Cock roaches and Bob

This last week was much like the last one. COLD Not much sunshine and Lots of wind. However I had a big handful of daffodils bloom and my daughter made sure that it was indeed a handful and went out and picked everyone of them on Friday and brought them to me. They are lovely on my table.
My Kid goats continue to grow and follow me around. They really are a lot cooler than a dog. They don’t bark. They call me “MAAA” and they eat all the weeds and grass. And they don’t make great big landmines like dogs do for you to step in and then track all over your house. Instead they are carefully spreading little fertilizer balls all around. Oh and you get milk from them. A Dog just barks and drools. Speaking of pets. We do have a Kitty cat. His name is BOB and he wears a pink collar with a bell. Bob is allowed indoors but also Loves to be outside. This story is not about BOB. What then? Well in the furnace room is Bob’s Kitty litter box and of course with my little boys Bob’s toilet looks like a fun sandbox to play in, complete with Lincoln logs. Just like the regular toilet looks like a little pool to play in. Well My little boys had made quite a mess in the furnace room “playing in the sand.” And one day this week I spent some time ( a lot of time actually) cleaning up that room and all of the mess that had been thrown into every nook and cranny of my furnace room. And I was feeling very much the Martyr on this day, My house was a disaster in every room and nobody seemed to be able to help me clean up. Well you can guess what happened about an hour later when I went back to my furnace room to retrieve my dust pan and broom, because I was now cleaning another room in my house, (Imagine that) and I found that the Kitty litter had been played in again and was thrown all over the room again. (I’m sure that Wyatt is my mess maker in this account). Well feeling very over whelmed and like nothing I ever did or do matters I kinda starting having a tantrum. Okay I admit I had a huge 2 year old screaming my head off crying and Kicking and throwing things around temper tantrum. I am sure that one or two or maybe even 10 profanities escaped my lips and I did manage to break my dust pan in the middle of my slamming things around. Well no one dared let me out of the time out I put myself in so as to re-clean up the room that I had previously cleaned. But when I finally did emerged seething and tearstained everyone else scattered like cock roaches when the lights are turned on, and they were busily pretending to clean up different areas of the house. I found out later that Jon caught Marcus outside of the furnace room listening in and laughing his head off. So for all of you Mom’s who have to put yourself in time out every once in a while…Just know that I put myself in time out three times that afternoon. I often think that Time out is not a punishment for little children it is an institution for Mommies so that little children will survive the wrath of their overworked never paid Moms. - Go ahead and laugh. Marcus needs someone to laugh with him.
This weekend we loaded up Stiles and Marcus and some of our siding and window displays and Headed out to the Portnuf Environment and Energy Fair. (we left the youngest 4 kids at home with my cousin Lisa) Yes it was an Earth day Tree hugger event. We don’t hug trees and our products are made from oil but we got in under the guise of Energy efficient Windows and Insulated Siding. (actually our favorite things to sell, they make us the most money) We turned one display into a fish pond for the little kids and Stiles and Marcus took turns sitting behind the little house and clipped prizes onto the fishing lines. They worked hard and were little troopers. We gave away a lot of business cards and talked to a lot of people about how to save on energy costs. Over all we had a lot of fun and I think we might try and do it again next year since there was no cost for us to be part of the free community fair and we are fooling the masses that we care.
After the Fair we went home and were soon joined by Jon’s family for an Easter Egg hunt and Hamburgers and hot dogs on the BBQ. It was much fun to watch the kids hunt for the Eggs Wyatt was even aware of the whole concept and picked up eggs and dropped them into his bucket. I got quite the work out running around trying to take pictures of each of my six kids as they were finding eggs. They are sure that this was the best Egg hunt ever and I’m and grateful that the weather was awesome and all of the kids energy was mostly spend OUTSIDE. It makes me appreciate how crazy my own parents and Aunts and Uncles must have felt when we would all descend on Grandma Woodlands house and the weather would be bad so the hunt would take place in the basement. And we used real eggs…… Yeah…sometimes we wouldn’t find all of the eggs.
This week Stiles was awarded his Bear Badge at pack night. It was a lot of fun and I am lucky to be called into the scouts and participate with all of the leaders and boys. I sometimes wonder if they will ever let me out of scouts. They say that as soon as you learn your calling they release you. So I am carefully trying to stay ignorant. But after almost 3 years now I’m beginning to get the hang of it.
I realized that I am looking my next birthday kind of square in the face. I’ve been 16 for quite a few years now and I realize that the math makes this birthday 16 doubled. So if I tell you that I am 16 years old you can just double that number and I will still be telling the truth.
There are many things to so I must finish this and let you be on about your day. Hopefully I will not need timeout today but the day is still young, and I have a killer cold.
Love , Monica and the rest of the cock roaches at the Woodin Nickel. Oh and BOB too.

