Kalia thought it would be a good idea to stand on a stool and practice her High School Musical cheerleading moves. This, as it turns out, is not a good place to do your cheerleading. As she was a movin' and a shakin' she fell off the stool and broke her wrist. Thank goodness we have three orthopedic surgeons in our family. It is slightly embarrassing that EVERY summer we go up to Utah we have to pull out the "Hi- Remember us? We are your cousins five times removed and can you fit us into your incredibly hectic schedule because we are FAMILY?" card. And- they do!!!!  Thanks to all of the doctors in our family who take care of my kids. And sorry it took soooo long to decide which color caste Kalia was going to have. We didn't plan on the debate over colors vs. school outfits lasting quite so long!

Joshua wants to water ski so bad. But there is one BIG problem. The legend of the Bear Lake Monster. This is a scary story that is older than me for sure and- depending on who is telling it- scares kids into thinking their is a giant dragon like monster that lives in the lake and will eat them!

So, Josh being six and having been freshly retold the story of the Bear Lake Monster by his cousins was a little scared to water ski.

Not going to show fear he begged to be the first one to go skiing. Having had experience with many a child skier, I said- Why don't you wait and watch a few others ski. But no! He was determined. So, we started the whole process of getting the skis on, sizing them and putting him on the back of the boat. (about a 20 minute process) Once he saw the water he said- Uh mom, I don't want to ski right now. I will do it later. The later turned into the next day as none of the kids were particularly successful- he wasn't about to get in that freezing water.

So, the next day he declares that he is going to ski- after seeing many of the cousins get up and ski. We go through the whole process of fitting the skis again, putting him on the back of the boat and with all of the positive encouragement we could muster- and

1.      Promising there is no Bear Lake Monster.

2.      He won’t drown with his life jacket on.  

3.      Fish will not eat his toes.

He made it into the water!

He sat in the water for 10 seconds before he declared. "I am not going to ski today mom!" Back up in the boat he went. My goal for next time is for him to get in the water and at least to the end of the rope…

Every summer my family travels to one of my favorite places called Bear Lake. The lake is spilt in two with half of it in northern Utah and the other half in Idaho. I love riding my bike along the lake because I can say that I rode my bike from Utah to Idaho and it sounds really far! In all it is about a 30 mile round trip from the place we stay. This is a beautiful lake and it is notoriously cold.

I have been going to Bear Lake since I was three and it is so fun to share it with my kids. This was the year we decided that we needed to get all of our younger kids to be better at water skiing. I love to ski so I volunteered to get in the cold water and be the helper mom and teach my kids and nieces and nephews be successful little skiers. (A side note- my nieces and nephew told me that I was nicer to them then their moms- that’s why they wanted me in the water! Take that sista’s!) So what started out to be nice morning turned into me staying in the lake two solid hours turning purple and a total combined effort of all skiers up and out of the water and skiing -about 10 seconds.

Now, I am no quitter and my reputation of the best teacher, favorite aunt, and best cheerleader in the family was at stake so that meant we had to face another day of water skiing. We woke up the next day- and this is a funny side note for my LDS friends out there. There were no boats on the lake that we could see except one and they just returned from a very early ski. As they were walking past us we said hi and because I was facing two hours with no wetsuit in the water, I ALMOST SAID to the older man wearing a wet suit. “Hey- you’re a wimp wearing a wet suit out there. Can’t you take the cold! But something stopped me and they went on their way. My mom said that was cool we talked to them and I said who? She said “Honey, that was Elder Eyring.” (He is an Apostle, a very high position in the LDS faith.) Yikes!

I did have a silent chuckle. That day of skiing was a lot more successful. Maybe I was being blessed for NOT calling an apostle a wimp. Two of my students- er -uh kids skied 1 minute and 40 seconds each and two made it up for at least 6-10 seconds (depending on how fast you were counting!) What a day! And just for the record- I showed off to my teenage nephews with a great ski and I can still jump the wake at 40 years old!

Josh hates to sit still. He also hates learning to read. This having been said, it goes to follow that sitting still AND reading are his two least favorite things to do in the world. He just can't stand it. He makes every excuse in the book not to sit and read. Then one day last week he came up with a great solution!  He said "Hey Mom, I am just going to do my reading over here in front of the TV, it helps me concentrate better." What a great idea I told him as I turned off the TV. He was not thrilled with me after that.

The adventures of Joshua Woods is the saga of my crazy six year old son. These life adventures are hair raising especially in the past few weeks. If you are just starting to read my blog, I will get you up to date on my little handful. A few background points of interest are:

1. When Josh was born, he swallowed his meconium (that black baby tar poop) in the birth canal and he spent seven days in the NICU fighting for every breath and basically for his life. We knew we were in for an adventure with him right from the start!

2. When he was 3 years old, he walked head first into a jumping cactus and had six firemen get him off the cactus, an ambulance ride, and spent 2 hours in surgery. They removed over 500 cactus needles all over his body. His favorite saying that year was "I Hate Cactus!"

3. When he was 4 he had a seizure in the middle of the night that has gone undiagnosed although one doctor believes it was a scorpion bite.

4. When he was 5 he had another seizure and spent a week in the children's hospital and still came away with no answers.

5. Besides all of the mischievous behavior, bumps and bruises along the way, we are brought up to these past few weeks. Josh decided that it would be a great idea to race his 15 year old brother on his bike. Of course he did not wear shoes or a helmet. (I know, I will not be winning any mother of the year award.) As they were racing, Josh hit a bump and flew head over heels on his bike and cracked his head open. We rushed him to the ER where he got stitches on his head. The good news is that there was still time to get to my daughter Lily's performance as a mouse in Mice and Mozart, the 5th grade play! Josh went, bloody shirt and all!

