Super. Exciting. News.

WHAT kind of mother 

allows her children

to run around the yard (front AND back)

sporting the combination of no shirt and low riding/baggy shorts

on (apparently) a fairly regular basis?

 I'll tell you:

the kind of mother that is just 

SO. DANG. HAPPY.

to see a strip of undies

hugging their cute little midsections

where there was previously a diaper for the last five/four years.

That's right, shout it from the rooftops:

the Izatt boys are outta diapers*!

Clyde's been done since about January, and Will just in the last couple of weeks. We aren't quite sure what to do with the new wiggle room in the budget: possibly purchase a small island. Go to Disney World. Put in a pool.

We are so grateful to Clyde's pediatric gastroenterologist, Dr. Ellison, whose fresh perspective and knowledge directed us to the right combination of a new procedure (for Clyde) and medicine (for Clyde and Will) that allowed our little Hirschsprung's disease kiddo and our little Autism kiddo to ditch the diapers for good. And I'm so, so grateful to Chuck for always being on hand with patience and enthusiasm when I was d.o.n.e. Yay for the potty!!  

 * Well, two out of three little Izatt boys are out of diapers. . .

We've decided to give Jack a little more time :).

Mother's Day Weekend

The main event of the weekend was the Race for the Cure 5k, WHICH I RAN IN ITS ENTIRETY.

 Holly and myself, post-race. 

 But let's start at the beginning.  Friday afternoon Clyde and Will headed over to Grandma Pam's for a sleepover, which both my mom and I considered a special gift.  The next morning Chuck and Jack and I piled in the minivan and picked up Creed, Holly, and baby Ella.

 The boys served as driver and navigator, the babies were darling in the middle row, and Holly and I attempted to calm our pre-race nerves in the very back.  It didn't really work.

 We parked a ways away from the starting line and walked there instead of trying to wrangle two strollers onto the shuttle.  I asked Chuck to take this picture of us marching towards our destiny... poetic, right?

Here we are laughing at Chuck and Creed, who complained the ENTIRE walk to the starting line, which was maybe a mile.  Especially helpful were their comments along the line of "Oh my gosh, you're going to run this whole way?  Oh, further??  Man, I thought you were overreacting but I now I totally get why you're so nervous!"

But eventually we made it.  Here we are next to the motorcycle group that leads the race.

And then we were off! Much thanks to the Statesman for getting this picture of me - Holly is on my right side behind the lady in blue.

While Holly and I running (Holly gracefully, me not so much) the boys made the acquaintance of McGruff the Crime Dog and got pictures of the babies with him.

 And then we finished the 5k, yaaay!  Holly was a superstar and did it in 28:25.  I opted to cut it a little closer to our goal of under 30 minutes and finished in 29:15.  Here's Holly crossing the finish line, courtesy of the Statesman.

Lookin' goooood after all that runnin'! [Sidenote: feel free to speculate on where Holly's other hand is. I know I was surprised...]

My awesome half of our cheering section!  I loved that Chuck and Jack were there to support me.

Our running buddy Tami ran with her husband but we met up afterwards for a photo op :).

Haha, so beforehand we saw Carolyn Holly and she said hi to us and I'm not gonna lie, it made me feel pretty special.  So when we saw her afterwards and she said hi again, I took it as a pretty clear sign that we needed to get a picture with her.

After the race we decided to cancel out any health benefit of running with some delicious French toast. So, so good. And as an unexpected bonus, the restaurant was having a Mother's Day special so Holly and I both ate for free, yay!

 And all too soon it was time to pile back in the van and head home. I love how the babies both crashed - you know, because being pushed around in a stroller all morning is pretty exhausting :).

I managed to get a quick nap in before Grandma Pam returned the little boys and it was time for Clyde's soccer game.

Here I am coaching my little kiddos. Do you see my gesturing? That's me saying, "Run! Run! Go!"  My coaching skills are pretty legit.  But I guess they're legit enough because Clyde scored a goal this game, wahoo!

Here he is memorializing that goal by holding up one little finger.  Interesting tidbit about this picture: it was taken about three seconds after a wasp stung me on my foot.  I said a very, very bad word, snapped the picture and then hobbled inside to be cared for by Chuck.  Turns out wasp stings are pretty serious business, I iced the spot and cortizone-d the heck out of it and it still was SO flipping, painfully itchy for like three days.  And even now the whole area remains a lovely reddish/purple-ish hue. 

Saturday night Jack and I headed out to a graduation party for my cute cousin Kellie.

Here's my dad with his brother Randy; they're just thirteen months apart, bless my Grandma!

It was really fun to see my cousins and aunt and uncle and catch up. We had a hard time deciding who was more popular with all of Kellie's friends - my grandpa or Jack!

I love this shot of my dad with baby Jack.  And I love that I was eating my hamburger uninterruptedly at this point :).

And then Sunday, of course, was Mother's Day.

Lovely handmade gifts from Clyde and Will, courtesy of play school and preschool! 

Jack dressed himself.  Well, that's a lie, but I'm pretty sure this is what he wanted to wear.

I sure do love being a mom.  And unless you measure parenting prowess on the ability to get your kids to look at a camera and smile on cue, I think I'm a pretty good one!

Speaking of pretty good moms (aka amazing ones!!) here's MY mom!  We went over to Grandma Pam's after church for some yummy dinner and a couple rounds of Monopoly Deal.  Which I won.

