Keeping Up With the Joneses

In February I went to the American Group Psychotherapy Association conference in San Francisco. There were about 10 of us from BYU, most of them my really good friends, and so we had a great time.  I got to meet two of my Psychology heroes! This is Phil Zimbardo, who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment  which is an epic experiment all psychologists learn about. He also wrote The Demise of Guys and the accompanying TED talk  which I totally recommend to anyone who has sons. He presented on this awesome new program he is heading called The Heroes Imagination Project which I want to get involved in.  I totally was start-struck and when he invited people to come up for a picture I was the first up there, and some of my colleagues photo-bombed the picture.  And this is Irvin Yalom, who I worship as a psychotherapy GOD. He has written so many key books for psychologists including THE Group Psychotherapy text, Love's Executioner, and The Gift of...

With a lot of help from Pinterest, Mason had a very successful Pokemon & Pancakes Birthday Party this morning.  He invited about 10 people, plus his brothers and cousin, and everyone seemed to have a great time. The kids arrived and had pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage (Mason's choice), and then we started Pokemon Training (I really have no idea what this is). Mason was very particular about his cake. He wanted a chocolate layer cake with cookie butter in between the layers, chocolate icing, and a "charmander" whose tail we could light on fire, surrounded by a ring of fire. This is what I came up with and he was thrilled. Mason has some great friends.  Opening presents.  Playing "hot pokemon". Searching for pokemon balls.  Pokemon Bingo Breakfast I spent over 4 hours painting these 18 ping ping balls to look like "pokeballs" whatever the heck those are. The kids thought they were the coolest thing ...

Yesterday (Friday the 20th), Max's kindergarten class had a "Meet the Authors" party with the parents. All of the kids had learned all about books and wrote and illustrated their own novel. The parents went around to each author, who read from their book, and then the parents collected the author's autographs. Max was so proud of his book and had a great time! It Was A Long Way To Go, Written and Illustrated by Max Jones So proud of my little author The author bio. Last week Max came home with this heart necklace he made in Kindergarten. He asked how to spell Mason and wrote it on the heart, I asked if he was planning on giving it to Mason. He said "no, I just want to keep him close to my heart."

McKay at 15 Months McKay had his 15 month check-up this morning and he is a little chunk. We knew he was a big boy, but he is in the 57th percentile for weight (23 lbs) and the 92nd percentile for height (33 inches)! We are used to our boys being in the 1st or 2nd percentile if we are lucky, and so this is something very new. He is a sturdy, happy boy, and doesn't put up with his big brothers' attempts to bully him. If he wants something, he gets it, even if he has to tackle someone for it. He adores Mason and Myles, and sometimes tolerates Max. A few times he has gone up to Myles and kissed him, and then walked right over to Max and hit him on the head.  He is walking and talking (says mama, dada, hana for Hannah, baba for bottle, nini for night night, nana for banana, NO, gama, gampa, and we swear he sometimes says Myles clear as day). He had an ear infection a few weeks ago and then had a bad allergic reaction to the ammoxicillian (a rash that looked exactly like m...