Thanksgiving in Elko

This year's Thanksgiving holiday found us road-tripping to Elko to spend a few days with Chuck's parents and extended family.

We drove down on Chuck's birthday (this seems to be a recurring theme in our family; we made this drive on Clyde's last birthday and Will's two years ago). We celebrated with pancakes and presents before we left Nampa, and then with a delicious chocolate cake (made by the birthday boy's mom) once we arrived!

This was the cute babies of '08 reunion on the stairs right when we got to Grandma and Grandpa's.

Thursday morning was devoted to male bonding: Chuck and his dad first changed our van battery and then rewarded themselves with some cannonball shooting (as photographed by Chuck, thanks honey!).

 A friend of Dave's was headed out to do some target shooting with his little pirate cannon and my boys were delighted to tag along :). Chuck and Clyde got to light it once, although Clyde's main job was to retrieve the cannonballs after each launch.

The boys came safely home and then it was time to head over for the actual holiday gathering!

 Which for Courtney, Mallory, and myself meant prepping for another lip sync, this time to One Direction's 'One Thing'. We hunkered down in Mal's room and got to work mapping out choreography.

 Our rehearsal space got invaded by the rest of the kiddos, so we recruited them and decided to stage a talent show after dinner. George and Clyde decided to do some sort of (really really adorable) freestyle/breakdance number, whereas the babies of '08 chose to sing a primary song together.

 Here they are practicing 'The Wise Man and the Foolish Man' - sooo cute! They didn't end up performing (Bri's family left early to hit some sales and Will was having a rough time by that point) but maybe we'll get them 'on stage' next time...

 

Some more shots pre- and post- dinner (too busy eating delicious food to take any shots during dinner - thanks again for feeding us Dave, Terri, Melissa, Kevin, Lee and Aleesha!). One of the highlights was the fun we had washing dishes afterwards - our crew was Chuck (washing), Jana (rinsing), Courtney (drying), and Mallory (putting away). We sang along to the radio and cheered everytime we hit a milestone in the process ("Woo, we're on little plates now!" "All right, that's it for the silverware - awesome work everyone!" and so on...). 

Chuck had to bow out a little early (Jack was having a pretty hard time) but the girls and I finished up by grabbing the wet dishrags and tackling the kitchen floor. I'm pretty sure it was at this point that Mallory channeled Mary Poppins and said something to the effect of "Wow, I was dreading helping with the dishes but this turned out really fun!"

We finally got our acts together (literally, haha) and the talent show began; here are screenshots of George and Clyde dancing. They were so hilarious and cute!

Annnd then it was our turn. For some reason our grueling hours in rehearsal did not translate to any kind of smoothness in the actual performance, leading to LOTS of giggles and a few declarations of "Turn it off, let's just start over!" But instead we decided the lip sync must go on and we finished strong...ish :). Video might be put up someday.

After the talent show it was (at least for us and our boys!) time for bed. We took Courtney back to Grandma and Grandpa's house with us so that she and I could head out first thing in the morning for a 'special day'. When the girls used to live in Boise I took each of them out for fun 'dates' every now and then, something I haven't been able to do for a while. Courtney made a special request for one this visit and I was more than happy to oblige.

Our first stop was Starbucks for peppermint hot chocolate. Soooo good. Jack accompanied us on this leg of the adventure, although he fell asleep a few minutes later and was dropped off to Chuck! This let Court and I turn the music up a little bit louder - our CD of choice was Tay Swift's 'Fearless' and we happily sang along, getting a decent majority of the words right :).

After our hot chocolate boost, we went shopppping! To our great disappointment only one thrift store was open, but we found Court a cute Christmas t-shirt there so that worked. We also hit up some other stores and tried on sunglasses and admired our matching-ish boots and searched for something special to spoil Courtney with - and we found it: perfume at Rue 21. I sure love having such cute nieces (two on my side, five on Chuck's) to help me get in my girly fix!

 

That afternoon we sent a group out paintballing and the rest of us relaxed with Grandma.

 

Here are some of the camo-sporting gang. Clyde was so excited to go out and watch the action; he can't wait until he's a little bit older and ready to play (under Chuck's careful eye of course!!).

That night we headed over with Grandma and Grandpa to Lee and Aleesha's house for some awesome homemade burgers and even better company!

The Elko Izatts are just as obsessed with Star Wars as us Nampa Izatts are, so Star Wars Monopoly seemed the only logical choice for an after-dinner activity (piling on the couch to watch a Christmas show was the pre-dinner entertainment). And I had Chuck take a picture of Aleesha and me just for fun, love her!

