Izatt family circus reunion: Friday and Saturday

The end of September found us buckling up in the ol' (er, new) minivan for its maiden road trip. Destination: Salt Lake City, for a weekend of fun with Chuck's family! The trip down went very well, mostly because Chuck drove the whole way and I curled up in the very back for a nap :).

We stopped in Ogden to have lunch at Fat Boy's and see Big Will. He and Clyde played legos, Will ran around like he owned the place, and Chuck checked out the 'UFO Hall of Fame', upon which he someday hopes to be featured.

Then we drove to Amanda and Steve's place in Kaysville and met up with Grandma and Pops for a quick visit, which baby Anna mostly slept through :).

Then we hopped back on the road and ended up at the hotel in SLC. We got settled in, went swimming with Grandma and Pops, made a grocery store run with Grandma for the essentials (peanut butter, honey, bread), and then crashed - unfortunately before seeing Melissa and Lee and their families, who rolled in later that night.
The next morning we got up early and headed back up to Ogden for some rock climbing. Amanda and Steve are both avid climbers (and Melissa and Kevin and their kids are into it too), so it was a natural choice for a morning activity. I was pretty impressed with the climbing gym; the staff was really friendly and verrry patient, especially with my little boys. They do have a location in Boise, and it looks like they have some neat specials running during the month of October - here's that website link.

Clyde initially liked the idea of rock climbing more than the actual activity, but then he (mostly) got over his apprehension.

Sooo high!

Coming down may have been his favorite part :). Thanks to Aunt Amanda for her awesome belaying skills!

Cute little boy.

I figured Will would be all over this, but I guess he prefers his climbing to be more furniture and kitchen counter oriented. Luckily he found other ways to stay occupied!

Here's my super cute husband climbing. Again, mad props to Amanda who is super buff and can nonchalantly belay her big brother!

Mallory, Courtney, George and Lily climbing.

Mallory and I decided to try to the 'slackline' - I made it about a step before I bailed :).

More shots of the fam at the climbing gym. We were bummed that we missed Lee and Aleesha and their kids, they rolled in after Chuck and I left for lunch and afternoon naps.


And since we were just down the road, we went back to Fat Boy's for lunch.

Will and Pops got some good bonding in :).

After naps for my three boys (somehow I managed not to get one since Clyde and Will's naps did not overlap, boo!), it was time to join the whole fam for a big dinner. We took over three big tables at the restaurant and ate to our hearts' content.

Will was crazily rambunctious/grumpy until Aunt Melissa whipped out some sort of magical device with alphabet games on it and he chilled on her lap for the next hour (Lily was sweet enough to share her mom!). I love that two three-year-olds are this adept at technology.

After dinner we met back up at the hotel and walked down to the arena for the circus. Here are Lee, Aleesha, Bri, and Eli posing by one of the circus trailers.

We got there early so that we could mill around the floor with all the performers, which was super cool. The Blue kids got in on the act and took advantage of the awesome photo ops.

My kids were more content to stand back and watch, although they did participate in the 'dance instruction' that the peppy dancers gave . . . of course, I had to do it with them. It's cool; I have no pride.

And then it was CIRCUS time! We had really good seats (thanks Mom and Pops!!) and the visual aspect was pretty amazing. I really liked the physical comedy of the clowns - and I was super relieved to see that clowns have gotten decidedly less creepy since I was young. The boys were, naturally, mesmerized by the tigers and elephants and their tricks. I was likewise impressed but also slightly nervous about the undoubtedly rigorous training that led to such tricks . . . what can I say, I'm pretty 'bleeding heart' :).

Will got pretty wiggly starting at intermission; I think the fact that not even a circus can hold his attention for an hour is pretty telling - how the flip am I supposed to keep him quiet at church?? :) The grand finale was pretty sweet; I was constantly impressed at the choreography - how they could have SO many performers on the floor at once without any issues or collisions! And then it was over and time to head back to the hotel to tuck in very worn out boys . . . and their mom and dad!

