What I remember about our November

November kicked off with the creation of our traditional Thanksgiving tree, made out of oatmeal and frozen pizza boxes that I snaked out of the recycling bin:

Why, yes, I did painstakingly make it adorable by painting on the 'Izatt family Thanksgiving tree 2013' bit. Thanks for noticing!!

It gets more and more fun as the boys get older and come up with what they're thankful for on their own. This contrast was obviously my favorite aspect of the tree:

Gratitude for Mom gets a question mark, gratitude for Dad gets a clear exclamation point. It's cool; I don't blame them :).

One of our early November adventures was relieving my mum of her old Kia! Jack got to tag along to Boise for the fun (cleaning out the car, meeting the towing guy, following up at the salvage yard) and he was delighted when Grandma Pam treated us to pizza as a reward.

The Kia had a good life, and I'm honored that I got to be the last to drive it - on that bent tire, haha. RIP!!

Also in early November, we went in to St. Luke's for Clyde's procedure.

The pediatric pre-op rooms now have XBOX lego games, which proved invaluable during our long-ish wait there. Clyde was psyched to show off his skills to Dr. Ellison.

November was a pretty laid back month for our family (admittedly not unlike any other month) so we all relaxed quite a bit, choosing various spots for our naps.

Clyde had a rough recovery and between that and Thanksgiving break, he really didn't make it back to school until December. Luckily he had something to keep him busy: HARRY POTTER! The kid dove headfirst into the series and has never been happier. He raced through books 1-4 and hit his AR goal at school already :). We stopped him after book 4 and told him that books 5-7 have to wait until next year when he's 8. They're so amazing that I want him to really appreciate them, and they're so intense that I want him to be a little more mature. He was pretty devastated but has found solace in the Chronicles of Narnia series... and also re-reading Harry Potter over and over (he is his mother's son!).

As I mentioned in October, Chuck and I got our culture on as we attended a few different high school plays on date nights recently to support some of Chuck's Young Men:

JJ and Garrett were in 'Get Smart' (upper left) and were hilarious and Jared doubled timed as bad-ish guys: the father in Antigone (rehearsal shots upper/lower right) and one of the Socs in the Outsiders (movie poster lower left). Chuck and I had a great time at all the plays; it's so fun to see these boys develop their talents and do so well!!

October and November brought a new sport for Will: basketball!

We signed him up on a team with some friends (Hunter, Charlie, and Andrew) and he absolutely loved it. His coach was fantastic at encouraging Will and making sure he got to be involved.

Jack was NOT a fan of the weekly practices or games:

although he did like the running around part and the napping on the floor part...

 Here's a video I made of Willy-boy during some of his games. Please especially enjoy the parts where Will guards the guy on the other team so diligently even when Will's team is on offense, haha:

 Ahh, I love it!

 I embarked upon a slight sewing project to make myself some leg warmers out of dollar store knee socks and old tights:

 The old tights (black and white stripes) definitely worked better since they were longer and stretchier, but I love both of them. I've since made a couple more pairs. I'm pretty domestic (assuming domestic means the really simple task of hemming with elastic thread...)

 Our November activity for Relief Society was our visiting teaching conference - a night where our Bishop and Relief Society presidency speak to the sisters about reaching out and taking care of each other.

 The theme was 'Feed My Sheep' so we made a gazillion sheep invitations (I wish I had a picture of them, but it's probably better that I just move on and never have to see one again, haha) and then put together a fun trail mix for a take-home treat. It all turned out so well, and most importantly the talks were uplifting and inspirational and all the sisters left feeling loved and excited to reach out to the sisters they're assigned to visit teach (at least I did!)

 Chuck had a very exciting birthday of working alllll day long. The boys had the day off school so we took a road trip to Boise to visit him and drop off lunch.

 After that I ran around Nampa a bit and took weirdo pictures of myself for his surprise bday scavenger hunt the next day...

 And on Chuck's birthday he got to go straight from work to parent-teacher conferences!!

 Will and Mrs. Keene, Clyde and Mr. Eilers. Both conferences were great. I'm in their classrooms a lot but it was nice to have a chance to sit down with each teacher and really look at the boys' progress and discuss concerns. The special ed teacher sat in on part of Will's meeting since she checks in on him every day and shared how far he's come since August. Mr. Eilers was able to assure us that Clyde hasn't fallen behind at all despite his absences, so that was reassuring. I say it all the time, but we are so so grateful for our elementary school and the boys' amazing and caring and involved teachers!!

