How YOU can help Jana with her homework:

I have a ten-page paper (Y-U-C-K) due next Monday for my Communication Technology and Social Change class.

And I haven't started it.

And I'm going out of town from Thursday morning until Sunday night.

This is where YOU come in: I combined my love of the blogging world with my love of not failing school and am writing about how friendships are maintained (and sometimes created) through blogging. I need six sources and since this phenomenon is pretty new (and my lax professor said nothing about peer-reviewed journals, thank goodness) I'm totally citing each of you! So, gather your thoughts about blogs and friendships (either if you think it's a great way to maintain friendships or if you think it's a cheap imitation of face-to-face interaction) and e-mail them to me at: chuck_jana@hotmail.com

Don't worry, I'll use a couple 'real' sources too . . .

Seriously, have you e-mailed me yet? Doesn't have to be in-depth or profound, just your observations. The sooner, the better (no lectures on procrastination, please!) and definitely by Sunday night :)

THANK YOU!

This . . . that . . . the other . . .

* I had two group presentations this week and they both went very well, yay! Tuesday night was in my Communication in Small Group class (our topic was Focus Groups) and tonight was in my Nonverbal Communication class (our topic was nonverbal student/teacher interactions). I'm excited, because my group in nonverbal is really fun, so the four of us decided to stay together for the next group presentation in that class.

* my sweet husband bought me beautiful orange-tipped yellow roses AND made a delicious breakfast for my mom and me this morning AND packed my mom an awesome lunch for school.

* my favorite missionary, Quinn, has been gone three months today. He's been in California for a month now, more specifically in Burbank and he loves it. He's in an English speaking ward/area right now, but is able to practice his Spanish with his companion and when they tract into Spanish-speaking people.

* my baby will be six months old tomorrow. As I wisely pointed out to Chuck earlier, that's HALF a year. Will rolls all over the place and is seriously considering crawling. My plan is that he wait another week and start while we're in Utah visiting Smiths, because seven-month-old Clyde crawled for the first time at their house!

* the Office is back, yay! I DVR'ed it while I was in class and Chuck was at work tonight, so I'm very excited watch it tomorrow.

* my brother Sam is quite possibly the funniest person I know (keep checking the comments, and hopefully you'll see why!)

* my brother-in-law Kevin got an awesome new job! It means he and Melissa and the kids are moving to Nevada, but we can definitely handle visiting them there.

* next Friday we're going to Utah! Yay! I'm so excited to see Smiths and spend good, quality time with them; our last few visits have been really short or super busy, so I'm looking forward to settling in for General Conference-viewing, delicious food-eating and SCUM-winning :)

Maybe if 26 other people all chipped in. . .

OR: 'Why you should never let your children crawl on my floors"

One afternoon last week I left Clyde and Chuck home asleep while Will and I made a Costco run. I was delightedly surprised to come home to a freshly spruced up living room and kitchen; Chuck was just putting away the vacuum as I came in. I began to thank him, but he kindly explained it wasn't for me that he had done this, but that someone was coming to clean our living room carpet and they would be back any minute. We'd been talking about getting our carpets cleaned for a while (little boys + sippy cups + milk-y drool + light carpeting = the need for the occasional shampoo) but this seemed pretty out of the blue, especially since we had plans that evening. Chuck then explained that a nice gentleman had come by and offered a free carpet cleaning of any room in our house - his company was testing some sort of new product and the only catch involved filling out a survey afterwards, and maybe telling our family and friends if we were pleased with the results.

*Quick sidenote: Chuck and I had just had a conversation about our varying areas of expertise, intelligence-wise. He had conceded that I was more 'book-smart' but insisted that he was more 'street-smart'. Uh-huh.

