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We had a good weekend.  Everyone is feeling better.  The weather was ideal.  I got the house clean and all of the doorknobs sprayed with Lysol.  Now I’m off and running on this Monday morning.  January was a crazy month, and I’m feeling FINALLY like I’m back in my groove now that it’s February. 

I watched the funeral of Gordon B. Hinckley on Saturday.  It’s amazing how good and honorable one man can be.  Everything said at his funeral could have been said any day of his life.  He was THAT good.  It’s so rare to find people like that…and yet, so wonderful when you do. 

The next two weeks I’ll be hard at work with this:

Donna and I are hosting a Brunch on Feb 16th for Gourmet Club.  We’ve been working on recipes and plans for a looooonnnnngggg time now, and it’s going to be really special…as long as it doesn’t kill me first.

This little man turned 13 months on Friday.  He’s still not walking, but doesn’t seem to mind, he cruises the furniture and crawls like Mario Andretti.  He loves to splash in the bath.  When we’re rocking him before bed time, he lays his head on our shoulder and tucks his hands in our chest to keep them warm.  His hands and feet are always cold.  Probably because they’re HUGE (a true Robinson).  He calls everyone “ma-ma” and loves to “maaaa” like a sheep and when he quacks like a duck he says “mamama” (do you see a theme emerging in his speech patterns?).  He throws his binkies out of his crib every day before his nap.  And he won’t sleep until I go back in and retrieve them.  (Yea, that game got old real fast).  This morning I went back in for B.R. (binky retrieval) and he had pulled his jeans down to his ankles and was very pleased with himself.  At church every Sunday I have women who rush to sit by him hoping to “claim” him during the meetings.  Yesterday he was so tired he fell asleep on one of their laps, sitting straight up.  She was so delighted.  He’s so sweet and easy and fun.

I was picking up Caleb from preschool the other day and noticed that there was a store "pad" available and for sale in the shopping strip next to our nearest Target.  Hmmmm, I thought.  If I could open a store?!?

What would it be…?

So I made it a family project.

Meredith – I would open a fabric and paper shop.  Designer fabrics.  Shabby chic paper for scrapbooks, crafts, etc.  I would have a little sandwich shop in the back that would sell girlie stuff like cucumber sandwiches, petit fors and strawberry lemonade’s.  It would have crystal chandeliers and be very frou-frou. 

Derek – A ski shop.  He doesn’t think it would be very successful in TX though.

Jacob – A candy store.  "I would taste everything before I sell it to make sure it tastes good."  Brilliant, I say!

Caleb – A weapon shop.  What kind of weapons?  "Guns, swords, bow and arrows, and whips."  WHIPS?!?  This conversation was a bit alarming…

Samuel – Couldn’t care less.  "Woman, just bring me some more pedialyte."

So there you have it.  A diverse set of entrepreneurial options in the Smith household.  Now if we only had the money…Look for the grand opening of that whip shop coming soon.

And just because every post needs a picture, and I’ve been very negligent in that department…here’s one of us on Christmas Eve at my brother’s.

Samuel was up for 3 hours last night…vomiting.

We had to sit with him in the bathtub.

The doctor said that this stomach virus is lasting up to a week.  It was LAST Thursday when he started vomiting.  Last Tuesday, when Jacob started.  That makes almost a week and a half of laundry, carpet cleaning and Pedialyte.

Please tell me it’s almost over…

I don’t know how it happened.  Maybe it was when I picked up a TIME magazine last July sitting in the boys’ dentist office.  It outlined all of the “then” candidates.  My obsession probably started there.  And it has gained in momentum because of CNN’s “Election Center”, every night on Anderson Cooper, with their state-of-the-art graphics and hundreds of commentators (no, I don’t have Fox News as part of my satellite package).

But, nevertheless, it happened.  I became a political news junkie.  At the ripe old age of 32.  My Air Force Colonel grandfather will be so proud.  As teenagers, he would come down from Colorado to visit and ask about our political views.  We would raise our eyebrows, dilate our pupils and stare, blankly, at him.  Politics, schmolitics…we did not have a CLUE.

It will come as no surprise to most of you that I am a big supporter of…

My man Mitt…as I like to call him.  So, you can imagine, I was sorely disappointed last night by our loss in Florida.  Although I think we still have a chance, it seems that we are always 2 steps behind McCain.  I’m hoping the current news cycle stays strongly on the economy, which gives us an ever so slight advantage in my opinion.  If for any reason the top stories move towards Iraq, the war on terror, a terror threat around the world of any kind, McCain will emerge as the expert that he is and Romney will be left in the dust.  But it is no secret that Romney has the edge with the issue of our economy, and so I remain optimistic, if even cautiously.

There’s my take…who knew I would be so interested in political talk radio, exit polls, round table discussions, debates and primaries.  I was THIS close to purchasing this t-shirt, but thought it might be over the top.

