Good thing he's so cute!

Jackers [one of those nicknames you didn't really intend to use but just seems to come out constantly] is possibly the cutest baby ever. He's also quite possibly the worst sleeper ever right now... thus this post! I intend to have these pictures pulled up permanently on the iPad so that when I'm up feeding him every couple hours during the night I can see his sooo sweet smile and not lose my sleep-deprived mind...

 It would appear that Jack is already an Ellen fan, just one example of his good taste.

 I LOVE bathtime for the older boys because not only does it keep them happily occupied for quite a while, it also provides entertainment for the wee one, who stands and watches and giggles the entire time. Of course, those giggles disappear rapidly when it's HIS turn for the bath, but that's okay.

 With the onset of the collllld weather, Jack has been sporting pajamas in public. A lot. Like, sometimes he sleeps in just a diaper and then I put pajamas on him in the morning, haha. It's just the easiest way to dress him warmly without involving multiple articles of clothing AND socks, which are pretty much the bane of my existence. Also, please note the adorable-ness of Jack in a hat.

 Cute shots from church a couple of weeks ago. Maren and I were spending second hour in the foyer (discussing matters of great importance and spirituality, I'm sure) when I pulled out the camera and pointed it at Jack, only to have him break out into this smile as if on cue. You'd think I over-document the poor kid's life or something!

 Speaking of over-documentation, I always hesitate to try to take a picture of Jack when he's happily playing because he almost always abandons the activity in favor of crawling towards me and the camera....

 Here's another example. This one kills me - for the first four or five months of his life, we wanted Jack to use a binky soooo badly (well, Chuck more than me). He semi-politely declined. NOW he thinks they're super fun to play with and chew on... sigh.

 

 Yet another example. Although I think Will was pretty happy to have Jack cease the hair-pulling...

 Just being so cute as he munches on his puffs.

 I'm pretty sure I can't get enough of him in this little moose ensemble. 

 

 Which is why I had to snuggle with him later that day. Oh, also because he wasn't feeling well and REFUSED to sleep any other way. 

The moral of this [non]story is that Jackers is the cutest fussbucket around and we couldn't love him more!! 

Unless he slept better and then we definitely would.

Brothers wrestle. Constantly.

 Every One day, Clyde and Will were wrestling in the living room.

 I think Clyde was channeling the Hulk here. If not, (spoiler alert!) he does later.

 

 Will moved to the couch with a seemingly defeated air that he quickly shed as he sneak-attacked Clyde.

 Clyde emerged victorious at the end of the round, however. This wasn't enough to satisfy the boy, though, he wanted more:

my observations of this video:

 - I should never be a professional cinematographer. Sorry if you're a bit queasy after watching.

- Ohh, also sorry about the prominent role my legs seem to play in the video.

- Clyde is hilarious: "Will, come attack me!... I, I'm frozen! You can come and attack me!"

- Will is SWEET: "No, I can't. I just like Mommy."

- Jack apparently gets away with a lot (i.e. taking the otter box off the ipad) while I'm preoccupied with his older brothers...

And somehow, all wrestling matches end ON or right AROUND Mommy. Which leads to blurry pictures of me with my three crazy little boys...

October

The first weekend of October found us watching General Conference (yay!) at home (not yay). We missed our Utah comrades quite a bit, but we found ways to distract ourselves.

Namely play-doh and naps. And of course, conference itself was wonderful!

We found ourselves feeling a little stir crazy by Sunday afternoon, though (which is weird since we probably would have watched almost that much TV in two days anyhow with football factored in) so we went for one of our last warm bike ride/walks of the year.

Over the course of the month I was able to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes:

borrowing other people's daughters to get my 'girl fix' in! These are our sweet friends Ivy and Addie who came over and played after playschool one day (the girls and Will are sporting the super hero masks they made that day). Suuuuch cute girls.

We also got to have Maysa, Reagan, Hallie and Brehner over one day, which was really fun. We did arts and crafts and painted nails and Brehner and Jack (who are about four and a half months apart in age) were hilarious together.

 After we picked Clyde up from school I decided to brave a walk with seven kids. The babies did great in the double stroller and everyone else happily marched along and got some energy out, wooo!!

 As Cubmaster, I get to put together the pack meetings once a month that families are invited to attend along side their Cub Scouts. I combined the October and November themes of responsibility and citizenship for an election/voting activity.

 I was semi in love with the little voting booths that Chuck helped me put together and the ballot box I fashioned out of an old fruit snacks box.

 I made two different ballots - siblings and parents voted on a future pack meeting activity, while the Scouts voted for a future den meeting activity. And of course there were 'I voted!' stickers, because isn't that really why we all exercise that particular right anyways?

