letter to Dallan, @ halloween

Dallan…..imagine me cracking my knuckles and stretching out as if I am getting ready for a fight.
Well let me see. Many people follow my blog and since I post most of my day to day things on the blog as well as my letter to you to fill in other blanks I am finding my brain drawing a blank. I want to add my blog posts to the letter as well as provide some new insights.
We will go youngest to oldest how about that
William started out as a dragon for Halloween.- Then blew out his shorts and needed a new costume pronto. I had a devil costume waiting in the wings (pun intended) And viola a little devil. Actually he is an angel and is sleep most nights about 7 hours at a time twice this week he put in a 9 hour stretch- after 2 hours of crying of course. He smiles and his dimples melt any old crotchety heart. No rolling or sitting or any other crazy movement. I am okay with that. It is hard to grasp that tomorrow he will be 4 months old! He looks like a monster next to Mckenzie.
Hunter has been the focus of most of my recent blogging. I have been listing the things that he has done in the past little bit that should transfer the title of mass destruction from Stiles to Hunter. Camille has been laughing at the list and when she was here on Thursday told me I need to add -dumped out all my straight pins all over my sewing room- AHHH. He has broken to death Jon’s glasses twice, found the flour bucket, the candy stash, threw oatmeal all over the basement, Got into the kool-aid packets, unloaded files out of the filing cabinet, and unwrapped and shot off an entire box of tampons. Just to name a few of the messes. However he does have a new redeeming quality. He has learned a new word- UH-OH. He is desperately in need of a new word since his last word “MAAAM” usually brought me to the scene of the crime and spankings were issued. Now after I come he can with his darling curls and sparkly eyes say UH-OH and soften the wrath of the “MAAAM”
Erica has been trying to figure out time. And had said some very funny things as she tries to figure out what words like Next month, this weekend, yesterday, tomorrow, and Tuesday all mean. So when Jon in casual conversation with her asked her when she thought it might be fun to try and have a new baby sister (no this is not any type of an announcement of any kind- do not ready anything into this!) She responded “How about Thursday.” Then later she asked when she had preschool I told her on Thursday. She asked when that was . I told her tomorrow. She said “Oh, so it is yesterday!” Then the morning after Halloween She got us and asked us if Halloween was all over. We told her that indeed Halloween was over. Without missing a beat She said “SO…Now it’s CHRISTMAS!”
Marcus’s Teacher asked me to be in charge of their class Halloween party at school. It was really easy. I just made some phone calls and they all showed up and did their thing and all the kids went home with lots of Halloween loot. Marcus was so excited to see me at school and was jazzed to let the other kids know that his Mom had planned the party. - I just passed out juice and rang a bell every 10 minutes so the kids would move to the next game.-real hard. Anyway, He is learning in leaps and bounds. (And Sara is right The letter factory is awesome and even Erica is singing “every letter makes a sound the “N” says “NNNN”) He brought home several Halloween decorations from school and I hung them up on the walls in the kitchen. He was pleased.
Stiles was sick Thursday night (barf is awful) but he got it all in the toilet. Bless that child. (Erica didn’t do so good. She insisted someone else came in and threw up all over her bed and pillow and in her hair.-yeh right -Mom are you remembering the peuck in the Sunday shoes. Yeh I thought you were.) Anyway I made him stay home from school on Friday. HE was devastated that he missed he class Halloween party. He was feeling great by about 2 in the afternoon and made quite the pest out of himself the rest of the day wondering if we were EVER going to leave to go trick-or-treating. We did and they all had a ball. Even Hunter did when he realized that his bucket was getting heavier and heavier and gave up the first piece of candy in pursuit of larger more sticky items. Stiles was ever in pursuit of the Halloween holiday. He cleaned and helped and was almost cheerful in hopes of carving pumpkins and dressing up and eating more cavities into his mouth.
I made pumpkin pie out of the first pumpkin from our volunteer garden. It is a good fruit. I took some of the pies to the trunk or treat and had people track me down to complement me on the pie -Thanks for the lessons mom. Jon and I got the thermostat fixed in our hot tub and now it is HOT WATER. I am loving it. We keep on putting the kids to bed then sneaking out for a dip. The kids are not fooled but we threw them in on Saturday after lunch. And that was fun. Hunter loves to just float while wearing his life jacket. All my other kids would have freaked out!!! I am usually found digging myself out from under a mountain of laundry only to get a breath of fresh air before it is piled on me again. -Again Mom thank you for tackling the mountain every day. I have to tell you one funny thing I did last week. I had Erica’s preschool group over here and the lesson manual called for Playing with shaving cream. So I cleaned off the counter and let the kids have at the piles of foam I kept on spraying out the end of the can. We had foam everywhere, That was fun. It would be a blast at Powell I think, and then it just washes away.
Jon has been asked to coach the YM basketball program in our ward this year. He is excited to work with the youth in our ward. We have such a neat group of young men in our ward. And Young women too. He continues to work with Sis, our horse, and she and Jon are both getting better-at what I am not sure.
Anyway I have gone on long enough now and Jon is calling for my help. We Love you and pray for you. The church is true. This is Christ’s church. The Lord has a plan for each and every one of us. He knows who we are and loves us. We are his children.

Love, Monica and the rest of the Woodins she’s claims’ as her mess.