We hadn't been over to Lee and Aleesha's since right after they moved in, so it was fun to walk around and see all of the awesome improvements they've made. Jack's favorite was the wood flooring - perfect for crawling and pushing chairs around! And stairs are always fun, but especially when they help you reach an iPad.

 

I settled in and looked through all of Aleesha's photo albums (pretty much my favorite pastime at anyone's house) and Eli wandered over to play peek-a-boo with me for a little bit, cute boy.

We realized that we had all of the family members with the last name 'Izatt' at this gathering - eight born into it, three married in. Here are the five littlest Izatts!

The next morning it was time to pack up and leave.

The boys piled onto Grandma and Grandpa for one last picture.

And I snapped this quick one of Chuck with his mom and dad as we climbed into the van. I'm thankful for Dave and Terri - they love each of their children/children-in-law/grandchildren SO much. And we love them too!

And this is how the boys spent a decent portion of the drive home (when they weren't reading). Evidence of a VERY fun and busy trip!

HAPPY birthday to Chuck!

Today is my [sweet, wonderful, awesome, etc] husband's birthday, hooray!

He's turning 32, so I pondered compiling a list of 32 things about him that I love, buuuut a) that would be really long and b) I don't have that kind of time, seriously right now it's after midnight and I waaaaant my beeeeeeed and c) Chuck resists attention almost as much as I court it, so I figured we'd made this pretty short and sweet.

 

 One of my most favorite things about Chuck is how hands-on he is as a dad [and as a ... nevermind. Apparently tired Jana = risque Jana....]. Chuck and I are absolutely co-parents; on his days off he's usually the one that gets Clyde completely ready for school, he can handle bathtime and [most of the time] diapers and homework and [usually] meltdowns and everything in between. He volunteered in Clyde's classroom this year before I even did!

It's so much fun to watch Chuck interact with our three boys. He has such a tailored, special relationship with each of them that I know will prove so crucial to their individual development and growth into strong, wise, sweet, worthy young men.

 

 Here's a sweet photo round-up of Chuck's last five birthdays (going in a circle clockwise starting with the top left: 2010 (right before he left for work), 2007 (right before we left for Thanksgiving in Elko! also like a week after we found out we were expecting another boy), 2008 (went a little crepe paper streamer crazy that year), 2009 (at the very bright zoo) and 2011 (technically the day before his birthday, but close enough). 

Chuck is my favorite person to spend time with; he's sweet and hilarious (once you get to know him) and strong and so.dang.ethical ("it's called the speed limit, Jana") and so hard-working and honest and hot and willing to serve and a good cook and patient and forgiving (I might take advantage of that one too often...) and goofy and spiritual and smart and logical and I'm so grateful that he not only puts up with me (which is seriously asking enough most days), but loves and cherishes me as well.

Happy birthday babe! I love love love you and thanks in advance for driving on our road trip today so I can sleeeeep :). You're my favorite!

Scouting around

Scouting has kept the Izatt fam pretty busy lately. First off, we braved the cold a couple of Saturdays ago to distribute bags to participate in the very worthwhile 'Scouting for Food' campaign, where the BSA joins forces with the community to stock the shelves of the local foodbank.

It's a Boy Scout activity (hence Chuck's presence), but we Cub Scouts like to be helpful so we showed up too :). Chuck and I each drove a route; somehow he called dibs on Clyde (who very excitedly sported his mini-Scout shirt) and I wound up having Will and Jack (aka the two higher-maintenance passengers) in the minivan with me. Tricky...

My Scouts were Ethan and Joseph, and they were awesome little delivery boys. We had a lot of apartments on our route, so I sported my asics(es) and went up and down some stairs in an effort to assuage any guilt about my ridiculous lack of running lately help out the boys and finish the route quicker.

The following Thursday was Pack Meeting. The boys had talked about doing a talent show / show and tell, so this was my stretch to tie it in with Thanksgiving:

 'We are THANKFUL for the opportunity to develop, explore, and share our hobbies, interests, and talents!'

(I counted this display as sharing my hobby/interest/talent of making posters with crayons, markers, and very sad bubble lettering...)

Blessedly we were in the cultural hall and had some room to spread out. We were very appreciative of the stage that Brother Greathouse made for a RS event last year!

 

It was really fun to see what the boys decided to share - we had two piano performances, two Pokemon collections, one acoustic guitar, one football card collection, an artist, an award-winning reader, a couple of writers, an architect/builder/sculptor, a rhythm clapper, a soccer player, and an awesome story about a head injury and resulting scar :). I wish I had more pictures, but I was on stage alongside the boys a lot of the time, and I was also tag-teaming my children with Chuck, who was at the church doing Boards of Review for the older scouts.

