long & rambly February post!

February was loads less bleak and dreary and snowy than January, praise the heavens. Here's a round-up of pictures from the month:

It was Clyde's turn for basketball! He was on a team with friends and classmates from school and loved it, which made the practices/games with me trying to keep Jack happy and contained on the bleachers worth it... mostly :). I love the [blurry] picture of Clyde with the ball in the upper right corner - isn't the kid guarding him huge??

Chuck's in charge of the program for young men at church and lately the Teachers and Priests (14-18 year old boys) have been planning activities to help them prepare for missions/college/life on their own. One night it was a basic cooking lesson at our house: making jambalaya and cornbread muffins!

I tried to respect their boy time and privacy; it's not my fault that they talk loud and I got to eavesdrop on all the hilarity. Plus they needed my instruction for the muffins... and they offered to share the finished product... and I couldn't help but take a few pictures...

Oh, it was Valentine's Day in February! Here are my cute boys before school:

And here are Chuck and me after a temple date later in the month. I love all my boys!

I referenced how much fun cousin time we got on our mid-month road trip to Utah, here are a few more pictures from that adventure:

Poor Will woke up sick the morning we left, so we hit up an immediate care clinic before we got on the road. Sure enough he had some sort of bacterial infection in the glands in his neck, so some antibiotics made the trip with us and we hunkered down at our hotel that night to avoid spreading the love. Our drive home on Monday coincided with a Savers' 50% off all clothing sale, and so I got to stop at FOUR different stores as we drove, hooray! I didn't buy that much but what I got was excellent: two pairs of cargo shorts for Chuck, maternity shorts for me, a cute pink maternity shirt, a cute Sesame Street sweatshirt for the baby, and a suuuuper cute Christymas-y skirt for the baby.

Our February activity for Relief Society was an evening focused on the blessings of the temple. It was such a sweet and profound night; I asked four sisters to share their thoughts and testimonies about the temple and then I opened it up to anyone who wanted to share and it was all just wonderful.

One day Jack and I had spent a lot of the day in the van running errands and I was dreading buckling him back in to pick the boys up from school and it was also a nice-ish day out and I was also feeling randomly ambitious, soooo we walked to school to pick up the boys! And despite the whining that occurred on the looong walk home (by the boys, not me!... mostly...) we might try it again sometime.

Another ambitious project I embarked upon was making some cute personalized onesies for the babe. I had found a couple super cheap plain onesies at Savers and rooted around my fabric collection and hit up facebook for adhesive advice and then got to work! The boys were all very involved - Will very seriously instructed me how to sew and picked out which color of sewing 'rope' to use and Clyde insisted we use the stars on the bum idea I'd found online. Jack climbed all over me while I was sewing, suuuper helpful. I have a couple of white onesies that I want to do now; just waiting for that ambition to return...

February brought an important milestone in Clyde's and Will's little lives: going shooting with Daddy!

Will got to tag along one day when Chuck went out with a couple friends from work. He had a good time but was pretty done after a few minutes.

For Clyde, however, this was a culmination of some serious education and preparation and he loved it.

First up was the book learnin' part: Clyde studied the Rifle Shooting manual from the BSA and some gun safety/history/etc books from the library.

After he could sufficiently answer questions about the proper handling of firearms and demonstrated some other skills we've been working on (good attitude, obedience, etc), he got to go out with Daddy and shoot the new, smaller rifle that Chuck had recently acquired just for this purpose.

And here is the cute boy with his targets! 

[I have to say, I remain as unaffiliated with guns as possible, but I am grateful that Chuck is such a careful and conscientious gun owner and father and that he puts so much time into teaching the boys.]

One Sunday morning we woke up in a chilly-ish house; the furnace had been acting up lately and that morning wasn't cooperating with our usual tricks to fire it back up.

So we made cookies! I'd had sugar cookie dough in the fridge for a couple days and this was the perfect chance to finally use it and let the oven warm up the kitchen for a bit. And happily a friend from our ward came over after church and did some furnace magic to get us back up and running!

The last few days of February brought some more nice-ish weather, so we busted out the bikes and spent some time in the front yard (sometimes with friends, that's cute little Clark in the bottom left):

  And finally, here are a few last pictures that are pretty representative of our lives: after school homework/finishing lunches time, cute brothers, and Jack being my little magnet... 24/7. I think he's going to have noooo problem sharing me with his new baby sister, right??

