Our Handful of Children

Hunter, William, and Wyatt

Monday, May 30, 2011

Water on the Brain

May 30 2011. Memorial Day.
“It’s Water on the Brain that leads a Man to Boating” Yes, Jon is suffering from Water on the Brain and in a wild turn of events we are now the owners of an 1987 19’ Bayliner inboard/outboard ski boat. We told Jon’s cousin we did not want to buy it twice before we gave in and said wait a minute we DO WANT to buy it we just need to figure out of we SHOULD. Stiles turns 10 next Sunday and will be of legal Spotting age…that was the clincher for the deal. The Kids had not a clue that a boat was even a possibility and I was not sure that Jon would go ahead and get it in the end after all but when He pulled into the drive with it behind the truck I am not sure his grin could get any bigger. Then Jon called all of the kids out to see it and Jon’s grin did get bigger. It was like Christmas morning times ten. Now we have a hung Jury. The Vote is now 50 50 between a Yellowstone trip and the Lake Powell trip. Two Months ago it was a unanimous Yellowstone trip. But after we heard some plans for a “slide” and a few other factors namely Jon would have his own boat the votes have done a wild swing and we are recalculating perhaps a “Day Trip” to Yellowstone instead and a bunch of fun at Powell seem like a better plan for me.
Well So far the weather for the weekend has been like the rest of the weather this past May. Cold, Windy, Rainy, and Cold. We really didn’t expect too much different. But We did manage to make Saturday quite memorable of course with our afore mentioned addition to the family. (THE BOAT SILLY no I am not expecting!!!!) We decided very last minute to haul the boat out to the American Falls reservoir and meet up With Jason and Nanette Who were doing the crazy camping thing out on the Aberdeen side of the lake. Now remember that with my 6 brothers there has been almost NO occasion for me to drive the boat and Jon has no idea about the whole process either. HE did Awesome by the way. But to make a few fun laughs at our expense and to not poke fingers at anybody but ourselves let me tell you a very funny story about our own stupidity.
Stiles want’s to kneeboard right off the bat. A friend of ours lent us a pile of wetsuits and a few toys for us to use our first time out and she Laughed as she drove away and called us crazy! So Stiles in his excitement has put on a wet suit. And it is I think a 2XL. In the mean time about every little kid has jumped into the boat except William Wyatt and the Twins. So Jon has got 8 little kids and His Mother wants to go and take pictures of Stiles taking a turn. Well I kept on thinking that Jason would get in the boat with Jon and all of that mess and so I decided that it would be better to stay on the shore and tag team with Nanette to keep our 4 little boys away from the water. Now keep in mind we are not at a nice dock or sandy beach, we are on rugged lava rock cliff like rocks. Well the next thing I know Jason has pushed Jon off and the only other adult in the boat is Grandma who hasn’t a clue in the world how to help Jon get Stiles out behind the boat. Now this is where the story gets pretty good. I realize that Stiles needs to change into a smaller wet suit and he insists he can not because He is not wearing anything underneath the current wetsuit. But his swim trunks were on board so Jon has to help him do a quick wardrobe change into Jons size XL, Still way too big, but by this time I am kind of done yelling out orders to Jon on the boat who is yelling back to me, asking me why in the world I was not in the boat helping him out, after all, of all adults present I am