Then I thought about having Mitt leave a personalized “Team Mitt” recording on my voicemail (available off of his website), but then I figured my family might call for some kind of “stop the madness” intervention.  So I’m just left with blogging…and Anderson Cooper, and the Five Brothers’ Blog, and oh, the Republican Debate tonight from the Reagan Library. 🙂

re·sur·gence  (rĭ-sûr’jəns)  n. 

1. A continuing after interruption; a renewal.

That’s what’s happening at our house, I’m sad to say.  I was hit with the "bug" on Friday night…up most of the night.  But by Sat afternoon, was feeling much better and able to go to Jacob’s cub scout banquet and have dinner with friends.  Sunday morning Samuel threw up again.  Last night, we heard someone upstairs running to the bathroom crying.  It was Jacob.  And this morning, I’m miserable…again.

Jacob’s home with me today, once again.  He asked if he could have a little bit of lunch, in his bed.  He’s reading and resting.  I should be disenfecting and cleaning, but can barely open the lid of my 7-up.

Derek is still clear and free, so far.  But asked if I would mind if he left town for a few days. 🙂

Last night, the president of our Church died.  He was 97 years old.  We esteem him as a prophet…just like Moses or Abraham of the Old Testament.  We believe in continuing revelation given to those in authority.  And we believe it continues in our day.  He was a leader that anyone could look up to.  He had spent his 97 years in service…to God, family, country, church, and the world.  He traveled the world like no one I had ever seen.  He lost his wife almost 4 years ago and often talked of his loneliness without her.  I am happy to think of their reunion.

Most recently his counsel has been about loving our "little ones"…

"If I may be pardoned for suggesting the obvious, I do so only because the obvious is not observed in so many instances. The obvious includes four imperatives with reference to children: (1) love them, (2) teach them, (3) respect them, and (4) pray with them and for them."

And also, he recently spoke on the need to be "slow to anger" and control our tempers.

"So many of us make a great fuss of matters of small consequence. We are so easily offended. Happy is the man who can brush aside the offending remarks of another and go on his way."

He will be greatly missed by our family.  We will miss his presence, his words, his example.

A new leader of our church will be chosen soon.  There is a structure, a pattern, and a precedent set for this process.  It will be a smooth transition…and for that I am thankful.

Samuel threw up in his highchair this morning.  Now he’s got Pedialyte in a bottle. 

Caleb woke us up this morning saying he needed to throw up.  Thankfully HE made it to the bathroom first.  We sent Jacob back to school this morning, still a little lethargic but eating well.  I hated to do it, it was fun having him around.  I always like it when my kids get to stay home with me.

Now we’re hoping it doesn’t travel thru the rest of us every 2 days. 

We took a last minute trip to Utah this weekend and had a fabulous time.  It was a nice getaway and a good visit with Derek’s folks. Wednesday night we flew out.  On the airplane I sat, with the baby, by an AA captain who has been a pilot for 20+ years.  He was funny and very interesting.  I love good airplane conversation.  When we landed, Derek had hired a guy to drive us to his parents house in a Suburban (we had 3 suitcases, a baby bed, a stroller, a car seat, a camera bag, a DVD player bag, a backpack, the baby bag, a purse and 5 bulky coats).  Apparently the Suburban broke down, so our buddy Steve took us in his stretch limo.  We got a kick out of that!

Thursday we hung out.  Friday we left the baby with Grandma, and the four of us headed for Alta for a day of skiing.  We woke up to it snowing, and it snowed all day on the mountain.  It was really beautiful up there…but SOOOO cold.  Thankfully we had packed all of that gear (see last paragraph) and hand/foot warmers!  Derek is a fantastic skiier, but having three novices depending on him made our first run very long and tedious.  What is usually a 10 minute trail took over an hour with the boys, so we signed them up for ski school, which they loved.  And it gave Derek and I a fun 2 hours to ski together.  And the boys were much improved afterwards and able to ski with us a little more.

This was my favorite trail:

On Saturday we got to see the kids’ cousins, our niece Kendra and nephews Janson and Jonah.  We love spending time with them.  Derek took our boys and Janson and his dad to the Auto Expo…I’m not sure who had more fun, the men or boys!  And then that afternoon, we took all of the kids sledding.  Grandma Sherry and I were going “only to take pictures”, but it looked so fun we got in on the fun.  That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

Thanks for a great visit, Verdi and Sherry!

We had another fabulous Gourmet Club dinner on Saturday, hosted by Angela and Nancy.  It was a "blending of cultural cuisine".  They really raised the bar, and now the pressure is on…my friend, Donna, and I have February…and we’ve been working/talking non-stop.  It’s quite a project.  Here’s some pics from Saturday.

FABULOUS!

Last week I was in some sort of new-year-post-holiday-back-to-the-grind-and-routine "funk".  Not sure what that was about.  I was going thru the motions, but getting absolutely nothing accomplished.  I’m feeling a jump start today…probably because I have to pack and prepare our family of 5 to fly to SLC on Wed night, but I’ll take it however I can get it.  It’s a good thing I’m not letting THIS get me down…although I could, what a waste of a perfectly good season.  Blah…  I’m hoping my brothers didn’t have heart attacks or strokes while watching that game last night…you ok guys?