why i blog and why YOU should too...

Last year when I saw the dermatologist, Chuck and I were sitting in the waiting room as I filled out the 'new patient' paperwork when I got stuck on the question asking for my hobbies. 

[Naturally, I refrained from responding 'rotting my brain watching TV and checking people.com and facebook' because, well, one wants to maintain some mystery in a relationship where one person is going to be examining the other person's entire body looking for weird moles... and also that sounds like a hobby that would elicit a lecture from any sort of doctor.]

I used to get stuck on this question a lot growing up, too; I don't play an instrument or sew/knit/crochet or collect anything. I do love to read, but if you tell people that then they assume you're well-read. I'm honestly not. I love to read the same three book series over and over. Why get attached to new characters and stories when I can just relive Anne Shirley's journey??

I ended up consulting Chuck, who promptly replied, "Blogging. And jogging." 

[Which naturally led to some brainstorming about what other -ogging type activities I could take up. Clogging? I actually have friends that teach it. But no. Flogging? Well, I'm not a pirate or a proponent of corporal punishment, so probably not. Hogging? Is that even the right word for someone who raises hogs? I guess it doesn't realllly matter since I will never be one...]

BUT the point is that I love blogging, which makes sense as it combines two of my favorite activities: writing and oversharing. 

I've always loved writing, particularly journalism. I used to make up little family newspapers and teamed up with my best friend to create "The Sixth Grade Press" as an eleven-year-old. I was very involved in journalism during junior high and high school and chose communication as my major in college. I. Love. Writing.  

I've also always loved oversharing and overdocumenting. Ask my poor mom, I have distinct memories of coming home every day from school and recounting my day for her in painstaking detail, class period by class period. I have a tote full of journals from 1996ish until 2002ish, many with daily entries - the early ones including a detailed description of what I wore that day. Not even joking. Down to (up to?) the earrings. In high school I spent a sad amount of my babysitting/tutoring money on those ridiculous disposable cameras, and then even more money getting them developed. I'm not sure how many pictures I thought we'd eventually need of our cats/dog/Quinn making weird faces, but rest assured that we've got LOTS!

So blogging is perfect for me - I'd be subjecting my closest family and friends to daily/weekly/monthly recaps of my boring life anyways, and I would be toting my camera everywhere and taking a gazillion pictures anyways, so I might as well record it all here on the blog and claim 'family history! journaling! obeying the prophet!' when I work on a post instead of the laundry :). 

It really is true that my primary motivation is recording our immensely exciting lives for future reminiscing (which we honestly already do - Chuck and I both find ourselves scrolling through old posts pretty frequently). 

This brings me to reason #1 why YOU should blog: future reminiscing!! 

You didn't know this was going to turn in to a persuasive post to get you to blog (at all/more frequently/whatever), did you?

But seriously, at some point in the future, you're going to want to remember something about your life right now. Possibly lots of things. Even if there are some things in your life right now that you are absolutely certain you will never want to remember, just skip over those things or refer to them vaguely and then you'll only be reminded of them enough to be glad that they're over!

Sooo jot something down. Post a bunch of pictures. Post one picture. Write down a story - funny, compelling, sad, embarrassing. Recap one recent holiday or event. 

Don't put loads of pressure on yourself to 'catch up' with blogging. That sounds suuuper overwhelming and like a chore. Don't put loads of pressure on yourself to post every day. Or every other day. Or seven times a month. Just figure out what works for you - hammering out twelve posts in one day? Awesome. Posting once a week, on Sunday evenings after you put the kids to bed? Perfect. Every morning? Go for it. Once every couple of months when the mood strikes? Sounds like a plan.

ALSO, don't put loads of pressure to make your blog just like your friend's/sister's/cousin's/stranger's-you-blog-stalk. Your kids aren't going to want to read someone else's blog in twenty years, they're going to want to read yours. Your style, your voice, your stories. This can be tricky, especially if you have that one friend who's gorgeous and witty and has darling kids and a knack for blogging and you sometimes feel like what you have to offer doesn't measure up. I have that friend, her name is Jayna. BUT, blogging doesn't need to be yet another medium for us to compare ourselves or try to be just like someone else. Enjoy other blogs, comment lots, and then make your blog your own. It'll be much, much more fun and easier to keep up on and make for a more diverse blogger-dom.

That reminds me of reason #2 why you should blog: the social aspect. Blogging for your future grandkids is nice, but doesn't really yield the kind of immediate gratification that we've all come to depend on. This is where fellow bloggers and comments come in. I LOVE getting to know people better through their blogs. I love how they help develop new friendships and maintain old friendships. I think blogging can be particularly useful when our busy lives or geographical distance or staying at home with small children make us feel isolated. Blogging can be a great resource for connecting with those whom we wouldn't otherwise be able to very easily.  I have two friends from a college math class that have both moved away and although we stay in touch via facebook, their blogs give me a much closer look into their lives.