the most nautically experienced and that is not saying much. So now they get the rope and it is in a tangled mess and they are slowly drifting away. So Jon and Grandma start working on untangling this rope inside the boat with 8 wiggly little children. And Jon and his mother are not precisely yelling at each other but their voices and words were carried to the shore and they were very frustrated. So soon after they get the rope untangled they have dropped Stiles in the drink and He has a hold of the rope and Jon starts to head out and it doesn’t take too long to realize that the rope had not been properly secured up through and around the cleat, it had only been looped over and of course had come off and now Jon needed to circle the boat and go get Stiles again and fish the rope out of the water and hook it on again. I will not quote the words that came floating to shore at this time an even though they were appropriate for children’s ears I’m not sure we want to really remember the exact wording. So Eventually Stiles is able to give the “hit it” cue and they are off and the rope is about twice the length it should be. Of course I notice this but do not try to call out any words of wisdom from the shore lest my Husband should indeed lose his temper and colorful language should appear. Well they made it back and nobody got hurt but I did get in the boat and we had a few quick boating 101 lessons and threw Mckinley and Jason out in the water behind the boat. We would have got Tessa and Marcus out on a tube ride but the tube was missing the right plug and could not be used. In the end we ended up getting Jason’s anchor stuck, and getting rained on very hard while out on the water. Jon said he felt like his face got froze off trying to get us back to the camp. And we discovered that the boating thing is definitely Williams ‘Thing’. Getting the boat back on the Trailer was another great story but I won’t bore you with the details I just want all of my brothers to know That I hooked up the trailer all by myself and backed it down the ramp, all by myself, and it was lined up straight! Next time out should be better and we will get better with practice I am sure.
In other news Wyatt is teething! 2 year old molars should be outlawed, they hurt and my baby is miserable. Stiles got his Giant Pumpkin plants in the ground today. We are still patiently waiting on the rest of the greenhouse plants until there is more than 2 days of consecutive sunshine and no more overnight freeze warnings. I think On Wednesday we might get them out. WE have two more days of school left. Yes my kids have Tuesday and a half day on Wednesday. I am looking forward to having them here. I need some helpers. I have enrolled my three oldest in Piano lessons and they are making great progress. Even Jon is impressed with their new found skills they are learning. I love that my good friend Heather is their teacher. William is in the middle of potty training endeavors every day is a little bit better but I do not know nor do I want to know the when, how, why, or who, for the poop smeared all over the outside of the tub and on the floor in the bathroom. We are doing copious amounts of laundry around here to try and meet demands. And the Washing machine is throwing fits. I think it will have to be fired and replaced this week for failure to perform the work assigned to it. The transmission is dying or in fact at this time dead.
Well I think you have been brought up to date and there is little left to say except that if you can’t find us at home and we are not in the barn check to see if the boat is there or not. If it is we are somewhere around if it is gone so are we.