6. Everything was fine for five days until Josh had a great idea. Mr. Smarty pants was feeling like he would pop all of my birthday balloons. This would be fine behavior for any six year old but Josh added his personal touch and popped them with a pocket knife! As he was popping happily along, the pocket knife snapped shut with his finger inside. Josh sliced his finger from the top just under the fingernail, straight down the middle to the bend in his finger. You could pull the whole skin out and look inside. So, another trip to the emergency room he went and this time spent four hours and ended up with numerous stitches.

We have had a few quiet days and we are hoping for some peace. Are you allowed to put a six year old in a straight jacket?

Lily (age 11): Hey grandpa, can I turn on the car?

Grandpa (age 71): Sure Lily.

Lily: Hey grandpa, can I turn the key?

Grandpa: Sure Lily.

Lily: Hey grandpa, can I hold onto the steering wheel with you?

Grandpa: Sure Lily.

Lily: Hey grandpa, Can I drive up the street by myself.

Grandpa: Uh, No Lily. Did you think I would let you do that?

Lily: Well um no, I was just seeing how far I could test you.

Grandpa's ability to make decisions: priceless! Below, Lily, Annie and a Grand Grandpa!

 I am back from the busy month of May. In May I have Mothers day, the end of school activities and my birthday so it was fun AND I turned 40. I was thinking about Mothers Day and rereading the love notes from my kids because they were so funny. Here is a list of what my kids told me.

"Reasons I Love My Mom" (They were forced or "encouraged" to write them by their dad.)

1. You're my favorite Mom in the World - Kalia 8 and Lily 11 (I didn't know there was a competition.)

2. You make the best cheeseburgers in the universe. Kalia (Take That McDonald's)

3. You never yell at us. Kalia

4. You are always nice after you yell at us. Jazzie 13

5. She is the coolest mom ever (By vote of my friends). Jordan 15

6. Thanks for taking care of me my whole life. Lily (Not just for a few years...)

7. Even though you are usually busy- you always care. Kalia (Should I analyze that?)

8. I would not trade you for any other mom in the world. Lily and Kalia (I didn't know I was on the auction block.)

9. You're pretty after you get ready in the morning. Josh

10. "For Mothers day, I Jazzie Woods promise to keep my room and bathroom clean for the whole month!"  That promise lasted about three hours.

11. She loves me even when I bug her. Lily (I have a good poker face.)

12. She doesn't get mad until the 8th time she asks me to clean my room. Jordan

13. She is embarrassing on purpose (not on accident). Jordan

14. She loves me- Jordan, Jazzie, Lily, Kalia & Josh

15. My mom has blue eyes, blonde hair, brown highlights and pail skin. She also has many angel kisses (freckles). Kalia

16. She smiles when I tell her nice things. Kalia (She is my talker!)

17. She knows everything about me. Kalia (Good thing I have been paying attention!)

18. She likes to do crafts - for fun. Kalia

The first few weeks of summer are always so hard. First of all, my kids think that everyday should be a huge event like going to the movies, sleep overs with friends, ordering pizza, have a huge water fight with a zillion people, eating out at restaurants and then going for ice cream at Cold Stone. They also get feisty and mean to each other and forget how to get along 24/7. I swear they are nicer to their friends than each other. After about two weeks I had had ENOUGH. I had to put a stop to that. It was madness I tell you. I was always saying "NO, sorry, you can't go there or spend that". Then we played the "Well, you let (fill in child's name) go (fill in the blank) yesterday!" game.

Finally, I sat all of my kids down and explained the National economy and then the Woods Household economy... both fluctuate daily. Then I told my kids that we were going to have a "Family Shut In." We were all going to spend the entire day home -no friends or cell phones! They were to be home and be nice to each other, or else!  It was quiet at first and everyone was basically sitting on the couch out but after a while I heard massive fits of laughter and my kids were being nice to each other again. It was a very peacful day. That was my favorite day of summer and we are going to "shut ourselves in" often. Especially because it is free!

Yesterday my three kids found a newborn baby bird, just hatched, right on our front porch. Since it was lying helpless on the ground, they decided they needed to recue it and promtly made it a home complete with interior design that looked like a Hilton Hotel for Feathered Friends. Next they took turns, loving, praying over and making comfortable the helpless bird that probably had a broken neck. They begged us to keep the bird as a pet and named him "Trooper Woods." Since Trooper was still half dead, or um, sleeping when they went to bed, they gave Todd and I the task of babysitting the bird until they could continue their mothering the next morning. As we headed off to bed we heard the bird sqweeking hysterically for food. It's little beak was quivering up and down and he was so helpless. That is when Todd said to me: "Honey, we need to kill this bird so the kids don't see it die and it won't suffer anymore." I promtly said:"No, death is a life lesson for kids and they need to see if they can help this bird or not." What was I thinking?! I went to the cupboard and mashed up a cracker to give to Trooper while Todd laughed hysterically that I was feeding the bird the eqivilant of prime rib to a newborn. He dared me the chew up a worm and feed it to him but we couldn't find any worms. I am always up for a dare. Since we were failing miserably we tried to give it some water and decided that it was probably best to take him outside. We figured that his mother was probably out looking for food like in the book "Are You My Mother?" and would be home soon. We also went to bed and hoped that God might perform some great miracle of salvation, or at least the bird didn't die on our watch. Not to be! We were woken up by three bawling children, a dead bird and a funeral invitation. Trooper had passed on from this wonderful life and we had to sit through a funeral (about 1/2 hour) and burial for the bird. Trooper, we want to thank you for coming into our lives. You were truly  um, sweet, and little and quite loud when unhappy. We hope you will Rest In Peace. Sincerely, The Woods Family