Will ate a rock!

Dallan May 31 2009
My kids are out of school for the summer. Marcus has officially graduated from Kindergarten. He won an award for making the most progress in his class. Erica is eagerly anticipating her Birthday and fall when school starts and she gets to go to kindergarten. Stiles turns 8 this Friday and will be baptized on Saturday. We are planning a water birthday party on Friday for all those little kids who are his same age in our ward and neighborhood. It should be a total mess and that is the goal! Hunter looks like he was attacked by mosquitoes and the mosquitoes won! I am very tempted to stay home from church today with him because he looks almost like he has the chicken pox and might be contagious. (No neck tie for him, we wouldn’t want to spread anything) J I am pretty sure that William swallowed a rock when we were at the farm this weekend. One minute I could see that he had a rock in his mouth the next Erica said. “Mom, I think Will ate a rock.” and then for the next 10 minutes William fussed and wiggled and beat at his chest, until he produced a loud belch. We are watching to see that it makes it through his little body okay. It doesn’t help anything that he is cutting two teeth right now and has a very sore little nose. We don’t know if he is crying about his tummy, his teeth, or his nose, in any right he is not feeling so hot today.
Jon has made many repairs to our irrigation system and most of out property is getting a drink via sprinkler now. The pump still has an attitude and Jon and I walk around scratching or heads and trying to figure out what went wrong this time. The best was earlier this week when he finally got every sprinkler in the front yards going and going in the right directions after about 5 or 6 hours and was congratulating himself for being “THE MAN” and it all ran for about 4 minutes when the pump did a safety off. So Jon and I messed with it for the next 30 minutes until Jon said. “I quit” and we shut the head gates and went inside and went to bed. We have had better luck since.
Anyway I know this is short and not very entertaining but I think I got your letter last week off too late so there is a good chance you are getting a double dose from the Woodin clan. We love you and pray for you always.

One funny thing Stiles said. “Marcus, I am not getting married now, I’m going to wait until I am in High School. There are a lot more girls in High school than there is in 1st grade.”

Love Monica

MR. & MRS. MARCUS WOODIN!?!

This last week Mindy, Kenadi's Mom, stopped me and told me the funniest story!

So Kenadi and Marcus have this two way crush going on and are always telling Mindy and Me that they are going to get married. Well this last week Mindy noticed that Kenadi had a ring on her finger and that it was really tight and turning her finger purple. So they did a bunch of stuff and finally got the ring off of Kenadi's Finger. Well since Mindy didn't recognize the ring she started asking Kenadi where she got it. and Kenadi told Mindy that Marcus brought it to school and gave it to her and that "they were Married!" Then Kenadi proceded to tell her mom that "Marcus only loves three girls. 'ME' 'ME' and 'ME'."
Mindy and I have been laughing up a storm every since. So today when I went to Marucs's Kindergarten Graduation Mindy made sure to take a picture of MR & MRS Marcus Woodin in thier little graduation caps. Those two are so silly!
I of course am too stupid to remember to take my camera anywhere!