 So earlier in the month at our girls' night, Kara and Paulina and I realized that our husbands all have November birthdays - within a span of like nine days. Obviously this called for some sort of party, so we put together a seriously hilarious/ridiculous surprise photo scavenger hunt all around Nampa. Duke was our inside man who drove around the birthday boys while Nicole (and baby Myla!) drove us girls around just ahead of the boys.

 There were a few bumps in the road - the most hilarious being Kara stowed away in the back storeroom at TCBY while the guys wandered around the front area looking for the clue - but we had a blast and we ended the night all together with the birthday boys wearing sombreros (l to r: Brad, Chuck, Robbie), so obviously it was a success! MUCH thanks to sweet DeArley for watching our boys that night. It was such a relief to know they were in good hands!

 Oh, I just had to document this ridiculous craving fulfillment:

 Cafe Rio. When I took Chuck lunch on his birthday, I passed Cafe Rio and thought about stopping there, but didn't. I clearly should have, because the craving for a pork salad stayed with me for the next FOUR days until I made a special trip there on Monday. It was worth it! And now staring at the picture I kind of want/need another one!!

 Our Thanksgiving was excellent, so much so that we spread it amongst two days. Wednesday we had Quinn and Eden and Isaac and my papa over for a delicious dinner (courtesy of my dad, Albertsons, and Chuck!).

Watching Jack and Isaac together was obviously one of the main activities: here they are being cute at the train table.

My dad always comes over prepared with some sort of fun activity or contest, this year it was a Nerf shotgun for a 'turkey shoot' - a shoot-off where the triumphant couple won a frozen turkey!

I'd like to say it was my skills that won us the prize, but Chuck is obviously a much better shot than I am and we won in spite of me :). Quinn and Eden weren't far behind though, thanks to Eden's bullseye! They took home a huge container of honey :).

Oh, and near the end of the night these two goofballs found some sunglasses and this adorableness ensued:

 Hahahaha!

 The next day Grandma Pam and Cody came over for Thanksgiving dinner, prepared primarily by Chuck with some side dish assistance from me and me mum.

 Quinn and Eden and Isaac joined us after a bit as well. Some of the non-dinner activities included trains, legos, Harry Potter movies, lightsabers, and naps.

Oh, and football of course!

 We attempted a shot of Grandma Pam with her four grandsons :).

 And finally, the last night in November I sent the boys to their room to get dressed after their baths and this is how they emerged:

 Ninjas, hahaha. They were both sporting black underwear and all the dark clothing (mostly inside out) they could find. I like how their synchronized ninja kicks look more like ballet :).

And that was November, woooo!

MERRY Christmas!

from our two cute little elves &

our equally cute little Grinch :).

Rock the [baby gender] Vote

(Pictures from my check-up earlier this week that Will was able to accompany me to; he was very excited to hear the baby's heartbeat :) ).

Okay people, this is getting real: I'll be nineteen weeks on Sunday and my ultrasound is Monday morning at 9 (was I tempted to take the open appt at 8am? Yes...) soooo it's time to gather everyone's guesses for the gender of this wee little fetus.

For those of you who prefer to do some research before you cast your ballot, here's some possibly relevant information (although I personally do not subscribe to any old wives' tales):

* So far, we have three sons.

* This pregnancy has been a weird mixture of my other pregnancies and then added its own special flair. I was nauseous but didn't actually throw up forever (remiscent of Jack's pregnancy) but then I hit 10 weeks and started throwing up a few times a week (reminiscent of Clyde's and Will's pregnancies). Unlike any of my previous pregnancies, I stayed sick and nauseous beyond the first trimester; I haven't thrown up for probably a week and a half but I still feel dreadful off and on. I average about ten cans of Ginger Ale a week :). Ahh, babies!!

* The baby is suuper low right now; the movement I've seen/felt is all right around my c-section scar. Obviously the baby has pushed up a lot of organs and such, which accounts for my midsection - not the package of Oreos I ate pretty much by myself the other day.

* Heart rate so far: 176, 174, 154.

* Chinese Lunar Calendar says boy.

