2010

I thought about doing the same thing I did last year and give you some statistics about what happened on my blog. Well, it looks like I had a lot more time last year than I do this year. I was able to check out all of my posts and tell you how many comments each one received and what posts were my favorites and which one's failed miserably. This year, I barely have time to type anything into this year end post. I guess I can say that I am glad that this year is over and I hope next year is much much better. I guess I should really focus on the happy exciting things that happened to me instead of the downers. I was able to witness the wedding of my Brother Blake to Estee Blatter in the Denver Colorado Temple. I was able to baptize my youngest daughter this year and confirm her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. I was able to walk in the footsteps of the Willie and Martin Handcart companies and ponder the hardships they suffered while returning to my nice air conditioned hotel room. I should focus on the advancement in the Priesthood of my two son's. One becoming a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood and the other being ordained a Teacher. I still have a job that I enjoy and that help pay for the necessities of life. I have great people to work with at my job. I am able to teach a strong work ethic to my kids by taking on a paper route. And finally, I should be thankful that our dog healed from his broken leg and continues to be excited to meet me at the front door when I come home from work.

I have begun to ponder why I continue to write a bunch of stuff on this blog. A part of me likes the opportunity to make fun of myself. Part of me wants to make people laugh. Part of me wants to share experiences that might match things in their own life. Part of me just wants to unload thoughts that come to me during the day. Hopefully there isn't a "Clint Overload" out there in the bloggosphere. If there is, please, just unsubscribe or ignore me in your reader, or delete me on facebook, or stop following me on twitter or watching my videos on YouTube or reading my posts on LDSFamily.net. Hummmm, I guess there is a lot of ways I can invade people's lives with my blathering.

Age 42 hit me this year and I don't know what to think about it. I remember when my Dad was 40 and I'm not sure I'm as far along in life nor as successful as he was. Maybe I'll catch up later. A friend of mine taught me about how trees are different and mature at different times. One tree might stand dormant even though all of the other trees around it had blossomed and bloomed. I guess I'm just one of those trees that will mature later? There is also a little story about a vinyard that was pruned back by it's Gardner. The plant that was pruned down to the ground looked up at the Gardner and said, "why was I cut back so far to the ground?". The Gardner looked back and said, "I'm the gardner and I will mold you and prune you as I see fit to make you a strong plant". Ok, that may not make sense.

Am I still writing? I should have stopped long ago.

100th Video

It is official, I have now uploaded 100 videos to YouTube!!!!

The very first video I posted on YouTube happened December 02, 2008 it was entitled Christmas Morning 2007. I don't know why it took so long for me to upload my first video. I didn't know much about videos, uploading, youtube or editing at that point. The video was actually shot by my brother Blake.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc_HGl-vdoQ

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The most recent video I shot and uploaded to YouTube was from Christmas 2010. It is a small video of my parents playing our new game on the Wii called Band Hero.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjJM2OTbJQE

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The video with the MOST hits came from a brief visit to a robotics competition. It was called First Lego League. It has now had over 5,300 hits!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNRUh7U5Vyg

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And finally, in honor of my 100th video on YouTube, I'll put a few of my favorite videos to date.

Andy at Camp Bradley (Old Spice Commercial)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsMli_p6Jes

Savanna, Katie, Andy and I doing the Wass Up commercial with our own twist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCgqL0hgo7g

And finally, me and Coby doing the Banadana Skit at a Carter Family Reunion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXg6PNHaI7w

If you like some of these videos, click on the subscribe button when you get to YouTube and you will see all of my latest videos each time I upload a new one. (You have to be a member of YouTube of course)

Christmas 2010

I was in Costco with Deanna walking through the isles when I saw a huge bin of these bears. I thought it would be a cool gift to give the girls this year so I checked out the price. Well, the price was right so I told Deanna I would come back later and pick them up.

Below is a picture of my shopping cart.




I couldn't post these pictures until after Christmas but I just had to let people see how ridiculous I looked when trying to buy my girls a Christmas present this year.

I believe

There was a constant buzz around our house about Santa Clause last year. Fortunately it hasn't been such a big discussion nor argument this year amongst the kids. Whenever we got into the dialog about Santa, I'd always side with the youngest members of the family and state that "I believe".



