wrapping them up. Up until tonight, we would kind of bounce them and rock them until they went to sleep and then put them in their cribs. We have been doing this routine for the past few weeks now but tonight was Day 1 of the hardest part. In this phase, we do the routine except after we bundle them up and make sure they are calm (but not asleep) we go and put them in their beds. The result, as you might expect, is that they eventually began to cry. After you put them down, you go in after 5 minutes and give them a little pat (but don't pick them up) and then leave again. You next wait 10 minutes, then 15, then 20, etc... Eventually, they will fall asleep...in theory. Right now, It has been about an hour and a half and one of them, Ryder, is steadfastly refusing to sleep. The others, however, have all given in and are currently sleeping through Ryder's loud crying.
Lest anyone think we are mean, there are two primary reasons why sleep training is important. First, the babies need to learn how to fall asleep on their own. We did the same training with Riley and Kaiya and were able to avoid a lot of the sleep problems I had heard about from other parents. One of the biggest problems with getting kids to sleep through the night is that most of them wake up naturally multiple times during the night and don't know how to get themselves back to sleep without help. When they learn how to fall asleep on their own, they can wake up in the middle of the night and then go back to sleep without help which means they will tend to get more needed rest.
The second reason that babies need training is for the sanity of the parents. Parents need to be able to put the babies in bed and have some parent time.
Now, I definitely have to say that it isn't very fun. When we first put them down, it was an amazing chorus of crying that simultaneously made me laugh and cry. I wanted to laugh because it was just so comical to hear that many crying babies all at once and wanted to cry because it is a bit sad to hear that many crying babies all at once. Anyway, we will make it through this and pretty soon, we will be able to just put them down at 8:00 and have time to do all kinds of stuff... like catch up on making more videos.
Here are some pictures from it:
January | February | March |
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| April | May | June |
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| July | August | September |
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| October | November | December |
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Something interesting things have happened recently. Last week, Rachelle went and ran the Trail of Lights 5K near Downtown Austin. That was fun and I think next year we will ALL run it. That should be quite a spectacle. I was really proud that she could be running a 3 mile race four months after giving birth to quintuplets.
Also, we have had a bunch of people over. First, Candice, the doctor who delivered the babies, came to visit for a few days and helped us all get a little fatter. Next, my aunt Victoria came to visit and that was helpful. While she was here, we got to go see Enchanted which I can definitely recommend.
We also got to go to the little ceremony where Riley got his award for his video. He was the first student in school history to submit a video which was fun.
As I am writing this post, we are doing the sleep training. There are a bunch of books out there about how to teach your kids to sleep through the night and I think Rachelle has read all of them. I am not sure of the name of the method we use but it basically starts with creating a routine that you follow very strictlyeach night when you put them to bed. The idea is that they will start to recognize that it is time to go to bed and get sleepy. Our particular routine consists of feeding them at 7:00, taking off their clothes for a little diaper only time, changing the diaper, rubbing them down with lotion, putting their pajamas on and wrapping them up. Up until tonight, we would kind of bounce them and rock them until they went to sleep and then put them in their cribs. We have been doing this routine for the past few weeks now but tonight was Day 1 of the hardest part. In this phase, we do the routine except after we bundle them up and make sure they are calm (but not asleep) we go and put them in their beds. The result, as you might expect, is that they eventually began to cry. After you put them down, you go in after 5 minutes and give them a little pat (but don't pick them up) and then leave again. You next wait 10 minutes, then 15, then 20, etc... Eventually, they will fall asleep...in theory. Right now, It has been about an hour and a half and one of them, Ryder, is steadfastly refusing to sleep. The others, however, have all given in and are currently sleeping through Ryder's loud crying.
Lest anyone think we are mean, there are two primary reasons why sleep training is important. First, the babies need to learn how to fall asleep on their own. We did the same training with Riley and Kaiya and were able to avoid a lot of the sleep problems I had heard about from other parents. One of the biggest problems with getting kids to sleep through the night is that most of them wake up naturally multiple times during the night and don't know how to get themselves back to sleep without help. When they learn how to fall asleep on their own, they can wake up in the middle of the night and then go back to sleep without help which means they will tend to get more needed rest.
The second reason that babies need training is for the sanity of the parents. Parents need to be able to put the babies in bed and have some parent time.