So, sure enough, the nice gentleman returned escorting a nice, if somewhat unkempt, lady who rolled in with a couple duffle bags and a large box. The gentleman began to explain that they were so excited to have this opportunity, because they were in the middle of a big contest, oh, and just for our information, the item she would be showing us today from the box was, indeed, for sale! He then left and our introduction to the SuperVacuum 3000 (not its real name, because, a. I can't remember it, and b. I don't want to come up if someone googles it) began.

The next forty-five minutes was, quite frankly, ridiculous. The lady, uh, Wanda (also not her real name, can't remember it either) started by vacuuming an area of our living room with our vacuum first, which she kept referring to as a 'Dust Devil' instead of a 'Dirt Devil' - apparently she isn't good with names either. She then assembled her light-weight, aeronautic engineer-designed SuperVacuum 3000 and went over the same spot. I'll admit, I was a little embarrassed when she pulled out the VERY dirty filter. Then she vacuumed over the spot again. Another dirty filter. She repeated this a few more times, all while saying "And remember, Chuck, you said you vacuumed this area before I got here with your Dust Devil, and I vacuumed it also with your Dust Devil and we're still getting this much dirt!"

For some reason, my loyalty to my four year old wedding present vacuum (thanks Sammy!) came out, and I tactfully said, "Yes, our vacuum didn't get everything there after going over it twice, but now your vacuum has gone over the spot several times and there still seems to be quite a lot of dirt, so . . . " Even as I trailed off, I felt bad (Wanda was obviously just an underpaid saleswoman who wouldn't be earning any commission off of us) so I quickly followed with "Will it take quite a bit to get it clean since we've let it get so bad? And then the SuperVacuum 3000 will be able to maintain the cleanliness?" Wanda looked relieved and quickly agreed that it would take some work to get my carpets completely dirt-free, but then the SV 3000 would keep them that way.

We were also able to witness the SV 3000 vacuum ten pounds of sand out of a container and RETAIN its suction, as well as getting baking powder up that fifty-two swipes (simulating a year of once-a-week vacuum-ings) with my 'Dust Devil' left. At this point my curiosity got the best of me, and I asked how much the durn thing was. In my head I was figuring about a thousand, since I know that the ultra-cool Dysons can run a few hundred. Imagine my shock when Wanda said TWENTY-SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. I seriously almost laughed out loud. Who buys these things? (Of course, my sincerest apologies if you, indeed, own one. Good investment!) We made it clear that we only choose to do into debt for certain things (house, school, car) and that we didn't currently have the money on hand for such a purchase and didn't anticipate making the SV 3000 a priority to save up for (Umm, trip to Disneyland summer 2010 is the top of my list!). We stuck to our guns, even after several financing options, and Wanda packed her bags. She begrudingly offered to still clean our carpets with the SV 3000's sister product, the SuperShampooer 3001, but we declined. The nice gentleman came back to retrieve her, and that was that. Except that I took some pictures . . .

*Emily B. : I'm not sure if you read my blog, but if you do, PLEASE STOP NOW. I'm afraid you'll never come over to my house if you see the following. Thanks!

Yeah, that was all on my floor.

In my defense, she poured out the baking powder (which works as a freshener when applied and vacuumed up) and she also vacuumed under my couches (the SV 3000 was pretty cool in its manuverability).

This whole presentation was like an extra birthday present for Clyde, who is obsessed with vacuums. He happily signed 'more' whenever Wanda turned the SV 3000 off, and got in on the action with his little push toy from Aunt Amanda (he does have a toy vacuum, but prefers the push toy).