Love Monica and the ‘Get Wet Woody’ Woodin’s

Monday, May 23, 2011

Graduation and Annie

May 23 2011
Okay. So I fell of the bandwagon for a few weeks again. I do feel that my time this Monday morning should be spent in some lofty laundry goals but we have been instructed to keep a journal and I am not sure that face book counts. Anyway. Jon took the 4 oldest boys on a father and sons campout on the 13/14 of this month and it was the nicest two days together in the whole month of May. They had a good time and booked it back early so Marcus could play in his soccer game on Saturday. I spent most of that Friday Cleaning out and packing the camper. I get a GOLD STAR for removing the packrat that was dead on my bed. The bedding was washed in “kill all germs” detergents and a lot of Lysol was sprayed around inside the camper. Currently the camper is sitting in my drive waiting for me to clean it out again after their overnighter.
In the midst of this month I turned 16 doubled this year and the Ward threw an awesome Birthday party for me at the local roller-skating rink. Actually they deemed it a ward party but who really wants to get too technical about that stuff. I got to see my Mom and Dad that day as they were in town for the morning packing up Dallan to move him home to the farm for the summer and they stopped by with Lunch and a hug. Jon surprised me with Jason and Camille’s gutter bill that is to be paid in Premier Design’s Jewelry directly to me. So I am waiting patiently for the new catalog to come out this summer.
We had to put down our little horse Rose last week. Today would have been her birthday. Somehow she got a puncture type injury and it messed up her insides so much that the Vet deemed it un-repairable and we decided to let her go. It makes us a little bit bummed around here. But before she left she managed to step on Jon’s foot and, I think, break his toe, as well as taking a huge hunk of skin off of the back of my hand when we were trying to give her a shot. We are both healing and would rather have our horse instead of these battle scars but sometimes you just have to take what you are given.
Pack night has come and gone again. The three Vera brothers that my boys have invited to join our pack were all awarded their Bobcat badge and at the meeting asked if they could go to church with us on Sunday. Later the 9am time and the 3 hour long church detoured them to their usual 1 pm 1 hour church. But they are coming over today after school to play. It is a neat thing to watch my young boys being little missionaries to their friends. It makes me want to try harder to increase my joy by bring just one back to the fold. The Vera boys will go to Colorado for the Summer to be with their Father who works in a mine. Stiles and Marcus are quite bummed with the idea that they will miss their friends for the whole summer. But they will be back when school starts in the fall.
Despite lots of clouds and rain and some wind the Garden is mostly planted it is only waiting for the plants form the greenhouse to be added to the area. The Peas and Carrots and onions are all poking up and the radishes sprung up overnight I think I saw one bean yesterday and I think I will try and plant corn tomorrow or maybe in the middle of the night so the chickens don’t go right behind me and have a treat. We have been fixing fences but there is still much work to be done, Stiles and Marcus are big helpers and Erica is feeling the effects of being a built in babysitter.
Just for MJ, the Lilacs bloomed yesterday and it is so fragrant. I think that Roses smell wonderful and I Love Daisy’s, but nothing smells better than Lilacs, they remind me of my 15th birthday and visiting with LeAnn and Adrianne out under the Lilacs. Makes me miss Momma LeAnn and wish that ‘A’ lived closer.
Erica graduated from Kindergarten on Thursday. It was a tough two year program but she came through with flying colors and was the top of her class. She kept her cool during the ceremony when the kid next to her lost it and tossed his cookies all over the three kids in front of him. Too bad I had turned off the camera it would have made an awesome U-TUBE video. After the affected children had been hurried off the stage the teacher turned around and said “WELCOME TO KINDERGARTEN”
The Next day Stiles showed his stuff at the 4th grade production of Annie Jr. He was narrator #1 and said all of his lines clear and loud. And knew all of the songs. His friend Macey Hugues was Annie and she did a fabulous job. We even took her some flowers and a candy bar to congratulate her. I taped the whole production and will spare any of you being forced to watch it. But if you want to I will share. He said that at the first showing of the play to the school the girl next to him lost her cookies but managed to direct them away from the rest of the kids on the stage.
We are trying not to force William to potty train but we are not going back to diapers with him. He can do it, the question only is: Will he? In the mean time there is EXTRA laundry around here, as if there wasn’t enough of it around here already. In the midst of the whole process Wyatt acts like he thinks it would be cool to not wear a diaper anymore either. I’m all about that idea but just kinda too busy to implement all that goes along with it . He mostly just likes to take off his diaper when ever he has done his business. No one ever told me that this part of raising kids whould be such a huge milestone and a hard one to really do not to mention I had to clean a bunch of poop out of underwear pants and shoes this last week.

Love you all.
Love Monica and the rest of the Woodin Nickel Knuckleheads!!!