Now, I definitely have to say that it isn't very fun. When we first put them down, it was an amazing chorus of crying that simultaneously made me laugh and cry. I wanted to laugh because it was just so comical to hear that many crying babies all at once and wanted to cry because it is a bit sad to hear that many crying babies all at once. Anyway, we will make it through this and pretty soon, we will be able to just put them down at 8:00 and have time to do all kinds of stuff... like catch up on making more videos.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Thanksgiving and a lot of cool stuff happening
OK, I haven't posted for a long time because I have been really busy. Too busy, in fact to make a video. However, I have a lot of cool raw video that I will be putting up here soon once I get the time to make it into something that isn't boring. Anyway, some of the cool things that have occupied my time in the last few weeks are - a big company meeting that featured my babies (that I have video of), a talk I had to give in church on gratitude, and Thanksgiving.
First thing I want to say is how grateful I am for all of the night shift people we have had over the past few months. Rachelle and I took our first turns at the night shift last week for a few nights and we quickly realized that had we been doing that every night for the last 3 months, we would be totally crazy. It isn't as bad as it used to be because the babies are starting to have a better schedule but it was still bad enough that it would wear us out really fast if we had to do it every day.
The next thing I want to talk about it football. We were watching the UT vs. Texas A&M game last Friday and as I was watching it, I was really surprised to look up and see one of my babies on the TV during the commercial break. After a moment, I realized that it was a commercial for an upcoming special report about our babies on KVUE (ABC) on Monday Nov 26th at 6:00 PM. One of Rachelle's cousins who was visiting us was shocked about how that kind of stuff didn't totally freak us out. I guess it was a little weird but kind of cool at the same time.
Also, speaking of football, I have to mention here that BYU beat the University of Utah (their big rival) this year in a very dramatic finish. I didn't actually see the game but I watched the score update on ESPN.com. I chose not to watch or listen to it live because I have learned that doing so really upsets me. The University of Utah is our nemesis and it always bugs me when they beat us (which has happened a lot in the past 6 or so years). Anyway, BYU won and I think it might be partly because of the clothes we put on the babies.
Another really cool thing that happened this week was that we went to Rudy's. For those of you not from these parts, Rudy's is a really good barbecue place here in Austin (and a few other places) where we like to go. Rachelle's brother Ryan was visiting so we decided to take him there. However, because we didn't have any volunteers for that time, we decided to take the babies with us for their first big outing.
It was a little crazy going there but we made it OK. When we walked in, a few people stared but we assumed they probably thought we just had a few families together with a bunch of babies. Anyway, we put them all in the back of the restaurant and had Rachelle's mom go and order the food. As she was ordering, she realized that she probably wouldn't have enough cash to pay for it so she asked Ryan to go get some from me. While he was going, the manager of the store asked her if she was with us. When she said "yes", he said that our meal would be on the house and kept insisting that we order a little bit more. He was really nice and it turned out that he has twins and understood what was going on with us. A little later, he asked to take a picture of the babies with a bunch of Rudy's Barbecue sauce bottles for their wall of fame. We said, "Sure", so they brought out their camera and took some pictures then gave us all of the bottles of sauce. It was very nice. Here is a picture of the event:
Other than that, we had the baby blessings for our babies today. Rachelle will talk about that so I will just mention it briefly here. In our church, we give baby blessings to newborns to kind of get them started off right. The blessings are given in our "sacrament meeting" which is the big meeting we have with everybody. The person that performed the ordinance was me and doing five was a bit of a challenge. We had a bunch of people come which was really great but I am sure that Rachelle will talk about it.
Something I wanted to also share were some TV news stories that happened over the last few weeks:
Here is one from News 8 Austin that they were showing on Thanksgiving day (the link to the video is down near the middle of the story):
Link to news 8 story
Here is also one from KEYE that they showed last week (the video is on the right of the story)
KEYE story
First thing I want to say is how grateful I am for all of the night shift people we have had over the past few months. Rachelle and I took our first turns at the night shift last week for a few nights and we quickly realized that had we been doing that every night for the last 3 months, we would be totally crazy. It isn't as bad as it used to be because the babies are starting to have a better schedule but it was still bad enough that it would wear us out really fast if we had to do it every day.
The next thing I want to talk about it football. We were watching the UT vs. Texas A&M game last Friday and as I was watching it, I was really surprised to look up and see one of my babies on the TV during the commercial break. After a moment, I realized that it was a commercial for an upcoming special report about our babies on KVUE (ABC) on Monday Nov 26th at 6:00 PM. One of Rachelle's cousins who was visiting us was shocked about how that kind of stuff didn't totally freak us out. I guess it was a little weird but kind of cool at the same time.
