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