Sadly, I still let my children play on the floor. Turn me into Children's Protective Services, if you must, but I imagine that the fact that I photographed first and rescued second when Clyde had this chokehold on Will will serve as better evidence of my neglectful tendencies :)

I.I.F.F.F.L. 2008

It's a little embarrassing to admit this, but I don't really understand football. People have tried to explain it to me, so I sort of know how it works: I know that you have four downs to get a first down, I know there's an offense and a defense, and I know what a touchdown is. But when I watch a game I have to wait until Chuck reacts to a play before I know what happened and how I should react (this is especially difficult if I'm purposefully rooting for the other team because I then have to react the OPPOSITE of how he's reacting). Chuck loves football, both on the collegiate (go BSU!) and professional levels, so two years ago he convinced me to start playing 'fantasy football' (so that we could count Monday Night Football as FHE) and we haven't looked back! Our league is called the I.I.F.F.F.L. - Izatt Invitational Family Fantasy Football League. In 2006, our debut year, it was comprised of Chuck, me, Quinn, and my mom. We did everything by hand, writing out our rosters every week and keeping track on a scoreboard on my living room wall - right next to our draft boards. Thanks to the tutoring session from the jock-y teachers at her school, my mom drafted Peyton Manning that year and her AFC team ended up winning our league Super Bowl. The next year we expanded to include our good friends Leslie and Matt, and also went digital by using the resources at ESPN.com to track our teams and scores, as well as trash talk one another. That year Matt won (although I came in second!). This year Quinn obviously has to sit out (we wrote him a Dear John letter to rub it in), so Sam and Terri are co-replacing him. The draft was long but very fun and we're now into the second week of the season, which means I actually pay attention when Sports Center and PTI are on (scary!).

The I.I.F.F.F.L. drafts through the years:

This is from our draft in 2006 - August 29th, two nights before I went into labor with Clyde.

My job every year is creating the poster boards and namecards for the draft and then trying to keep up during the draft (three drafts later and I still don't remember to get double sided tape).

Here's the draft (on Clyde's birthday) in 2007, oddly enough I'm pregnant here too! Although not as noticably, I was only about eight weeks along.

Draft 2008: we went with a more vibrant board and a non-pregnant Jana.

Funny story: after the draft, Leslie, my mom, and I are happy to move on and talk about other things, but Chuck and Matt were all about studying the teams and (over)analyzing them. It should be noted that Sam and Terri were unable to be at the rescheduled draft, so Chuck very honestly drafted for them (he even gave them Eagles Running Back Brian Westbrook when their pick came up before his).

Here are the I.I.F.F.F.L. 2008 draft boards, one AFC and one NFC. I really think they jazz up my living room decor :)

Grandparents are . . . well, grand!

Although I had noticed on the calendar that today was Grandparent's Day, I didn't think too much of it until my thoughtful friend Jen did a post about it . . . so I'm copying her! I think grandparents are fabulous, mostly because they're as impressed and as infatuated with my children as I am! I am a strong believer in kids growing up with lots of support and love from extended families; I especially have really wonderful memories of lots of time spent with my mom's mom Carma Leila Hunter. Clyde and Will are lucky to have all four of their grandparents (and three great-grandparents) in their lives. Clyde and Will were actually named after their four great-grandfathers: Clyde Charles after my mom's dad Clyde Earl Hunter and Chuck's dad's dad Charles C Izatt and William Patrick after Chuck's mom's dad Edward William Thomas and my dad's dad J. Pat Braden. So, thank you grandparents - we appreciate what terrific parents you have been to Chuck and myself, and we're happy that you're awesome grandparents to our kids! Now for the pictures: Here's my mom, Pam, with Clyde when he was just a couple weeks old

Here's my dad, Cory with Clyde two days after he was born

This is Chuck's mom, Terri, with five-month-old Clyde

This is Chuck's dad, Dave, with three-month-old Will

Here's Grandma Thomas (Chuck's grandma) with three-month-old Will

This is my Grandma Braden with Will, again at three months

And finally, here's baby Will with my Grandpa Braden

Happy Grandparent's Day!

