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Sunday, December 27, 2020

may 2k19: school/work stuff

There's a chance May was jam-packed with end of school year activities and such. 

Including Carma graduating from preschool! It actually fell on her 5th birthday, which was so thrilling for this sweet girl. 

Getting to sit close to her friends Sunny and McKay for the whole ceremony was extra exciting. Carma loved preschool with Ms. Cherry and we are so glad.

Random preschool day that Carma looked adorable... both Grandma and I attempted to get a picture haha.

Caption via instagram: And juuuust like that, we have a FIVE year old๐Ÿฅณ! Carma was thrilled to have preschool graduation ๐Ÿ‘ฉ๐Ÿป‍๐ŸŽ“ on her actual birthday and I was thrilled to watch her have such a perfect school year๐Ÿ’ฏ. Five years ago I was terrified and humbled and delighted to hold my new daughter๐Ÿ‘ถ๐Ÿป๐Ÿ‘€, sure that I was completely unqualified to be a ‘girl mom’ but grateful for the chance๐Ÿ˜…. As I look at pictures I took of Carma throughout the day with strong, smart, incredible women I am just so aware of how lucky she is to have so many role models and influences and people that love her๐Ÿ’Ÿ๐Ÿ’œ. Chuck and I adore our cray-cray girlie๐Ÿ’ƒ๐Ÿป✌๐Ÿผ๐Ÿšด๐Ÿป‍♀️! 
{pictured: Carma’s amazing preschool teacher Ms. Cherry ๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ‘ฉ๐Ÿฝ‍๐Ÿซ๐Ÿ’, our nanny extraordinarie Grandma Pam ๐Ÿ‘ต๐Ÿป๐ŸŒบ, Officer Tlucek- whose acquaintance our ‘girl cop’ obsessed Carma has been eagerly waiting to make and who did not disappoint AT ALL๐Ÿ‘ฎ๐Ÿป‍♀️๐Ÿ’ช๐Ÿผ๐Ÿคฉ, and Ms. Winder, whose friendship and attention Carma flourishes with and cherishes even more than the jolly ranchers she gets from her classroom ๐Ÿ‘ฉ๐Ÿป‍๐Ÿ’ผ๐Ÿค—๐Ÿฌ. Love them all ๐Ÿ˜˜}

Clyde's tennis season wrapped up with a very exciting conclusion: he and his mixed doubles partner Kelli got 4th place! They only played together the last half or so of the season, so it was pretty awesome how quickly they bonded and how well they played together.

The official A Team picture.

Clyde got to be the spokesperson at the 7th grade spring assembly to talk about how awesome tennis is. Lucky I was on the front row to cheer for him!

Speaking of spring sport wrap-ups, track is over! I was so happy to make it to watch some amazing EVMS athletes. Instagram caption: Two hours at a track meet = up and down the bleacher stairs seven times, a million rounds of rock/paper/scissors with patient middle schoolers, and lots of dirt and rock playing. Ohhhh how we love our Carma June❣️

Insta caption: Parenting hack: Have your fifth grader set up his science project at grandma’s house, so she can provide all of the materials, advice, emotional support, and water the plants on nights that he forgets. ๐Ÿค“๐Ÿ‘ฉ๐Ÿผ‍๐ŸŒพ๐ŸŒฑ๐Ÿ’ฆ๐Ÿ™Œ๐Ÿผ

Will had a great idea for his 5th grade science fair, and we had a great idea for him to carry it out at Grandma Pam's house.

Thanks to their hard work and Will's careful documentation, he was awarded 3rd place:

Cutest little science nerd!!


East Valley held a middle school open house for incoming 6th graders and apparently there was some kind of mix-up because my TINY BABY BOY WILL was invited to attend?! Kid was a natural on the middle school scene, though. He loved looking at the classrooms and tried out holding a violin - he's leaning towards orchestra as his elective next year.  


Pretty proud of this grown up boy and this transition from elementary to middle school. Will's amazing.

East Valley held spirit week leading up to the spring assemblies, and our sweet leadership kids mailed Adrian an official invite to join us that day. I followed up with a couple texts, including one thanking him for the use of his umbrella haha.


‘Merica Monday๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ Love me some middle school spirit days- I walked out this morning wearing Carma’s leg warmers and Chuck told me I was the dorkiest person he knew ๐Ÿ’๐Ÿป‍♀️. Daaaaang straight, babe! ๐Ÿ™Œ๐Ÿผ๐Ÿ˜Ž๐Ÿ’ƒ๐Ÿป

Clyde was a stud and dressed up every day with me AND agreed to be photographed with me, so that's pretty stellar. 
The younger kids decided they needed to participate in Spirit Days, so I got to pick up a couple extra tie-dye shirts the night before at Savers!