Will is SIX!

My sweet Willy Boy is SIX today, which seems both highly insane and also the most natural thing in the world.

Here he is at the park yesterday with Chuck and the other boys; while Grandma Pam was here the boys instituted a monochromatic dressing policy and Will was the proud winner wearing allll blue :).

Will continues to be such a sweet, tender-hearted boy and contributes so much to our family. He's very snuggly and quick to offer an "I love you" or hug, usually just when I need one.

I know I say this every year, but he's progressed SO much since his last birthday. Kindergarten absolutely agrees with him; he loves school and learning and talking ... non-stop ... about things he's learned. He's currently on a 'Berenstain Bears' kick and has read all the way through my childhood collection and the elementary school library collection. We now have a list that we need to pick up from the public library.

I'll recap all of the birthday festivities at some point in the future (spoiler alert #1: Will is HIGHLY obsessed with Sid the Science Kid right now and got to go to the LIVE performance at the Morrison Center the other night as a special night out with Daddy... basically the highlight of his life thus far) and today he's excited for red velvet cupcakes and a playdate with some friends, young and ... old-er :).

(Spoiler alert #2: Chuck is for sure at the store right now picking up a new bike for the birthday boy so that, you know, his knees don't hit the handlebars each time he pedals...)

 We sure love our Will. He's kept us on our toes since the beginning - you know, when he came almost a week before his scheduled c-section and I dismissed the contractions all day, SURE they were Braxton-Hicks. I'll never forget Dr. Klomp checking me when I finally showed up at the hospital that evening and yelling "She's nine and a half centimenters! Get the OR ready now!!" Whoops :).

I'll also never forget how immediately my heart just burst with love when I saw my baby and held him and all of my previous worries about being able to love a second child as much as my first just melted away. Six years later, Will continues to march to the beat of his own drum, and we are thrilled and blessed and honored to be invited to his parade :). We love you Willy Boy!! 

Cousin catch up: Braden side

Late January brought Sam and his family to the Treasure Valley for med school rotations, hooray! My boys decided to celebrate by picking up every germ possible during that seven week period, so we didn't get to spend as much time with the little girlie cousins as we would have liked. Buuut we had lots of fun when we did!

One of the highlights for me was getting to meet baby Miko! It's probably hard to tell from these pictures, what with her clearly trying to be anywhere but in my arms, but she loves me. A lot :).

We made it over to Sam and Terri's a few times, where the main attraction was always Grandma Pam's step stool next to the big front window. I think Hazel and Jack finally mastered sharing it just before the Bradens wrapped up their time here. And the center picture where Bailey is kissing Jack's head is very representative of their relationship :).

 Sam and Terri came over to watch the Super Bowl with us and eat Chuck's delicious Macho Nachos, mmmm. I only took one picture, but I think it's a good one:

Chuck and Clyde and I sneaked out for an hour for Clyde's baptism preview at the church and came home to find Jack cozily asleep on Aunt Terri.

 We have the Bradens to thank for our recently rediscovered addiction to Krispy Kreme doughnuts since they were always so nice to share their extra coupons with us:

One weekend we met up back in Utah, where the kids merrily ran around Quinn and Eden's apartment complex stairwells after baby Leila's blessing and holed up in Isaac's room and played with all his toys :).

Obviously the highlight of that trip was getting to meet our newest niece!

[Excuse me for a moment while I stare at that beautiful family picture in the lower left and try to wrap my head around the fact that my little brother has TWO kids...]

Leila's blessing was beautiful and we were so glad we could be there. I think it's so fun that my daughter will have two little girl cousins on this side so close in age - Miko is two and a half months older than Leila, who will be four and a half months older than our baby.

The day before the Bradens moved back to Utah, we kidnapped Bailey and Hazel for a few more hours of cousin time:

Hazel definitely got cut off in the bottom picture, whoops! We loved having the girls over for a bit; it's so fun to see bits and pieces of their little personalities.

 

These pictures kill me - Jack's little desk was usually a battle ground between these two, so to see them sweetly sharing and coloring together is so cute!

 And that wraps up all of our fun time catching up with cousins. We're pretty homebound for the next few months, so we're glad we got all these visits in when we did!! Love you all!

