New Videos - Episode 12 Part 1 and Part 2.

I decided to break this episode into two episodes. We are taking a brief break from the Quint Olympics. This is partly because we haven't had time to make one but it is also partly because we are waiting for them all to walk. The only one that doesn't like to walk yet is Kaydence. As soon as she walks, then we want to have a walking race. The first video is the BYU Football video we made for the contest. Here it is:



The second video is a lot longer and is a basic overview of our family and what things are like on a daily basis here:

Gracie

Today I wanted to take a bit of my blog and talk about something that really affected me over the last few weeks. One of the families in our ward (church congregation) found out a few weeks ago that their nearly three year old daughter has cancer in one of her eyes and is going to need to receive a lot of treatment. Here is a picture of her that I got from their web site at http://welovegracie.blogspot.com/:

When I first heard about this, I was really shaken. I had a strong need to go and hug each of my own children and give thanks that they were all well. I really hate thinking about the suffering of little children. Gracie has a disease called retinoblastoma. You can read more about it on their blog. Today our ward had a special fast for Gracie with prayers that she will be able to overcome this disease. As I was reading their blog, I felt a bit of kinship with her father, James Smith. He commented in his own blog that the purpose he was writing the blog was not as a solicitation of sympathy or money or other things but to share his experiences so that others going through the same situation would feel comfort. I originally started my own blog for the same reasons. I wanted to give hope and comfort for people dealing with situations that seemed way beyond them. My own circumstances have changed since this blogs creation and it has become more of a celebration of what I consider to be one of the greatest miracles to happen in my life. I hope and pray for something similar to eventually happen with the blog about Gracie.

I saw her family in church today. It is so amazing to see the strength and faith of some people who can continue in the middle of such difficulties. I have thought in the past that it would be nice if God just took trials away from us. However, I know he doesn't do that. He just makes us able to bear them. I will contine to pray for Gracie and hope that she and her family receive the same type of miracle that we received.

Quints video on byucougars.com

A few weeks ago, we entered a BYU football video contest. We had to make a video about their theme this year which is "The Quest". We ended up being one of the six winners which means they are going to play the video on the jumbotron at the football game on Saturday. I think that is all we get which is kind of a bummer since we can't actually go to the game. Anyway, here is a link to the site where they are showing the video. The videos are all in the All Access place on the right side. Our video is Fan Commercial Contest Winner #4.

http://www.byucougars.com/

Here is a direct link to the video that will open in Windows Media Player:
Quint Commercial


I will put it on YouTube after the game on Saturday.

The Quint Olympics 10 foot crawling race competition video

OK, now that the real Olympics have officially started, we thought it would be a great time to post our most highly anticipated video, the 10 foot crawling race. We couldn't do this one in the beginning because when we started these videos, only one or two of the babies could crawl. Now, all of them crawl (and a few of them walk) so it was the perfect time. Some time in the future, we plan to do a cart pushing race and then a walking race as well. We also videotaped a lemon eating contest (if I can find the tape we put it on) that we are thinking of putting up as well.

Video coming soon...but not yet

Well, although I don't have an Olympics video yet, I do have a link to a podcast with Mommycast.com. This is a website made for mommies by mommies and has a regular podcast that is really popular. The reason we ended up on it was that I met one of the mommies (Gretchen) at a conference I attended back in May. The session was about successful podcasts and was given by the husband of one of the mommies. After the session, I went up and told Gretchen that I thought we might be someone interesting they could interview for the show. Anyway, they thought it might be interesting and had us on their show. Our podcast ran a few weeks ago and here is the link:

Link to Wilkinson Quints Podcast at Mommycast.com

WQ+2 Episode 10: The Cheerio Eating Competition

OK, it is finally ready. For some reason, this one took me a really long time to finish. One of my favorite parts is that in one scene, Riley is really sad because he was having a hard time remembering what to say and in the very next scene he is really happy. My second favorite parts is where Kaiya talks about the "Roman Incident".

Here it is:

Cheerios Eating Competition Coming Soon

I am in the process of editing the Cheerios competition right now but we have had a lot going on lately and I haven't had as much time as I would like.

This morning, we had some people from News 8 Austin come over which was fun. They did live broadcasts from our house every half hour starting at around 6:00 AM. I don't really know how they turned out but it was pretty fun. They did do one that they put on the internet here:

Link to News 8 story about the babies

These babies are really getting to be a lot of fun. Kyndall started clapping on command yesterday which was fun. She is just so little but full of spunk. It will be interesting to see how she fares at Cheerio eating. Rustin is just such a little bulldozer. He usually goes around with a big grin on his face, even when he is pulling somebody's hair. Ryder seems to be good at showing the extremes of happy and sad in a very short amount of time. Kaydence just loves Kaiya. Kaiya can get her to laugh like nobody else. Kassidy is really a sweet girl and despite the fact that she was one of the worst sleepers in the beginning, she is really good at sleeping through some of the loudest noises.

Something that people ask us frequently is if we have ever seen the show, "Jon and Kate Plus 8". I will go ahead and answer that, yes, we do watch it and it is a great show. We actually are amazed at how similar our situation is. When we watch it, however, we are not so much entertained as educated. We see things in there that we will have to deal with in a few years (their kids are about 3 years older than our kids). It is actually really interesting to have a view of what to expect with things like potty training and getting them in big boy/big girl beds and see how they deal with it.

One last that thing I just want to remind you about is that we expect to have the Cheerios episode done very soon so look for it in a few days.