That next Saturday it was time to drive the 'Scouting for Food' routes once more to pick up the food that people left out for us. This time Chuck was at work, so I got all three of my boys, plus three Scouts (Caleb, Joseph, and Jacob) to cover both of our routes.

I loved how excited the whole van got when someone spotted a bag of food on a doorstep as we drove ssslllloooowwwllllyyyy up and down the streets. We ended up collecting probably 15 bags of food that we then dropped off at the collection point and got ready to call it a day.

Except that it was still pretty early and none of my Scouts were keen to go home and resume Saturday morning chores (I'm assuming, that's what I would have been trying to ditch at that age). They all asked if they could hang out some more, so I said, "Well... I guess I have to go to pick up some groceries..." and their goofy little eyes lit up as they asked to come too.

So, they called their moms and I headed off to Walmart looking like I had six sons (ages 10, 9, 8, 6, 4, and 10 months). Also, four of us were wearing Scout shirts, hahaha.

And this is when the most awesome thing ever happened. I told the boys as we went in that if they were all good I'd get them a doughnut as we left. They all did sooo well (not surprisingly, they're all rockstars) and as we walked back up towards the registers, lo and behold there was a Veteran's Day booth set up where customers could write a note of appreciation to those who have served our country and defended our freedoms and... get a free doughnut. So the boys all wrote really sweet notes and happily accepted their doughnuts and I saved like five bucks, wooo!

After that, the boys were still reluctant to go home so I agreed to stretch it out a little longer by walking Caleb to his house from mine, so off we went in the freezing cold... luckily he just lives down the street a bit. And then it was time to take the Duffy boys home, meaning I had to say goodbye to my mother's helper. Jacob (the one pushing the stroller) was SO much help all day with the younger boys. He helped get everyone buckled, kept track of the cart and four boys at the store when I had to take Clyde to the bathroom, pushed Jack the whole walk, got Jack in and out of his carseat whenever we stopped somewhere, etc. Having older kids is awesome!!

And finally, Chuck had a Court of Honor for the Boy Scouts and the 11-year-old Scouts the other night so Clyde busted out his Scout shirt once again to tag along.

So. dang. cute. (And isn't Clyde darling too?)

And thus concludes our recent Scouting endeavors.

(Unless you count weekly den meetings, working on pack meeting for December, and Chuck working with the Friends of Scouting campaign... we heart Scouts!)

Cousin time

A fun extra benefit of the temple open house was getting visits from some of Chuck's siblings in the last couple weeks. Lee and Aleesha and their cute kids stopped by for a couple of hours on their trip but I sadly failed to procure photographic evidence of that... I know, I'm lame! Melissa and her kids came up the next weekend and stayed with us and this time I remembered to bust out the camera.

 I sure love these four kiddos!

Lots of fun cousin bonding time on the trampoline (Lily and Will liked to hold hands, sooo cute), playing video games, doing puzzles, and reading together. Can you tell there was a Boise State game that day?

 Court, Lily, Clyde, and Will took advantage of the soft landing (aka Courtney and George's 'beds') available in the playroom and took turns jumping off from the window seat.

 Melissa and Mallory powered through a pretty serious afternoon of shopping (reminder that they live in a Costco/Target/Savers-free city... I couldn't do it) but Mal and I managed to get a quick aunt/niece picture in late that night.

 

 Courtney spent the afternoon and evening making me fervently wish for an almost-eleven-year-old daughter. She played with the little kids, FED JACK without getting food all over him/the high chair/the kitchen (a serious accomplishment, he usually clamps his mouth shut and waves his little arms around like you wouldn't believe), organized shoes and books and toys, indulged my nostalgia by looking through loads of old pictures with me from when she was little, made beds, probably made more of dinner than I did, and let me grill her all about school/boys/church/etc while we snuggled on the aforementioned playroom floor beds :).

We feel pretty spoiled that we get to see [almost] everyone again in just a few days when we head down for Thanksgiving. Love y'all!

Boise Temple

 The Boise Temple is almost open again, yay! I'm really excited for the re-dedication this Sunday.

 We did the open house tour back in October with Chuck's parents. (Your guess is as good as mine as to why my hand is inside of Jack's shirt - was I that cold? Some sort of payback because his hand is constantly down my shirt? Who knows.) The boys really enjoyed it; for Family Home Evening the Monday before, we talked a lot about the temple and showed them official before and after pictures that the Church had released to the Statesman. This really helped them know what to expect - and gave us a fun preview! As we walked in to the stake center before the tour, the ushers gave us a pamphlet about the temple that also included some pictures. Will enthusiastically called this his 'ticket' and clutched it throughout the tour. He loved matching whatever room we were in to its corresponding picture within the pamphlet.

