The Wood Family

Alexa had a great time for her birthday. She had a princess party at Chuck-E-Cheese with her favorite cousins and friends. She had princess decorations and she even wore a crown. She was extra excited because Aunt Keena was in town for her birthday.
This is Alexa's barbie doll cake. She had four different parties so she thought she was in heaven.
Alexa got spoiled with presents. We gave her the talking Sleeping Beauty, with the Talking Sleeping Beauty horse. She got lots of gifts from aunts and uncles, cousins, friends and of course her brothers and sister. Grandma Kaylene even took her to Toys-R-Us to pick whatever she wanted. The problem now is she got so much for her birthday, what do we about Christmas?

5 things I love about Alexa
1. Her imagination-She is content to make up her own games and play by herself. She will sit in her room and play quietly with her toys for hours.
2. She is a great Big and Little Sister-She is so good to Jaxon. She lets him follow her around and plays with him(most of the time). She also watches out for him and is his little protector. She idolizes her sister and tries to be just like her.
3. She is my girly-girl. She will let me dress her in cute frilly dresses. She still loves princess stuff. She still likes the colors pink and purple. These are all things McKenzie gave up a long time ago.
4. She still loves to crawl in my lap and give me lots of hugs and kisses. I hope she never outgrows this. She is a cuttlebug and I love it.
5. She says the cutest things in her little sing-song voice. She makes up her own songs(with perfect pitch) and comes up with the funniest phrases and things to say. She loves to dance and sing and has the cutest personality!
WE LOVE YOU ALEXA!

McKenzie was a tiger this year. She found the idea in a library book at school, so we made her costume this year.
Devin was a skeleton. Jaxon was scared to death of his mask.
Princess Lexie was Sleeping Beauty. I think she has been a Disney princess every year since she could decide on her own what she wanted to be.

Jaxon manipulated Mommy into buying him a Diego backpack and then still refused to dress-up. In his defense, he had been throwing up all day and needless to say was not a happy child that day. He stayed home with Daddy while Mommy took the other kids trick-or-treating. The kids were happy with lots of candy and the parents were exhausted. All in all a great Halloween!

I went to my doctors appointment yesterday and found out some sad news. My OB/GYN Dr. Gordon passed away. He has been my doctor throughout all five of my pregnancies and 11 years. He died from Lou Gehrig's disease. It took him pretty quickly. At my 10 week appointment with this baby, he had just had back surgery and was otherwise fine. He deteriorated rather quickly but had still been seeing patients up until just recently(he stopped doing deliveries a couple of months ago). It was pretty sad but I am glad that he did not have to suffer for years like many people with this disease do. So thank you to Dr. Gordon for being such a great doctor and helping get my kids here safely!

P.S. If you want to see pictures of Dr. Gordon, go to my sister-in laws blog, Bratty Pratts to see her tribute. My pictures are put away and I cannot get to them right now.

My child is a Halloween Scrooge. As I was getting everybody ready for our church Halloween party last night, I went to put Jaxon's costume on and he refused to let it anywhere near him. It was a cute, warm, fuzzy lion costume. I then tried to dress him as a devil. I had horns, a cape and a pitchfork. He would have nothing to do with that either. I took the costume with us and he still refused to wear it, so he wore his regular clothes to the party. So this morning I took him shopping to see if we could find him a costume. I found a Mater costume that just had straps to hold it on. I thought for sure he would love it (He loves the movie Cars and Mater is his favorite). I tried to put it on him at the store and he flipped. I am now trying to find a Diego costume at the last minute because he says he will be Diego(yeah, right). So don't be surprised to see Jaxon dressed this Halloween as.....himself!

Today was a crazy Saturday, with one thing right after another. Devin had his last flag football game and he did great. He got two sacks and pulled a bunch of other flags. He has had a great season with a touchdown, some points after, some great kicks and an interception. He is playing on a team that is a 5th and 6th grade team (he is in 5th grade) that all played together last year. We didn't know anyone on the team, but his coach was awesome and let him play nearly every position. Their team went undefeated and never had a team come close to beating them! (The picture is lousy because my camera is acting up and every action shot I got was blurry.)

McKenzie had her violin recital. She memorized her piece and did really well. She likes violin but she hates to practice. Her teacher told me she has really started to "get it" and is doing awesome. We can't wait to see what comes next!

Devin plays for a super league baseball team. They got to the semi-finals in the Labor Day tournament, but then the game got rained out. Yesterday was the make-up. We lost, but we were also playing one of the best teams in the state. This team creamed every team in the tournament by 15 points. We only lost by 5 and 2 of their runs were scored on a bad call by the umpire and 2 more on an error on our team. They played awesome. Bragging moment: Devin is the catcher and he is really good. He gets asked to sub in on other super league teams and has three super league teams that would pick him up. Jared helps coach his team and they love hanging out together. He loves playing baseball and we love watching him play!

I was upstairs cooking dinner on a Saturday when I realized that it was too quiet downstairs. What I found was a shock. All four kids were sitting on the couch watching the same movie. Nobody was crying, fighting or even touching each other. It was a rare moment, worthy of a picture!

Jaxon is always trying to be like his big brother!

...your two year-old climbs up on your bed in his Daddy's spot with his power ranger phone, lays down, crosses his legs, starts pushing buttons and says, "I texting, Mommy!" On a side note, I also have to "charge" his phone on his Daddy's charger next to our bed.