My job description

Dallan, May 25 2009 Memorial Day

So it is past bedtime and no doubt I have missed your chance at a P-Day visit to some money sucking email kiosk. So you will probably get to read this next week.
We are in full swing at the Woodin Nickel. The Water is on. And we realized that we made many mistakes last fall. Most of the pipe on our property is in dire need of repair. The chop shop might be the best bet just to put the poor pipes out of their misery. Jon and I have been using walkie-talkies to coordinate weather or not the pump is running, is their enough water in the ditch, “quick shut it all down !I blew out over here on line #4!” “What do you mean the dam broke!” “What? there is no pressure now? How can that be!” and other such sweet nothings have been yelled back and forth at each other through the wonder of Motorola. We are working out the kinks-we think. It is a good thing that on Sunday we had one heck of a rain storm that soaked everything up real good or we might really be in trouble.
Meanwhile back at the ranch I have taken on many different roles this week aside from being a baby house. They include but are not limited to; gardener, corn hoer, irrigation specialist, goat milker, milk pasteurizing technician, breakfast maker, cold lunch packer, BBQ queen bee, lawn mower operator, weed remover, nose wiper, butt changer, laundry specialist, bed maker, vacuum professional, broom pusher, mopping genius, child disciplinarian, hug giver, band-aid administrator, Mosquito bite rubber, tubby technician, hair stylist, mommy and farm wife. (I think I might have left a few things out-you know I didn’t want to sound like I was bragging) anyway while this list is not exhaustive I must say that I am. But I have reached the point in my pregnancy where I have insomnia. This means that even though I have gone to bed at a reasonable hour and my brain has turned itself off, my body remains awake. And I lay in bed for hours and hours and wish I could kick my dear sweet Jon because he is sleeping and I am NOT! Thank goodness for TYLENOL PM. It helps a lot.
William has decided that he likes to eat. He thinks he should be able to eat anything we are eating. And he does pretty well with his 4 little teeth. He will chomp down things like cheese but then he chokes on mashed potatoes! He has also decided that he can stand up and pulls himself to that position when ever he is afforded the opportunity. He has also decided that the bath is awesome and when ever I am filling up the tub for Hunter (and believe me he NEEDS a bath daily) William will crawl himself into the bathroom and pull himself up next to tub and giggle until I put him in. Since William has decided that he should eat big people food he usually needs a bath every day as well. It is fun to watch my two little boys splash around in the tub.
Stiles and Marcus are on their last week of school and I am surprised that I am ready for them to be home. I need their help, those boys are hard workers when they are pointed in the right direction. I am also ready to be able to go lax on the 8 o’clock bedtime. It is so hard on little kids to send them to bed at 8 when there is like 90 minutes of light left outside. And I am ready to turn my 6 am alarm clock OFF (remember the insomnia thing).
Hunter got bit by a mosquito this week right on the forehead above his eye. The bite was so swollen that Hunter resembled Quasimodo. Well then about the minute it started to go down Hunter tripped and fell on the asphalt right on his forehead and made the bad looking mosquito bite look like child abuse. ( at least that is what we are telling people happened)
Anyway this is long and since you probably won’t get it until next week anyway I had better end it.
The church is true and don’t take any WOODIN NICKELS!

Love the WOODIN NICKELS

everybody, doff your duds!