Cousin catch up: Izatt side

The boys have seven cousins on Chuck's side of the family, and we were able to see five of them on our quick President's Day trip to Utah, hooray! We had planned to stop and see cousin Anna and were happy that Mallory, Courtney, George, and Lily were in town as well. We ate some yummy sandwiches at Amanda and Steve's house and then headed over to a nearby park for some fun:

The park was of the newfangled variety with lots of fun balance-y attractions. I stayed off all of them :).

So great to see everyone! We missed Lee and Aleesha and their cute kiddos though - hopefully we'll find a chance soon to ALL be together.

Courtney (and George!) were so patient and took the little ones on train rides down the slide:

Anna is Jack's closest cousin on the Izatt side; she's just five months older and suuuuch a cute girl. Our favorite thing was how many cute accessories she sported to the park:

and how quickly each item was shed as she enjoyed the fabulously warm temperatures that the afternoon brought us!

Another highlight was Chuck attempting some sort of spinning thing... and then his inability to walk afterwards, hahaha:

I had nooo sympathy for him since he loves dizzying rides and roller coasters.

The boys had such a fun time running around and playing and laughing with their cousins - and it was the perfect way to get out all their energy before piling in the van for the long drive home.

Last hugs with Courtney and Mallory. Love those girls!!

Random update courtesy of the cell phone camera

Well, I've officially become one of "those" "people" who take more pictures with their cell phone than with their actual camera... and here's a random selection of such pictures!

 Will celebrated 100 days of school with these glasses, which made me sooo happy. Jack took to wearing them around the house upside down, which also provided loads of laughter.

 Clyde and Will had a 'come to Jesus' moment in January when their beloved lego table and lego collection were removed from their bedroom for a spell. They were thrilled when they earned it back with good behavior :).

  Jack was thrilled that he managed to slip in under the radar and play for a while (aka remove the Hulk's arms) before getting booted back to his room and Duplos...

Speaking of Jack, I have never met a kid SO into shopping carts. He loves them. He insists on getting buckled in them. Buuuut on one particular Target trip, I talked him into just walking around and it was hilarious:

He strolled about whilst dragging the basket and we got to stop and look at all sorts of neat things that he usually misses from his usual high perch. Added bonus: for most of the shopping expedition the lone item in his little basket was a very red bra (Happy Valentine's Day to Chuck!) that he would periodically stop and pull over his head, hahaha.

 Oh, every month or so the elementary school PTA has a 'dinner out' night where a local restaurant donates a portion of the sale to the boys' school if you give them a special flier when you check out. We don't participate very often (they're mostly at classy joints that we don't frequent, like Applebee's and Panda Express) but in February it was at Wendy's, which is much more our style. AND a few school staff members 'worked' at Wendy's for the night, including the amazing principal Ms. Christenson:

 Ms. Christenson is a superstar; she puts so much into the school. I've seen her subbing in a class, helping serve food in the lunchroom, pushing a wheelchair student during the jog-a-thon, etc. I love how involved and hands-on she is and how much she cares about the students - enough to spend an evening serving french fries and Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers! (definitely what I got...)

This picture makes me happy; I was taking a rest on the couch and Will opted to join me while he read some Berenstain Bears (he's currently obsessed).

 I love snuggling with Willy boy, and I also love the corner of my awesome face in this picture. Can you tell I don't have the cool phones where you can see what you're taking a picture of?? I just hold the sucker up and try to press the screen in the right spot; hence the dubious quality and content of some of the pictures :).

 This picture was taken on stealth mode during Clyde's classroom read-a-thon during Dr. Seuss week:

 Every fifteen minutes or so the kids got to draw a paper out of a bucket with instructions for a new way to read - this one was 'like an executive' :). Clyde's class is so cute; I love spending time in there.

 In other Clyde news, his primary leaders seem to think he's turning 8 this year:

 Obviously there's been some kind of mistake, but Chuck and I took him to the Baptism Preview anyways, just in case the math turned out legit. I think when people are considering having kids, they shouldn't ask themselves "Are we ready for a baby?" they should ask "Are we ready for an eight-year-old?" BECAUSE IT ALL GOES BY SO FAST and once you get through the diapers/feeding/sleeping/notsleeping/crying/etc, babies are cake, where as eight years olds are REAL people with agency and emotional needs and who require parenting and guidance and the instilling of morals. Sooo good luck to us!

 And finally, this paper came home in Will's backpack one day:

 It was during Valentine's Day week when the were studying 'V' and it's obviously the most precious thing ever. I sure love my boys!!