I know many of you(me included) have been anxiously awaiting Midnight Sun. Well, because somebody leaked a partial draft copy to the internet she has put the book on hold indefinitely. She has however, published this partial draft on her website so that her fans can read it lawfully(she has not finished writing the entire novel). You can read her explanation on her website. I hope she will change her mind and finish the book eventually.

My new post is under Alexa's hair post because I started it first. So scroll down for my newest entry, a tag from Nicole from a long time ago!

As I was doing Alexa's hair for church today, she was comparing our family's eye colors. She then proceeded to tell me that my hair color was banana. Well this evening as she was going to bed, she informed us that she knew all of our hair colors. Daddy is dirt, Mommy is banana, Devin is root beer, McKenzie is raspberry and her and Jaxon are strawberries. You could tell she had given this a great deal of thought. Isn't it funny how a child's mind works sometimes?

3 Joys
1.MY CHILDREN-They are by far my greatest joys and blessings. My life would not be complete without them and I am the luckiest Mom in the world!
2. MY HUSBAND-Without him I would not have my four beautiful children. He is a great Dad and Husband.
3. MEMBERSHIP IN THE CHURCH-I am so grateful to be a member of the church. I am grateful that families can be together forever!

3 Fears
(Does this have to be just 3?)
1.My biggest fear is something happening to Jared or my kids. I could not live without them.
2.Car accidents-I have been in 3 major accidents and gratefully only minor injuries in 2 of them(stitches in my head in one and a broken ankle in another one). I am scared to death that my car will crash into water and I will not be able to save all of my children.
3. Jared losing his job-I guess this counts as financial stability. We have done this before and it still scares me, especially the way the economy is right now.
4. Snakes-They are creepy, crawly and slimy-need I say more?

3 Current Obsessions or Collections
1.Things that are lost. Nothing makes me more insane than when stuff is lost. That is my biggest obsession. Binkys, shoes, clothing, phones or anything being lost will make me incredibly cranky (just ask my kids).
2. It seems like lately all I can can collect is junk and more projects to do. I always intend to finish one project before I start another one but it usually does't work that way. Right now I have more projects than I am motivated to do.
3. It may be a little juvenile but lately I have been helping Alexa collect princess polly pockets. I do not play them, even though I am constantly changing their clothes for Alexa. It is just fun to see your kids actually play with something for more than a few minutes. These entertain her for hours and hours, she even sleeps with them.

3 Surprising or Interesting Things About Me
1. When I was little I was quite the tumbler and extremely flexible. I could do the splits on all three sides. I used to watch TV with my feet locked behind my head (like a pretzel). The interesting thing is that I can still do my right leg splits and would still be able to lock my legs behind my head if my tummy didn't get in the way (thank you to my children for that ).
2. Many of you know what a picky eater I am. The thing that might surprise you is that I still cook pretty much anything for my family. I am actually a pretty good cook and just because I do not like it does not mean I will not make it for my family. Side note: My kids are pretty good eaters, unlike their mother.
3. I love action movies. All growing up we watched action movies. Ever since then I would much rather watch a good action flick than a chick flick.

I have chosen to TAG... NOBODY because it took me a month and a half to answer this one!

Marriage Tag!!
How long have you been married? 11 1/2 years
How old is your spouse? 33
Who eats more? I do. Jared gets gout in his foot, so he has to take medicine everyday. A side effect of that medicine is that nothing tastes good, so I definitely eat more.
Who said I love you first? He did.
Who is taller? Jared, by centimeters. We are almost the same height, both 5'9".
Who sings better? Neither of us. That talent gene skipped us both.
Who is smarter? I am. He has a little more street smarts than I do. I tend to over think things.
Who controls the T.V. remote? He does, which is probably why I stay up way to late to watch my shows every night. It is the only time I get the TV to myself.
Whose temper is worse? Jareds. He gets very grouchy and can get pretty worked up.
Who does the Laundry? I do all of it.
Who does the dishes? I do them all of the time.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do.
Who cooks dinner? Surprisingly, I do. Most of you know how picky I am so it might surprise you that I am actually a pretty good cook and I cook pretty much anything whether I like it or not. Jared is actually a really good cook. He does cook breakfast every once in awhile. He is much better than I am at making breakfast.
Who is more stubborn? This is a toss up. It depends what the issue is.
Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Generally neither of us (see above question). If I had to say one I would say I am.
Who has more friends? Definitely me. I still get together with my friends from high school every month. My husband is not exactly a social butterfly.
Who has more siblings? Jared is the fourth of seven. I am the oldest of three.
Who wears the pants in the family? Jared does most of the time.
I TAG Paula and Debbie

1 Tag down, 2 to go!

I recently found out that not only does Jared's family blog but mine does too. I thought is was time I let you know what we have been up to the past couple of months. Be sure and check my older posts because I posted a bunch of blogs.

We went camping over Spring Break to Goblin Valley. We went with Jared's Uncle Ron and Aunt Marne and his Uncle Neil and Aunt Sharon, their sons and their dogs. We camped right under a beautiful rock wall with indian writings on it. We went hiking in Slot Canyon and spent some time exploring the goblins with Nathan and Paula (they were camping in Green River). All the older kids wanted to do was climb the rocks. Alexa just wanted to play with the dogs and Jaxon loved riding his bike in the dirt. We only stayed a couple of days but we had a great time. I posted some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

If you didn't figure it out, I am still not very good at this and I realized after the first picture that I do not know how to link the posts together. So start at the fourth post from today and work your way up!

This is McKenzie's first time driving the snowmobile. Devin has a snowmobile license so she rode with him most of the time. She was very proud of herself.