Thanks again to Chuck's generous parents for treating us to such a fun adventure!!

Izatt fam reunion: Sunday

Sunday's main event was an excellent way to conclude our Izatt family reunion:
Anna's baby blessing! Pictured here with her lovely parents, Amanda and Steve, and a goat.

We checked out of the hotel early that morning and then drove to Kays for church. Steve gave Anna a beautiful blessing and we were really grateful that we could be there. Afterwards we went back to Amanda and Steve's for a delicious brunch. Seriously, so good - turns out Steve can make amazing crepes, yum!

It was nice to have a chance to sit around and chat, particularly with some extended family - Aunt Sue and cousin Nickie were there, as were cousins Mike and Alli (and her fiance Tomas!!).

There was also lots of 'pass the baby around'. I've said it before; I'll say it again: who needs daughters when you can have darling little nieces to love and adore and not have to pay for their weddings??

Baby Anna with Uncle Chuck. . .

and snuggling with Pops!!

The little kiddos had a blast running around and playing together.

I handed Courtney our old camera and she got these awesome shots of Will; I think she inherited the photography gene from Melissa :).

Then Court and I proceeded to take pictures of each other!

And then we needed one of us together, of course.

It was so fun to see baby Eli again - and it turns out he's not really a baby anymore! This trip fell a few days before his first birthday and he looks like such a boy now instead of a baby. He was in heaven munching on apples found in the grass despite everyone's efforts to trade him out for ones handpicked from the tree :).

Clyde and George have a lot of fun together as the oldest of the boy cousins - I see a lot of trouble in their collective future . . .

Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and head for home - not before some family pictures though.

In the process of gathering all of Chuck's family and figuring out which camera/lens to use; I love how Terri is smiling for the one though - she's ready!

Almost everyone is gathered - and looking to the right...

And here's the whole gang! L to R: Melissa, Lily, Kevin, George, Courtney, Mallory, Terri, Dave, Steve, Anna, Amanda, Chuck, Clyde, Jana, Will, Lee, Bri, Aleesha and Eli. Whew!
(P.S. As evidence that I have too much time on my hands, check out this awesome thing I noticed - as soon as our baby comes, there will be an awesome correlation between the birth order in Chuck's family and how many kids they have. Melissa is the oldest sibling and has four kids, Chuck is the second oldest and will have three kids, Lee is the third oldest and has two kids, and Amanda is the youngest and has one. I know, I need a hobby.)

And once again, thanks to Pops and Grandma for making this fun weekend possible. We love you - see you in November!!

Jana's brain ticker

If my awesome thoughts were funneled into some sort of CNN ticker, this is what it would look like right about now:

* In the last four days, I may have become addicted to Dove Promises with caramel. And to the enabling messages found on the inside of the wrappers; my favorite so far is "You're allowed to do nothing." Granted, that sentiment is probably intended for a Type A personality who has legitimately earned a break but I will gladly apply it into my own life, where I frequently do nothing. Now I have permission! (P.S. Thanks for the chocolates, Tasha - one of my favorite visiting teaching messages ever!!)

* We went to Utah a week ago to meet up with Chuck's whole family for a family reunion/belated birthday celebration/outing to the circus/baby blessing. It was a super fun time but as usual I took a ridiculous amount of [awesome] pictures and thinking about sorting through the couple hundred pictures makes me want to hide out with a Dove chocolate and 'allow' myself to do nothing . . . but I have every intention of getting the trip good and blogged soon, I promise!

* We did not go to Utah this past weekend ("someone" had to "work" and "someone else" has "resolved" never to "travel" "alone" with the "little boys" because they're "crazy"), making it the first General Conference weekend we've missed hanging out with Smiths since April 2009. We also missed Chuck's cousin Jesse's wedding on Saturday, which bums me out because all sorts of awesome faraway cousins were there AND they had s'mores. Sigh.