The difficulty is not become too caught up with the social aspect that you let it dictate your blogging frequency. Comments are super fun, but shouldn't carry that much weight - posts that don't garner lots of feedback are still serving a purpose in memorializing that picture/experience/story. BUT I will also promise to be a very faithful commenter if you promise to blog, because that's how much I need middle of the night reading material when I'm up with my 15-month-old baby who thinks he's my 15-week-old baby.

So, let's summarize:
* start a blog. if you already have one, start/keep posting
* post whatever you want, whenever you want, however often you want
* don't try to make your blog just like someone else's. you'll get frustrated and quit. make it YOURS.
* comment on other people's blogs. 
* tell me about your blog. i'll comment on it. sometimes wittily. often boringly.
* keep blogging even if you don't get lots of comments. remember why you're blogging.

Okay, that's all I got. Off to contemplate picking up 'logging'...

Will is FIVE!

My darlingest middle son Will had a birthday this week and he is now FIVE!

...or 'almost six, just like Clyde!' as he pointed out that morning.

He has been SO excited for his birthday, so we started off the festivities with a bang... aka crepe paper in his doorway and pancakes for breakfast, hooray!

He invited over two friends from church for a birthday playdate, since his mother thinks birthday parties sound like a lot of work :).

 Alex and Ivy are such sweet girls, and the little trio had lots of fun playing and reading and swinging and gluing and sliding and such.

After we took those girls home, it was time to pick up another girl: Grandma Pam! She came bearing gifts of new legos and a penny collecting folder, both of which immediately became prized possessions.

(Sidenote: is that picture where Jack is sitting up at the table playing on the toy computer the cutest thing you've seen all day or what? Seriously.)

 Will was very involved in his birthday cake - he chose red velvet at the store, despite not really ever having had it before and he was crucial to the mixing process. The decorating was clearly all me - the brown oval-ish shape is obviously a football, as requested by the birthday boy.

He was sooo happy to blow out his candles! So happy, in fact, that his indulgent daddy promptly relit them all so he could do it again.

And we finished off the evening by riding bikes, so Will could try out his special new bike helmet, with the chin strap securely on his actual chin, because, hey why not?

Will is such a light in our lives. I'm amazed when I look back at his fourth birthday and how excited we were that he was understood he was 'FOUR' that day - he's come sooooo far in the last year. His comprehension of the world around him and concepts like actions and consequences, time, family relationships, etc. has grown incredibly. This has helped a great deal in helping minimize meltdowns - both in frequency and intensity. Will is able to more clearly express what he needs and he's also able to understand when we explain what his choices mean in a certain situation.

It's also fun to continue to watch Will's personality develop; lately he's realllly into trying to make us laugh, whether it's with knock-knock jokes or making up 'silly names' for us (aka mixing up other people's names, like I'm usually Jana Clyde Braden). He's an incredible reader, probably surpassing where Clyde was at this stage. He's loving and affectionate and silly and slooowwww and chatty and particular and sweet and we count ourselves very very lucky to be entrusted with his cute little five-year-old self!

February f.u.n.

Well it turns out we're on the downward slope towards April (what?!) so here's the customary recap of random pictures from last month:

SUPERBOWL Sunday, wooo! At the last minute I opted to support my husband and cheer for the 49ers. This was also because I stayed home from Stake Conference with sick kids (sending Chuck solo) so there was no occasion for putting together a black and purple church outfit. We ate delicious pancakes made by Chuck and his little sous-chefs and watched the game and cried a little at the end, but mostly it was a very fun day!

Cody and I saw this bumper sticker on truck by my grandpa's house and almost died laughing. Obviously had to take a picture.

OH, it was Valentine's Day! I was feeling loving towards my children the night before (I really do love my children all the time, but possibly slightly more when they're adorably asleep...) so I made a bunch of pink heart-ish shaped pancakes to reheat the next morning. I also supervised the boys after school while they made Chuck some sugar cookies.

That afternoon I sneaked into Clyde's classroom for a minute to see all the party fun, and Jack sneaked into a chair with easy access to conversation hearts.

In other news, Jack learned how to give high fives and it's adorable.

I subbed as Gospel Doctrine teacher in mid-February, which I haven't done forever but actually enjoy, minus the usual anxiety of course. It was a really good experience and reflecting more on the lesson the next day led to a pretty awesome spiritual epiphany for me personally, so that's always good!

