Will is FOUR!

Will turned four this past week, hooray! Words cannot describe how much we love our Will; he continues to be an absolute delight - 97% of the time :). He is sweet and hilarious and enthusiastic and imaginative and such an entertaining personality in our home.

Will has made incredible strides during the last year - particularly with his receptive and expressive language. He's very chatty - he loves to narrate everyone's actions and will usually repeat something until it's acknowledged by whomever he's addressing.

The most difficult aspect of his autism for us right now is his inability to be flexible if things aren't exactly as he thinks they should be. Every time we think we have all of 'his' details figured out, a meltdown erupts and we thus discover a new one :). For instance, Will's breakfast is almost always oatmeal - three packets in one of the white plastic (not glass!) bowls with a regular metal spoon. Last week Chuck grabbed a plastic spoon and that was met with a (fairly calm) "No, that not right. Try again Daddy!" We often have to have a second prayer (at a mealtime or bedtime) because the person who Chuck asks to pray initially is different from the person that Will believes should. The nights that the boys have baths before bed, Will eschews pajamas in favor of being wrapped in his (orange) towel and then his blanket on top. Whenever Will wears his beloved blue sweatshirt, the hood MUST be on. And just for fun, Clyde's hood has to be on as well, regardless of his personal preference.

Unfortunately, some missteps are not figured out as quickly or solved as easily. A couple of weeks ago the little boys and I attempted to go to my mom's church on a Sunday that Chuck was at work (our ward had Stake Conference) and NOTHING went right that morning. He didn't care for the church pants that I had for him and I had failed to bring along an alternative. So I did what I would do with Clyde - forced the pants on and waited for him to get over it.

He didn't. It turned into a really wretched day.

Which is why we very carefully choose our battles (which is something I believe in deeply, autism or no autism). Will eats three meals a day. Sometimes is it oatmeal for breakfast and dinner? Yes. Will goes to preschool fully dressed. Sometimes is it orange fleece pants? Yes. And that's okay.

We've learned to use Will's dependence on order to our advantage; we created a 'bedtime routine' list to avoid meltdowns and arguments about whether reading books with Dad comes before or after scripture study. We're starting to venture into potty training, so we have a dry erase board in the bathroom with a step-by-step process of what to do and Will LOVES it. He also responds really well to music, so I utilize all of my creative and musical abilities (very little indeed) to make up awesome songs such as "Will goes to school and Mom stays home". That little ditty helped immensely when Will was struggling with leaving me to get on the bus after Jack was born - we emphasize the last line "And Will comes home after school!!"

And even at the most difficult moments, Will is SO good at making us laugh with his little catchphrases.

* "Oh, dear." (Said in a very concerned voice)

* "Whoops a daisy!" (My mom referenced 'Notting Hill' after Will said this the other day and we laughed and laughed)

* "STOP crying!!" (to Jack, haha)

* "Yesss, I okay." (What he answers 99% of the time after getting hurt; the kid is so tough. Even if he's crying, he'll respond that he's okay)

* "Don't 'get about me!" (When he's worried that he's being forgotten or left out)

* "Mom, I so scared." (This is new, and random - especially since he never responds with what exactly he's scared of...)

* "I need a kiss!" (whenever he gets hurt)

followed up with

* "Oh, that feel better!" (after the kiss is given)

* "Wait a minute!" (this usually precedes the aforementioned "That not right, try again!")

* "I be riiight back..." (usually to get out of doing something)

Will's birthday was nice and low-key since we were just coming off a fun, family-filled weekend for Jack's blessing (more on that to come). I put crepe paper streamers in his doorway and throughout the kitchen and family room and a happy birthday banner above the couch and Will was delighted with his 'decorations'.

I stuck Jack on the couch to get some brotherly pictures, much to the mutual delight of Clyde and Will.

We also ventured outside to ride bikes/trikes for quite a while as we waited for Chuck to come home from work.

We had a gourmet dinner of pancakes . . . specifically yellow pancakes for our food coloring obsessed kiddo :). And Will happily blew out the candle four or five times.