* Food cravings/aversions: Nothing/everything. Well, not really but kind of. It's SO hard for me to think of something that I want to eat, bleh. I have had some random/intense cravings over the last few months though: early on it was French fries dipped in ranch (exactly the same as Jack's pregnancy)... fb friends might remember when I desperately needed egg salad sandwiches for a couple of weeks... or when I counted down the hours until I could have a Cafe Rio salad... I was pretty heavy on the pasta for a while... earlier this week it was breadsticks from Little Caesars... but honestly, most of the time everything just sounds slightly revolting. Sigh.

* The fourth child in my family was a boy (although I treated him a lot like a girl). The fourth child in Chuck's family was a girl (who's tougher than most boys I know...)

* Right now there are ten grandchildren on the Izatt side, five girls and five boys. There are seven grandchildren on the Braden side, three girls and four boys, with a fourth girl making her debut sometime this week. So this baby will be the tie-breaker on both sides!

* I have absolutely no special mother's intuition. If I had to guess, I'd say girl... which is the same thing I said about Jack, so there ya go, haha! Clyde and Will both desperately want a little sister, bless their hearts. (If it is a girl, I'll remind them about this when they're older and she wants to tag along/awkwardly flirt with their friends).

I think that's it. So vote in the poll, feel free to comment and share the reasoning behind your guess and we'll all find out on Monday, hooray!

How Izatt baby #4 came about (er, not like that... you know what I mean)

I grew up in a family with four kids. I liked it. Chuck grew up in a family with four kids. He liked it. So early on in our relationship we very easily settled on a plan that involved having four kids.

In our infinite wisdom, we deemed ourselves ready to get going on those kids a few months into our marriage, but Heavenly Father in His actual infinite wisdom gave us some extra time to be ready :). In fact, as we look at when our children have come into our family, it's so, so evident that the timing was divinely designed. And this fourth pregnancy is no different.

It took us a year to get pregnant with Clyde. It may seem like Will was a much quicker study since he came just under nineteen months later, but that equals out to ten months of trying (albeit while breastfeeding). After that we gave ourselves some time to adjust to two little boys and some time for me to finish school. In that time I must have mixed myself up with some sort of fantastically fertile individual, because I worked out a timetable for our next baby - and actually believed it would happen just like I planned. Starting in the summer of 2009, I expected to get pregnant any second. That fall was my final semester at Boise State, and I was enrolled in a yoga class. I remember approaching my teacher at the beginning of September to give her a heads-up that I was anticipating being pregnant soon; she congratulated me and assured me that we would make any adaptations necessary. Needless to say, such adaptations never became necessary and I graduated with my bachelor's degree in December of 2009 with a sweet, supportive husband and 2.0 darling kids by my side.

It was the next month, January 2010, that Chuck and I came to the realization that our sweet Will more than likely had autism, with the official diagnosis occuring in July. Over the next few months as we met with doctors (our pediatrician, the developmental specialist) and therapists (occupational, speech) our pregnancy expectations were hardly forefront on our minds. Once in a while that year, usually during Will's therapy or mid-meltdown, I would think, BOY am I glad I don't have a newborn or infant right now! 

But towards the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, I did spend more time wondering why we hadn't gotten pregnant yet. In my all-or-nothing frame of mind, I decided that we must be destined to only have two children and to talk myself into being on board with this fate, I reminded myself that our boys were such a blessing and I shouldn't be greedy, and hey, we'd never have to get a bigger car, and financially two children are much easier to support than three or four, and so on and so on. 

And it worked! Settling into 2011, I was firmly in the mindset that ours was going to remain a happy family of four. So the positive pregnancy test in mid-May after almost two years of trying was equal parts surprising and terrifying. (I attribute that early fear to some sort of inherent knowledge that Jack was going to be a biter.)

Of course there was a third 'equal part' mixed in: elation. It was impossible not to feel excitement and joy that we were being blessed with another sweet baby to love and raise in our family. 

In August I had my ultrasound and found out we were expecting another boy. That same week, new research was released about the prevalence of autism in younger siblings of children with autism, with numbers showing that a younger brother had a 26% (one in four) chance of also having autism (a younger sister was lower, 9%). In a family where two children had autism, the likelihood of a third sibling having autism jumped to 32% regardless of gender. Alas, to a hormonal mom-to-be, 26% may as well have been 96%. At that point, Will was a sweet and delightful three-year-old whose autism was fairly high functioning, but it still presented very real challenges. Leaving anywhere - church, Grandma's house, stores - almost always involved me having to carry him out against his (vocal!) wishes. His language skills were developing but still much behind schedule. I couldn't imagine having the energy and ability to be a good mom to two children with autism. Blessedly, Chuck was there to hold my hand and reassure me and remind me that there was a 74% chance our new son wouldn't have autism, and even if he did, we would be able to handle it together.