Also, speaking of football, I have to mention here that BYU beat the University of Utah (their big rival) this year in a very dramatic finish. I didn't actually see the game but I watched the score update on ESPN.com. I chose not to watch or listen to it live because I have learned that doing so really upsets me. The University of Utah is our nemesis and it always bugs me when they beat us (which has happened a lot in the past 6 or so years). Anyway, BYU won and I think it might be partly because of the clothes we put on the babies.
Another really cool thing that happened this week was that we went to Rudy's. For those of you not from these parts, Rudy's is a really good barbecue place here in Austin (and a few other places) where we like to go. Rachelle's brother Ryan was visiting so we decided to take him there. However, because we didn't have any volunteers for that time, we decided to take the babies with us for their first big outing.
It was a little crazy going there but we made it OK. When we walked in, a few people stared but we assumed they probably thought we just had a few families together with a bunch of babies. Anyway, we put them all in the back of the restaurant and had Rachelle's mom go and order the food. As she was ordering, she realized that she probably wouldn't have enough cash to pay for it so she asked Ryan to go get some from me. While he was going, the manager of the store asked her if she was with us. When she said "yes", he said that our meal would be on the house and kept insisting that we order a little bit more. He was really nice and it turned out that he has twins and understood what was going on with us. A little later, he asked to take a picture of the babies with a bunch of Rudy's Barbecue sauce bottles for their wall of fame. We said, "Sure", so they brought out their camera and took some pictures then gave us all of the bottles of sauce. It was very nice. Here is a picture of the event:
Other than that, we had the baby blessings for our babies today. Rachelle will talk about that so I will just mention it briefly here. In our church, we give baby blessings to newborns to kind of get them started off right. The blessings are given in our "sacrament meeting" which is the big meeting we have with everybody. The person that performed the ordinance was me and doing five was a bit of a challenge. We had a bunch of people come which was really great but I am sure that Rachelle will talk about it.
Something I wanted to also share were some TV news stories that happened over the last few weeks:
Here is one from News 8 Austin that they were showing on Thanksgiving day (the link to the video is down near the middle of the story):
Link to news 8 story
Here is also one from KEYE that they showed last week (the video is on the right of the story)
KEYE story
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
No time for videos this week
Well, there isn't an episode today because I just didn't have time to make one. On Saturday, I ended up spending about 4 hours in the morning helping one of the friends from church move. It was good exercise and I decided I probably ought to do that every week if I could. However, it was only possible because we ended up having a whole bunch of people come over and help on Saturday including my dad who is here for a few days. Because of all the help, I was also able to install a bunch of shelves in our garage with the help of Jim Haynie from church. Right after that, we still had enough volunteers so I installed a back up camera on our van so that we can see things when we back up. I got the camera from Costco and it seems to work pretty well. It is a little odd to have a bunch of people (some of whom we know and some of whom we don't know) coming and going from our house all the time but it sure does help.
It has been fun to have my dad here. He seems to really enjoy holding the babies. Really, who wouldn't though? Well, I guess that people who are nervous about babies might not like it. There have been some people, mostly teenagers, who have been really nervous about holding the babies and it has been comical to see some of them try. It sometimes looks similar to people trying to figure out how to use chop sticks for the first time...except that these chop sticks are much cuter but get grumpy when you don't hold them right. I figure it is really good practice because most of them will have to hold a baby at some other time in life and they may as well hold these ones first because they are so cute. The only problem I see is that they might think that all babies are as cute as these and that could lead to a bit of disappointment when they hold other babies. OK, I am kidding...sort of.
Anyway, I notice that some of the videos we have posted on Youtube over the last year haven't been watched very much so I thought I would post one of those instead. Here is one we made one night about a year ago. It is a lip sync of a song from the soundtrack of a movie called the Singles Ward and is a sort of jazzed up version of a hymn from church. It was fun.
It has been fun to have my dad here. He seems to really enjoy holding the babies. Really, who wouldn't though? Well, I guess that people who are nervous about babies might not like it. There have been some people, mostly teenagers, who have been really nervous about holding the babies and it has been comical to see some of them try. It sometimes looks similar to people trying to figure out how to use chop sticks for the first time...except that these chop sticks are much cuter but get grumpy when you don't hold them right. I figure it is really good practice because most of them will have to hold a baby at some other time in life and they may as well hold these ones first because they are so cute. The only problem I see is that they might think that all babies are as cute as these and that could lead to a bit of disappointment when they hold other babies. OK, I am kidding...sort of.
Anyway, I notice that some of the videos we have posted on Youtube over the last year haven't been watched very much so I thought I would post one of those instead. Here is one we made one night about a year ago. It is a lip sync of a song from the soundtrack of a movie called the Singles Ward and is a sort of jazzed up version of a hymn from church. It was fun.
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