Clyde's birthday wrap-up

Since Chuck keeps teasing me about how I blog about things well after they occur, I decided I should probably stop procrastinating and write about Clyde's birthday weekend. I didn't have school tonight, Chuck's at work, and my darling little boys are asleep - so there go my excuses! And yes, it does take forever for pictures to load, but I cleaned up the playroom at the same time so I feel extra productive :) So, I had planned all sorts of fun over Labor Day weekend, namely an Elmo birthday party for Clyde, and we were excited to welcome various out of town family members and what does Clyde do? Catches a virus, the sort where his little temperature spiked to the 104 degree region and he began sporting a mild rash on his tummy. FUN. We saw the doctor on Saturday morning (third time Clyde has been there in the past five weeks, ahhh!) and he regretfully informed us that Clyde was, indeed, contagious and probably would be through Sunday-ish. So that was it for the little party . . .

However, we still managed to have loads of fun! Sam and Terri were in town on their way home to Utah (they actually showed up a day early and gave us quite a fright when they knocked on my door Wednesday night around eleven) and I'm not sure who was more delighted with their presence - me or Clyde. In Sam, Clyde found a swordfight opponent and catch partner while Chuck was at work and asleep, and in Terri, I found a baby-putter-to-sleeper (is there a more eloquent way of putting that? I couldn't think of one). It was so fun to have them here and have so much help, everywhere we went Sam carried Will and Clyde held Terri's hand and I skipped with delight :) They just bought a Wii, so we set it up and played a bit, which was super cool. I was mostly excited because everyone who's anyone has pictures on their blogs of Wii fun, so now I'm anyone. Or someone. Whatever - here are the pics:

Sam and Chuck - I think they were bowling.
More bowling. I relaxed my rule about playing catch in the house since I didn't want hot Clyde out in the hotter sun, so he was forever throwing wiffle balls (and occasionally a hackey sack) and Terri was the designated catcher here :)Will loved all the extra attention
Sam and Terri know how much Clyde loves his piggy bank, so for his present they gave him lots of cute little containers filled with money . . .
which he insisted upon dumping out and putting back into the container and so on. He did this for several days, and then just today decided to put some of it IN the actual piggy bank. Goof.

So, Saturday night ended up being the only night my family could get together while Sam and Terri were here, so we had dinner, played games, and ate one of the cakes I had baked the night before (when I was hopeful the bigger party would still happen).

Chuck was in charge of decorating this one, he's all about the chocolate chips!
My mom hooked Clyde up with various Elmo paraphenelia: couple books, couple DVD's, etc.

Sunday night we got together with Chuck's family at Melissa's house for a family dinner and celebration of our little (hopefully not-contagious-anymore) Clyde Monster.

Here's my rockin' Elmo cake . . . I panicked a little at the beginning when the black decorative icing came out of the tube REALLY thick and it looked like Elmo was wearing glasses, but I scooped it off and used a bamboo skewer to apply it after that.

Here's my little Elmo-attired birthday boy. It should be noted that Will and I also wore Elmo shirts (Chuck went with his old standby of a Boise State shirt) and Mallory, Courtney and George all wore red to coordinate. Clyde loved opening presents and was delighted with the play food and shopping basket, pirate bath toys, and Sesame Street Phase Ten.

Monday morning (Clyde's actual birthday) we met Chuck's family at Boondock's for more fun before Grandma and Pops went home to Elko. We all played miniature golf and then Kevin, Chuck and I took the older three kids on the go-karts.

Here's Will in his 'golfing' outfit, sadly (for him, I was delighted) he fell asleep in the stroller after the second hole.
Here's Clyde in his golfing outfit.
The go-karts were way fun, Kevin and Mallory smoked everyone, and Chuck and George came in right after Courtney and me (Chuck let us pass them right after this picture so it would be more competitive, thanks honey!)
Courtney is too cute - while we were waiting in line for the go-karts, she was casing them out and looking for the most 'stylish' one (hence Kevin and Mallory getting the fastest one!)

That afternoon we held our fantasy football draft (which deserves its own post, maybe tomorrow . . .) and then sent Chuck to work. Tuesday was Clyde's two-year wellness visit at the pediatrician (yep, that's FOUR visits in five weeks). He's 26 lbs and 33 1/2 inches tall, which is 25% for both (yeah, I don't know where Will came from, either) and developing just right!