Still, at this point Chuck and I felt that this third baby would complete our family, especially since a fourth baby would have such a high likelihood of autism if my worries about the third baby were fulfilled. (It should also be noted that Hirschsprung's recurs in families at a higher rate than it occurs in the general population, so that's always at the back of our minds as well). We discussed tubal ligation with my doctor (it's pretty easy to take care of right after the c-section) and we made this a special focus of a temple trip to Twin Falls in November.

The work that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do in our temples is wonderful. We're able to go and learn more about our Heavenly Father and His plan for us. We're also able to use that time to spiritually renew ourselves and ponder and pray and seek comfort and guidance - which is what Chuck and I did. I took the opportunity to ask my Father in Heaven if I should go ahead with the tubal ligation. I received - over and over, because I'm the kind of person who keeps asking when she gets an answer she doesn't want - a very clear answer that we should remain open to the possibility of more children. I cried.

Fast forward a bit: Jack arrived safe and sound and absolutely darling. He gave us some initial scares during his infancy, but overall his development has been right on track and we have dismissed any possibility of autism. In the meantime, Will has grown leaps and bounds in the last two years. His autism is still evident (one of these days I'll blog about his adorable debut as a basketball player, complete with videos where he's spinning and flapping and humming half a court behind the action) but his comprehension and language development allows for much better communication and reasoning and sooo fewer meltdowns. HOORAY!

In the year and a half following Jack's birth, Chuck and I decided to make sure (you know, to the extent of our ability) that a fourth baby didn't wedge him/herself in right away. I figured 'remaining open' didn't mean 'trying really hard to have one any time soon.' I also half figured that one of these times we'd ask again and then we'd get our 'yep, you guys are good with three kids, good job!' answer - I gave away 80% of Jack's baby clothes!! And then a few months ago my period got a bit wonky and as my doctor and I tried to figure it out, I had a randomly fleeting thought about how I should just get pregnant and that would solve (at least temporarily) all of my period-related woes.

And that fleeting thought didn't freak me out as much as I thought it would. (It freaked me out a LOT, just not as much as I was expecting...)

So I brought it up to Chuck, who also didn't freak out as much as I thought he would. We resolved again to take the matter to the Lord during our July temple date, and we both walked out with distinct impressions that we should try to have another baby. Once again, I didn't feel quite reconciled to the good Lord's will right away - I told Chuck I was hoping it would be an Abraham and Isaac situation, where I just needed to demonstrate my willingness to obey but I wouldn't actually be required to follow through.

Which is why I was quite perplexed at how sad I was when I didn't get pregnant the next month. I had been expecting to feel relieved, but instead Chuck and I were both really disappointed - and that's when I realized how on board we really were with this new direction in our family. I tried to remind myself that it would still probably take a while so I didn't set myself up to be let down month after month but I was still randomly optimistic that it would happen soon.

And it did - the following month we very, very excitedly found out we were pregnant. (Despite our decision to tell our families right away but wait a few weeks to inform friends/the general public, Chuck told like five of his co-workers that day. He kept saying, "Sorry, I just got excited!" It was adorable and only a little infuriating). All previous doubts about this being right for our family have vanished. 

I've thought a lot about how quickly Chuck and I went from being SO adament that we were done having children to being so on board with wanting a fourth one. I feel like right from the get-go we needed to be 100% in agreement with each other and with Heavenly Father that this baby should come to our family. I think that our excitement and joy and resolve has prepared us for this particular pregnancy and baby and the challenges that it has brought and will bring. I'm really not being pessimistic or predicting anything dreadful, but I think we needed to be wholly committed without any potential regrets or resentment - whether that was so we could more easily endure this longer-lasting morning sickness (blessedly now mostly contained to the evening hours) or because we're getting a girl this time and that's going to rock our worlds, or if this baby will have autism and we'll need to be ready for that, or if he/she will just be a typical demanding youngest child (a la Quinn) and that will require extra patientce :).

But whatever this new adventure holds in store for us, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have another little baby and I'm grateful for a husband who is the best co-parent I could ask for and I'm grateful for three existing children who are delightful and keep me on my toes and need me and remind me what's important. And I'm grateful for my testimony of personal revelation and how much it has been strengthened through this experience.