Dallan May 16 2009

So another week at the Woodin Nickel Ranch is winding down. We did a lot this week. What we did I am not entirely sure but we still did stuff. This weekend we had our Ward campout. And since it was a combined Priesthood Commemorative and Ward Activity, the Elders Quorum was in Charge of Breakfast On Saturday Morning, so that means Jon was in charge. The Campout was at FMC park, just a few miles down the road from where we live so many members of our ward did the option to SLEEP-AT-HOME but a fair amount decided it would be okay to camp. We Chose to pack up the camper and drive it the 4 miles to the park and sleep at the park so as to set a good example, or just so we could say we used the camper once this year. Jon got up early and set to work getting breakfast on. I stayed in bed for a LONG time before I showed my happy face. I do have to say that it was a fun event and nobody acted like they were going to die after eating Jon’s cooking. I really admire Jon’s ability to get people to do things for him. He had so many guys helping him do all sorts of stuff. I guess it is because he never gives anybody the option of saying “ No” to him. (Maybe that is why I got stuck with him and I am pregnant with our 6th KID!) But really it is such a talent that he has, and I don’t think he even realizes he has it. He always just kind of looks at me when He tells our kids to do something once and they go and do it, and I have asked the kids 4 thousand different times to go do the exact same thing, and they just ignore me!
Hunter was sick this week. Well just on Thursday. He woke up crying, which is very unusual, and then he only wanted me to hold him and cuddle with him which I did do for about 15 minutes. He turned up his nose at breakfast, and then had fallen asleep on the floor by 8:00. So I put him in my bed and he did not move from my bed until about 7 that evening. And he only got out of bed then because I had suggested a bath and then when he didn’t want me to get him out of bed I left him in bed and went to take care of other things and then he thought about it and decided a tubby would be just the thing and came and got me and asked for the prescribed treatment. He fevered all day and into the night until about 1:00 in the morning and then his fever broke and he was fine the rest of the night and up and a ‘em on Friday. I spent a horrible night though because I was so worried about him I was up almost every hour to check on him. Being a mommy means an incredible lack of beauty sleep. We only get desperation sleep, which translated means that “Mommy has to have some sleep NOW or somebody is going to end up in an institution“, (I,e,) Jail, the nut house, the hospital, time out, something like that!
The plants in the green house keep growing, It is warming up outside, but I will not be fooled into planting any of my plants outside until it really is a true Idaho Summer. We do have a good stand of Peas and are starting to see some corn. The Carrots and Radishes are in the dirt and getting watered. The Goats keep on giving us milk and my kids are getting more and more used to the idea that it is Okay to drink. Marcus is still pretty sure that the milk will make him turn inside out, But Erica is being won over. Stiles loves to drink it, and Who knows what Hunter thinks, He still refuses to say any intelligible words to us.
I am of course way behind on my laundry and the house work is not as perfect as it should be but I have been busy smearing texture mud on the walls in my kitchen. I ran across the idea that you could apply texture with a sponge instead of with a big spray gun or roller and I thought I would try It and I have been impressed that I am not making a huge mess with getting extra mud all over my kitchen and the sponged look I am getting on the wall is pretty cool. I am only doing it in small sections though because it does make my arm pretty tired. Who knows when I will really get done and be ready to paint. I am nervous that by the time I get ready to paint that the color I have chosen will be outdated and no longer available!
I think it is funny that you are not allowed to wear your neck ties. And I find it even more funny that even when you were told to take them off you thought it was a joke and wore them for quite a bit longer. I mean if the Government decided that Panty hose was a spreading the swine flu and the sisters were told to take them off… Well… I’ll bet they were not told three times to “doff their duds!”
The church is true, Pres. Monson is our prophet, Christ is our Savior.
Love you, Monica and my mess.
Oh and Grandpa, I am excited that you have water, I am anxiously waiting for the day when I get water.

It's my birthday and I'll brag if I want to!

