six of the sixth

The sixth picture in my sixth folder was of Hunter's 2nd Bithday. Just another reminder that he is two. but look at how cute he is. It is no wonder he can destroy my house and still live!

St Patrick's Day 2009

So Dallan, Mom is off doing some choir tour with Garrett and that means she will not be forwarding your letter to me this week until after she gets back. So since I am writing this on Tuesday, Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I know you will probably miss it until next Monday when you have P-day again. First af all I need to lay a guilt trip on most of my siblings for their lack of note or letter writing to you. If they have written and not also sent their greeting my way I will forgive them but admonish them to keep me in on the loop. I am beginning to feel as if my kids are the only ones who make catastrophes happen and I need other stories from my siblings to know that my kids are somewhat normal and that Heavens gate is not already shut on the lot of us.
On the subject of my dear little children I need to throw in some disclaimers about Hunters recent mess making behavior. Now the amount of times he has dumped out baby formula seem off the charts. I should be putting the stuff away way up high right. -Well I am. Most of the messes are from the little can of formula that is in the diaper bag which is not always diligently placed up high. It must also be noted that I have taken away Hunters Bottle. He has no interest in a sippy cup he would rather drink out a regular cup which he does quite well but in the mean time the boy is not getting all of his calories from the moo juice so he is HUNGRY! I give him snacks all day long and cook good meals at meal times but he is a grazer and never tanks up so he is always looking for something else to eat. If you look back at the log of his messes they are all food related with the exception of the bucket of mud. I do need to tell you about the strawberry mess this week. I had bought some strawberries and put them in the fridge. Then we all went to bed and Jon and I stayed up and watched a movie. Well hunter stayed up as well and got into the strawberries as well as the wipes and a can of formula (I know he did it again) Well as I was cleaning up the mess in the middle of the night I thought that Hunter must have eaten at least 5 berries though I could only find evidence that he had eaten 2 Well the next morning my kids wake up and come and ask me why they each had a strawberry on their pillow. Hence the 3 missing berries. Hunter was either A) Sharing with his brothers and sister. Or B) trying to plant evidence to cover up his crime. I don’t think he is a criminal master mind yet but you can never be too sure.
William has learned this week how to go from being on his belly to a sitting upright position. No forward motion yet unless you count nose dives when he is trying to get back down on his belly from the sitting position. He has also cut a second tooth to go along with the one he cut when we were in Hawaii. He is very fond of eating baby foods and I think wishes I would find more time to sit down and shovel the goo into his endearing smile.
Stiles and Marcus have been constantly at each others throats for the past two weeks. Stiles is quick to tease and Marcus is quick to throw a screaming tantrum to get Stiles in trouble. Jon and I have come to the decision that they could use their own rooms for a few months and have plans to move Stiles to the room in the basement next week. Hopefully we will have less fights over who is and isn’t doing what and who’s fault it might really be can be determined more easily. Maybe we should just let them duke it out but a breather from each other might be just the thing.
Erica is trying her hand at hand writing. Yesterday she sat down with the calculator and wrote all of the numbers and then we counted them out and is often writing some sort of symbol and bringing it to me and asking what letter it is she wrote. She is actually getting pretty good. Her E are still backward but I can see the rest of the letters in her name starting to evolve.
Marcus is plugging away at his reading. The last few nights we have been turning him a little bit lose with reading scriptures and his ability to sound things out is really good. He is still stuck with the word “the” but that word is so stupid in our language because there is no way in the world that you can sound it out. I amazes me that anybody can learn this language. It is truly messed up!
Jon went snowmobiling with the scouts this last weekend. It was a trip they had planned when he was still with the youth and a few of the boys hunted him down and demanded to know if he was coming with them. Well they didn’t have to twist him arm too hard. He had fun and the other leaders said that the boys really enjoyed that Jon was there because “He is like the rest of the boys”
We had the pine wood derby this week in our ward. We were nervous not having done one before (you realize we are all girls) But it went off with out a hitch and one of our less active but getting ready to be baptized families was there with their boy and their boy took 2nd over all and the whole family seemed to be at ease and everybody there made sure to introduce themselves and make them feel welcome and then they came to church on Sunday and sat in the middle row towards the front instead of hiding out in the back. I can understand now a little bit better why Scouts is Part of the church. Before this it was always kind of a mystery to me. But now I think I get it!
Yesterday we went out to the hot tub for FHE and since the daylight saving time thing has happened it was quite light and warm outside when we ventured out. And as we were sitting there a robin came and landed on our light pole and I pointed it out to the kids and let them know that since we have seen a robin spring is on it’s way. The kids were so excited with this declaration you would have thought that I had said that “we took a vote and Christmas will now be held twice a year!” they have been asking when spring will come daily for quite a while now. We told them that it will still be cold and that we still might get snowed on but that the snow won’t say longer than a couple of hours and we will be able to start working in the yard soon. They were very dishearten with the idea that it could snow again. Little fickle children!
I love you tons and we pray for you always. The church is true. Work hard and the work will be easy