Western Wednesday - I made gold star badges for a bunch of the staff - someone was the constable, someone was the sheriff... and we maybe had a ranger or two in there? Good times.

Love having lots of plaid shirts on hand.

Tropical Thursday! This day made me laugh, everyone expected me to come suuuuper decked out but I opted to use my grass skirt as decor instead of costume. There's no way I could sneak in and out of classrooms with any kind of discretion wearing a grass skirt haha.
Cutest little hula boys!

I love cheesy school spirit stuff - I walked around with candy to bribe students into participating, and it worked a decent amount! I just feel like school pride done right (ie not solely focused on athletes, popular kids) fosters an awesome sense of belonging for all the students which leads to better behavior and investment in learning and taking care of the school and each other. 

The last choir concert of the year! So fun to watch this 7th grade group enjoy their year together so much.

One day I was contemplating my complete inability to get anything done in life and trying to process how I went from juggling kids and laundry and church stuff and friends and reading LOTS of books to feeling like no matter what I did, I was always behind. So then I pulled up this calendar of the school year - the days I worked are in blue. I remember starting off at the beginning keeping to my 2-3 days a week plan.... and then steadily increasing until this full time long term sub job. Turns out if you work 37 hours a week, that's 37 fewer hours to do the other stuff you used to. Basically I have no idea how people with regular full time jobs get anything else done.

Spending an hour or so at lunch time outside in amazing sunshine and seeing skies like this? Definite work perk.

Oh, Will's fifth grade class organized and carried out an amazing fundraiser car wash! I was at work, but Chuck took the car through and documented our cute boy helping out:

We continued to get to and from school a variety of ways - as promised, Jack did size up to a BMX bike and did awesome on his daily bike commute. Clyde biked on occasion, and sometimes we busted out Chuck's new scooter, Baymax aka Big Hero 6!

And finally, I referenced a 37ish hour work week, but clearly 20 of those hours were dedicated to selfies. Those lanyards just really look good on me, sorry! Also a bird mask from some hilarious 8th grade girls in art. Also one day I did a dutch braid and a regular braid and it freaked everyone out, including me. Also I'm just vain :).

Saturday, December 26, 2020

may 2k19: church stuff

Chuck and Carma had a day off together, which found them at the church orchard thinning peaches. Carma was mostly there for the snacks, photo ops, and random turkey sightings.

One time there was a stake Relief Society activity... on Saturday, May 4th which required some creativity to combine Star Wars and church dress ;).

Say what?? Shannon and I are 5th cousins! Next to Tasha (I think we were 4th?) this is the closest family search relationship I've found with someone I didn't already know I was related to. So fun.

We rode bikes to church on Mother's Day...

I wanted orange/brown/blue as our main colors for church that day, bur couldn't find anything in Carma's closet that matched... enter a hand-me-down shirt from the boys combined with leggings and a headband belt for a tunic dress! I loved it.

Love these four. They're not really looking at me, but they're smiling and laughing!

Outtakes ;).

Meeeeee. 


Cutest collection of Mother's Day gifts:








and a group selfie at bedtime to commemorate the day. Caption via instagram: We’re going through a fun phase in our house where if one child is touching me, ALL the children need to touch me. Tonight for scriptures/prayer/three things I legit spread out like a starfish on my bed and told them they could each snuggle with a different limb ๐Ÿคฆ๐Ÿป‍♀️. We also did our traditional stacking ‘formation’ which I have to admit I’m curious how long will last- also curious how Chuck managed to escape ever being part of that pile o’ fun-pretty sure he just said no ๐Ÿ˜…. Love these chillens and I am willing to sacrifice my personal space (on occasion) if it helps them feel loved and supported and safe. If they could quit fighting over who gets to invade my space and for how long and whose turn it is, that would also no aaaaaaa-okay with me ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ˜ฌ๐Ÿ˜‘.

After hearing about them for years, I finally made it to a party at the Zechmanns', featuring their swimming pool, this fantastic jump house slide...

and the infamous Z-ball!! Definitely lived up to the hype - also how sweet is Brother Bishop playing with Carma forever? She loved it.

I got to help Janell with her Memorial Day tradition of taking flowers to her parents' graves.
It was a lovely and peaceful afternoon with someone I sure love!!


Sunday, November 15, 2020

April 2k19: all the rest

One morning at work, I started getting random texts and phone calls asking me about some raspberry starts. After initially dismissing them with a 'Sorry, wrong number' I decided to look into it a bit after more calls... and thus I found this craigslist ad. That was about the same time I realized the date was April 1st...

Some stealth detective work... aka Marco Polo'ing... revealed the prank master as the one and only Nycole. (Also this is one of my favorite candid pictures of her. I think it's what I have saved as her contact info in my phone...)