[p.s. I'm also grateful my ultrasound is scheduled: Monday, December 23rd, wooo! I'll do a post next week asking for gender predictions, maybe even get fancy with a poll. Who knows??]

October [was a long time ago but not as long as this post]

 Obviously, this little notice is for October 2014, seeing as how I spent the majority of the October 2013 in a semi-vegetative state in my bed, shooing away children who were "hungry" or "bored" or "needed help", haha.

 Ohh, October. Where to start? (As if there's a choice. My compulsive tendencies mandate that we go in chronological order!!) The first Wednesday of the month was set aside for the Teachers and Priests to meet at our house for a video game night as they prepped to start working on their 'Game Design' merit badge.

There was some last-minute shuffling and we welcomed the Deacons as well - they stayed out front with Chuck and did some team building exercises and then played freeze tag. Brother Haws came inside with the older boys, who played legos (my boys were more than willing to stay up past bedtime and help) and some xbox.

My dear friend Maren had a birthday early in the month, and we celebrated by spending the afternoon walking around downtown Nampa with our other dear friend Karlina.

It was sooo much fun. We spent forever in a cool (but SO expensive) antique store finding all sorts of treasures and also things that we had grown up with or remembered from various grandmothers' houses. We also got some hot chocolate and walked around a used bookstore. 

 Group shot: Maren, me, Karlina. Such fun girls, we need to go have another adventure soon!

 Chuck's work had their annual softball game against the juvenile probation officers and Chuck was recruited to coach the detention team, so the bigger boys and I headed over to lend our support and take advantage of the BBQ:

 It was a good, close game but probation ended up pulling off the win. Bummer, but I loved watching Chuck play and coach!

 Mid-October brought the bane of my existence for the last few months (mostly kidding!!): Super Saturday. It's a day of crafts at church that falls under the realm of my calling and I had nightmares about it the week leading up to it! What if no young men/young women showed up to help with the nursery? What if no one showed up to do their crafts? What if we didn't have enough soup/rolls/salad? What if I did such a wretched job that I was released on the spot?? (Okay, that one might have been more a daydream than a nightmare, haha).

In the end, everything went very smoothly and I think everyone had a good time. Lots of cute crafts were made and women got to come and chat and eat and I was happy.

 I really am grateful to head up the activity committee for Relief Society; it's been a really good opportunity for me to get to know the women in my ward better and stretch and grow and all that good stuff.

 And blessedly I have the amazing Emily to hold my hand all along the way! This was previously her calling, and now she's the RS presidency member that oversees our committee - and there's no way I'd survive without her! This was right after Super Saturday, which is why we look like we need naps :).

 October happily brought the resurgence of girls' nights, wooo! Paulina's awesome and set up an official schedule for them to make sure they really happen. These girls have all moved away from the neighborhood (rude, right??) so it's extra nice to get together.

 me, Paulina, Emily, Nicole. We miiissed Kara, although our waitress was REALLY friendly and over the course of the evening talked more than probably any of the rest of us. Not gonna lie, it was pretty awkward/hilarious at times - we were all trying to avoid encouraging her so we all kind of stared at our waters, but we still walked away knowing loads about her boyfriend/husband (we think it was the same guy, although she used the terms interchangeably), her previous jobs (there were a lot, can't imagine why....), where her sister lives, etc. Fun times!

Good news: neglected children have no choice but to be creative.

 See, I was doing them a favor all month, otherwise Clyde and Will wouldn't have come up with these awesome rocketships :).

 Chuck and I were excited to brave the cold one night to go watch one of his Young Men play football (we have a deal with all of the YM that if they tell us ahead of time, we'll do our best to come to sporting events, concerts, plays, etc. In the last month and a half, we've been to one football game, one orchestra concert, and three plays. It's really fun!)

We sat with Will's amazing mom Joy and had a great time watching him play. He helpfully wore white socks and a long-sleeved white t-shirt so we could find him on the field (#80). Will's the one who used to run with us last spring so I know how fast he is, but it was amazing to watch his speed in context as he raced around and tackled people!!

 I could have used some of that speed (or maybe just the endurance) the following week when the boys' jogathon at school came around! I did a couple of laps with Will, but I'm pretty sure I was slowing him down, haha.