Funny/thought-provoking story: As I was explaining the ballots, I got real serious and said, "Okay boys, I need you to really think about this decision, because if you vote for the light sabers then you can't be friends any more with someone who votes for sugar cookies." And their eyes all collectively widened until I added, "Wait, is that right? Or can you still be friends with someone who votes differently?" And they all chimed in with "Yes, of course you can still be friends!" And then I said, "Okay, well then, if you vote for light sabers and sugar cookies wins then you have to stomp out and say that you don't want to even come that night... right? Or should you make the most of it and still come and have fun even though what you voted for didn't win?" And then all chimed in with, "Of course you should still come and be a good sport!" I just loved how innocent and sweet they all were - hopefully that attitude sticks around when they're old enough to really vote! 

 Ohhh I love my Scouts. We also did an activity to match eight political offices with the politicians' names and random facts about each of them - did anyone else know that Congressman Mike Simpson used to be a dentist??

We spent a bit of time at the doctor's office in October; Clyde and Jack both had check-ups and Clyde and Will both had strep and all three boys got flu vaccines, wooo!

 I sure don't have Jack's nine month stats in front of me, but he was 19 pounds and some change and absolutely perfect in every way.

Chuck's parents came up for a weekend in October to see the Boise Temple Open House and spent a bit of time with us, which was lovely.

 Some shots of the gang on the shuttle up to the temple; Will and Clyde were totally in their element.

 

 Cute boys with Grandma and Grandpa!

 

 Clyde got lots of bonding time in with Grandpa as they played Stratego and made biscuits on Sunday morning, yumm!

 

Oh, and we were so happy when we saw cousin Victoria at the soccer fields on Saturday! This happened to Chuck and me a few weeks ago so we were hoping for a repeat occurrence. Despite living in the same town, we hadn't seen Victoria and her family since our wedding (eight plus years ago!) so it was fun to catch up and we were excited that Dave and Terri got the same chance :).

 Clyde's school had theme days for Red Ribbon week and we're very anti-drug abuse//pro-looking ridiculous, so this was right up our alley.

Mismatch day, backwards day, crazy hair day, 'blue' day.

Chuck and I usually count our Costco outings as our weekly dates (we go while Will's at preschool so we only have Jack in tow) but during October we managed to fit in two more REAL dates (in addition to our Twin Falls temple date, woo!)

We hadn't played tennis since August, but when we found out our babysitter had a Friday off school, we promptly secured his services for a couple of hours that morning... turns out tennis in October is waaayyy different than tennis in August (haha, thanks Maren!!), brrr!

 But we still had lots of fun, especially since I pulled out the victory after going to deuce pretty much every game.

Our other date was actually to see Jared in his high school play:

 The drama department put on 'The Foreigner', which was hilarious and sooo well-done! Jared (in the plaid shirt as Ellard) did awesome, as did the rest of the cast.

And that's a random smattering (super awkward word, am I right?) of our October!

Halloween 2012: Avengers Assembled

Happy Halloween! [... a couple days ago.] We were dreadfully amiss in our celebrations this year - no pumpkins (painted or carved!), no decorated sugar cookies, etc. It was just kind of a crazy month with soccer and swimming and scouts and school and it never came together. 

BUT we did dress for the occasion!

 The boys loved (as you can tell from their cheery dispositions) sporting their Halloween shirts (yay for hand-me-downs from cousin George!): Will's had glow-in-the-dark spiders, Clyde's said "Ghouls love me, mummies don't" and Jack's was... a jack-o-lantern. Poor kid, haha!

We also coordinated with the holiday as much as possible for church the Sunday before.

 This was quite the milestone in their little 'Huck Finn' lives - both boys wore black pants and black socks and real black church shoes to church instead of crocs or sneakers. We might try it again sometime...

 Me and baby Jack in all of our orange and black glory.

 Our ward trunk-or-treat was on Tuesday night and we went allllllllllll out:

 We (obviously) were the Avengers and I was pretty dang happy with how all of our costumes turned out. 

For those who don't have superhero-obsessed children in their midst and may not have seen the movie, here's a side by side rundown of each of our characters:

 Tony Stark (aka Iron Man without his suit) // Chuck.

 Just in case the goatee and light chest thing didn't give it away, we put this on the back of his shirt:

 I love how this picture caught Jack's mesmerized face as he checks out the light, haha!

 Next up:

 Captain America // Clyde

Bless Target and their $10 costumes for the little boys! The shield was all Chuck though - Grandma Pam donated an old pizza pan and Chuck painted it. It's officially Clyde's most prized possession.

 

 Thor // Will

Again, thanks to Target for the costume and Chuck for the prop - he found that 'hammer of Thor' a few months ago at D.I. and wisely picked it up. And I think Will's recent 'no-haircut' policy lends some legitimacy to his costume as well...