Dallan, May 10th 2009

Hey Happy Mothers day! Today is my birthday and if anybody asks I’m 16 years old today so now I can finally date! I figured that Mom was 29 for a decade, Grandpa Wall still claims 17, I can be 16 until the day that I die!
Now for some real bragging. Last week was Fast and Testimony meeting. The month before Marcus realized a little girl named Kenadi,who has a major crush on Marcus, got up to bear her testimony. Marcus immediately asked if He could do that if Kenadi could do that. So all last month he tried to get the courage to bear his testimony, but wasn’t quite ready. So all month long Marcus and Stiles and Erica have been practicing their testimonies in FHE and on Sunday’s. So last week was the time to shine. Stiles got up right away and bore his testimony for the first time, I was quite excited to see him do such a great job and have such a great testimony especially since he will be baptized next month. Marcus had to build up his courage but he did get his nerve up and bore his testimony. He did a very good job as well. Erica really wanted to bear hers but was quite scared, she made it halfway up the isle 2 times only to turn around and come back because someone else was quicker. Stiles said he would go up with her and so together they made it up to the stand. Erica took my little seminary scriptures with her and opened them up on the podium and started thumbing through them. When she ripped out a page from my scriptures I figured I needed to intervene. So I hiked myself up to the stand about the Moment when Stiles had prompted her enough to start her testimony. She testified of Jesus and that she loves her family and is thankful for her Animals. At home she had been practicing to tell about all of the chickens and goats and their names and so forth. Stiles had told that it wasn’t something you said in your testimony and she shortened it for the actual telling. All in all I was very proud of my three oldest children and their testimonies of our Savior and their desire to share their testimonies.
Another thing to brag about is my son Stiles. I already bragged about him winning with his reflections project at the school and for the region and for receiving an award of Merit at the state level. This week we had an awards ceremony for our region and they awarded the awards. Stiles thought it was awesome to win a real trophy. And they gave him a disposable camera. He and Marcus are already working on next years project. At the ceremony the kids projects were on display and we were able to see what the other kids who won has turned in. There are some very talented kids in our region. The Lady from the state said that our region took home the second highest amount of winners just behind the Boise area, and they have about double the amount of students! One of the little girls who turned in a Dance project went all the way to Win the National award! It was good to have a evening to celebrate these talented kids.
This week I bought some strawberry plants to add the strawberry patch that is already established, but my kids kind of tore up with their desire to play in that exact area last fall. Well the small job became a big job since I decided to transplant the plants that were growing through the rock landscaping wall, and in order to do that I removed all of the rocks, dug up the plants moved the plants, cleared out the other weeds growing among the rocks and them put the rocks back. Now the rock curb looked awesome for that 10 feet and the reaming 40-50 feet looked like crap with all of its yellow dandelions sticking out from between the rocks. So I employed my kids to start pulling up the rocks which they did a good job of then we hoed out all of the offending weeds and put the rocks back. Viola the curb looks awesome and I have big plans with a good round up treatment on a monthly basis in that general area so as to not have this aching pain in my back again anytime soon. I also hope to have a strawberry pie, or at least a tart later this year.
William is quite the cruiser and can move from room to room with a fair amount of speed. He is not aggressive though and usually is content to be in a room where somebody else is. He did manage to fall down the stairs once this week, Erica hauled him back up the stairs and administered the TLC. I also caught him standing up in his crib this week. I keep telling him to quit it and get back down but he just flashes his dimples and giggles at me with his 4 little teeth and continues to learn and develop like he should despite his genetics.
Hunter continues to be a stubborn child- don’t know where that came from- This week I pulled out a package of fruit snacks and told him if he said “snack” or ‘please” he could have the fruit snacks. Well after 15-20 minutes of pleading with him to say something besides a point and a grunt, I was the bad parent and just gave him the snack. Not 30 minutes later he was mimicking me Saying “Mom” and “NO” and then I said “snack” and guess what he said ---”SNACK”!!! Little stubborn monster!
We have been playing Vet with one of our baby Goats who has Pneumonia. Erica has been quite the little nurse and has been taken very good care of him. She love to feed him his milk and Usually Erica and Hunter head out to the barn together and feed him his bottle. She drags that poor little goat around and loves him all day long. It is going to break her heart when we sell him.
Well anyway this letter is pretty boring and I doing have anymore great stories to tell you. Plus for some reason even though it is my birthday and Mothers day I still have to get everyone ready for Church and the meals on the table. ( Love you mom for doing that for years and still putting up with Dad) I guess I’ve learned that if you expect nothing you won’t be disappointed. I do have to admit that Jon is not in the dog house this year. He let me buy some “new to us” furniture for the basement. It is a big sectional couch that looks awesome and is very comfy. Jon has already dubbed the one chair his and yet it is supposedly mine. Maybe he will let me sit in it for a minute today. -Wait I don’t have time to sit down!
Love you all!

Monica and Woodin crew

Princess's and Cowboys

At lunch yesterday Erica told me that she didn't like her food, but because Princess's eat their food, if they like it or not, she would be a princess, and eat it. Lunch by the way was peanut butter sandwiches, a dill pickle, and some Chips, all of which Erica likes to eat. Then Erica proceeds to tell me all about princess's and how they are beautiful, and do the right thing, and that she is a princess and then she said "But boys are NOT princess's!" I waited as she took a great big breath and told me that "Boys are cowboys. And they are handsome and cool!"
So to all you boys out there, you can not be princess's but you can be handsome, cool, cowboys!

dosn't make sense

does a stay fresh zip-pack on a bag of crutons make any sense?

June is Busting out all over!!!