And then he opened presents in front of his adoring audience (we were so glad Grandma Pam could come over!!)

A couple of days later Will had his check-up and the doctor and he is healthy and perfect. He and Clyde are both weighing in at about 42lbs, although Clyde still has a couple inches on his younger brother. I figure it keeps their wrestling bouts pretty evenly matched, so it works for me!

And now, here are a couple of videos from this past week.

This is from his actual birthday; we had talked a LOT about age and I was so excited that he seemed to get it!




This one is from a couple of days later and features three of his birthday presents: a little game called 'Hungry Dog' (from Daddy), a Tow Mater truck (from Grandma and Grandpa Izatt), and a white horse (from Grandma Pam).



And this one is after Will did a little sea animal puzzle. It's pretty classic Will.

We sure love our sweet four-year-old!

Bailey and Hazel came to visit!

Oh, and Sam and Terri tagged along as well :).

We were so, so excited that the SLC Bradens (as Quinn has christened them to differentiate them from himself and Eden, aka the Provo Bradens) came to visit us last month. Due to silly things like work schedules, medical school, and two pregnancies and births three weeks apart, we hadn't seen each other since last August.

We knew our time was short, so luckily the kids jumped right in playing with each other and being goofs. I sincerely hope that Bailey wasn't traumatized (or inspired!) by watching my boys wrestle...

Bailey quite enjoyed the swing, while Clyde recruited Grandma Pam to a game of Simon Says.

The kids were sweet enough to let us get in a few games, none of which I won. We introduced Sam and Terri to Monopoly Deal and then they each soundly beat us (Terri twice!), so we obviously won't be playing that game with them again.

Chuck and I took full advantage of the opportunity to be photographed with sweet, darling, baby Hazel since girls are a rare commodity at our house.

And we gathered the gang around to get a picture of Grandma Pam with her five grandchildren. This picture will be officially outdated in a month when Quinn and Eden's baby makes his debut!

Grandma Pam with baby Jack and baby Hazel.

We made a quick Costco run the morning they left and opted to put both babies in one cart. I was so disappointed that no one asked Sam about his twins.

And then all too soon it was time to say goodbye. We miss you guys lots and lots, thanks for making the trek up to visit us!!

Guess who's two months old?

Thiiiiis cute baby!

So we headed in to the doctor for a weigh-in and some shots. Can I just say that doctors appointments are way more fun now that the pregnancy is over and I'm not the one getting weighed in and poked with needles?

For the [official Izatt family] record, Jack is twelve pounds exactly and just shy of twenty-three inches, which apparently puts him right around 50th percentile. He's changed quite a bit lately; he's definitely filled out more and his hair has lightened up. He continues to be an absolute doll - he's thrown his hat into the ring for favorite child by sleeping 7-9 hours solid every few days. He's started smiling at me when I get him out of his crib in the mornings, but remains pretty somber throughout the day.

And just for fun, here are all three boys around the two-month mark - Clyde, Will, Jack.

It's March, yay!

. . . which means it's time to bid farewell to January and February with a crazy long recap.
I always get a little stir crazy the week or so after I have a baby and then I go out and do something and then I remember that I'd much rather hole up in my house. In this case I braved a little family walk when Jack was six days old. Luckily the boys' need to stop frequently for rock-throwing set a nice, easy pace :).

It was my birthday in the middle of January, and now I am very happily 27. It happened to coincide with that random intense snow day so we buttoned down the hatches and stayed inside all day long and I snuggled with all my favorite boys!

My dad's birthday was the next day and so he came over for a quick visit before his square dancing later that evening - he even provided the pizza and balloons for our little celebration. The boys provided the wrestling and entertainment :).

Chuck's time off in January awesomely coincided with some library XBOX games finally coming our way after a while on the waiting list - the boys all loved Kinect Sports. Turns out Clyde's a decent boxer - I'm thrilled.

Chuck, Clyde, and Will have become pretty serious Hide and Seek players. If there's anything cuter than Will 'covering' his eyes to count to 'ten bananas', I'm not sure what it is. Here are a couple of Chuck's more elusive hiding spots (sorry to ruin them, honey!) - under the teddy bear in the boys' room and under Jack's crib.

