That time I turned 30

I can commiserate with Jack on having a lame January birthday because I likewise have a lame January birthday! 

Bad news: I turned 30. 

Good news:

And here are some other Internet sentiments about 30 with which I concur:

I mean, I don't actually hang out with 20 year olds on a regular basis but I will count my cute 15/16 year old Sunday School kids in this. Sometimes I catch them staring semi-blankly at me during class while I plead with them to just make Good Choices, haha. 

Yeahhhh, I tried to come up with an alternative that fits me, but quirky is the closest I could come...

I don't know if this is the actress Michelle Williams or the Destiny's Child Michelle Williams, but either way I think it's a good reflection of how comfortable I feel at 30. I'm super confident in who I am and how I look and what I'm doing with my life. (Also I apologize if anyone else now has 'Say My Name' stuck in their head. No? Just me then...)

I figured my 30th birthday deserved some sort of crazy recognition and I randomly came up with a 5k. I mean, what?? I don't even know, but the idea hit and I ran with it (get it? I' d apologize, but I'm old now so making lame jokes is basically expected).

I really just wanted a fun activity where we could be outside but not freeze, anyone or no one could come, and orange could be heavily incorporated. And it worked! The rain mostly held off and super fun friends showed up and it was so perfect.

Probably the best surprise was Kautri showing up with her darling baby Elise! I hadn't seen her forever (or even met Elise) because I am The Worst at keeping in touch with people, and I seriously had to blink back tears when I saw her car pull up. As it was I did some sort of awkward leaping dance across the street; I think screaming was involved as well...

Chuck was a helper and took this picture of the run/walk participants, most of whom were smart enough to retreat into the garage for hot chocolate and snacks after the first mile:

The crazy girls stuck it out though! Don't even get me started on Nycole and Emily, who ran almost all of it. Some people. I jogged a bit, walked a lot, and definitely turned around early every lap, haha.

 Some of my sweet best friends participated from a distance, Holly in Seattle and Courtney and Gloria in Utah:

Who are these people? And how on earth did I get lucky enough to cross paths with them??

Love these girls so much. If any of them invite me to a party in the future where physical exertion is required, I will seriously consider attending (but really, who does that? So weird).

The boys (and Carma! dang it, still not used to that...) were good sports and wore orange, although Clyde insisted that the bball on his shirt counted.

That night my mom and Carma and I went out and about to run some errands took a three generation picture afterwards. Fun fact: my grandma Carma only had one daughter, born just before she turned 30. My mom only had one daughter, born shortly after she turned 30. And now I only have one daughter (not subject to change), born a few months before I turned 30! I love figuring out weird stuff like that.

Some more shots from the rest of Saturday and Sunday (my actual birthday): Carma wanted to stay up late, so we watched some Pride and Prejudice. Start 'em early, you know? And then she woke up awesome early the next morning, obviously to make sure she was the first one to wish me a happy birthday. My sweet boys sent me back to bed after a while and brought me breakfast. We had a little party in Sunday School and I made the kids smile for a picture. My class changed a bit at the beginning of the year (I lost the 16 year olds and gained some 14 year olds) and I just love them all. Aaaand my cake! We ran out of time on Sunday, so we were cutting into it right when the Priests showed up for their quorum presidency meeting, so good timing on their part ;).

Oh, and I definitely dressed Carma in a bunch of orange for church that day; I'm not super looking forward to when she's old enough to dress herself...

It was such a fun birthday weekend - serious thank to Chuck for supporting me in my crazy plans and making everything come together so well. And of course, thanks to everyone for wishing me a happy day! 30 is pretty stellar so far!

Jack is THREE

Our little Jackers turned 3 at the beginning of January, and I continue to feel so bad that we stuck with him with a birthday a week after Christmas - seriously, at that point we're just kind of zoned out and putting away decorations and breaking brand new resolutions and trying to put our lives back on some sort of track for school to start again. I mean, last year we took the kid to the dentist on his birthday and this year we gave him a haircut - it's his party and we'll make him cry if we want to??? I tried to make it up to him by following him around for an hour, doing whatever he wanted (also what I do the other 363 days a year...):

 and luckily, other people stepped in to make the day special, including his new nursery teacher Sister Swenson (who dropped off a balloon and a puzzle and a card and FRUIT SNACKS) and Grandma Pam!

We celebrated with delicious cake the next day after church, and Chuck took the lead on decorating - with help from the rest of the Izatt men, of course:

 Our little marshmallow lover was thrilllled with the final product; he still talks about it.

 Jack is the funniest little enigma of a three-year-old; we are beyond grateful to be the parents entrusted with figuring him out, haha! Happy birthday Jack!

Look, I blogged!