Dallan, It is May! You are probably getting all geared up to celebrate cinco de Mayo. No wait I’ll bet you aren’t since the country isn’t allowed to congregate together because of the danger of spreading the swine flu. So I think we will have tacos and some chips and salsa and maybe even a breakfast burrito to celebrate for you!
This week is like most other ones. Full of a bunch of stuff that I can’t hardly remember. Our goat had her kids on Monday morning, unfortunately we missed the birth and the second baby goat died. The first one, a boy, is doing great and our goat, Chocolate, is being a great mother and making a bunch of milk. She makes about 2 times the amount of milk as the other goat does. I’ve been busy in the green house and planted a bunch of flowers so that all my barrels might have something to plant into them when it does finally get warmed up. The peas we planted two weeks ago started popping through on Friday afternoon. My kids were very jazzed. I bought them each there own hoe. And sent them to hacking at weeds around the edges of the garden. They are pretty efficient little workers. We will see how excited they are by the end of June. Speaking of June every spring when the flowers and blossoms start busting out all over I always sing in my head “June is busting out all over” And I’ll tell you what I have sung that song in my head and out loud so many times this week. There are beautiful daffodils in most parts of the yards and the tulips are starting to show their true colors. We had some great rain here on Saturday and in the middle of the week. It makes watering the garden a bit easier when you know everything is evenly watered. It had been fun turning on the rain in the green house. My kids all think it is the best thing! Imagine going into a 90 degree house and then someone turns on the sprinklers inside! It is like the fourth of July inside a house! I have had to chase Stiles out of the green house in the mornings and tell him to go get on the bus less I make him walk to school.
Jon has been busy working with MAC our 3 year old horse. Jon is working on breaking him. As part of the deal he needed to buy a horse trailer to move Mac to our friends house to use their round corral. He has been shopping for one for a long time and found one in Oakley. It was built about 1985 by the Minico Ag class. And it is a Solid trailer if some of the welds are not the most beautiful. It is a bit beat up but for being almost 25 years old it is in great shape. I think it is fun that I get to own a project done by Minico about the time I started school at Paul Elem. I wonder if anybody I know worked on this trailer? I am not sure who would have been in high school when I was 6. Anyway, cool huh.
My kids are kids. Playing in the dirt and picking dandelions to give to me. School is winding down and my boys are ready to be done for the year, but they tell me that they will miss their friends. Stiles is very disappointed that one of his best friends is moving this summer to Utah and he won’t see him again. I am sad too. I really liked the kid. He was Stiles friend in Kindergarten, and his grandparents were our over the fence neighbors when we lived in town. Stiles and he were very good friends. Or at lest he was friendly to Stiles.
I am trying to keep my house clean. But a large amount of dirt and horse poop is always getting tracked in. We keep cleaning it up though. It is not going to go away, and nobody else is volunteering to clean it up!
This Saturday was Savannahs Baptism. We tried really hard to make it work but we ended up not going. Jon’s cousin got married on Saturday as well and since they are in our ward and she married a kid, or I guess a young man from our ward, we felt very obligated to stay in Pocatello and celebrate with them. The sealing was very wonderful, as they always are. Their Sealer was our Stake president’s father and he knew most of the people in the sealing room. It was neat to hear the teachings of the temple in such a familiar atmosphere of friends and family. He told a story about how he was in a meeting with Elder Oaks and Elder Oaks opened up the meeting to questions and a brother in the back stood up and said. “I am a Seminary teacher and my students wanted me to ask you, if I got the chance , how did you get to where you are today?” Well Elder Oaks stepped back from the pulpit and told them that it was because of his Mother. He told them that when She felt like she needed something and she felt like she had done everything she could do she would go to the Lord in prayer and tell him that “He owed her one.” So then Elder Oaks gave a few Examples of him witnessing this of his Mother and then told them he Guessed his Mom had prayed him there. The point of the story was to teach us the promise the Lord gives us of if ye do what the Lord asks, HE is bound, but if ye do not ye have no promise. So Brother Loveland, The sealer, taught us that he has ever since tried to Bind the Lord but hasn’t had the guts to tell the Lord that “He owed him one.” Then he taught us that if we want all the blessings we are promised in the temple we can have them we just have to bind the Lord to them.
Anyway I want to let you know that I know the Church is true. That Christ is our Savior and President Monson is our prophet today to lead and guide this church. Work hard. We will too. Love the Woodins