I still remember the excitement of waking up early in the morning with the hope that Santa Clause had brought me something cool for Christmas. I remember that there was MAGIC in the air because it was always such a mystery. Now that I am older, Christmas has lost some of its magic and glitter, however, I don't ever want to loose that feeling that I had when I was a young child. So, whenever one of my kids, old or young, asks me if I believe in Santa and the magic of Christmas, I always say, "I believe". Deep down in my little kid heart, I believe. I hope that my kids never grow too old to believe in the excitement and magic of Christmas.

Ginger Bread Houses

The other day I was browsing through the Bloggernacle again and found a cool web page that has craft ideas for little kids. I thought some of them looked easy so I forwarded the link to Deanna at school. Later, I found out that when she scrolled through the ideas, she came across ginger bread houses made from gram crackers and frosting. Immediately she remembered her childhood and that her family had made little gram cracker houses when she was little. I thought it sounded fun and cheep, so a rushed down to the store and bought a bunch of Gram Crackers to use for Family Home Evening.

We took the Gram Crackers over to my parents house, and we decorated these houses with the Hirschi Family on Monday night. I didn't have a camera ready so I had to take some pictures with my phone. They aren't great but they do that job.

Is it worth it?

Many of you know that recently our family started doing a paper route. Since I would much rather have bamboo jammed under my fingernails than to get up at 4:00am every morning, I have been continually asking myself if it is worth it. Well, I now have my answer.

I had the opportunity to take the girls out for dinner at Wendy's the other night. We stepped up to the counter to order our meals and surveyed the choices. After ordering each individual meal, Savanna looked up at me and said. "How much was my meal?". I replied, " Oh, about $6.00". She looked back at me and commented, "That's about two days worth of doing the paper route". A grin came to my face because I realized that she had just learned how much a dollar was worth. So, now, when we are about to spend some money, I ask Savanna how many days of paper route would it take to pay for it.



Yep, just for that one lesson, it has been worth it.

This is Life.

I don't know about some of you parents out there but sometimes it feels like a burden to get ready and go down to watch your kid play a game of soccer, or clog, or bball game, or choir. You pay your $5.00 to watch your own kid perform and end up spending 90% of your time watching other kids perform and then seeing your kid up there doing their thing for 20 seconds. It can be a little tedious and boring and sometimes, I must admit, I would rather stay home and stare at the wall.

HOWEVER, that that is at BIG HOWEVER, I have grown to learn to appreciate these little snippets in time when I can watch my kids stretch and grow. This weekend happened to be one of these events. Savanna was scheduled to go and "clog" at the Festival of Trees. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you would have already known that. Anyway, Savanna was already complaining about having to go down and perform. She wasn't excited and really didn't want to go. Of course, that really didn't help my desire to go either. I bribed her into going by offering her a sandwich at Subway. That did the trick and the complaining stopped.

We arrived at the Festival of Trees and of course, there were gaggle of other parents there to watch their kids perform as well. After the clogging began I started to think in my mind that THIS was life. This is why we came here, this is why I wanted to be a Dad. I decided to enjoy the moment and soak in this special time to watch my daughter perform in front of an audience. I was proud to say that my attitude changed and I fully embraced the moment in time where I was participating in "real life".

Fortunately for you, or unfortunately however you want to look at it, I brought my flip video and recorded the event for all time. You are all probably tired of watching Savanna's clogging videos but for me, I just can't get enough.



Here is a link for my Facebook Friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNiEouIogOg

Pictures in a box

I was wondering around the mall the other day waiting for Andy to find some basketball shoes that were "cool" enough and also had his school colors. Those colors being from my Alma mater O'Leary Middle School. While we were waiting and wondering, we, the girls and I, saw a photo box.



We saw some people stuffed inside so we walked past and looked in a few stores. As we shuffled back down the main corridor of the mall, we saw the kiosk again. It was empty. I decided that if the price was less then $5.00, we would get in. We peeked through the curtain and found that photos were $3.00. The girls started to bounce up and down and since it was below my price point, we squeezed into the box and sat down. I swiped my card and prepared to be photographed. The girls seemed to want to do all crazy face pictures but I convinced them at least once to a normal smile. We had a great time and we have some pictures to remember the event. I kinda like those photo kiosk booths.



Deanna and I took one while we were dating. I still love the picture.