Love Monica
PS Beware the ides of March oh wait, I said that last week!

Hunters latest mess

Jon and I stayed up and watched a movie and apparently Hunter thought he could stay up to. After the movie we found a mess in the hallway. He had dumped out a can of Williams formula (yes I know AGAIN) And pulled out all the wipes and wadded each one up and strew them about. But the best/worst part of the mess was the strawberries. I had just brought home some strawberries and he had got them out of the fridge. As I was picking them back up I decided that he must have eaten about 5 of the berries but I could only find evidence that he had eaten 2. Well the next morning I found out where the other 3 berries were. He had placed one berry next to each of his sleeping siblings. HE was sharing! or trying to plant evidence on his brothers and sister. He really is a good kid, Just a total Tasmanian devil. Oh and one more mess was while my visiting teachers where here and I was complaining to them his magnitude of mess making skills he got out the instant oatmeal packs and exploded about half of them in the boys room. And then he smiles so sweet! I just don't know what to do with that kid!

does the choas ever end

LEtter to dallan.

Most of his letter was my posts below but his is what I added
So that does it for my blogging entries in other news I have a due date for this next little Woodin kid. I am due Labor Day! How fitting is that! So I will defiantly will Not be going to Lake Powell this year. I don’t think IT would be in the best interest of my health to do so. Or my baby’s for that matter. The month of March started out like any other. Nice and warm 60+ degree weather and then just like that it froze and snowed on us. The best you can say I guess is “Beware the ides of March” but I really should save that line for next weeks letter. I am feeling much better. I have managed to get out of bed for most of the days this week. Me and my toilet are not on as friendly terms as we were previously but I still admire the work my toilet does do. And as I get rounder I am sure I find myself being drawn back into the presence of my porcelain friend often. Not that either one of us will much be liking the situation. The laundry has almost got caught back up- well no wait- scratch that. If I let you believe that lie you might be led away by other false doctrine. Erica’s hair has really grown back. Unless you knew that this last summer she was sporting a rather unattractive mullet you would not know the difference except that she seems to have a lot of bangs. I had parent teacher conferences with my boy’s teachers this week. I was nervous to go. But It was all roses and good things. Stiles is the top of his class in math and even ends up explaining to the class how to do problems. He has a 100 on every single AR reading test and has moved his spelling grade of in the 70’s up to the 90’s. I am so proud of him. Although his desk is in a corner by himself because he won’t stop talking! And is kind of a class clown and gets all the kids laughing and giggling and all hyped up. I apologized to his teacher and told her if she figured out how to curb that behavior to let me know. Marcus is totally on track right now. Last time he was way behind. (even though it was the first week of school) Now he is sounding out words and reading small books. He is working hard to learn to read. I think he wants to be able to read like Stiles does and that inspires him to try that much harder. Marcus kindergarten teacher had nothing but good things to say about him except that he will give her a very dirty look when she slips up and calls him Stiles. And we all know that Marcus can throw really mean dirty looks. It is not surprising to me that she mentioned his dirty looks. Anyway I hope you are well and that I made you giggle a little bit. MJ told me yesterday that when he reads his my emails it just makes him think that his children are Angles and that he is so glad my children are not his children. But I am so glad my children are my children I love my little adventures every day but am nervous that my 5 year Warranty on my vacuum might already be null and void with how much it had already had to clean. The church is true. Work hard we will see you in 11 months!

Love Monica, Jon, Stiles, Marcus, Erica, Hunter (MY MUSE), William and Baby.

Still trying to stay caught up!

On Saturday I had my sisters and their kids over and we sorted through a massive pile of girl clothes. For the entire time (which lasted almost 6 hours)we had no major catastrophic events, just one bloody nose and a few hurt feelings. Then it was time to leave and my nephew Seth ran back inside to use the bathroom before departing. He chose the downstairs bathroom and when he came back up stairs let me know that Hunter had mad a mess. He got out a box of baby rice cereal and poured it all up and down the hallway and then danced and played in it. -little monster- My new vacuum defiantly did not bargain for this.
On Monday morning It was like Hunter was in a contest with himself to see what he could destroy in the smallest amount of time. He started with dumping out a box of cereal in his bedroom I picked most of it up then went to get dressed and when I came out of my bedroom like 5 minutes later he had dug through Juliet's diaper bag and Had got out her butt rash cream and was happily painting with it. Then as I was cleaning up the creamy mess I decided I needed to feed Jet some breakfast so we sat down and I fed her then I went up to my room to get a jacket and found hunter in my room he had unloaded Williams Diaper Bag and got into he little can of formula that I keep in there and was spreading it around my bedroom. at this point I am just sitting there going "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!" Well He got the raw and of a spanking and was told if he exploded anything else in the next few minutes I was going to get his car seat out of the van and strap him in. HE waited- about an hour. And while I was mopping up the kitchen floor after I had put my Dyson trough the rounds at first light this morning He exploded the diaper changing drawer which is full of wipes and Little diaper sacks. Yes their were wipes and sacks all over. But at lest this mess did not need my vacuum or water and a scrub brush to clean up. He did get a spanking but I am saving the car seat punishment for something more sticky.

Hunter is at it again

So I'm thinking of renaming my blog page to Hunter's destructive log. Today -so far- he dumped all of the grapes on the floor,after I specifically instructed him to leave ther grapes alone and had put them away in the fridge. Hunter then hauled inside from the outside a bucket of, you guessed it, Mud. from Stiles and Marcus play time as scientist digging for fossils. Then he began unloading said bucket of mud onto the clean floor in the kitchen and down the hallway to his bedroom. Stiles and Marcus had to help clean up since they left their muddy science projects right outside the door and I had to make them take them outside after they tried sneaking them into their bedrooms two days ago. Their resonses were "Well, It was HUNTER!" While I was almost done vacuuming up the muddy mess I pushed the vacuum into the boys room to get some lose bits of mud that had been tracked in there and found that the dishwashing soap bucket has been hauled out from under the sink, AGAIN, and flung all over the room I had vacuumed 3 hours earlier, AGAIN. Yes Hunter got a royal spanking and had to sit on his bed in time out. But for some reason I don't think I am getting through to him. Any ideas on how to reason with a two year old who is so stubborn he utterly refuses to try and talk!?!

not too bad today

Well my kids have not made any horredious messes in the past 24 hours. Hunter has only dumped a whole bunch of papers off of the desk into a huge jumble of mess. Painted a ketchup and mustard masterpiece on my freshly mopped floor. Splattered Williams baby carrots all over the counter and accented his hair with the orange goo. Got out all of my femine supplies and popped off half of my tampons and pulled the waxed paper off of the adhesive side of most my pads. went through a whoel pack of newly opened gum. ( I am still looking for sticky goo, I just hope ha swallowed most of it.) Lets me see...Yep he is still living