Short Stories from the Wood's Clan

This morning Leah woke up, found Mr. Boots in the Christmas tree, after following the long toilet paper roll from the bathroom, through the kitchen, and into the living room, up on top of the tree...then she walked in the bathroom and threw up...Happy Monday to us!  Then I didn't get Mr. Boots' mess cleaned up before Blake made a royal mess of it all!  So as I'm folding the big pile of dark clothes that were still left laying in the middle of the living room floor from last night, I was picking teeny bits of white, wet, chewed up toilet paper out of the wrinkles.  Luckily it was mainly Jerad's work clothes, hopefully he doesn't mind! :)

Friday night Autum wanted a cup of juice with ice in it.  Which I gave her.  But while we were sitting on the floor playing she proceeded to dump it out on the floor...I wasn't sure if she did it on purpose the first time so I got another cup of ice for her, to stifle the crying screams of agony and despair over her spilled drink.  So we sat back down, only for 5 seconds, before she proceeded to dump it out...again.  This time I said "no!"  When she pleaded with me to get her 'mooowwre'...followed by another outburst of agony.  About this time, Jerad walked in from work.  She ran to him with her empty cup crying 'mooowwrre'...and coaxing out a tear for added effect.  I said "no" again.  He said I'll get you some more ice...and took her cup and walked into the kitchen...at which point she dried up the tears turned to me and giggled with her hands over her mouth and said "dada get me moooowre! Hehehehehehe..." I swore up and down all night to Jerad that I did NOT teach her this...

After the night Mr. Boot's almost fell off the pantry door, but was saved at the last minute by Rapunzel letting down her hair, Leah suggested I start putting a diaper on Mr. Boot's...haha!  Not sure what she was getting at other than the fact she thought he must have been REALLY scared..??

We practiced Leah's spelling words last week on several different occasions, so the night before the test I put cornmeal in a pan and had her write the words in the 'sand' and then we checked them as we went.  On her last word she switched two letters around and Jerad began to correct her, and about mid-sentence she said, "Dad I decided to spell the last word in Spanish, that's why I spelled it that way!'

And I finally gave in and we put up the Christmas tree this past weekend.  Ohh, I always have this glorious image in my head of the movies, with Christmas music playing, the lights all aglow....Pfffttt!  Whatever!  After dragging the dusty tree box in from the shed, leaving a trail of dirt through my kitchen, and ripping the box to shreds trying to remove all of last year's tape job, I should have known right then and there the tone of how this tree decorating was going to go.  But we pushed on, tried to make sense of  the colors and arrangement of branches to put the tree together, chased the stray branches all over the house as the two little ones scurried away with them, vacuumed up all the pine needles...and began to string the lights around the tree.  We got them all wrapped around only to learn that 1 of the strands no longer worked....so we unwrapped the tree again...took the 1 strand of lights we had on the front of the house off, brought them inside and finished wrapping the tree.  Then I opened the bazillion boxes of ornaments we have collected, as well as the new giant box of colored balls I bought...and rethought through what I was going to put up for decoration after Blake spotted the colored balls, yelled "BALL!" and bulldozed the box, spilling everything, sparkles flying...my patience disappearing...then Autum found the bag of hooks I use to hang the ornaments with..poking her finger, so instead of Christmas music I heard sobs of "ooowwwwwiiiiiieeeeee, Mama!!"  Then Leah got distracted and started playing house with 2 of the snowmen ornaments, leaving the open box on the floor only for me to step on....

This is totally posed because 2 seconds before I took this picture Leah was yelling at me to hurry up and get the hooks on the colored ornament balls...I told her to hurry up and pretend like she was putting the ornament on so I could get one picture, at least!

Then, Autum found Jerad's childhood rocking horse ornament and took off with it to another room.  I wasn't sure what she was doing, and quite honestly forgot she was gone.  After I realized it was too quiet in the house, I peeked around the corner of the kitchen door to see her saying "neigh" "neigh" "neigh"...with her pants off trying to ride the rocking horse ornament....who knows??  I was afraid she'd snap the poor horse in two pieces so I had to put it away, much to her disagreement!

I think nothing makes me more nervous than when I walk into the bathroom and find Autum standing over the toilet clapping her hands, cheering "yay" while the toilet is flushing...my first thought is always "what did I just lose that is of importance?  And how important is it to stick my hand in there and see?"  So far I haven't missed anything enough to want to dig deeper to look...

Mr. Boots' Getting Ornery!

Mr. Boot's Days of Fun...

Mr. Boots took my shoelaces out of my workout shoes and made a zipline in the living room!

Looks like fun!

Mr. Boots threw everyone for a loop and hid outside one morning.  We decided he wanted to see the Christmas lights twinkling outside. He was very hard to find!

Mr. Boots was up to no good one morning.  He was trying to take the last 3 Candy Canes from the pantry.  He almost got away with it!  On several occasions I found Autum standing on her little pink chair underneath these candy canes stretching on her tippy toes trying to grab them.

He's a long way up there!!

Mr. Boots got into Leah's Princess Barbie collection to find some friends to play with.  Here Rapunzel 'let down her hair' to help an Elf  out.  As you can see she had to call in reinforcements with Belle holding her legs up high...and Sleeping Beauty, AKA Princess Aurora, below to help catch Mr Boots if he fell..

This got quite the laugh this morning!

On a heavier note, this week has been a tough one in many respects.  I am feeling the 'heaviness' of the sin in this world more this week, than usual.  To give you an idea, my Google top searched for list on my computer includes: breast cancer in a family member, symptoms of Autism in your child, effects of force-feeding/choking infants in orphanages, skin cancer/melanoma, death of your child...like I said it's been a rough week.  If you are a praying person, we could use some 'lifting up' for us and through us as we intercede heavily for those near/dear to us who are struggling, as their 'hurts' weigh heavy on us. 

