2012: What I wore to church each week (absolutely as boring as it sounds)

One of my 'goober' New Year's Resolutions for 2011 was to wear a different outfit to church every week for at least . . . four months (?). I ended up extending it for the whole year because a) it was really fun and b) I was pregnant and it forced me to put effort into getting dressed at least once a week.

I was kind of undecided about 2012, especially since I basically started off the year on maternity leave from church for three weeks so that germy people wouldn't get my baby sick. I was also undecided because I knew I'd be wearing the exact same elastic-waisted black skirt for the indefinite future and also having weekly full-length pictures taken after you have a baby sounds like about as much fun as... I don't know, a root canal? 

In the end I went for it, knowing that there were no actual consequences if I quit at any time. And I did it! There are a few weeks where the only difference in two outfits is which necklace I wore, but that's totally legit (I make the rules). And it's honestly really fun to look back - I'm not joking when I say that Monday-Saturday I wear athletic shorts, yoga capris and black stretch pants with varying graphic tees, reserving jeans and shirts without words for only the very special-est of weekday occasions, so Sundays are my guilty pleasure day of actually getting dressed.

SO, here's the rundown, complete with commentary:

January 1st was a Sunday - don't I look thrilled to still be pregnant? Jack was born two days later, hence my awesome sweatpants/sweatshirt get-up the following Sunday. That was my uniform for several weeks. The last picture was when I get dressed up and sneaked out for a RS activity two weeks after Jack was born; I didn't get a picture that Sunday so I'm counting it :).

One last week of staying home on Sunday before I donned black to return to church. The third picture was Super Bowl Sunday, so Jack and I were wearing red and blue and white to cheer on the Giants.

February. Blech.

 February/March. Finally branching out into a couple different skirts, wooo!

 March (starting with Jack's blessing day!) and April (aka when I deem myself presentable enough to enlarge the pictures more, haha).

 

 April and May - I didn't get a full-length shot when I was in Utah visiting newborn Isaac, but can we all marvel at how dark Jack's hair was back then? What on earth happened??

 May Days.

 June. That orange and grey outfit is one of my favorites. The third picture is Father's Day when I spoke in sacrament meeting, hence me nervously clutching my talk and a water bottle...

 June and July

 

 The rest of July. My dad gave me that vest (and a few others) and I was pretty excited to wear it, despite my initial belief that it belongs on a Primary President.

 August! Green skirt was free, courtesy of the ward share 'n swap. I love it.

 End of August/beginning of September. I was clearly struggling with creativity here. The first outfit was blue and orange to mark the beginning of the collegiate football season. The purple and white outfit corresponds nicely with my bright pink skin, since it was the day after fall soccer started :).

 September! My long-awaited blue maxi dress, ahhhh. I can't wait to bust it out again next summer.

 October. The first picture is from a temple date the Friday of General Conference weekend. And my tights in the black and purple outfit are spider web tights and I really, really love them.

 October and November; the middle picture is from the temple open house but I stayed home from church that Sunday with sick little boys.

 November and December - another vest from my dad! Also, I was particularly unphotogenic that day, sadly leaving this action shot as the best option.

 December.

 The last Sunday of 2012, featuring new tights that were in my stocking and a new shirt from my mother-in-law. The entire family went to church wearing blue and green and that kind of mass color coordination brings more joy to my heart than it probably should :). 

And that's my extremely shallow, self-absorbed 2012 fashion wrap-up. I'm not gonna lie, I already have my outfit for next Sunday mostly put together in my head...

I go back to December (just this once...)

(I know what you're thinking, after 13 December-y posts, how can Jana have anything more to say about the month? Well, get comfortable!)

We started off the month by rallying the troops for a quick family picture in anticipation of me eventually sending out holiday cards.

BSU attire + our driveway + camera on tripod + self-timer + the best-looking family I know. How could we go wrong?

Not surprisingly, the photo shoot quickly turned into a football scrimmage.

He's JUST. SO. CUTE.

I got to attend a couple of baby showers because apparently I made having a baby boy in January look super fun so now everyone's doing it!

Kara's shower, where we all had pretty much the best time ever proposing awesome potential names. Paulina and I had some epic suggestions that we're not sure were given the appropriate consideration...

And Jayna's shower, which was probably the cutest thing I've ever been to with its 'Newsie' theme and photo booth, which Jack reluctantly took part in (when I wasn't passing him off to one of the party hosts, Kallie, so that I could eat!). I had fun getting to know Jayna's friend Allison (pictured with the expectant guest of honor in the top right).

Random darling shots of Jack.

More front yard football.

In early-ish December we got a light dusting of snow and Clyde was quite eager to check it out. I have no idea where he got the 'shorts and boots' combination. Oh, wait . . .

December's Cub Scout Pack Meeting was a BIG deal; we had an Arrow of Light presentation and three boys 'crossing the bridge' to eleven-year-old Scouts. A lot of the Cub Scout awards and terminology and traditions are inspired by (slash possibly completely misrepresent) American Indian subcultures, so Brother Murphy brought me a headdress to wear as I presented the awards.

I got nice and emotional (there were tears shed, not even joking) while presenting Jacob with his Arrow of Light. I was called into Cub Scouts right after Jacob turned 8, so I was his Wolf leader and then I was moved to Bear leader with him and then I've been the Cubmaster this year, so I feel like he and I have been on this journey together and he's so genuinely sweet and darling and now he's leaving me! (Except that I see him every week at church and he and his older brother babysit for us sometimes and over Christmas break he came over just to hang out, haha).

We had some holiday crafts and card-making and cupcake decorating and eating. My favorite part was covering the tables in Christmas wrapping paper :).