* I am just over 26 weeks pregnant, which means I'm two thirds of the way through. Unfortunately, this means I still have one third, aka three months, to go and I am already SO uncomfortable at times. This baby appears to be already in competition with his brothers for 'most rambunctious, energetic son'. I want to be clear that I'm not asking for sympathy; I would actually like to request that everyone feel sorry for Chuck as he has to endure all of my melodramatic whining (for three more months!!).

* I think I've underestimated the importance of conditioner to my hair. I may have gone without it for a week because I was too lazy/forgetful to trudge out to the garage and grab a new bottle. Then one day I remembered and my hair now seems so luxuriously soft and nice-looking.

* Clyde's going in for an outpatient procedure at the hospital tomorrow. In the interest of him being able to look people in the eye when he's older, I'm opting not to disclose the exact nature of the procedure, but it relates to his Hirschsprung's disease and we have high, high hopes for its effectiveness. I'm slightly apprehensive about the general anesthesia (Clyde's last experience with it was his surgery as an infant) and how he'll feel afterwards. Luckily, our family has never really needed an excuse to veg out with ice cream and movies all day.

* I think I may have some inaccurate notions about food. Scratch that, I know I have some inaccurate notions about food. Some where along the way, I've created a food math/justification system in my head. For instance, water cancels out junk food. Like, it's okay to eat lots and lots of M&M's in one sitting if you wash it down with like twenty ounces of water. Because water cleanses and purifies and . . . you know, cancels out the M&M's. Also, eating a healthy food item creates a deficit in one's body that can then be filled with a not-as-healthy item; this is obviously pretty similar to the previous notion. Basically, if I eat two plums and a few sticks of celery, I'm totally home free on my afternoon bowl of ice cream. Basically it's a wonder I'm not four hundred pounds.

* I should clarify that my children have (mostly) much healthier approaches to food. A lot of this comes because I eat the ice cream when they're in quiet time so I don't have to share ...

* The new television season has started! I really don't watch that many shows, but the shows I do watch, I watch very passionately. (Don't spend too much time on that sentence; it may not make that much sense and I'm too lazy to reconstruct it). Right now my favorites are Dancing with the Stars (love Rob, Chynna, and J.R.), Castle (on tonight, yay!), Modern Family, and Parks and Recreation.

* Will is doing wonderfully, although his new favorite phrases are "No way!!" and "My [phone/computer mouse/book/insert any object that someone else has possession of here]!!" I'm choosing to optimistically believe that he's just getting the defiance and possessiveness out of his system before the baby comes and it will be smooooth sailing when the wee babe actually makes his debut. That could happen, right?

* Chuck and Will each have their own, slightly off, version of the 'Clean Up' song and I can't decide which is more endearing: Chuck's "Clean up, clean up, everybody likes to clean up, clean up, everybody likes to clean up . . . " or Will's "Cleam up, cleam up, everybody where, cleam up, cleam up . . . " Sadly I haven't been able to stealthily record Chuck's version, but here's Will's:



* I think that's all I got for now. . . kudos if you made it all the way through this long, rambling post - I figure in the very least I'm still addressing Chuck, my mom, my mother-in-law, and Courtney :). Happy Monday evening!

Farewell summer!

As I begin this post, there's two hours and nine minutes left of summer 2011, wahoo! I figure that's plenty of time to write about some of our adventures over the last few months that have yet to be featured on the blog:

Starting with cousin time in June! Sam and Terri's visit for Quinn's wedding meant that all of the [current] Braden side grandkids were together - granted, not a rare happening but we still attempted to get a cute picture of the trio.

Naturally, we deemed this one to be the best.

These pictures are also from June, but represent two oft-repeated activities at our house: one) post-quiet time Otter Pops in the front yard and two) Will attempting to carry all of his 'favorite of the day' toys at one time. This particular day it was a dinosaur, his penguin, and Unky Quinn's old Clifford dog. I think it's a pretty decent glimpse into the future of how I'll look juggling three kids . . .

