another chapter for my book

Another chapter in my “book” that I need to write someday.

Since I am down on not total bed rest but with orders to what I need to do to keep my contractions to a maximum of 5 per hour that means sitting around and acting like I am sick and in pain and should not leave my bed for longer than 10-15 minutes at a time. I should not pickup my kids-yeah right William is only 12months old nor should I try to pick up the messes on the floor left by my 5 all under the age of 8 children. I truly am doing my best to restrict myself to only lifting William when diapers need to be changed, in and out of the tub, crib, and on and off the bed/couch. I am cautiously doing the laundry, doing dishes and only sweeping the floor when absolutely necessary which amounts to about 3 times a day. I’ve given up any dreams of running a vacuum cleaner or pushing around a mop. I do “flylady” my bed and make it in the morning so that when helpful people come to help me they can see me sitting on my made bed instead of a ruffled one. A sister in my ward called and chewed my out for milking the goats yesterday morning and insisted that if Jon wasn’t around to do the job that her teenage son was capable of doing the job. (Jon has since let his Dad in on the fact that I am trying to stay pregnant and asked for his help with the morning milking).
The first Day that my Mom is gone I of coursed milked the Goats. Stiles and Marcus did help. Then After breakfast and orders to my children to make their beds I decided that Erica, Hunter, and William could all really use a bath. After throwing them all through the tub and getting fresh diapers and clean clothes and the right hair pretty’s in the right way I turned myself over to the computer for some mind numbing or stimulating games of solitaire to keep me from trying to do more work. My kids disappeared out the door and I was okay with that- or so I thought. After about 20 minutes I hear Hunter screaming bloody murder and I went to see what was wrong. My kids have turned on the water and did what is the funniest thing to do with running water in an out door environment and made a nice mud puddle then proceeded to throw mud at each other until they were quite caked in mud. I knew I did not want the mud monsters tracking through my house in their present state so I got out the little pool and the hose and instructed them to get themselves cleaned up. It of course tuned into another game and since they were not wreaking the inside of my house I sat in a chair outside and let themselves hose each other off until I deemed it okay for them to drag their wet but not muddy selves inside to dryer clothes. Then they went out again in clean dry clothes and tried play in the water and mud again! They were immediately grounded from going out of the house. I was told that I was so mean and unfair. I was sitting there thinking I was an awesome Mom for not pulling out a switch and beating the mud off of their bodies, I let them run through the sprinklers to remedy their mess.

SO THEN! This morning rolled around…I am exhausted. My insomnia is worse than ever and the contractions wake me up all through the night. I am often throwing little tantrums at 3 am over the lack of sleep I am getting and wishing I could kick my sweet snoring Jon and somehow that would make me be able to sleep. Anyway so I can hear my kids up and running around. I roll over and try to get just a few more minutes of sleep because a tired mommy is a really mean Mommy. After about half an hour I decided that I really am not getting sleep anymore and should go get on with my day.
Well I knew that this type of activity would happen in my house- Hey I have three stairwells and 4 boys if I thought It wouldn’t happen I would be living in a fantasy world. My dear sweat adorable children had thrown every pillow, blanket, stuffed animal, and all of Marcus clothes, clean ones and dirty ones I might ad, into a big pile at the bottom of TWO DIFFERENT flights of stairs and then were sliding down the stairs on pieces of wood and crashing into the pile.
I did not yell, I did not spank, I did not even swear- well not too bad anyway. But in the end those kids picked up all of the mess and I sat in chair and ate all of the left over desert from last night in front of their faces while they were doing it, telling them it was just too bad for them that they made a big mess and now could not have another treat.

The joys of mother hood!

I really am okay, I just wish my kids would get the picture that I can’t clean up anything more that the dishes right now and could they just quit making other messes for the next 10 days! PLEASE!
They are going to play at a friends house this afternoon, so I can take a nap!
Monica

it is not labor day today

I am okay,

A few of you know that On Saturday I was having major contractions and felt like I was starting to dilate. I have since been taking medication to stop my contractions and it seems to be doing it’s job. I can’t do all of the things a mommy of 5 kids should get to every day or else I start having contractions again. Mom has come to help me and get the house somewhat under control. I saw the doctor on Monday morning and he said my cervix was getting soft but I was only dilated to a 1. As long as I keep taking my medicine and keep my contractions to a maximum of 5 every hour we should be able to keep me pregnant for the next two weeks after that all bets are off and perhaps labor day will come early this year for me. So now you know.