 The Incredible Hulk // Jack

I picked up this little t-shirt at Old Navy a few months ago for a dollar-fifty and put it away for Christmas but I was happy to pull it out early for our little crazy baby!

 I had a long-sleeved green shirt and green pants for him to wear under it, but it ended up being so nice out that we switched to camo shorts instead :). Jack provided the crazed facial expressions and body contortions himself to get into character...

 Aaaand finally:

 Black Widow // Jana

This costume came together pretty easily: I picked up the jacket and pants at Savers and painted some old shoes black and then stole Chuck's shotgun belt. Holly stopped by that afternoon so I put her in charge of spraying my hair red; she did an awesome job! She was also our designated photographer before we left, thanks Holl!

 

 We had a good time at the trunk-or-treat; it was crowded but fun! Here's Jack with Rapunzel (Jaylynn), Clyde with another Captain America (Tanner), Chuck with a suited-up Iron Man (Noah), the cute announcement-making Porters (congrats again!!) and me with a vampire/princess/cheerleader (Meridian).

 And our costumes paid off, because we won (in a pretty legit four-way tie) for Best Group costumes, wooo! This means we've won awards three years in a row, so no pressure there...

 And that was our Halloween!

Our little enigma

Will has kept himself pretty busy lately being alternately really really adorable and so SO challenging. One of the most textbook aspects of his autism is his lack of flexibility - he focuses so intently on what he believes should happen and is completely unable to deal with anything different. Chuck and I are pretty masterful (if I do say so myself) at handling this - we choose our battles, attempt to anticipate problems, use all of the tricks at our disposal (songs, distractions, reasoning, lists, consequences, tickling, etc) but there are still times we look at each other and wonder how we're all going to make it alive :).

 Funny story from a couple of weeks ago (I shared this on facebook, so sorry if it's a repeat): Chuck was speaking in church about becoming goodly parents (here's the General Conference talk he referenced if you're interested). At the beginning of Chuck's talk, Will decided he preferred to wander around the back of the chapel - which was honestly fine with me since I could watch him and listen to Chuck at the same time. The only bummer was that Will decided to tune in to Chuck's words at the exact wrong time. In referencing our current parenting struggles with Will, Chuck said "Will is at that stage where he thinks HE'S in charge" - at which point Will immediately looked at me and happily exclaimed, "I in charge!! Daddy say I in charge!"

 Yeahhh, that pretty much sums up our life of late...

Will is making awesome progress in a lot of areas, though. We signed him up for a playschool at Nampa High in October and he LOVED it. I had emailed the supervising teacher beforehand to make sure Will's autism was something that they would be willing and prepared to work with. I was really impressed with how adeptly they handled his special needs.

 He always came home with cute projects and stories and songs he had learned; the day about camping and outdoor activities was his favorite. Ask him sometime to sing the 'going on a bear hunt' song for you... but only if you have like ten minutes to spare :).

 I had the camera with me when I picked him up on the last day, so I asked him if he wanted a picture with a couple of his teachers - and immediately a whole group of them came over to be in the shot too.

  I loved how excited they were to see him everyday. We were sometimes regularly late, but regardless of when we finally rolled in, three or four of the teachers would come over to greet him and take his sweatshirt and help him get going on the activity.

We totally understand their excitement; Will brings a great deal of joy and sunshine into our home every day. He's bright and hilarious and imaginative.

Another funny story: we were in Winco a few weeks ago and this nice worker had a feather duster tucked in to the back of his apron, which Will noticed and promptly shouted, "Look! He have a tail!!" [Thankfully the nice worker either didn't hear or opted not to react...]

Chuck and I sure love our little enigmatic Willy boy. In his talk that I referred to earlier, Chuck spoke about how parenting requires adaptation for each child, and this is especially true with Will. Sometimes we feel like we have some aspect figured out and then it's clear that we need to change up our game plan mid-play :). And that's when the good Lord helps me come up with yet another funny song or game to distract Will or help him adapt to whatever curveball we've thrown at him (I'm really on a roll with the sports metaphors tonight!) and all is well within his little world again. Which makes everything good in mine as well!

Kitchen drawer mischief

Once upon a time, a little Izatt boy discovered the fun of opening kitchen drawers and emptying them of their contents:

 Clyde // August 2007 // just a few days of his first birthday

 

 Once upon a time, another little Izatt boy discovered the fun of opening kitchen drawers and emptying them of their contents:

 Will // March 2009 // eleven months (and a week)

 Once upon a much more recent time, yet another little Izatt boy discovered the fun of opening kitchen drawers and emptying them of their contents:

Jack // October 2012 // about a week shy of ten months

[here's to hoping the 'five second rule' applies to dishcloths and bibs; I'm behind on laundry as it is, so you can bet that those all went right back in the drawer!!]