No idea what this picture was supposed to be about; I just think my kid is darling :).

February means it's time for the Blue and Gold Banquet at Cub Scouts, wooo! I'm 88% sure everyone had a great time; the Wolves did a little play, the Bears did a musical number, and the Webelos did a couple cute skits. I also had the privilege of presenting Sister Murphy with a really neat award commemorating her years of service to the Scouting program. She was recently released as our Committee chairperson (she's now in the Relief Society presidency) and I'm so, so grateful for how much she's taught me over the last two and a half years. I was really glad that I had the opportunity to publicly honor her, and of course I cried!

My grandpa's interment was Monday following the funeral at the Veteran's Cemetery and it was amazing. It was snowing, and watching the lone Marine play the bugle on the hill overlooking the shelter where we stood was incredible. Beautiful service there. Afterwards, we decided to warm ourselves up with some all-you-can-eat pizza and Cody and Chuck immediately commenced an eating contest. Cody won; I think the eventual score was like 17 slices to 15 1/2. Ohhh boys.

Oh, and this just made me laugh. For Family Home Evening, we have Clyde and Will take turns being in charge - meaning they assign prayers, pick the song, and teach the lesson. The last Monday in February Clyde was in charge and taught about the difference between Jesus and Satan, using Legos to depict Heaven (the yellow legos), angels (the white ones), earth (blue and green) and Satan/his lair (black and red). Clyde was so cute as he handed out crayons and construction paper and instructed us to draw pictures about Heaven. As per the excerpt from his lesson plan, the main takeaway was that 'Saten is a bully'. Preach it, buddy!

And that's all she wrote about February, whew!

Awkward family photos

As I mentioned previously, while all of the siblings and grandkids were together with my dad recently, we took the opportunity to snap some quick pictures for posterity. Let the record show that posterity will be highly unimpressed with our collective inability to present ourselves well (aka smile normally) for a family picture.

We tried to get a Sunday morning shot of all six grandkids before the girls and Isaac took off for home. Bless Hazel's heart, she was the only one able to withstand whatever distracting individual was standing off to my right.

And now the distraction has moved just above me. Also, poor only child Isaac had obviously had enough of cousin bonding time.

Out of like seventeen pictures, this is probably the best one... and it's BLURRY, so I feel like that's a pretty good indicator of how awesome the others were.

Before my dad left on Saturday, we commissioned Chuck to take some pictures of this awesome group, aka my dad and his four children:

I like how both Cody and Quinn look like they're high. VERY happily, I can promise that neither were!!

Honestly, I'm just happy that Sam and Quinn both contributed to the utter ruining of this shot instead of spreading it out to two different pictures. Why Sam is preparing to attack Cody, I'm not sure. Quinn's expression is the same one found on his face in multiple club/team pictures in his high school yearbooks. Stay classy, San Diego!

I just like how sweetly Cody was looking at me in this shot. Not to brag or anything, but I'm pretty sure I'm his favorite sister.

My dad suggested we mix up our arrangement a bit, so we opted for birth order. My favorite thing is how Sam's efforts to inch away from me placed him disturbingly close to Cody :). 

(No worries, I remain quite secure in the fact that I am also Sam's favorite sister!)

I'm not sure what idea my dad was proposing, but I'm 88% sure Cody was trying to line us up for the can-can.

In true Jana fashion, I ended up laughing so hard that my bladder was threatening mutiny, so I had to step aside in an effort to not wet my pants. Much thanks to Chuck for capturing this special moment...

I honestly can't account for the expression on any of my brothers' faces. Again, I think it was thoughtful of them to all contribute to the dreadfulness of this one picture instead of spreading it out though. I also want to point out that we [obviously] didn't intend to coordinate outfits, but somehow each of the boys ended up wearing t-shirts of their college (Boise State, U of U Med School, and BYU). I'm sure each of those fine universities would be pleased to have these faces representing their establishments, haha.

Alas, even a crew as motley as this one can sometimes produce one good shot, and I think this is ours. I'm a lucky girl to come from a family of such great guys!

And finally, after staying up too late (darn video games!) and getting up too early (darn children!) the four Braden siblings lined up (literally) for one last photo op.

Group mug shot. I love how giddily happy Cody and Quinn and I look, whereas Sam's expression clearly pleads for some sort of belated 'you were adopted' revelation.

Luckily we redeemed ourselves somewhat with this one, although I think next time we should all opt to wear hats :).

And that's a wrap! Let's all hope we get miraculously more photogenic before our next congregation, eh?

Braden sibling reunion time!