Monica

LIVING RIGHT

LIVING RIGHT

So I was Outside doing yard work, Actually I was trying to figure out the confounding water issues we have…but that in and of itself is a very different story. Anyway I was outside and I looked down and saw a very dirty and rusty looking key. I took two steps past it and then decided that even though It was on the ground and a pregnant woman bending over and picking anything off of the ground is not only really funny to watch but usually causes pain and discomfort to the pregnant woman. I decided that I had better pick up the key seeing how the entire everything we have has locks on it and the keys often are no where to be found when needed and who knows what this key may or may not go to. So after bending myself over and with a few grunts and huffs and puffs I retrieved the key from the ground and deposited it into my pocket. I went the rest of the day and didn’t give the key in my pocket a second thought.

At the end of the day I was very much in need of a shower- Big pregnant lady + hot day in the yard= smelly person. So I stripped myself down to my birthday suit and was heading into my bathroom when My dear sweet Husband opened the door to abandon the bathroom and the smell that was wafting with him was enough to make a skunk scurry away holding his breath. I quickly reached into the toxic Zone turned on the Fan and shut the door tight. I then declared despite my nakedness that I would wait 5 minutes to take a shower because I was fearful that if I stepped into my bathroom I might leave the bathroom smelling worse than when I went in. Jon just kind of giggled, and sang a little jingle about making a “poopy” and crawled into bed and started reading his book. (yes he can read, shocking but that is not the point of this story) So I waited around until I had decided that the fan had perhaps detoxified the bathroom and when to open the door.

IT WAS LOCKED!

JON LAUGHED!

I threw a bathrobe around my large pregnant smelly self and went to find the box that holds a collection of at least 5 dozen keys. When I returned to my bathroom door I proceeded to try every one of those keys and guess what. Not one key worked!

JON LAUGHED! AGAIN!

Now I know I could go and shower in a different bathroom in my house but With my increasing waistline I have also found that I need to get up in the middle of the night and be friendly with my toilet and increasing number of times in the middle of the night. And as Jon was sitting in our bed giggling to himself And I KNOW it was NOT about the book he was reading, I yelled some sort of guilt trip ridden words about how he can get up and help me figure out how to open the door.

Then I thought about the rusty dirty key that I had put in my pants pockets early that morning and decided that since I had tried every other key I could get my hands on I should at least give this one a try. So I dug it out of my pants and took it to the door and just as Jon was getting up to do “something” (don’t ask me what he was going to try- I don’t think anybody knows) I put the key in the hole and unlocked the door!

Jon was so relieved to go back to reading his book and when I told him that I picked up this rusty old key outside this morning, He said “ Well you must be living right!”

Weather I am living right or not I thought it was one heck of a story.

Monica

stuff to sell

Dear Family,

In an effort to help My tenants be able to afford to move I have purchased from them basically all of their furniture. I really do not need most of the items I purchased from my tenants. But I bought the items with the idea that I could resale them on Craigslist or perhaps sale some items to family members. You do not need to feel like you need to purchase these items from me but I thought I would offer them to family first and sale them to you for what I paid for them. Here is the list

27” television -$50.00
Computer desk $100.00
Entertainment center $50.00
2 tall black bookcases $30.00
New Lawnmower $150.00
Electrical hedge trimmers $25.00
A Bunch of yarn in lots of different colors $ 25.00 I was thinking of Becky when I bought this item
13” inch television $20.00
Hide a bed couch $35.00
Swimming pool with ladder filter and chemicals (quick set by Intex) $100.00
2 Filing cabinets one is black ,one is wood finish $10.00 a piece
Iron/ ironing board set $10.00
Small bookshelf brown $10.00
Weedeater $15.00


Some of the items we might decided to keep like the TV’s but I will need to talk to Jon more in depth about what we will keep and sell.

Call me if you are interested I will be posting most of these items on Craigslist soon.