Teeth, Eggs, Pie, and Demolition

April 17th 2011 Well the greenhouse is keeping things from freezing at night. This year some of my neighbors have put some plants in there to get a jump start on their gardens and it has been fun to watch the Warrens magical plants just take off. My Stiles is a bit a jealous and usually checks out all of the plants everyday after school. I’ve been filling my mornings and evenings with my goats. “Milking a Yak ain’t exactly easy but once you pick the hairs out…” (Monsters Inc.) It takes about 30 minutes every morning and night. But my little KIDS sure do love me and follow me around where ever I go. With slightly warmer weather my children have let the kids out and played with them in the yard. It is precious to watch Wyatt share his bottle…not that he really had a choice after the Goats knocked him down and stole the bottle. The chicken business is full of Eggs. My boys are always eager to go sell eggs and collect the money… some days the gathering and cleaning and feeding is not top on their list, but they are stalwart little guys and work hard to take care of their feathered friends. Erica has lost two teeth within a week of each other. Currently she has gaps for 3 teeth. It is funny to watch her try to eat. It makes me more determined to take care of my teeth so that I will have them until the day I die. We spent most of the extra time.. not that we really have extra time but we made it priority to use some time to fix up our little guest house. Jon bought some new windows for the front room in the house and as part of their installation we decided that we needed to rip out the old sheetrock and put up a new wall. Stiles and Marcus eagerly strapped on their own little tool belts and the demolition was done in short order. Then the new wall went up and it has been taped mudded and textured…just waiting for paint. And of course we couldn’t stop there this morning Jon and I went over and ripped up the carpet in two different rooms…then we will paint then lay new carpet. Then it will be placed on the market for rent. So you can guess that the house work in my house is lagging behind. Marcus is involved in soccer this spring. He has begged for 2 years to do soccer and this year I relented and signed him up…He is really good. This week he played against a team that had his best friend, Adam, on the team. Adam is definitely the strongest player on the other team and I can see now that it was probably Adams influence at school recess that made Marcus so determined to play soccer. Jon and I have no idea how the game is played or the rules but we are watching and learning and I am enjoying being a soccer mom. Stiles has earned his Bear badge in the scouting program and will be awarded it this week at pack night. He and Marcus have invited some nonmember boys in our ward who they are friends with at school to join us in our scouting program. The boys have accepted and are totally enjoying the scouting program. Their older sister is even interested in doing achievement days after watching how much fun her brothers were having with us at scouts. Since then we had these boys over to our house to play and they seem to all be having a blast! Hunter was tested at his school for his speech again. His language is good but his use of sounds put him in the 3% . He is using the wrong sound in words even after being prompted by the teacher to use the correct sound. He uses “b” A LOT. So we have enrolled him, to continue at the Lincoln Early Learning Center again this next school year. William is two…need I say more. He has decided that he will not do ANYTHING that Mom suggest and will only obey Daddy. This makes things harder and easier for me. I’ve simply turned William over to Jon when ever Jon is in the house. Everything from getting dressed to a diaper change to sitting up to the table. He has also become really picky about his clothes. And He has decided that the color red is the only thing that will fly. I actually took him shopping and we bought a few more clothing items that were red in color so that I had a few more options while his two red favorite outfits were in the laundry. Jon can convince him to wear other colors. But he will ONLY wear his snow boots…even to church. But he can put those on himself so I don’t mind so much…I am okay with Children when they want to learn to dress themselves. Wyatt is the cutest little tease. I cut his hair and with those twinkle eyes he definitely falls under the category of “Little Woodin Boy” the messes are forthcoming and he has dabbled in some destruction. His favorite mess to make is to Break the eggs…on the Kitchen floor in several different places and paint with the yolks…right after I had mopped the floor. He is good at tipping over the garbage can and is often playing in the toilet. Yesterday he jumped in the tub with all of his clothes on and then proceeded to grab the toilet paper and put it into the water with him and Hunter and made a pulpy mess in my tub…no he was not very clean for church but then again Hunter didn’t get very clean either…we were running out of time. This last week I had my Kitchen drain clog up on me again. I realized it right away and the mess in my laundry room was not all that awful. I normally would have called on good old Brother Jin Sant over immediately to fix my mess but I had learned that His wife had had surgery and everything that could go wrong did and she was currently in ICU. So I neglected to say anything to anybody about it. I figured I could do dishes in the bathtub for a few days until Sister Sant was at least out of ICU. Some how Jim found out about my mess and insisted on coming over to clean it up. I let him. I know that Jim likes Pecan pie so I stopped at the store that day and bought him one. (I don’t make pecan pie because I don’t like it). I had Jon give the pie to Jim with a promise that I would bake him a homemade pie later. Jim told Jon that he had to quit working for Pies and that I needed to quit putting stuff down the drain… anyway the next morning I got up and baked him two beautiful pies. One was cherry made with the cherries form my cherry tree and the other one was apple. And of course before I knew it…My kids had decided to TASTE the pies. And there were little bite marks along the edge of the pies, and a big hunk out of the middle of the cherry pie. No, I did not hurt my children, but threats were given and time out administered. A New cherry pie was made and was heavily guarded for the 15 minutes it was out of the oven before I sent Jon over to the Sants with the pie. Later that night Jim called Jon. And told him that I could put whatever I wanted down the sink as long as I will make him “that” cherry pie. J Thanks Mom for teaching me how to make pie. Because if you don’t got pie you don’t got nothing’ J Love Monica and the Woodin Nickel Nuckelheads.