One night both older boys were randomly up in the middle of the night for a couple hours, which made for a verrrry long night. The next day we were running errands (notice how they're each clutching their library finds) and they both crashed in the car. I almost crawled back and napped with them . . .

The last Sunday in January marked Jack's debut at church! He slept the entire three hours, bless his heart.

Naturally I tried to get a cute picture of my three little sweater vest-sporting boys, but that seemed a tall order, even when I joined in.

Now onto February:
After consuming a diet heavy on the brownies and hot chocolate and a fussier-than-usual baby, I determined there might be a correlation and decided to scale back on the chocolate a bit. So when a craving for sugar and butter hit one evening, I opted to make myself a vanilla cake! And since it seemed a little sad to just make a cake for no real reason, I decorated it for Groundhog's Day. See - he's poking up and sees his shadow? And I actually made it the night before, so I'm just a good predictor!

February 3rd marked Chuck's return to work, which marked my return to kind of taking care of the household, which marked Jack's first late night run to Walmart so we would have bread for the next day.

To prove that I can handle three children by myself, the boys and I went on a walk the first day that Chuck was back at work. Here are the many cute faces of Will :).

This one is my favorite.

Although this is a close second - Will was 'ducking' under the tree branches. You know, the ones that are a solid ten feet above his head.

Coincidentally, Clyde was also quite darling on our walk. Here he is giggling after a rock he threw hit the metal pipe and made a loud ding.

And here he is waiting to jump out and surprise Nicole when we stopped by to say hi.

And here's Clyde recovering his light saber from Will's hands and then hunting him down with it.

Jack wisely stayed bundled up in the stroller for the duration.

Such a happy goofy little kiddo!
This is from a walk a different day; I just wanted to record for posterity the uniform that kept me so comfortable after my c-section, aka my favorite sweatpants in the whole world. I may be wearing them right now. The saddest few hours of the last two months have been every three days when I parted with them long enough for them to go through the wash.

Chuck kind of laughed on Saturday night before Valentine's Day when I started brainstorming out loud what we would all be wearing to church the next day to coordinate with the upcoming holiday. He stopped laughing when he realized I was serious :). I opted for black and red and grey, mainly based around Jack's cute little onesie that Grandma Izatt gifted him on her recent visit.

Camera pics of the boys wrestling after church that day. Goofs.

Our actual Valentine's Day was pretty low-key. Chuck went to work, I actually made dinner, and we watched the new episode of Castle. Oh, and Jack smiled a lot at Chuck. So sweet, right? Except the wee baby had YET to smile for me (not counting post-feeding/during his sleep smiles. I want to be loved for more than my milk).

So a few days later I made it my mission to get a smile from Jack. And it worked! Granted, it then turned into a yawn as I am apparently fairly boring, but that's okay. Let's focus on the smiles.

Chuck treated us to a delicious steak dinner the other night, and Will donned his apron to help a bit with the marinade.

Then he sat on a little stool and played with a measuring spoon and eerily reminded me of that Cinderella 'In my own little corner' song. Anyone else see it?

When his work in the kitchen was done, Will retired to the living room to read books with Grandma Pam.

Oh, I should mention that Jack also smiled at Grandma Pam a few times before me. Little pill :).

All three boys had awesome colds/fevers/coughs/runny noses throughout February, although at different times - meaning I had to try to keep the older boys away from Jack. Clyde was sooo happy when everyone was healthy again and he and baby Jack were reunited.

And finally, I marked the end of February with a girls' night to celebrate Paulina's birthday. Sadly, there are now no more birthdays amongst our little group until December. Luckily we are quite sure we can come up with other reasons for girls' nights. Like, for our sanity.

And (minus our visit last weekend from Sam and Terri that necessitates a separate post) that wraps up January and February at the Izatt home. Yay for March and warmer (ish) weather and St. Patrick's Day and Dancing with the Stars premiere (followed by a new episode of Castle) and Will's birthday and Jack's blessing and Spring Break! Love March.