Will's a year old! Which is also the length of time it will take you to read this post!

I'm a firm believer that birthdays are SPECIAL. As in the birthday person is treated extremely well all day long - they have immunity when it comes to doing anything wrong, they get to pick the dinner menu, and they shouldn't have to go to school if it falls on a weekday. Reasonable, right?

As for the latter, as a January 18th birthday, it was one extreme or the other for me. I was either taking end of semester final exams on my birthday or I had it off thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - those years were wonderful! I tried to give Clyde and Will the same gift, and I think I did pretty well. Clyde's birthday (September 1st) will fall on Labor Day every few years, and Will's birthday (March 26th) should almost always be during Spring Break. So this past week found us on a Spring Break adventure to Utah celebrating baby Will's first birthday.

(We drove down on Monday and stayed with Sam and Terri through Friday, then we stayed with Smith's Friday and Saturday nights and drove home Sunday. There are many pictures to show and stories to tell, but my 'mom guilt' is hitting hard that I haven't posted about my baby's birthday, so those will have to wait a bit!)

I decided to go with a zoo theme for baby Will's birthday - that way I could use the teddy bear 'baby's first birthday' hats/napkins/etc decor I already had without replicating Clyde's Teddy Bear Picnic first birthday theme. We went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake on Tuesday morning (if you're too impatient to wait for my post here's Terri's excellent recap) and then Terri and I put Chef Duff and the Ace of Cakes crew to shame with our fabulous zoo cake for the official party on Thursday:

It was an excellent collaborative effort: I mixed, Terri baked, Terri frosted, I sprinkled, Terri fenced, Chuck animal'ed, I lettered, Sam and Clyde watched, and Will banged pots and pans on the floor oblivious to it all!
Family picture! It's difficult to see, but I want to assure everyone that the children are dressed appropriately: Will is wearing a Zoo Boise shirt and Clyde is wearing a zebra/safari shirt.

Will was not the happiest birthday boy, bless his little heart. He wasn't feeling well all week, so I ended up taking him in to a doctor in Orem who found a double ear infection, but then the antibiotics kept making him throw up :(. The rest of us enjoyed eating the cake, though!


Will is such a sweet, mellow baby which I count as a tender mercy since it provides a balance to his extremely active older brother. Will loves touch, he can usually be soothed with a deep back rub. He takes delight in growling, clicking his tongue, and faking us out on when he'll walk. The week before Spring Break he took 3-5 steps in a row on several different occasions but nothing since. He's kept his baby blue eyes, his hair gets lighter with each hair cut and he's currently sporting seven teeth. His check-up is Tuesday, but I think he's about 22 lbs and lately I've been grabbing shorts for him from Clyde's drawer; I figure this summer they'll both share the 2T clothes!

Will definitely does things on his own timeline - he's yet to take an interest in table food; he throws Cheerios, crackers, and even French fries straight to the floor and reaches for the banana/sweet potato baby food. We learned this about him early on, since he was scheduled for an April 1st c-section but came on his own almost a week earlier. The last few weeks before he was born, I was convinced he would come early since I was dilated to a 3 and SO tired of being pregnant (like that ever has any bearing on when a child comes!), but then my hopes were dashed when I hadn't made any progress in the five days between check-ups. I made my peace with the fact that I'd have to wait it out - that was Monday, March 24th. So on Wednesday morning when I started having contractions, I immediately dismissed them as useless Braxton-Hicks and continued watching Finding Nemo with Clyde and Chuck. I also had it in my head that if I did go into labor, my water would break before I had any contractions, since that's what had happened with Clyde (because pregnancy/labor/birth is the same with every child? Yeah right!).