Love Monica

HOT HOT HOT

Dallan July 19 2009 HOT HOT HOT!

Well this week started out like any other week. The first thing Stiles did on Monday morning was get in a fight with the recliner and the recliner hit back and broke one of his permanent teeth. The Dentist was kind enough to see me right away and filled in his tooth and demanded a wad of cash in return. And the week just got more and more fun.
We spent a good portion of the beginning of the week in preparation for the family camping trip. It is a good thing the camper was still basically packed from our 4th of july trip else I don’t think I would have survived the preparatory measures that need to be taken for such an outing. Just when food, Clothes, extra pillows for me, and the wading pool were all on board we were ready for the hottest camping trip of our lives. Massacre Rocks is probably a neat place to camp in June or September but in Mid July it should be listed as cruel and unusual punishment. The wading pool, and river did help to make little kids not so fussy and a trip over to Indian springs pool was awesome. The freezer in the camper stocked with otter pops helped to soothe. But nothing could make us want to soak up anymore rays than necessary. We were hiding under every bit of shade we could find and the air conditioned campers were frequented by most. Jon was reading a book and hardly left our climate controlled unit except to fish with Stiles in the early morning or in the later evening. My Kids did all deem the trip as “fun” and wanted to know when we could go camping again.
I racked my brains yesterday, and believe me there are not many brain cells to rack of late, as I was trying to mentally list a few humorous things to share with you. And I got to admit that for the most part I came up with nothing! Either things are not funny when the temperatures in Idaho turn this HOT. OR my pregnant self does not find things funny of late. Or more than likely I just can’t remember anything anymore.
Camille did write and sing a very funny song about our family and we got to hear it at the family campout. She had better send out the words to everybody. Believe me the verse about you had us all laughing and the one about me could not hardly be more true!

The Church is true and we pray for you always. The Kids are always asking when you will come home. They are sure you have been gone for long enough by now. We are just waiting until it is the coldest month in Idaho before we snatch you back from a nice warm climate so as to adequately shock your system back into the real world with the rest of us.