 So it's fitting that Will ended up being our family's best 'missionary' in terms of sharing invitations to the open house. Because of the heavy traffic, we parked at a nearby church building and were then shuttled up to the temple on a charter bus. Will kept talking about that bus vs. his preschool bus, so the next week I asked him if he wanted to give a picture of the temple to his bus drivers and tell them about going to see it. He responded, "Yes, and my teachers too!" Okkkay buddy! So I helped him give them to George, Elizabeth, Tammy, and Katie (bus drivers/attendants going to and from preschool, respectively) and then I put two extra invites into his backpack, semi-figuring he would forget. But that day when he got home I asked him about it and he happily relayed how he had given them to Miss Brittney and Ms. Kim and told them they could go see the temple! (I emailed his teacher later to follow-up with more info and to make sure she knew there was no pressure...)

Oh, and then he even followed up. The next preschool day Will and I had this exchange:

"Hi buddy! How was school? How was the bus?"

"I go to preschool! Elizabeth not have her temple picture. I say 'Where your temple picture?' and Elizabeth say it at her home."

And then I pretty much died laughing. Way to be low-key, Will!

I was really excited to be able to help at the open house as a tour guide for a couple of days. Emily K and Paulina were ushers, so we carpooled over together each day and had the best time talking and laughing. (Sister Fleshman joined us the first day, but opted to drive with her husband the second day - sad for us!). Since Emily is sooo sweet and knows about my Cafe Rio/temple tradition, she and Paulina treated me to lunch there on Thursday to thank me for driving both days. 

Being a tour guide was a really great experience - and luckily not as intimidating as I thought it would be :). The first day I was excited to be paired with a friend from our old ward in Boise whom I hadn't seen for a while. April and I led two tours (I made her speak on the first one and then I did the second) and got lots of good time in to catch up with each other. The second day I led a tour with another friend, Brenda, as the second guide. We then got to help out as ushers by the fountain for a while, and then I pushed a wheelchair through a tour. I loved watching all of the tour participants' faces as we went through the temple - some of them had seen the rooms before the remodel, for others this was their first exposure. The last room on the tour was the Celestial Room, where everyone was invited to be silent and spend a few moments in quiet contemplation/prayer/meditation. It was SO neat to be able to share that special experience. I'm really grateful to have a temple sooo close again!

Good thing he's so cute!

Jackers [one of those nicknames you didn't really intend to use but just seems to come out constantly] is possibly the cutest baby ever. He's also quite possibly the worst sleeper ever right now... thus this post! I intend to have these pictures pulled up permanently on the iPad so that when I'm up feeding him every couple hours during the night I can see his sooo sweet smile and not lose my sleep-deprived mind...

 It would appear that Jack is already an Ellen fan, just one example of his good taste.

 I LOVE bathtime for the older boys because not only does it keep them happily occupied for quite a while, it also provides entertainment for the wee one, who stands and watches and giggles the entire time. Of course, those giggles disappear rapidly when it's HIS turn for the bath, but that's okay.

 With the onset of the collllld weather, Jack has been sporting pajamas in public. A lot. Like, sometimes he sleeps in just a diaper and then I put pajamas on him in the morning, haha. It's just the easiest way to dress him warmly without involving multiple articles of clothing AND socks, which are pretty much the bane of my existence. Also, please note the adorable-ness of Jack in a hat.

 Cute shots from church a couple of weeks ago. Maren and I were spending second hour in the foyer (discussing matters of great importance and spirituality, I'm sure) when I pulled out the camera and pointed it at Jack, only to have him break out into this smile as if on cue. You'd think I over-document the poor kid's life or something!

 Speaking of over-documentation, I always hesitate to try to take a picture of Jack when he's happily playing because he almost always abandons the activity in favor of crawling towards me and the camera....

 Here's another example. This one kills me - for the first four or five months of his life, we wanted Jack to use a binky soooo badly (well, Chuck more than me). He semi-politely declined. NOW he thinks they're super fun to play with and chew on... sigh.

 

 Yet another example. Although I think Will was pretty happy to have Jack cease the hair-pulling...

 Just being so cute as he munches on his puffs.

 I'm pretty sure I can't get enough of him in this little moose ensemble. 

 

 Which is why I had to snuggle with him later that day. Oh, also because he wasn't feeling well and REFUSED to sleep any other way. 

The moral of this [non]story is that Jackers is the cutest fussbucket around and we couldn't love him more!! 

Unless he slept better and then we definitely would.