So every few minutes throughout the day I'd have to stop and brace myself and wince in pain. Finally it got late enough in the day that I knew my doctor's office would be closing soon so we decided to time the 'contractions' for a while and call to see what his thoughts were. When he found out they were four-eight minutes apart, he incredulously ordered me to get my 'little buns down to the hospital' immediately. We got to St. Luke's at about four-thirty and handed Clyde over to my mom. After filling out paperwork and such, they took me back and found that I was dilated . . . (drumroll please) . . . NINE centimeters! This threw everyone into panic mode since labor after a previous c-section can be dangerous, especially since Will would still need to be delivered cesarean (narrow pelvis, poor Clyde got stuck after two hours of pushing, no need to try that again!).

They whisked Chuck away to change into scrubs (he looks SO cute in them, makes the whole thing worth it) and whisked me in to pre-op and William Patrick Izatt was delivered a short time later, tipping the scales at 7lbs 13oz.
Shortly after birth Couple weeks old Four months A bit over five months Six-seven months Nine months
Almost eleven months
Happy birthday baby Will! Your mommy loves you very much :)

P.S. I absolutely agree with all of you that my blog looks super awesome right now (and I toyed with taking credit for it) - it's actually the sweet design of my e-bff Jayna, whom I hopefully don't freak out by using the term 'e-bff'.

A Clyde and Mommy date

When my younger brother Quinn was in elementary school, he received a Steve Young 49ers jersey for Christmas one year and wore it every day for several months. Don't worry, my mom made sure that he changed out the undershirt daily (and it was washed on Sundays during church) so he didn't become the smelly kid in class. 

It just so happens that this year for Christmas, Clyde received a Boise State jersey (at the risk of sounding some sort of Savers-obsessed weirdo, I found it there for $5). It was a little big, so I stuck it in his closet until an appropriate occasion arose, and this week it did: a BSU football spring scrimmage! My mom watched Will so that Clyde and I could make a date of it. Chuck had an all-day training at work - he was pretty bummed at missing his son's first encounter with BSU football, so I made sure to take lots of pictures.

Clyde won't be ready to sit for a whole football game for a while yet, which is why the scrimmage worked out so perfectly. It was free, and Clyde could jump around and play to his little heart's content.
He loved watching them throw and catch the ball.

He was concentrating SO hard on folding his little handout into a megaphone. It didn't work, so he had to settle for just yelling "Wun, wun!" to the players . . . hopefully they understood that he meant 'run' :)

Photo courtesy of a nice fellow Bronco fan who was walking by just then

Clyde wore the jersey the rest of the day and for most of the next day. . . I think we may have created a monster.

Varying levels of commitment to St. Patrick

I like St. Patrick's Day. I'm a bit Irish, I like the color green, and it's a pretty easy-going holiday (no gifts to buy).

Clyde and I put our modest decorations up the day after Valentine's Day. I had a bunch of (really) cheap, plastic green hats left over from a very memorable St. Patrick's Day party a couple of years ago (log throwing, anyone?) so I randomly stuck them around the house. One by one, they disappeared; I blame not leprechauns, but my clutter-intolerant husband.

I did find one to stick in the picture with my wee lads. I'm such a sucker for holiday t-shirts, poor kids. Much thanks to hand-me-downs from George for Will's shirt and D.I. last week for Clyde's!
Clyde kissing (and slightly choking) William Patrick

He is pretty lucky and charming . . . hence his continued existence on this earth.

Alas, this one had a pint too many and passed out.

So, if Clyde and Will got this dolled up for the holiday, and I'm like twice as Irish as they are, how do you think I chose to demonstrate my green-ness?

Oh, yeah. My bout with the 24-hour flu started just after midnight, ensuring that I was up every couple of hours to start St. Patrick's Day off right. I called my mom at school around eleven this morning to inform her that her grandchildren were being seriously neglected and she got someone to cover her classes after lunch and came to the rescue. I cowboy'd up long enough to get them dressed in their cute shirts and take pictures, because not doing so obviously wasn't an option, and then sent them off with Grandma. They went for a walk, went out to lunch, and did an art project. I wallowed in self-pity, napped, and showered. Definitely a win-win.
I was feeling much better by evening, although I still stayed home from the Relief Society dinner that I was really looking forward to, in an effort not to share the flu love. Instead I watched the Biggest Loser and only seriously cried twice :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Jana's helpful blogging tips

As luck would have it, I'm like a blogging expert. You wouldn't know it from my somewhat drab-looking blog, or my lack of regular postings, or my hit-and-miss commenting, but I'm definitely an expert. And because I'm a kind and generous individual (and because I'd rather not work on homework right now) I'll share some of my vast knowledge with you!