Monday, May 2, 2011

girls trip and bedtime routines

May 2nd 2011
Last Monday I was sick and I spent most of the day in bed. Jon was a sweetheart and didn’t say one word about my laying in bed all day…not even “how you feeling?” or “can I get you anything?” But the fact that he didn’t say “Just get up and you will feel better.” or “so are you going to milk the goats or not?” means that he recognized that I really was sick. The next two day’s I spent in a mad scramble trying to get my house in order for the upcoming weekend. The Easter weekend didn’t destroy my house but it did not leave it sparkling clean either. And I still was sick.
On Thursday Morning Nanette picked me up and I left for a girls trip with the Woodin girls. As I was leaving I told Jon. “Hunter’s bus comes in one hour…Don’t miss the bus!” he tells me he will not miss it and waves good-bye. An hour and a half later I got a call on my cell from Jon with the question “Where exactly IS Hunter’s school?” Yes they had missed the bus and Jon was driving him to school. I called later that day to make sure that Jon started watching for the bus so he could get Hunter off the bus. Jon told me to leave him alone and not call him because I was “roaming.”
We had a blast just being girls with No kids and no Husbands. We went to the Desert Star Theater and watched Sheer’luck Holms and laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. We also did some shopping and watched the movie at the Joseph Smith building about Joseph Smith, which I had never seen before and I cried a whole bunch in it. On Saturday we spent the day at Lagoon and enjoyed the snowstorm and the bits of sun we saw all day long. We all got feeling pretty sick pretty fast because there were no lines for any rides because well it was snowing. After a while the Bumper cars were the most appealing ride and we did that ride back to back to back a few times for the fun of it. And since it did not make any of us want to hurl our lunch up. Somebody thought it would be really fun to do rattle snake rapids on this trip. Yes we got very wet. And no I was not talked into doing the ride again. I took pictures instead. The hand dryers in the bathrooms became our friends in a hurry and we did our best to try and dry ourselves off under them. It was snowing on us off and on all day remember.
We had a fun in the hot tub and there are some very fun and embarrassing moments throughout the whole trip. We kept on getting locked out of our condo and had to have the maintaince guy come and help us every day.
Mean while Jon is at home with all of the six kids and me not there to help him. I know that he is very capable but I was worried. I called him on Saturday morning and he told me to just not worry about anything and that he had everything under control. Later Stiles called me and informed me of all that they were doing…so glad that kids knows that he should check in with me. Then Jon saw that he was on the phone and ordered Stiles to hang up because it was costing us roaming fees for Stiles to tell me what really was going on. When I got home I actually found that the house was still standing and kind of cleaned up. The dishwasher was running and some laundry had been washed and dried. And Jon listed off the honey do projects that he and kids managed to do. He even took all six kids to the store…Gold star there don’t you think. The only project he didn’t get around to was that a child had stuffed a hot dog down the drain in the bathroom sink and they had not got around to getting it out and so that sink is still currently off limits. Jon said that taking care of the kids for three days and not worrying about work was like a vacation. He really enjoyed spending time playing and working with his kids and also admitted to me that my job is full of a bunch of mundane tasks that really get old and boring in a short amount of time. Thanks honey!
Two weeks ago the relief society president in our ward asked me if I would sing a song in relief society on May 1st. Thinking that it would just be a little part of her lesson and that there would only be about 20 sisters in attendance I agreed. She then handed me music to a song I had NEVER heard before and then a few minutes later announced that on May 1st there would be a Visiting Teaching Conference during the Regular Meeting time and that the Priesthood would be taking over the primary and YW so that ALL of the sisters in the ward could be in attendance. I about puked…mostly because it was said that Bro. Woodin and the elders would be taking the primary…that is SCARY!!!! Then I realized that I had just 5 minutes prior agreed to sing a solo at this meeting. It took a lot of convincing of myself that I was up to the task. Even though I have sang in choirs and with small groups I have NEVER sung a solo for a large group or even a small group for that matter. My voice teacher had arranged for it but I always somehow managed to be sick that day or magically forget about it. My good friend Heather was awesome and worked out the accompaniment so that I could follow her on the Piano and helped me through the parts I was struggling with. When it came down to the moment, and all of the women in our ward were crammed in the relief society room with the bishop, the laurels, and member of the stake RS presidency, I managed to sing the song without hitting any wrong notes and nobody threw any rotten veggies at me. Still I will not be campaigning for the opportunity again.
A little story about my My William and My Waytt. Just to contrast the two and so you can see how silly and stubborn William is. I like little stuffed animals on my kids beds. A teddy bear is just a must for a child’s bed in my opinion. Well since I make the beds for theses two little bedlamites I usually place their two or three little stuffed and fluffed animals on their pillow for the day. At Christmas time Grandma Woodland gave a very cute gram cracker colored teddy bear to my Wyatt. We call him “Gram Cracker Bear” and Wyatt has always, ever since Christmas, loved to wrap his one arm around this bear as he is going to bed. I think it is precious. And as I put him to bed each night I love holding Gram Cracker Bear out to Wyatt and watch him reach up for the bear in earnest and then pull the bear close and cuddle up. Well after this touching scene ends I then turn around and have to chase William and convince him to change into his pajamas and then after 3rd and 4th drinks, and prayers, I will manage to get him to his bed side. As I am pulling the blankets up to his dear little chin he will reach up to the Lamb that he has had since his blessing day and grab the lamb from his pillow, and hold it out to me almost in distaste of the creature for me to take away it from him, and I am not allowed to place the lamb anywhere but on the floor, the foot of the bed is not OK. And then William will grab his blankets and pull them completely over his head so there is no chance for bedtime kisses or hugs. Such different kids.

Love Monica and the rest of the folks at the Woodin Nickel.