 If I've said it once, I've said it a dozen times: I was blessed with three very excellent brothers. The four of us are very close but for a variety of reasons haven't been all together very much in recent years - the most recent occasions being in August of 2010 for Bailey's blessing and in July of 2010 for Quinn's mission homecoming. Prior to that, it was June of 2008 for Quinn's mission farewell.

 We were obviously quite overdue for a sibling reunion and it happened in February when Sam and Quinn and their families came up for Grandpa's funeral. 

(The funeral itself was really nice; my cousin Brady gave the life sketch and my uncles Randy and Brent both spoke. One thing that was really special is that all 18 grandchildren who are living and in contact with the family were there, and most of us were able to participate by singing a special musical number together. It was so neat to hear again such a great variety of stories about Grandpa - funny ones about his sense of humor, but also very serious and spiritual ones about times when his life was spared, once during the war and once when he was accidentally locked in a walk-in freezer at work for several hours. That one occurred just a month before I was born. It all just served to demonstrate the incredible effect he had on those around him and how blessed we were to have him for as long was we did. It was a beautiful service).

Quinn and Eden and Isaac arrived late Friday night and Sam and Terri and their girls drove up Saturday morning. We hosted everyone (including Cody) at our house Saturday night to maximize our short time together.

 Isaac and Jack picked up pretty much right where they left off in December, with Isaac finding a fun toy to play with and Jack promptly taking it away from him.  There's a chance my kid's a bully...

 

 I'm not sure whom Cody was more excited to see - his two brothers or their babies! Unky Cody was over the moon to meet Isaac and Hazel for the first time and the feeling seemed mutual :).

 Fair warning: if your daughter is at my house (sans parents and suitcase for a couple hours) in an adorable little sweater dress and cute zebra print coat, I will be forced to change her clothes before she plays in the backyard. And as there is a distinct shortage of cute pink outfits chez Izatt, she might have to borrow some boy clothes :). Luckily Bailey looks darling in anything, even orange hoodies!

 At one point Clyde and Will dedicated themselves to writing cute pictures/notes for their aunts and uncles while Bailey supervised.

 

 That evening my dad joined us for pizza and talking and laughing heartily at my expense as I shared a fairly awkward encounter from a too-friendly old man after the luncheon earlier that day, haha.

My dad found this cute outfit for me at a thrift store recently (my love for Savers is genetic!!) and so we got a picture while I modeled it. I love my dad.

 Quinn and Sam were prevailed upon to sing a duet for us; they chose 'Be Still My Soul' and sang it acapella - and it was beautiful.

 That night after the kids, Terri, and Eden were all in bed the boys busted out the video games for some male bonding time. I'm glad Chuck fits in so well with my brothers, especially since he's the only brother-in-law. 

We did take the opportunity while we were all four together for a couple of photo shoots, but I feel like our complete lack of photogenic-ness deserves its own post :). Love you brothers! See you again! Hopefully sooner than two and a half years from now!!

Crazy/cute/busy/funny Jackers

Ohhh Jack. Poor neglected third child didn't have his twelve-month check up until he was thirteen months... and it's not being immortalized on the blog until now, when he's just over fourteen months :). Honestly, it's probably a good thing I've waited this long to update about our [not so] baby boy - January and February were not really his months to shine, poor kid. He was still so so so cute but three ear infections in three months (plus four molars coming in!) added up to lots of tears and snot and antibiotics and shot nerves on my part! We are knocking on all things wood that he will remain ear infection-free from here on out, otherwise we might have to look into tubes. Yech.

So, because I have ISSUES, I had to pull out the same light blue striped polo shirt that his older brothers wore to their one-year check ups for Jack to wear to his. Here are all three boys boys in their respective car seats heading to their check-ups. Clyde and Will both got to switch to front-facing right on their first birthdays, but we're following the updated recommendation and keeping Jackers rear-facing for now. It works out really well in the minivan since he's totally happy being able to see the older boys in the back row! In fact, I had him front-facing in the Saturn a couple weekends ago while Chuck had the van on a Scout overnighter and he screamed every time I buckled him in, poor confused lad!

 

And here's another shot of the three boys. They honestly resemble each other more in these pictures than I thought they would. Also, Chuck and I would like to publicly apologize to Clyde for not starting regular haircuts sooner his little ragamuffin life...

Jack's check-up went well though (he was in between ear infections, hooray). He's 21 pounds and some change, so right in between where Clyde (20 pounds) and Will (22 pounds) were at this age. He's very vocal but prefers a hissing/'disssss' sound to actual, you know, words. We're obviously shocked that one of our children might be a 'late' talker... oh, wait, no we're not - that makes three for three, haha!