Yay for Clyde!Isn't he cute? And perhaps in need of a haircut?

School daze

I regret to inform you that Clyde's birthday extravaganza post has been pushed back another day (I'm lazy and there are SO many pictures to share) so instead I'll catch up with my 'first day of school' post. I'm taking fifteen credits at Boise State this semester (four evening classes and one online class) and hopefully I'll be able to graduate in December of 2009. So far the boys are doing really well during my absences - they love their time alone with Daddy or Grandma! For the actual first day of school last Monday, I dressed Will and Clyde in BSU blue and orange:
And then they shared some love in the kitchen:

And because I'm cheesy, here's my first day of school picture in our front yard by the tree; I figure this will be a good spot to take our kids' pictures in their school-attending futures.
And finally, a funny (and long, sorry!) school-related story from tonight: My main mode of transportation this semester will be the ValleyRide bus that goes back and forth between the BSU West Campus in Nampa and the BSU Main Campus in Boise (students can ride it for free!). I only took it once last week, but it was fun and easy and although it required more of a time commitment, it was free. Tonight I decided to drive in to Boise with Chuck and have him drop me off at school on his way to work; I figured I'd just bus it home. Two hours into my class it dawned on me that I'd forgotten to leave a car at the west campus and would be stranded upon my return to Nampa. Of course I hadn't bothered to leave my mom the car seats, so she wouldn't be able to come retrieve me either - so upon my arrival at the bus stop, I cased out the potential for ride-mooching. (Sidenote: I called Chuck and his advice was to find an older, grandmother-ly type. I reminded him there aren't many of those on the BSU bus after dark). It was just my luck that neither my friend from my ward nor the nice woman I got to know last week were on the bus tonight, so I waited until all thirteen of us had gotten on the bus (it's a smaller, yes, shorter, bus) and then shared my lack of planning with my fellow riders. Sure enough, several people volunteered to give me a ride and the task ended up falling on a VERY nice guy who I recognized - we had a class together two semesters ago. He even lives somewhat close, so I wasn't too much of a hassle, which is good! Leslie, you should also be grateful to this guy (I should probably figure out his name . . . ) because you were Plan B!

(Another sidenote: I'm thisclose to getting my mom on the blogging bandwagon, and if I succeed, hopefully one of her first entries will be about the time she got stranded (penniless, of course) in a New York City airport overnight and WENT HOME with a total stranger - a twenty-something year old taxi driver who slept in his car so she could stay in his apartment and then brought her breakfast in the morning. And lest you think this was in her wild and crazy youth, she was actually a tad shy of fifty-one.)

'Clyde, how old are you?' 'TWO!'

I thought it would be harsh to blog about brothers, sisters-in law, and mothers on their birthdays and then skip Clyde, so even though I'm planning to write tomorrow with his two-year-old stats and a recap of his 'birthday weekend' (preview: even though he was sick with a virus and rash and his official Elmo party got cancelled, he still managed to get 2 birthday cakes . . .) here's a quick post on his actual second birthday with some pictures of my darling, sweet, adventurous, accident-prone, charming son: Moments after birth on September 1, 2006.

Nine months old, playing with Daddy in the backyard

For his first birthday, we had a "Teddy Bear Picnic" affair; here he is afterwards digging leftovers out of the garbage

This was at the beginning of March when he was hospitalized with rotavirus/complications from his Hirschsprung's (more info here). He loved him some jell-o! Will was born two and a half weeks later, so during the month of March I racked up five or six days at St. Luke's, yay!

This is from a couple weeks ago; Clyde randomly found his bike helmet when we were getting ready for church and REFUSED to take it off - I let him wear it in the car but he had to remove it before we went inside. I think he was just trying to be like Unky Quinn :)

Check back tomorrow for more . . .