We celebrated the beginning of July with some Daniels (and Nicole's mom!), some s'mores, and some glowsticks.

We celebrated the Fourth of July with the ward pancake breakfast, matching shirts, and jello.

Ohhh, and some fireworks with the Daniels. This was the evening Duke learned that it's every man for himself when a police officer drives by . . .

You have to love when you can date pictures/events by Chuck's facial hair - this water fun in the backyard was clearly post-Scout Camp but pre-appendectomy. Oh, 'stache, you are missed . . . (by Chuck and seemingly every other male who ever laid eyes upon you).

Towards the end of July, we had to take Will in to St. Luke's for a blood draw (his developmental pediatrician wanted to do some genetic testing) and I was once again astounded by this child's ability to roll with the punches. Chuck kept him entertained in the waiting room beforehand and was in charge of holding him still for the phlebotomist. Will did not care for the actual blood draw ("Oh no! Arm! Stuck! Help! Oh no!" followed by sad, sad tears) but he bounced back so quickly afterwards. Clyde is his mother's child and milks every injury/incident for all its worth but luckily Will is much more like Chuck :).

Also at the end of July, Duke and Nicole blessed their sweet new baby Beckam and we went to their house after church that day for a late luncheon. Nicole and I asked Chuck to take a quick picture of us, not realizing that the dreadful combination of the lighting, the heat, and our silliness would result in such . . . awesome . . . shots :).

Emily was in town at the beginning of August, hooray! I was in desperate need of some of her infectious laughter and fun. We made an afternoon of it, having lunch with Aubrey (sadly no picture), shoe shopping (I got my blue and orange sneakers!), and then visiting Allen and his awesome new condo. I love Emily and Allen so so so much; we always have the most hilarious/ridiculous/straightforward conversations ever and I cherish them - both the conversations and the people :).

The Elder's Quorum had a 'date night' in early August and it was soo much fun. The food was delicious and impressively all-encompassing considering it was a 'no-assignments' potluck. The games were hilarious; I got out on the first round every time I played 'Vroom, vroom, errrch' due to inability to stop laughing :). The pictures are from a jumping/footsie game, the name of which escapes me but it was super fun to watch!

Grandma Pam had a birthday in mid-August! As part of her present, she got to watch the little boys that afternoon while I went to a baby shower :).

The Saturn was in a sorry state after our trip to Utah, so Chuck and I put the little boys to work washing it one August evening. They both took the task very seriously :).

Clyde and I got ambitious one Sunday afternoon in mid August and built a 'contraption' - aka a marble run made of recyclable materials, which kept he and Will pretty busy for the next week or so until I reclaimed my dining room table.

Boise State football kicked off at the beginning of this month, yaaay! We had our traditional 'Macho Nachos' party and donned our favorite blue and orange attire. And don't you love how Will is already squishing his younger brother?

My dad gave this awesome blow-up pool to Clyde for his birthday, so we tested it out (with Brinley's help!) on Labor Day. It was definitely a hit.

An evening at the park - something I wish we'd done more of this summer, but I'm lazy and pregnant and it's hot outside. Hopefully we make it over there more this fall.

Will needed to decorate a little paper to share with his preschool class so we had an arts and crafts evening at the table. I was stunned at how intent Will was on applying the glue himself; I'm so proud of my sensory issue kid for not being phased (well, not too phased) by getting glue on his hands.

We went over to the church orchard with our ward last week to help finish up the peach picking, and Will was super into it; he loved finding the peaches up in the branches and then carrying them to the bin. Cute little helper!

And finally, here are some random shots from a walk the little boys and I took last week. I sure love these boys, even when it's getting hotter by the second and we've covered about a tenth of a mile in fifteen minutes because we're heading up some sort of 'Leave No Rock Unthrown' initiative.

But I digress. And now it's forty-two minutes until fall and I can welcome the new season guilt-free - happy autumn everyone!!