This made me laugh so hard - my mom has a picture of each of her grandchildren in silver frames on a bookcase in the hallway.  Will was so hilarious as he carefully carried them around and lined them up and (accurately!) recited who was who.

Chuck and I sure love our moms, especially now that we're parents and we understand how much dang work and worry and and tears and prayer and such goes into raising kids! Thanks so much Pam and Terri!!

Road trip recap

Quinn and Eden had a baby, yay! Isaac Lewis Braden was born the last week of April, and naturally this necessitated a road trip to adore and admire him and verify in person how much darling auburn hair he came out with.

So Jack and I packed up the minivan and picked up a couple passengers on the way to Provo - Eden's cute sister Summer and Grandma Pam.

We broke the trip up a bit by stopping in Kaysville Thursday night. I was SO excited to be reunited with Heidi after ten and a half months... so excited that we failed to take any pictures of ourselves. Well, that's not true; we took a couple pictures but deleted them immediately. Turns out we aren't our most photogenic at 2am. I did, however, get pictures of baby Jack cuddling with Will and Nate and enjoying his night in Chase's crib. We figured out that all three of my boys' first road trips have been to Kays - Clyde at one month for General Conference, Will at three months for Courtney's wedding and now Jack at four months!

The next morning we hit the road again and after a slight detour via Springville (the University Parkway exit is very poorly marked in the midst of construction) it was time to meet Isaac!

Grandma Pam with her sixth grandchild!

Aunt Summer holding baby Isaac while Eden and Grandma Pam A look on adoringly :).

My first nephew on my side of the family!  Isaac is SUCH a doll - isn't that hair incredible??

It was sooo neat to see Quinner as a dad.

Of course it's always reassuring to be reminded that Quinn is still my goofy baby brother :).

  Isaac is such a lucky boy to have Quinn and Eden as parents!! I seriously can't say enough about how perfect Eden is as a new mom; she is so tender and darling with him. And she was so sweet to let all of us converge on their apartment so soon after Isaac's birth - thanks again babe!

Sweet Isaac was a tad jaundiced so the doctor's office sent him home with his own little tanning bed and strict instructions to stay in it all the time.

Except for eating, of course. And luckily his diet was comprised of a mixture of nursing and formula to help lower his bilirubin levels, so there were lots of opportunities for aunts and grandmas to feed and snuggle him!  (Except for me. I get so nervous giving babies bottles, which I realize doesn't really make sense. Quinn laughed at me pretty good about it!)

While we were in the area, Mom and I both stopped in to visit friends.

Sandra and Pam, still in touch after being roommates in BYU back in the day!

Jack and I slipped away to go visit another sweet baby boy: Krew Littlewood!

Lynndi and McKay welcomed this sweet boy the same day that Isaac was born!

It was so wonderful to see Lynndi and catch up and see McKenzie and Paislee again. They loved holding baby Jack - who suddenly looks not at all like a baby next to these newborns!! 

And then it was back to Isaac: 

Grandma Pam with her two newest grandsons. Pretty sure these two will be best friends in a couple years!

Speaking of best friends, Cameron came to town to meet baby Isaac as well. Isn't this the most heartwarming picture of the former missionary companions holding the bottle together?

Random shot of Jack and me after church on Sunday.  Jack was such a good traveler this trip (minus his meltdown the first night at dinner). I love him.

Jack got lots of snuggling time in as well, with his honorary uncle and aunt as well as his real ones!

All too soon, Sunday afternoon rolled around and it was time to say goodbye to the Provo Bradens.  Thanks so much for letting us come and stay with you and meet Isaac!!

Our road trip visits were not quite over, though. We stopped in Salt Lake to visit Sam and Terri and eat a delicious dinner.

Grandma Pam with her two granddaughters. Bailey opened her birthday presents from Gma Pam a couple of days early - play dishes and some flower barrettes. In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I stuck one of the flowers in Jack's hair to see if he would be a cute girl. . . and let's just say it's probably a good thing Chuck and I don't have daughters :).

Hazel and Jack were slightly more interactive than at their first meeting a couple of months ago; they've progressed to staring intently at one another. Bailey crawled down with them at one point and seemed to serve as some sort of moderator.

It was so much fun to see my brothers that I couldn't be too bummed out that we weren't all together at once, so this mashup of pictures will have to count. And Sam was actually talking to Cody on the phone, so all three brothers are technically represented :).

And then it was time for the loooong, late night drive home. The first three hours weren't bad since Mum was with me, but it got a little tricky after I dropped her off in Kimberly, especially since I didn't have a phone then.  So I relied on the flash from self-portraits to keep me awake... j/k, it was actually thanks to Dr. Pepper. I haven't had caffeine in... gosh, probably four years, so about 16 ounces of that and I was wiiide awake when Jack and I pulled into Nampa at around 1:30am.

It was such a great trip, but I am very happy to be home with all of my boys again.  Serious props to my incredible husband who took a day off work and then spent the whole weekend taking total care of Clyde and Will. He did laundry and meal preparation and coached soccer and cleaned off my dresser and nightstand (without throwing anything vital away!!) and mowed the lawn.  And there was plenty of video game playing too, of course.

So I'll forgive him for only taking three pictures the whole time - luckily they were cute shots of the boys enjoying our new swingset (thanks to a sweet couple in our ward whose grandchildren had outgrown it!). Seriously, though, I'm really grateful for how supportive Chuck is when I get a chance to dash away for a bit. Which is good, because I miss everyone in Utah already!!