On the Menu Today: Animal Crackers With a side of Ketchup "pease and tank you"

Are you tired of me talking about myself? Me to!!! So here's what Life was like at the Woodell House today. Nothing all that exciting, just a normal day with a few cute highlights thrown in.
We started out the usual way, me staring into outerspace until my cup of magic kicked in, Grant being cranky beacause he doesn't have coffee to help him wake up...(hmmm I wonder if it is just a myth that it stunts your growth, and would it be worth it if it helped keep my stress level down?) And Lela sleeping in to a glorious 8:30, just enough time to finish coffee (shes my favorite child already) haha j/k really I would never pick a favorite between my children, what kind of mom do you think I am?
 Anyway our day went by without much fuss, I turned Barney on and solved the problem of my very cranky 2 yr old, thats right I am one of "Those Moms".
 For snack time, I gave Grant some animal crackers and he insisted on having ketchup with them. Now I know every kid goes through the "ketchup stage", in fact I thought Grant was already done with it. So I reluctantly gave it to him thinking he would realize his mistake.... but of course he loved it and asked for more.
 We would have gone outside but it was so cold out there today so we decided to play inside. Grant is now deciding that he likes his baby sister and even plays with her a little. I caught him sharing his cars with her, the ones he wont even let me play with. He did pretty good until he realized that he was sharing and had a melt down.... Then later today while I was making dinner,  Lela bounced in her jumper and Grant tried playing patty cake with her.  Then he would play like he fell down to make her laugh, She loved it! (he did say "push when I laughingly asked if he fell down, trying to blame Lela... lol )
Who is this boy living in my house and what did he do with my son? Can he really be outgrowing his bully stage already? He has been going to daycare 2 times a week to get acculmated with other kids. It seems to be working!
Now the boys are out playing in the shop while the girls chill on the couch. Daddy is showing Grant his "Daddy's Mare-o Car" which is just Grant's way of saying Camaro Car. I was going to bully Dusty into giving Lela her bath since I have worked so hard today..;) but since they are having so much fun out there I better go do the bath. Then off to meet the beautiful new addition to our friends home and a visit to nana and papa's to end our night.
That my friends is what life is all about, Family.

Next To Every Crazy Woman, There is a Strong Man...

I would like to dedicate this one to my Amazing and Patient Husband. Through the years I have changed a lot. My looks, my attitude, my outlook on life and my personality. Now I know that Im not alone in all this, there are plenty of crazy (I call myself crazy with the utmost affection) women out there like me, but lucky for me I have a wonderful man holding my hand through it all. Now this is going to get pretty personal and boring, but I promise to add some crazy pictures to keep it fun :) 

Ok Lets go back to the years of barbies and dolls... only I wasnt playing with those, I prefered the action packed Ninja Turtles! Oh yeah, Cow-A-Bunga Dudes!

I was super cute and sugar sweet...

I was a good kid, hardly ever got in trouble, and when I did I was super sensitive, a look of disaproval from dad would be enough to discipline me. Man my parents had it good, even through H.S I was good. I did a few things I wont want my kids doing but for the most part not too bad.


Heres where the 1st major change came in my almost adult life. My senior year of H.S. (Go Panthers!) I decided I had had enough of my parents strict and sheltering lifestyle and wanted some freedom... HA! You want to know what I thought would be the right amount of Freedom for me? Well I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps... you can stop looking so shocked, I already warned you of the craziness... Well to make that long story a bit shorter, I didn't go through with it. Let me be very clear on this, I was very proud to be sworn in, I would have been very proud to serve my country as a Marine. But as I said, I was looking for Freedom and when I moved out of my parents' house on Graduation Night, I got a taste of what I was looking for. This is where I came out of my shell a bit. I wont go into the details, you can just use your imagination to make this chapter of my life as interesting as you want. So after some "Living" and my dad insisting, I withdrew myself from the military, a week before leaving for bootcamp. This was not an easy process, and not anything I would reccomend to anyone. I had to write a letter with all my reasons etc... I was told that since they had already "met their quota for women, that they wouldn't throw the book at me". I'll never forget the day I turned in that letter, my Staff Sergeant said theses words to me; "By quiting this, you are setting a prescedent for the rest of your life, you will quit everything you attempt to do." Those words angered me for a long time but I have come to understand what they mean...

So from there my best friend and roomate roped me into enrolling in college, a week before classes started.

Let me insert another big issue in my life here: We will just leave it at

 "Very Bad Relationship With a Very bad Boy"

Ok, on with it... So college ended up being a bad idea... I guess I didnt realize you were required to actually show up for class and watched as my grades declined drastically. So using the excuse that I had decided to change my major (I no longer aspired to be a CSI) I dropped out a week before finals my first year. That didnt help my resolve to prove my staff sergeant's words to me wrong.... ( although I have plans on going back to school this fall)

Is there a limit on how long these blogs can be? You may want to take a pee break here....

This is the Best part: Meeting Dusty!
College did one thing for me, it introduced me to a very awesome fun friend

that to this day I still love talking to. She told me about this boy, this boy that I happened to be working with at Pizza Hut at the time. This cute boy liked Me! Me, can you believe it?


Well because of my recent "Very Bad Relationship" experience, I made a fool of myself...This is how that went down. I asked our mutual friend, the aspiring matchmaker, to take me to this boys house so I could talk to him in person. Thats me, up front and to the point. So I asked him to come outside with me and on his own front porch and said these words to him: "I know that you like me, but I just got out of very bad relationship and don't want anything to do with you." yep, I said just that. I know what your are thinking, "cold hearted B-word" but if you understood just what I had just been through you may understand those words better. A story for another time maybe. Well thank goodness he didn't give up on that crazy girl, we ended up hanging out and flirting on our first non-date and I agreed to go on a real date with him the next night we had off together. As the saying goes : The rest is history!


This is where the changes started in my looks. Somewhere after we were married and before we had our first baby I realized how fun it was to change my hair! I started out dyeing it different colors, then I cut it a little and a little more until it was very short! Then I got my nose peirced, which was fun until I had to take it out for my job at the bank. So I settled on getting Tattoos where I could hide them. All of this to some shock to my friends and family. But not to my husband. Somehow he sees me, knows just who I am even when I don't. And he accepts me for the crazy woman I am.




My outlook on life has changed drastically over the years. Of course in H.S, all that seemed very important and looking back we realize that none of that drama mattered. I grew up thinking that I would get married at 30, kids by 35 and live life happily ever after. As it turned out I found my soul mate (or rather he found me,) and was married at 19 and was ready for a baby by 21. Well God had other plans for us and it took 3 yrs of trying before we had Grant. Who may I add has changed my life so much! I never thought I could love like I love my children. (another blog on this subject later)

Getting Married at 19 was wonderful, but by the time I hit 21 I realized all the dumb fun stuff I had never done before. That was a hard time for Dusty and I, and again I thank the good Lord above that he stuck by me in that time of change. Knowing that Dusty was the man I wanted to grow old with, I made it a priority to grow up and stop worrying about the things I hadn't experienced and embraced my amazing life!

Of course becoming a mom was another major change in life, in fact it changed everything! My perspective on life has completly changed, everything I do, everything I say I wonder how it will affect them someday. Well this is where I close this very lenghty post, I am sure I will be adding to this subject in the posts to come. I hope that at the end of this, you understand me a little more; I hope to understand myself a little more each time I clean out the cobwebs in my head...