 Clyde and Will both did awesome - and thanks to the pledges from grandparents, both boys came home with little round sleds so now we have three! They are obviously praying for lots of snow this winter. (I am not...)

 Chuck and I went back to the school the next afternoon to have lunch with Clyde, who was the Student of Honor in his classroom that week.

I'm a stellar mom who failed to photograph the whole little certificate and who also can't currently find it (I think it's on top of the fridge, but that would require getting up...) but Mr. Eilers wrote really nice things about our Clyde Monster and we're so glad that Clyde loves school and that school loves Clyde. 

 Speaking of school, that night we embarked on an art project for Will's kindergarten homework: autumn trees made out of paper shreds.

 I wish I had a picture of Will's finished tree (I forgot to take one before he took it to school) but it's so fun to watch the differences in the boys' artistic preferences. Clyde's tree is on the right in the above picture - a fabulous mess of leaves here, there, and everywhere. Will's was much more organized - leaves were mostly grouped together by color. So perfect for each of them!

 Oh, in other fall/art news, my splendid mother came over one Saturday morning and helped out immensely (took the older boys to Will's bball game so Jack and I could both nap) and then provided little gourds and helped the boys decorate them:

 Will's is the multi-eyed one, Clyde's is the one in the upper right/lower left (both sides of it), my mom's is obviously the one with the "P" crown and voluminous eyelashes, and the one they made for Jack is the lower right. Thanks Grandma Pam!

 Chuck's parents came up to visit towards the end of the month, which was excellent.

 The boys loved all the attention and snuggling/reading time :).

The main adventure of the weekend was a trip to the corn maze/pumpkin patch:

 Jack and I stayed home but it sounds like Clyde and Will loved it.

 The corn maze had a little scavenger hunt that the boys loved running around to complete.

And they brought home pumpkins! Grandma and Pops were sweet enough to delay their departure on Sunday long enough to help the boys carve - Chuck worked on Clyde's cute design and Pops did an awesome job making Will's initials into a jack-o-lantern face ('W' mouth', 'P' eyes, 'I' nose).

 Alas, my pregnancy brain = me being sure I got a picture of the finished product only to discover later (much later, like today) that I didn't. But it was awesome! Thanks again for coming Dave and Terri! It really means a lot to us that you take the time/effort to come visit us so often, especially while we're pretty stuck at home right now. We love you!

 That same weekend, my aunt Sage and uncle David came into town. The occasion was a 5k obstacle course at the corn maze/pumpkin patch to celebrate my uncle Larry's recent birthday.

 Jack and I sneaked over for a visit Saturday afternoon and spent a highly enjoyable hour listening to my mom, aunts, and uncles describe the course of the race. I took the older boys over the next evening and had another great visit. It's so fun to get to know my aunts and uncles again as an adult - I especially really enjoy reading David's blogs. He's an ob/gyn in Seattle and provides really interesting and thought-provoking synopses of cases on his Clinic Today blog. He is also an avid bicyclist (hence the t-shirt!) and shares a lot about his commuting via bike/bus on his Green Commuter blog.

The last Wednesday in October was a Court of Honor for Scouts; Chuck opted to show portions of the '100 Years of Scouting' broadcast that recognized the milestone in the relationship between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Boy Scouts of America. 

It was fun to watch boys be presented with a couple different merit badges and special patches for attending the recent Stake Camporee. 

I usually don't make it out for these activities, but Brother Murphy invited me and the little boys to attend, saying that he had made Chuck a special memento about Wood Badge and it would be nice if I were there. LITTLE did I know that he also had a surprise for me:

this beautiful plaque. The Arrow of Light is a special award that boys can earn towards the end of their time in Cub Scouts, and so Brother Murphy made this to thank me for my work with the Cubs in preparing them to earn that distinction.

I was so caught off guard and honored by this recognition; Brother and Sister Murphy were so vital in my learning process and everything I know about Scouting is due to their patience and tutelage. Brother Murphy serves those boys with such love and talent, so to have him acknowledge my efforts was extra special.

 And I couldn't resist going in for a hug :). Brother Murphy is an awful flirt (with his wife's permission) and I love the friendship we have. He calls me 'Lady J' and the funniest exchange we've ever had was when he called a few days before Chuck left for Wood Badge and said, "So, I hear you're getting rid of your husband for the weekend so we can go dancing..." to which I responded, "Of course! But I'll need to find someone to watch my boys." Without missing a beat, he said, "Oh, no problem, my wife will watch them!" and then I died laughing. Ohh, I love Brother Murphy!!