Love Monica, The baby making factory! And the rest of the WOODIN NICKELS

Cherry Pickin' Fools

Dallan, July 12 2009 The heat has struck and My over sized body has complained bitterly. I got dehydrated this last weekend, and my body started having contraction and pains, “and trembling and flutterings all over. You don’t know how I suffer with my poor nerves and all“. Anyway the Doctor ordered some tests and the test came back that I was still in the clear to not try and deliver way ahead of schedule for which we are grateful. And I have been kicking my feet up much more often and having great big glasses of ice. My over active baby house has since calmed down and I am not able to stay down with my feet kicked up for very long. My family still thinks that 3 meals a day should magically happen. Nobody else thinks that it is their responsibility to change any sort of smelly diaper. And the laundry doesn’t do itself you know. Not to mention the need to milk goats and hoe the weeds in the gardens, mow the yards and get the water on the pastures.
So even though I am “taking it easy” I realized that on Wednesday night that the Cherries were on, and the immediate need to pick cherries was before me. The birds like to pick cherries and do not share well with their neighbors as Jon and I learned last year. So I woke up early on Thursday morning and With the help of my kids and a couple ladders we went to work. Jon’s Mom and Sister, Julie, came later in the day and picked a bunch, and my tenants, the Millers, picked for a while with us as well. I gave each of them an ice cream bucket full of cherries and then I headed in out of the heat and started the real work of canning them. Jon’s Mom found some Cherry pitters at a store and bought them and brought them over and we spent a long time cleaning the cherries, and pitting them, and then putting them in bottles and all that is associated with canning. I have 16 quart jars now filled with cherries. I made a pie with some of the cherries and Jon said “It was the best cherry pie he had ever had, even if it was full of pits.” (the kids had ‘helped’ pit those cherries and were not very thorough ) That says a lot coming from my husband who never likes pie and never compliments a pie. I made some juice with some of the cherries with my new juicer and decided that I would not try that again. The cherries are too sour to make into juice. IT takes A LOT of sugar to make it taste yummy.
I forgot to tell you a story about our last camping trip. Erica and Hunter and I were on a 4 wheeler ride and about halfway through the ride I told Erica to watch for deer and elk and other animals. Well a minute later she says “MOM! Look! A Horse!” I knew we were camping in an area where people bring their horses for a ride and I turned to look fully expecting to see a horse and instead it was a doe! Hunter was super excited and we chased after the doe for a while. So next time we go looking for wildlife I am going to tell my kids to look out for horses as well.
To the delight of my kids and my husband Today is and EGGcellent day. After months of taking care of chickens the chickens have laid 2 eggs today. The first eggs on our Woodin Nickel ranch. If I had any idea that finding eggs in the chicken coop would have brought such glee to my family I would have planted a bunch of Easter Eggs out there just for the kicks and giggles of it.
William has joined the ranks of “relocation engineer.” All of my kids are part of this society. And Will does not want to be left out. He is not as avid of a relocation engineer as my niece JET was but he is starting to move things around. He is also not shy about eating anything off of the Kitchen floor. I am going to great lengths to try to keep food up off of the floor but William and Hunter are both equally good at throwing most of their meal under the table so as to have access to it at a later time.
Erica continues to claim Jon as her Favorite Parent and Dubs him as “cool” and told her Grandma Woodin that She would be friends with her “ONLY on her Birthday” so as to obtain a gift from Grandma. That girl is definitely trying to work the system but hasn’t figured out ALL the angles yet.
Marcus is growing like a weed. If Stiles wasn’t as well I would almost swear that Marcus would pass him up any day. In the mean time Marcus is this tall skinny kid with no meat on him what so ever. And I can’t keep that boy inside for nothing. His skin is turning browner by the day and his hair continues to sun bleach. His eyes are still as big as ever but I think one day he might actually grow into them.
Hunter continues to look like a battle field. The mosquito bites are still all over despite dressing him in long-sleeved shirts and pants. At church today I was asked by at least 4 different people if he is getting over the chicken pox. I tell them they are just mosquito bites and they give me this look like “you bad mother, don’t you know how to protect your kid from that” and I tell them he gets outside when I don’t realize it and gets eaten. And most of the time he does get covered in DEET but it only takes about 10 minutes with out it and he is MR Acne face again. I do have to tell you about him falling asleep when we were camping though. I realized that I had not seen Hunter for about the last 10 minutes and so I started looking for him. I got up and walked around and checked all of the places he had been playing and was just not seeing him. About the moment I decided that I should perhaps enlist the help of the other campers in my search for Hunter one of the older kids who was walking through the meadow calls out. “HEY there is a kid asleep here, with his face in the mud!” I was so relieved and felt so blessed because the meadow is a pretty big area and the grass would average about knee high on an adult. We could have walked right by him looking for him a ton of times and never found him because the grass was so tall. And sure enough his face was down in the mud. So I scooped him up and took him back to the camper and tucked him in for a much needed NAP!
Stiles deserves a huge KUDOS for all the hard work he did this week to help me. HE picked and picked and picked Cherries and then he cleaned them and pitted them endlessly and even complained when I sent him out to help his grandpa milk the goats. Declaring that he got to pit Cherries when he came back in. I assured him that the job would be there waiting for him when he returned. He worked non-stop for two days helping me with the fruit. He is such a big help when he decides to be. When he thinks the job is dumb though… Well lets just say there is much crying and gnashing of teeth.

We love you and pray for you always. It is easy to become discouraged. That is what Satan wants. But there are so many things to be encouraged by, that is hard to stay discouraged for long. Look for those good things, they are there even if sometimes they are hard to see. I am still planning Hunter’s birthday party and a welcome home party for you in February. My Kids are determined to see you on the 10th.

Love Monica and The Cherry Pickin’ fools at the Woodin Nickel!

Erica said...