Clyde's school had a cute little holiday sing-a-long while Sam and Terri were in town, so we all attended. Will was mesmerized; I've never seen him sit so quietly for so long!

I found cute little tins of hot chocolate for the boys to give to their teachers; Will was pretty excited to hand them off to his bus drivers and attendants :).

Random shot of our Monopoly Deal tournament from when my brothers were here. Spoiler alert: Chuck definitely won that round.

 Random cousin/aunt/uncle/grandma fun that didn't make it into the other seven posts I did about our early Christmas celebrations ...

 The  morning after Christmas I delightfully slept in while Chuck got the boys all decked out to play in the snow and then dutifully photographed the fun. Clyde and Will have a new game called 'Hand Fight' (quite a ring to it, eh?) where they push on each other's hands to demonstrate their raw strength. Ohhh, boys!

 

 We got to have three cute little Swenson boys over for an evening, so here is an eye-opening glimpse into what it would be like to have SIX sons. Whew!

 And finally, early in the day on New Year's Eve, we attended an awesome tea party at my aunt's house!

 Will insisted the boys wear hats too, so my Aunt Iris sweetly found them baseball caps to don for the festivities :).

I loved having some time to catch up with my cousins Amanda and Andrea, who both live out of town now, and the boys had so much fun playing with second cousin Cecily - the trio even formed "The Christmas Band" and favored us with an original song number.

And that night I tucked all of my boys into bed ("someone" had to leave for "work" at "5am") and grabbed some sparkling cider to keep my company as I blogged and counted down to midnight:

And thus concluded December!

Grandma and Grandpa Izatt came to town!

We were so excited to have Chuck's parents come visit us for a few days after Christmas. We opted for our usual plan when they come to town: the menfolk did some handyman projects, Terri and I did some shopping, we ate lots of good food and the kids were thoroughly loved and spoiled!

 

Chuck needed a second set of hands to do some raingutter re-routing along the back of the house, and Pops was more than willing to help (unlike Chuck's wife who repeatedly declined). Jack was also more than willing to help, but sadly didn't make it on the recruitment short list :(. Dave and Chuck also replaced the thermostat in the Saturn in our never-ending quest to get the dang vehicle to pass emissions, wish us luck!

Some shots of the fun: making pancakes, playing legos, cuddling up to read books, putting together the ol' marble fun, and enjoying ice cream during movie night.

 Since we missed Chuck's family's traditional Christmas Day steak dinner, Pops treated us to one during their visit. Yummmm!

After dinner that night we continued with our 'belated Christmas' theme and opened lots of wonderful presents, including a Nerf gun shooting range game for Chuck (that the boys have already run out of batteries once!) and an awesome new car seat for Jack.

 Speaking of Jack, this might be my favorite picture from the whole month of December; he was sooo cute as he slowly ripped off a piece of the wrapping paper. Unfortunately, although slow and steady usually wins the race, it actually gets you replaced by your older brothers when the task is opening presents - Clyde and Will were more than happy to step in and open all of Jack's presents for him!

I love Clyde's facial expressions as he opened these Star Wars action figures.

Melissa's family had us in the sibling gift exchange and sent our gifts up with Mom and Pops; the boys were SO excited to open them! I especially loved the 'add-ons' to each person's individual gift - the little boys each got a cool Avengers cup and Chuck and I got 'Best Uncle' and 'Best Aunt' keychains (they're on the present in the middle) that our sweet nephew George got for us at his school's 'Santa Shop'. 

We understand that George was pretty key in selection the fun games we received, so these pictures are for him:

One of Chuck's favorite games is Sequence, so he was especially excited about 'Sequence for Kids' and the boys love it already. Hedbandz is a favorite already too; it's so cute to hear Will inquire "I is alive? I is a pet? I have two legs or four legs?" Thanks to George and all the Blues! We really appreciate your thoughtfulness!

More present opening! I must not have been moving fast enough either, because Will came and helped me out :).

As always, Chuck's parents spoiled me - an awesome sewing container (maybe I'll branch out beyond Scout patches and couch pillows!) and a super cute skirt that's already made its church debut and a way fun purse that I opened to find an iPod Nano inside, along with an iTunes gift card and running accessories, wooo! I went out on Jack's birthday last week to test it out, and it's amazing to run and listen to real music instead of awkwardly singing in my head :). Sadly it was FREAKING COLD that day and it has snowed quite a bit since then so I haven't attempted to go out again - but I will!

So it's probably horrible that this makes me laugh so hard, but towards the end of the present-opening fun, a big box for Chuck to open was pushed to the middle of the living room and Jack promptly saw fit to use it as his own personal stage, much to the EXTREME DISTRESS of Will, who was trying to get it to Daddy. Poor Will tried everything to get Jack down...

including calling in reinforcements (in this case, Clyde). Jack just continued to merrily clap and laugh and be adorable until I took pity on the older boys (notice Clyde's tired/sad/distraught face in the lower right) and plucked Jack off :). Luckily for everyone, bedtime soon followed!

 The next morning, Chuck and I availed ourselves of two very willing and capable baby-sitters and went to the temple! It was lovely, especially since the stars aligned (aka we were late and then volunteered to sit out an overcrowded session) and my mom was able to finish her shift as a temple worker and be a patron with me in our session :). We ended up being gone quite a while so it was extra nice to know that the boys were happy and in such good hands at home!

Dave and Terri left Sunday morning, but left us with a cute back window (courtesy of the fun window markers that were also a part of our gift from the Blues):

We love you too!! Thanks so much for coming and spoiling all of us!