Aaaand finally, Halloween, woo! Early in the month, I let the boys know that this year they'd have to choose from their existing costumes (Star Wars from two/three years ago, Avengers from last year) to wear this year. Except I did pick up a Superman costume for a couple bucks at Savers, which both boys naturally planned on wearing. We thought we had gotten that issue all dealt with, until Halloween morning (of course) when there was confusion and tears and all that good stuff.

 Blessedly, craigslist came to the rescue. Three hours, $8, and a quick trip to Boise later, all THREE boys had Superman costumes to wear, hurray!

 Doesn't this look like some kind of Superman Evolution picture?

I laugh every time I see it, haha.

  Chuck was in charge of our ward party/trunk-or-treat that night, so Queen Grandma Pam sweetly came over and helped wrangle our little superboys with me.

I recycled my costume from 2011 to announce my pregnancy to the ward (or at least those whom I hadn't already spilled it too....)

It was a really fun night: I was in charge of costume awards (nice delegation there, honey) so that was a little daunting but fun. I didn't get a good picture of Chuck, but he wore his coordinating costume; it was fun to see some people figure out what we were announcing and other people just wander by assuming we were just 'cooks'.

And THAT was October! Yikes! So glad it's over - both the month and this post, haha!

Will, the missionary farmer

I feel like Will hasn't gotten a lot of blog time lately so here is a post to remedy that AND share about an FHE activity we did last month - getting the boys' missionary banks started.

Will has always been pretty psyched about serving a mission someday, but lately it's occupied more of his day-to-day ponderings. He has that blessed innocence about him that makes things so cut and dry - there are people out there that don't know about the church and Jesus and the Book of Mormon, and he's going to go tell them. He's so funny with the things he comes up with; we've had to clear a few things up. Apparently in primary or somewhere they talked about the early missionaries in the church that left their wives and families while they proselyted, because he told me the other day that he was going to choose a nice wife who would be a good mom while he was off on his missions :). Oh, and that's another thing - he's pretty sure he's serving more than once. Just today he told me he's going on ALL the missions. Not sure who's paying for that, but Godspeed little buddy!

But really - his future mission is constantly on Will's mind. He asked about the MTC (Missionary Training Center) the other day, so we looked at pictures online and talked about it a bit. He's psyched to see Unky Quinn tomorrow, since not only did he reside there while prepping for his mission back in the day, but he currently works there on the 'physical education staff' (at least that's what his shirt says). I love that Will has this sweet desire to serve a mission so ingrained in his mind - I'm excited to watch him continue to prepare himself and eventually fulfill this goal.

Hilariously, Will's other future plans are to be a farmer. We read this book a fair amount:

and I'm not sure if Will just thinks it looks really fun, or if he's somehow obligated because there's a book, or what, but he is going to be a farmer. For a while he called himself a missionary farmer, until we explained he'd have to do one before the other :). 

So, on a related note, we spent a Monday night in October readying the boys' missionary banks. This is something we've needed to do forever, and I finally made them a couple of months ago in preparation for our Super Saturday for church.

We had a HUGE ziploc full of change that my dad donated for their mission funds a while back. Now it's finally distributed (not at all evenly; we just shoved piles towards each boy), hooray!

And here are my incredibly goofy boys posing with their missionary banks...

And (just for Holly!) here are some pictures of the boys after church at different times this summer. Now that it's cold, they get to ditch the ties in favor of sweaters over their white shirts; I'm a pretty cool mom.

I'm really grateful for my three boys and what sweet spirits they have. They love church and primary and the scriptures and the articles of faith and I hope that they can maintain that love (maybe let go of some of the cheesiness, but keep the love, haha) as they get older and more jaded and have more activities competing for their time and attention. I hope that when doubts creep in or when they feel detached or unworthy, they'll remember the gospel principles of repentance and forgiveness that they learn about in primary. I hope that they'll remember how to recognize the Spirit and how to develop and strengthen their testimonies. And most importantly, I hope that they'll remember that the love their Heavenly Father has for each of them is unconditional.

Whew! Okay, I really wasn't planning for things to get so intense there (I'd blame pregnancy hormones, but I've never been exceptionally emotionally stable, haha). The main point of this post is that Will is still around and is darling and we look forward to big things from him in the future, both in the mission field and the, uh, potato field :).