Flying North

This morning's message comes to you straight from the bathroom...where I feel like I've been planted for the past 48 hours.  We are in full-blown potty training mode with Autum.  And so far, we are 0-4,656 in her actually going in the potty.  She tells me she has to go potty, we hurry in to the bathroom...and she either pees her pants while I'm trying to get her pants down...or she holds it until right after I take her off the pot.  Ohhh!  So here we are...singing, dancing, bribing, clapping, talking...and now typing...all in hopes she actually potty's in the toilet today...instead of just making the sounds effects with her mouth--clapping her hands--and then saying she's all done and wants to wash her hands.  Followed up with asking for a candy cane...She SO doesn't get this bribe thing yet. :)

 Mr. Boots had an interesting weekend.  Poor guy.  Friday morning he made his appearance being silly, hanging upside down, in our cabinet.  On several occasions Leah got on me for smashing his nose when I shut the cabinet door too hard.  She kept having to check in on him to make sure he was okay.  I was in the kitchen getting after-school snacks ready and someone made it very clear they pooped their pants...but NO one wanted to admit to it.  I asked who pooped...to which Autum replied and pointed up in the air-- "Boots!" Hahaha...what's the saying "He who denied it, supplied it?"  Very true in this case.

Then the next day...he and his buddy Mr. Snowman decided to roast marshmallows over my new candle.   You will notice there are only 2 marshmallows left for them to roast.  The interesting thing about this is...there were about 5 marshmallows for Mr. Boots and Mr. Snowman to roast that morning...and by the end of the day NO ONE knew what happened to the other ones...Leah said Mr. Boots must have eaten them.  I just replied that Santa will find out who really ate them...
And after that the rest of the evening went TERRIBLE.  We had a late night Friday night, following a crazy, busy week.  And it all came snowballing down on us Saturday afternoon.  It got so bad that Mr. Boots left Leah a note from Santa, Sunday morning when she awoke.  Mr. Boots hung out on the TV and left a note and the book open to the page about Santa being sad when the kids are naughty...she wasn't too happy about the idea and wrote Santa a note back...but I convinced her it probably wasn't a good idea to write Santa mean notes...so we tore it up. :)

 Here's the note Santa left Leah.  It said that Santa thought she'd have a better day Sunday but she had to do 8 nice things for other people that day to make up for Saturday's behavior.  So...this list included: writing her great grandma and grandpa notes, giving her brother a hug, playing dolly's with her little sister, sweeping the kitchen floor for mommy, wiping down her bathroom sink, writing a thank you note to Miss Sierra, who takes her to school everyday for us, and telling her mommy and daddy she loved them.  We finished the list by 8 pm Sunday night...just in time.  Phew!  Mr. Boots actually left early Sunday to go back to the North Pole to report to Santa how Leah was doing with her list..and that seemed to kick things in to gear.  We were on the up and up after that...(I'm seriously thinking we need an elf or guardian angel year round to watch over the kids...a parent has a lot of leverage with that little thing)

And finally...Mr Boots returned today in his pink minivan/school bus with a treat for Autum.  A motivation you could say...motivation for her to go potty on the big girl potty!  So we'll see...more to come.

In other news...Jerad shot another 2 deer.  Our freezer will be full again.! Yippee!

This deer was shot in Kansas along with a doe I didn't get a picture of, this past weekend.

This one he shot in Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago.

Mr. Boots and the Bathroom

Mr. Boots Adventures Day 2 & 3...

 

So Day 2...Mr Boots 'upped' his game and made himself a little less easy to find.  Leah woke up for school and immediately began darting around the house trying to find Mr. Boots.  After searching all the places she thought he'd be, she went back to her room.  I just assumed she was getting her clothes on for school, so I continued cooking breakfast and getting the other 2 kiddos around.  About 15 minutes went by, and if any of you know how long it takes Leah to get out the door for school, you will realize these were precious minutes wasted away....because I went in to check on her in her room only to find her in her bed with the lights off.  I wasn't sure what was going on so I went and tapped her on the shoulder and asked what was going on. She was scrunching her eyes and nose up, trying her bestest to 'sleep.'  She flipped the covers back and said she was going back to sleep because Mr. Boots hadn't come back yet and he only flies when she's asleep.  Haha!  Poor girl.  So I had to help direct her the right way.  When she found him atop daddy's deer, her next concern was his anger with Mr. Boots riding his deer's antlers.  But after getting approval from daddy for him only being there for a short ride, she was okay with it all.

The next morning, Mr. Boots made his appearance in the bathroom.  He must have been sleepy from his previous night's trip to the North Pole, so he used a wash rag to cover up and take a short snooze.  He tapped me on the head while I was getting Autum's comb and hair rubberband and caused quite a commotion in the bathroom that everyone came running and found him perched atop the vanity!  Because we found him so quickly that morning we were able to get on with the mornings routine a little quicker.  We all ate breakfast and I began to clean up the oatmeal mess sprayed across the table, high chairs, floors and walls, while Leah went to use the bathroom.  Again, mom instinct kicked in and I realized she had been perched on the ivory throne for longer than normal...so I made my way into the bathroom to see what was going on.  She was still sitting on the toilet with her hands rested under her chin, with her eyes closed, and a focused look on her face.  I wasn't sure how to address the situation so I gently asked if she was feeling okay.  She then replied "A GIRL CAN'T POOP WITH AN ELF LOOKING AT HER! Plus its going to stink, so Mr Boots needs to pull that rag over his face!"  So after exploding in laughter, I did what she asked and pulled Mr. Boots blanket over his head long enough for her to do the deed.  Then as we left I uncovered his face and Leah suggested I turn on the fan for his sake....BAHAHHA!

Oh my....