Well, team, it's been a while. Like seven weeks. Forty-nine days. Well, fifty now - I started this last night, haha. Don't worry, I'm armed with excuses:

Excuse #1. 

Carma is a leech. As in, she's like suuuper attached to me 24/7, and she's not the biggest fan of the computer. Well, that's a lie - she loves the computer. When I'm on it, she shuffles right over and starts bangin' on the ol' keyboard as soon as I pick her up. Alas, not terribly conducive to blogging. Also, she's not a super big fan of sleeping at night. She prefers to take light naps, preferably while touching me. And have I mentioned Jack? He's also pretty into having me within arm's reach all the time. I don't know, sometimes at Costco I play the game where I push the cart ahead a bit and then "run" to catch up to it... maybe Jack and Carma take that game more seriously than their crazy giggling would imply? Maybe we haven't watched the "Grown-ups come back" episode of Daniel Tiger enough, and Jack thinks that me sitting at the computer is some sort of gateway drug to me sneaking out of the house, ne'er to return? Who knows.

Someday (like, probably soon) I'll have enough pictures of me with kids draped over me, asleep, to fill a book. And I will self-publish that book. Four copies. And I'll gift them to each child with a guilt-inducing inscription about how it was never a sacrifice to be uncomfortable or lose sleep, because snuggling with them was so, so worth it.

So, bottom line here: hard to sneak away to the computer; I used to blog a lot in the evening/nighttime but now I crawl into bed exhausted and hope that I can sleep for an hour before Carma realizes we're not touching and wakes up.

Excuse #2.

In mid-February, I started watching a cute little girl four days a week. For 7-9 hours a day. And now my friend Maren is my hero because HOLY MOLY HAVING TWINS IS RIDICULOUS. Ashtyn is way cute, and for the most part it's pretty chill unless we a) have to go anywhere (I tried Walmart once and literally cried in the aisle - now we stick to Costco and their blessed double-buckle carts) or b) I try to get anything done.

Bottom line here: my productivity in every area of the house has plummeted, haha, buuut I mean, it does make for some cute pictures of two little girls so close in age!

Excuse #3.

the Nampa Library re-opened! In a new place! And way bigger! It's seriously amazing, so beautiful and fun and at the opening ceremony they talked about how they wanted it to be a 'destination' now - and it totally is. The library used to be a stop on our list of errands, like we'd run in and drop off books and grab whatever we had on the hold shelf. Now we allot time to stay and hang out and such! Super fun.

What impact does this have on blogging?

 Oh, just feeding my addiction to cute, sometimes cheesy, (clean!) romance novels. And really, the library can't be blamed entirely because some of them I've picked up pretty inexpensively for my kindle app or in paperback at D.I. But I do have like seven books from the library right now, haha. I can't help it, I am a total sucker for good writing and happily ever afters and just enough conflict in the story to make it interesting but not enough to hard core stress me out. 

Bottom line here: I will straight up admit there have been times where I technically could have used a free hour to blog, and instead opted to read. #sorrynotsorry

At this point, I know that everyone is nodding along, like, "Seriously Jana, how do you find time in the day to shower or eat lunch, let alone blog?" Well, good news, I've been workin' on some solutions. (Also, I mean, showering every day is not suuuper necessary, right? Water conservation? Today is Earth Day...)

Solution #1.

the Izatt household has been in rearrangement mode the last few days, switching around rooms and such: Jack and Carma are moving to the back right bedroom, the guest accomodations are moving to the bonus room (where our new piano is! People, I have SO much to catch you up on!), and the computer has been returned to its original location in the playroom:

This is how I graduated from college after having two children: writing papers and doing homework while little Clyde and little Will played right next to me. It was moved to the guest room a few years ago, but now it's back here, which is perfect for letting my fan club co-presidents (Jack and Carma) be right next to me while I sit and blog!

Solution #2.

Starting next week I'll go back to just having these two yahoos to look after during the day:

Which should lead to a little bit more wiggle room during the day to blog (I have no problem neglecting my own kids to blog - I mean, do they want their childhood recorded or not?? but I feel bad not giving someone else's kid my full attention) OR get other things done and free up my evenings when the kids are in bed and Chuck's out doing church/Scout stuff.

Although, school is almost out and then I'll have all four yahoos all day e'ry day again:

But I mean, obviously that should be no problem, haha!

Solution #3.

Willpower. I'm going to look into getting some. But don't worry, I won't waste it on silly things like "not eating Costco-sized bags of chocolate chips by the handful" - I will reserve it for prioritizing my day: blog before reading, reading before laundry ;).

Okay, so there you have it! Prepare to be regaled/bored stiff by my blogging again! We got almost four months to catch up on! This is going to be great! Probably!