While we were camping this last weekend Erica and I went for a little 4 wheeler ride with Hunter. (I was the driver, not Hunter, in case you are confused) As we were about halfway through our ride, I told Erica to watch for Deer and Elk and other animals. A minute later she said "Look Mom, A HORSE!" Knowing that people take their horses with them on camping trips, I looked, fully expecting to see a Horse. It was not a horse but a DOE! (you know a female deer, not a wad of cash, or something that you bake and it becomes bread) So we watched it for a while and Hunter was so Excited. So next time we go I am going to tell my kids to look for Horses as well.

camping in the rain

Dallan July 7, 2009 It is Tuesdy. Again. And I am over due, again with my letter to my favorite brother who is on a mission. This last week was of course full of stuff I can not remember but I will fill you in a bit on our 4th of July camping experience. We packed up and left for the mountains north of Mackay ID on Thursday morning. We might not have done any type of camping trip but Jon’s Hunting buddies called him up and said “come up and crash our family reunion and we will do some scouting for elk“. Jon of course was eager to oblige and so off we went. We did the normal camping thing. Hunter fell in the creek and I barley caught him as he was falling into the fire, His hair and eyebrows and eyelashes all got quite singed! We took up the kids bikes and they rode and rode and rode. Our friends had their kid’s 4 wheelers and motorbikes and Stiles and Marcus were in heaven when they were granted a turn to ride the bikes around the track. One afternoon when most of the kids were not at camp I even let Stiles drive my big 4 wheeler around the track. He was doing great until he started watching Marcus who was stuck in the mud and then Stiles ran into two parked motorcycles, and knocked them over. It was a big lesson for him about always always always watch where you are going, Luckily no body was hurt and the bikes were fine. I took a birthday cake for William and it got eaten all up despite many other yummy treats floating around. And William is now officially 1 years old! We had plans to leave Camp on Saturday in the middle of the day so as to be home and celebrate the 4th of july in Pocatello but Mother nature decided to Veto our plans and sent hail, and rain ,and rain, and hail until the road was a very treacherous muddy mess. We took a look at it on the 4 wheelers and decided that the 4-wheel drive trucks could probably maneuver it okay but to try to haul our heavy 5th wheel trailer down the steep slicker than snot mountain road was probably not a smart move. So we decided to camp another day and wait for the road to dry out. Instead we packed up in the truck and drove down to Mackay for their firework show, and we did some fishing at the fishing pond below the fish hatchery in Mackay. Erica is quite the little fisher girl she casts her line better than Jon and has a ton of patience. The firework show in Mackay was awesome. They do it over the reservoir and the big tall mountains on either side of the valley echo the boom of the fireworks like three times. It was loud! And spectacular! The show would not have happened if our group had not come down to see it. A part of the show, (an electrical part I think) that makes the show run, had busted and they didn’t have the part they needed to fix it. But in one of the trucks we managed to have the needed part, and the show was only delayed by 15 minutes. So we went back to camp after the firework show, and slept in late. Since it was now Sunday we decided that to try to keep the day holy we didn’t allow the kids to ride their bikes or the motor bikes - they did not think that was cool. And we opted to stay one more night so that we would not be traveling on Sunday and came home Monday morning. -Hence I have neglected to write until Tuesday. So that was our week end in a nut shell
Now for something to make you laugh. Stiles had a lesson about always watching where you are going when driving something. Well Now you may laugh at me for needing the exact same lesson. In preparation to leave I needed to move my Van out of the way so that we could pack the trucks and the camper. And so I was backing my van out of the drive, and had not really thought it all the way through as to where I was going to park it so that it would be “Out of the way.” And I was watching Hunter, who was very distraught that I was in the Van apparently going somewhere and he was not in on the ride and was chasing me as I was backing up. And well long story short, I was not watching where I was going and Side swiped the post in the drive way by the flag pole. Yep took the resale value of our van from almost nothing to the negative values. The passenger door just does not look pretty anymore at all, but still functions fine. So when you are driving something, don’t watch other people and what they are doing, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS watch where you are going.
Keep up the good work. We pray for you always and hope that you are well. You are lucky that you have a vague idea of when it will rain next on you. We just have no clue what the weather will do here. But like DAD said the crops are growing and we are eating big yummy sweet peas out of the garden and Erica and Hunter can get lost inside the corn patch now. So the Lord is blessing us even though the weather just seems like the craziest thing we have ever seen.

Love you tons, Hope you have a Happy birthday on Wednesday. We will eat something yummy and think about you.

Love Monica and the rest of the dripping wet camping hoodlums.