Nycole had been awfully busy that morning, as Emily and her non-existent free baby goats can attest:

Ah yes, and Paulina and her 'free' squatty potty - oh my gosh, we all died laughing. Freaking Nycole!!

That being said, we did miss her terribly the next week at girls' night. It did make it easier to plot our revenge, however!

Caption via instagram: Feeling like we got a future ENT on our hands ๐Ÿ‘ฉ๐Ÿป‍⚕️๐Ÿ‘‚๐Ÿป๐Ÿ‘ƒ๐Ÿป๐Ÿ‘…๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿ”ฆ๐Ÿ’ฐ๐Ÿ”ฌ๐Ÿ’Š๐Ÿ’๐Ÿป‍♀️

Adventures at Grandma's house: bike rides, play doh, modeling, reading books (and calendars?):

Carma and I sneaked out for a girls' night to watch a cheerleading and dance showcase - SO fun. 

Easter sneaked up on us a bit, but luckily Chuck's parents came into town prepared! The kids had the best time dyeing eggs in the backyard with cousins and Grandma Izatt!

Quick egg hunt in the front yard...

We had a fun dinner out with Chuck's family, including Casey and Caleigh and their cutest girlie Claire. Carma and Claire (and Jack!) were pretty mesmerized by this water display at the front of the restaurant!

Doesn't everyone get the best sleep cuddling with their sibling after kicking their mom out of HER OWN BED? OHHH, just Jack and Carma? Cool.

Avengers: Endgame was released into theaters, and these four (plus Grandma Pam!) saw it the first Tuesday available. 

So happy for all of them.

More Carma Junie randomness... all related to Dad. Who else would encourage her desire to collect weird slugs along the path? Or upgrade her on a bike that looks entirely too big for my tiny little girl? 

And who would let her walk around with this crazy ensemble on?? Oh, yeah, that was definitely me ;).

Accidental brother matching requires a photo shoot:

These two middle boys are pretty lucky to have each other... most of the time ;).

Random evening at West Park:

Is having Jack unload the dishwasher efficient? Not at all, haha. Is it entertaining? Very much so!!

Clyde gave me a heart attack when he started sporting these random spots along his outer ear. I'll save y'all the mess o' googling that ensued, it's something about kids and a reaction almost allergy to the sun? Said it wasn't a big deal, so I moved on!

Clyde inherited the use of an old iPhone 4s for when he's home with the other kids alone, so I took the opportunity to hook him up with an awesome lockscreen reminder.

Cute little team working on a puzzle:

I'm borderline obsessed with this tree - look at the leaves starting to pop out! Yayyyy spring!!

Instagram caption: In these busy life it’s SO important to carve out time for your marriage! Sometimes it’s in Boise at 5am trying to jump the car that died on Chuck last night during rush hour construction ๐Ÿ˜ณ๐Ÿšง๐Ÿ˜‚ but any time together can be special- like how Chuck bought me a chocolate milk at Walmart with the tow strap #romanticbreakfast Another pro tip: driving in separate cars back home doesn’t have to end the date; just stay on speaker phone together and your connection will be as tight as the tow strap๐Ÿ’•... minus the one intersection where it broke off #whoops ๐Ÿ˜ฌ๐Ÿ˜…. Sure love Chuck, sure hate car problems, sure happy with life all around though ๐Ÿ™Œ๐Ÿผ.

A few more pictures to really set the scene... being towed is NOT my favorite but Chuck's a rockstar and super patient with me and I wasn't tooooo late to work, so that's good!

Chuck had been looking at scooters for a while, so when Yoshi's Idahoan counterpart popped up on craigslist, we obviously had to go take a look.

Which may have led to a test drive... which may have led to a purchase.

Carma and I drove home behind Chuck and the new scooter. It was a very slow drive home haha.

We didn't take a helmet with us, so we were grateful when the seller tossed in this (admittedly small) helmet with the sale. Chuck wore it the whole drive home, then popped it atop both Carma and Jack for some rides around the neighborhood.

It was then stashed on the sidewalk momentarily and we caught side of this wee stowaway inside:
AND THEN WE ALL HAD A HEART ATTACK WHEN WE KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE HELMET AND CAUGHT SIGHT OF ITS BELLY. 

It's cool, just a black widow that spent like 45 minutes right next to Chuck's freaking scalp. And then hung out in close proximity to both Jack and Carma. 

After its death and a moment of silence, I took a couple spins on the scooter sans helmet. Felt safer.

April = the cute springtime birthday of our lovely Katie - she was out of town that day but Clyde was able to hand off her gift a couple days later and of course I made the two of them take a quick picture in Katie's front yard:

... because how amazing is this side by side from Katie's birthday last year?? These two best buddies are awesome; I love the respect and kindness and encouragement they give each other. The cutest.

k, that was April! Moving right along!