My plans to wean him around his birthday did not come to fruition; he just still loooooves to nurse and I'm not burned out yet, so on we go (although we're trying, happily somewhat successfully, to cut out middle of the night rendezvoux*). I have to laugh, pretty much anytime I tell a fellow mom that he has no apparent intention to stop nursing, she nods and says, "Ahh, I had one like that." He is eating more and more real food (including exotic items like strawberries! carrots! ham!) soo maybe he'll be our one and only good eater.

The other suuuper fun thing about Jackers is that you can't turn your back on him. Kid's crazy. I've spent the first five and a half years of motherhood being delightfully spoiled; I've never had to rush through a shower or be afraid to leave the room for fear of what my children would get into... well, the honeymoon is officially over:

My other boys were definitely climbers and have the scars and x-rays to prove it, but Jack is reaching new heights (you see what I did there?). He stands on that little chair and then starts rocking his body back and forth, apparently in an effort to GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK. I came out from getting dressed one day to find that he had procured a little container of chocolate sprinkles from the pantry (on like the third shelf up!) and then dumped them all over the floor and was happily chowing down. I'm not going to lie, I quickly called in the other boys to help him - why pull out a vacuum if it's not completely necessary?

Sooo I got the pictures for this post ready last night with the intention of finishing it today. This very afternoon, I walked in to the living room to find this scene:

Jack helpfully adding his signature to Clyde's homework page. He LOVES pens and paper; he's happiest when he's wandering around clutching a notebook in his left hand and a pen in his right (another heart attack-inducing vision - what if he falls on the pen??).

Luckily for all of us, Jack's cute smiling face makes all of his mischief seem worth it! We love you baby big boy!!

*Thanks to a plea on facebook, I discovered that the plural of 'rendezvous' is the same as the singular... but that's no fun, so I'm hoping rendezvoux catches on. How often do you get to use z, v, and x in ONE word??

Sunday afternoon ponderings

Somewhere on or around my computer desk, there exists a helpful 'to do' list of things I need to blog about. I feel pretty good about knocking that list out in the next few days, starting with an update on our cute, silly, smile-y Jackers.

Buuut first I'm opting to ramble a bit. This last week has been a fairly devastating one for a family in our ward whose husband and father passed away very unexpectedly. At the same time, there's another big service project underway involving another family in our ward that's requiring an 'all hands on deck' approach. In the midst of learning about those two situations, I also found out about a family in our ward/neighborhood whose (mid-30's) wife and mother is in the midst of a very serious battle with cancer. 

I'm pretty sure I've run through the gauntlet of emotions in response to all of this (I obviously can't even begin to comprehend what those more closely involved are going through), but the feeling I'm most overwhelmed with is gratitude for our ward family. I've been so inspired as I've heard and seen the service given (and committed to in coming days) and the prayers offered and the thoughts devoted to these families. And all of it is done with such profound love and empathy. 

And while I know that this kind of service absolutely isn't unique to our particular ward (or church), I'm very grateful that our family is where we are to witness these specific acts. When I look back at the home-buying process that Chuck and I went through in early 2008, I can see how things lined up for us to buy this house instead of others that we may have been drawn to previously. We love knowing (as well as we can know) that we will be in this house and ward forever - it's so fun to dig in and make connections with people and look forward to maintaining those friendships for years to come. Yesterday I was able to help with the luncheon after the funeral alongside a lot of long-time (aka old!) members of our ward and I really enjoyed both witnessing the camaraderie that exists between these friends and being invited to participate in it as well. Chuck and I had a similar experience a couple of days prior as we worked alongside other members of the ward on the aforementioned big project - service strengthens our love for those we serve as well as those we serve with.

Our ward family certainly isn't perfect (as luck would have it, no family is), but it's ours and we love it.

Will aces swimming

 Will took another round of swimming lessons in January and February, and we are SO proud of our little fish. He was ready for Level 1, but since that isn't offered during the day (it's usually for kids six and up) we opted for 'Preschool 2' instead and happily discovered that there were only two students - meaning we got the 'semi-private' class size for the regular class price, wahoo! 

At this point I think we've had at least ten different swimming instructors, and Brady will be remembered as one of our favorites; he was so great working with Will and making sure the lessons were challenging - and Will stepped up and progressed so much.

Brady ended up passing him for both Preschool 2 AND Level 1, so when the boys take lessons again in May they'll both be in Level 2. Chuck and I feel so strongly about the boys having strong swimming skills and it's so rewarding to watch this happen.

And just for fun, here's a video of Will before his first lesson. I ran into his old speech therapist recently and it's so crazy to think that when she finished working with him just prior to his third birthday, he was only verbalizing a few words. Now two years later he's sooo chatty and we love it: