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

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!!!

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.

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.

Halloween and Piles of Poop

My computer had a hickup (*read crash and burn) that had me in tears for several days. We apparently downloaded a virus when we were watching conference. IT was NOT pretty and all of our business files were saved in the wrong format and we were unable to retrieve them. I have hated this dumb PC from the first day Jon brought it home but supposedly it was the best priced hunk of junk out there. I would have rather paid more and got a computer instead of the joke of a machine that now cumbers my office desk….BUY A MAC.
So with that in mind I will try to bring you all up to speed in 10,000 words or less. Jon has been hunting and has brought home an elk and 2 deer so far he has two more deer tags which he hope to fill. I hope he does it VERY soon.
William has pooped and peed in the potty. We all celebrated but are not pressing the issue. He is very quietly stubborn and we are willing to wait until we are sure we will win the battle sooner rather than later. His most endearing quality of late is he response of “No I not” which he gives in most circumstances. “Your silly-No I not” “Your funny- No I not” You made a mess- No I not” “you are soaking wet and have been playing in the toilet- no I not” “ your in trouble- No I not” J He also answers yes to the question “do you want a spanking?” This usually gets him out of one and the reverse psychology is working well on his parents. He is making terrific messes which give Stiles and Hunter a run for the title but has not yet out done them yet. However the other morning I found him downstairs laying in the middle of ALL of Stiles and Marcus Halloween candy. ( I told myself I would deal with that mess AFTER my shower) and then After my shower I found him in the middle of the Kitchen floor in a HUGE puddle of pancake syrup. Oh and someone had peed on the floor in the bathroom that morning too. I never did get to the candy mess. I was following Will around taking away markers and sharp object and any other destructive feet he was trying to accomplish. HE is TWO…sigh.
This Halloween we hosted a neighborhood Trunk or treat and Potluck dinner in the upper reaches of the Woodin Nickel Barn. It was well attended and we ran out of chairs and candy. My kids were dressed as the following. Stiles-Clown. Marcus- Knight. Erica- Fairy Princess. Hunter- Orange bad guy (I’m not sure either but he wore orange fairy wings as part of his costume) William- cowboy Wyatt- devil. Jon and I were Pirates and we all had fun. The barn is still decorated as I have not found time to take it down.
I did finally harvest the rest of the carrots and onions and I threw the Brussels sprouts to the goats. (they were VERY bitter) And then roto-tilled the whole thing under and as I was doing so I decided that the rest of the world gardens just so they can have a small taste of what it might be like to be a farmer. But without the risk or course. I think I have a good idea as to why Dad loves to plow. It is pretty fun to just roll everything over and under.
The Primary Program came and went and the Kids all did their parts beautifully Stiles told a story about how he followed the promptings of the holy ghost. Marcus talked about working with the animals and serving his family. And Erica yelled into the microphone her part “I felt good when I helped Stiles get out from under a chair.” Everyone giggled because of her confidence and her volume and Stiles was mortified because he thought everyone was laughing at him for getting stuck under the recliner. It was a great program.
Alright here is my funny scenario of the month. Yesterday we are preparing to go to Utah to witness Luke’s Baptism and enjoy some good company south of the Idaho border. Well we have given ourselves a 30 minutes cushion for our leave time just so we won’t be a crazy rush. Well it is about time to leave and I have left the task of bathing and Dressing my youngest three until the bitter end because lets face it they are boys and will become horribly messy in a very short amount of time. Well I got Wyatt dressed first and set him down thinking that his messes are usually minimal. I gather up William and strip him down and throw him in the tub only to discover that sometime in the last hour he has managed to step in a nice big pile of dog poop and it is all over his shoes and in a couple of places throughout my house. SO I throw Will in the tub then scrub down the shoes in the sink and place them under my blow dryer to hopefully have them dry in time. Then I helped Hunter get dressed and he looks good new Sunday clothes and the whole bit. So I send him off and he goes to get in the van because that is where the older kids are and they are all geeked up because I put the portable DVD player in the van so they are getting all ready to go. Then I head to the bathroom to fish William out of the tub. I had left him in until the end as a damage control measure. Well when I walked in I found him in a very very VERY poopy bathtub. No big deal right. Kids poop in the tub, not the first time not the last time. So I start hosing off my boy and the tub and everything else I can hit with the shower wand and William is screaming because he was not in the bargain for a shower he wanted a bath. Anyway I soap him up and rinse him off a declare him non toxic and pull him out of the tub. At this same moment my three oldest children come whooping and hollering and screaming bloody murder that Hunter has pooped and it is ALL OVER THE VAN. Sure enough he had a case of explosive diarrhea and it has landed in his shorts his new dress pants down his legs and in his sock and new shoes and there was a mice amount on the floor of the van. Jon was assigned to clean up the van and I got the boy since now I have to not only bathe but find a complete new set of clothes for the poor child including shoes. We set to work and finally end up smelling a lot better all round not quite roses but marigolds might be the right flower to compare too. Except for Wyatt came crawling into the bathroom right through the less than clean water puddles that have now made themselves known on my bathroom floor so he now needs a new pair of Sunday pants. So now we are ready right, new clean Sunday clothes all around I finally get William dressed. He has been streaking through the house for about 15 minutes now. And I decided his poopy dog shoes are not going to cut it so we hunt to find his boots and magically we find them BOTH. Whew poops all over, into the car right. we should have left 10 minutes ago. Well no I am informed that Wyatt needs yet a new pair of Sunday pants AGAIN since he crawled outside and right through the puddle of yucky poopy water that Jon had used to clean out the floor of the van. I’ve already exhausted all of my extra Sunday clothes and now I am down to a pair of Jogging pants. Hey they are black and they work. We throw in our potluck Salad and a few other changes of clothes (just in case, hey we are batting a thousand right now) and finally with our 30 minute cushion all the way gone we pull out of the drive only to realize that we do not have the address to the church house so we stop pull back in and find the email with the right info and we are finally off. 20 minutes later as we were getting close to leaving Pocatello behind us. We hear from the peanut galleries in the back seat “MOM? I have to go to the bathroom…” It turns out that EVERYONE needs to go. So we pull back off the freeway and into a gas station so that we can all get rid of the extra pressure and then we drive like bats out of china and make it to the baptism in the nick of time after one more pull off the freeway because Hunter has to pee and can not hold it any longer….that boy did have some definite pressure and distance. The ride home was much less entertaining.

Catch up!

Okay, So I just got done reading my last letter. It was ahem…Written a few moons ago. So I will try to catch you all up and repent of my ways. My last letter was just prior to our trip to Lake Powell and so I will start with some highlights from that trip.
William and Wyatt stayed home, Katherine was a gem and watched them during the day, and Jon had them at night. We drove all through the wee hours of the morning and arrived at the lake before lunch time. My kids were super excited. We got all set up at camp and permission had been granted to all of the children that “YES! You can go get in the water and play” The next thing I know I watch Hunter as he is falling off the end of the slide into the water in a belly flip flop fashion. This is his first entry into the water. There was no one to catch him, or even take a picture. He said it was fun but refused to take another turn. He did laugh and giggle every time his Mom went off the slide however. I was sure that Stiles and Marcus would be little boat hogs. I was only half right. Stiles did try to ski and did Okay on the boom bar. But his love was a tube ride. And he wanted to go on a “big kid ride”, not a “little kid ride.” I admit I was having a hard time staying calm as I watched him out there with his big uncles getting thrown out of their tubes and eating white rocks. But Stiles was eating it up. I think he though the best was when Grandpa managed to unload all three of them at once. Marcus is not the same adrenaline junkie type. I beged and pleaded and finally bribed him with not one, but TWO dollars if he would go on a tube ride. He consented if I would go with him. He would not let the boat go any faster than barely trolling. He kept on signaling for grandpa to go slower. I think that for grandpa to go any slower he would have had to pull out the paddles. (which they did have to use THE paddle and waterski to get back one time) I thought that if I could get him to go just once that he would go again. But once was enough for him, and He made me pay up the $2.00 bribe. Erica was happy to play in the water with Elena and Becca ALL day. Erica and Elena jumped off the back of the houseboat countless times and played well together all week. We decided it would be fun to give the three little girls a tube ride. Elena and Becca were fine with the idea and I think they even had some fun But Erica threw a rip roaring tantrum the ENTIRE tube ride. IF we would have known how crazy her Tantrum would have been we would have recorded it and posted it on you tube. And that poor girl was so tired every night that she just couldn’t even see straight and bawled herself to sleep most nights. It made bedtime a bit memorable and we were all so grateful when she would finally fall asleep. Hunter was so excited to go to Powell. He had no idea what it all meant, he hasn’t been since he was an infant, but he knew it was going to be something way awesome. He played hard and paddled around in the water and took a tube ride and jumped off the back of the boat and generally was just having a ball. Well after a long drive home and as we turned onto Tyhee road and Hunter recognized where we were he asked “ Mom. HOME?” I said “Yes we are almost home Hunter.” Hunter said with anxiety and determination in his voice “NO! POWELL! NO! POWELL!” Like all the rest of us we would rather go to Powell than almost anywhere else, even home.
So after we got home we had a fun crazy week of things I can’t remember probably mostly un packing and trying to green up all of the 5 acres that Jon had let turn brown while I was gone. And we looked forward to the Bannock County Fair. Now this fair is quite small, and not attended by many. But we made it a family goal in January to make entries in the Bannock County fair. So much of this week was spent in the gathering and preparing and entering and showcasing as many things as we could in the fair. And it PAID OFF. My kids all won a “Best of Show” Erica won 2 and I even won one. There were lots of blue ribbons and 2nd and 3rd place ribbons as well. Stiles and Marcus Entered some Chickens and The judge was so nice and Gave them a blue ribbon for the rooster and a red for the hen. The judge said to Stiles while he was looking at the rooster. “Now this rooster truly is a blue ribbon rooster but I am going to give you the blue ribbon because you are holding that chicken that is almost as big as you are!” The whole week was very busy and very fun, AND my kids learned a lot about having to help mom out so we can all do something together as a family. The pay day checks at the end of the week had all of my kids grinning from ear to ear all the way to the bank. Hunter even took home a paycheck for turning in the tallest weed.
Then the next few weeks were full of getting ready to go back to school and celebrating 3 birthdays. Jon and Erica’s birthday bash was fun. We decided that it would be a good idea to give her something to teach her about responsibility. After all the boys have the chickens and all of that. So for Jon and Erica’s birthday Date they tracked down a new GIRL kitty. “so Erica could have a sister” The kitty immediately went into hiding and it took quite a bit of hunting for the little feline before we located her behind the dryer. Erica named her Lily. Which is a big change from her usual “beauty” but since she has named all of her stuffed animals and pet ladybugs “Beauty” she decided that Lily was the perfect name for a kitty. I didn’t try to talk her out of it. It has been fun to have a pet kitty. And Erica is a good little Mommy to her pet. So much so I fear that Lily will be quite spoiled. Wyatt also had his 1st birthday and it was low key and without too much fluff. I got him one of those leapfrog stuffed dogs named Scout that you can connect to your computer and program in your Childs name and songs and Favorite things. Well it has been a challenge to keep it out of Hunter and William’s hands and in Wyatt’s possession since both older brothers are sure that it is THE COOLEST toy. Hunter has already told me that for his birthday he wants an Orange dog, like Wyatt’s. We shall see. Wyatt is pretty content with the monster truck that came from the dollar store and likes to push it around.
School is off to a good start. Stiles is in 4th, Marcus in 2nd, and Erica is repeating Kindergarten. Hunter is also enrolled at the Early learning center for Speech therapy and goes two afternoons a week. I am almost able to accomplish something. But the homework load is really putting a huge demand on my evenings to get all three of them through the things they are suppose to do and Erica’s homework load won’t hit hard for about 3 more weeks.
For Labor Day weekend we packed up the camper and headed up to the mountains above Arco. Up in the Lemhi range. Jon did some hunting with his hunting buddies and the girls back in camp tried not to freeze to death. It wasn’t that cold and we were able to have a fire but it wasn’t that warm either. But the kids had fun and fished in the stream and rode their bikes and built a secret fort in the trees and we went on 4 wheeler rides and ate good and burned up marshmallows over the fire. So far Jon has not taken a shot at an elk yet. But has had some fun exciting hunts and helped others to get their tags filled. We are down to two weeks left in September and the pressure to get something is increasing so I doubt I will see much of Jon or any of his hunting gear over the next two weeks.
SO I think you are up to date on most of the general details of our lives. There is much more to tell like the 2nd flood I had in my basement this summer that left me washing dishes in my bathroom tub for two weeks, the dead mouse behind the fridge, and the coyote that my kids watched carry off one of our chickens that engaged Jon in a “morning hunt.” I’ve been canning Peaches and Pears and salsa. I love that I am blessed with so much and that I have wonderful children and an awesome hardworking husband. I hope to be a better writer and keep you filled in on the details. But if not I hope that I am not totally boring you.

Love Monica and the insanity that as always happening at the Woodin Nickel.