Tip #1: Use Google Reader

Many people, including me, use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs. It's a fantastic service that saves loads of time - you type in all of your friends' blogs (and their friends' blogs, and so on) and it imports all of that blog's posts. Every time that blogger publishes a new post, your Google Reader account highlights that blog to alert you. Some bloggers choose to allow their full post to be sent to Google Reader, others choose 'partial feed' and you have to go to the actual blog to read the entire post. If you want to leave a comment, you also must go to the actual blog. It's seriously fabulous - to add this, just access your google account and there should be someplace that says 'try something new' where Google Reader will be listed!

Tip #2: EDIT, don't delete, your posts

This tip is related to the first tip, because there's a definite flaw with Google Reader and it affects you whether you use Reader or not. If you change your mind about a post and delete it, it will no longer appear on your blog. But it will remain on the Google Reader of anyone who subscribes to your blog. If the person tries to go to that post from your Google Reader, they will be notified that the page no longer exists, but they can still read what you wrote or see the pictures you posted. SO, if you suddenly regret posting that picture of yourself in a swimsuit or are having second thoughts about posting the word-for-word transcript of your argument with your mother-in-law, EDIT the post. Make it completely blank, type in gibberish, write about another topic completely, but DON'T delete it. Google Reader will show the edited version. If you delete it, there's currently no real way to 'get it back' from your subscribers. It won't appear on accounts of new subscribers (although all of your other previous posts will), so if you can get everyone to 'unsubscribe' then 'resubscribe' you're okay, but chances are that people subscribe to your blog that you don't know subscribe. Like me.

You may also want to contact Google/Blogger and let them know that you'd like this problem fixed: http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help Google doesn't have real contact information, but you can post a concern in their help group.

Tip #3: Be aware of your Blogger profile

Your blogger profile is different from your blog - it's the page that comes up when someone clicks on your blogger username, usually when you make a comment on another blog. Your blogger profile shows any blogs for which you're an 'author' as well as blogs you 'follow' if you use that feature. If you don't mind people finding your blog(s), then you're fine. BUT, if you comment on/contribute to popular, business-type blogs, then your blogger profile could be available to a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise see it. For instance, you may not mind if a friend of a friend of a friend accesses your blog, because at least there's a common link. But you may be uncomfortable with a total stranger who saw your comment on a photography/shopping/whatever blog that they found on craigslist/google/wherever being able to see your family blog and any blogs you 'follow.' There are settings that you can change to make your profile (not your blog) private, or not to show your blogs on your profile- just go to your blogger home page (dashboard, I think it's called) and click 'edit profile' . Whew, that was kind of confusing, eh?

Tip #4: Fix your timestamp

This isn't as vital to your privacy, but it's good to know - you can change what 'time' your post shows as having been published. Usually when you publish a post, the timestamp is reflective of the time that you began the new post, not when you hit 'publish'. This is fine if a) you don't care about the timestamp or b) you're a quick poster, so it's pretty close. But if you're like me and spend a LONG time working on a post before you publish it, you may want to manually change the time stamp. This is also important if you like to stay at the top of your friends' blog rolls on the sides of their blogs - they're usually listed by most recent post. I know that some people save drafts of posts to finish and post at a later time, in that case you can decide to keep the original time stamp to keep them in the order you began working on the posts or change the time stamp to reflect the order in which you finished and published them.

SO, on your 'create post' page of blogger, next to the 'label box' there's a link that says 'post options'. This is where you can change the post date and time!

Happy blogging!