These are my cute boys around Valentine's Day. My first blog didn't really tell you much about us, so here goes:

Sam is 9. He loves riding his bike, putting legos together, reading Beast Quest books, playing with his friends and is a huge help to me. I'm pretty sure that within the next month or two he will be stronger than I am--he works out on the swing set and trampoline everyday. Jen Fletcher has been teaching Sam and Jacob piano for the past school year and they are both doing well. Sam has especially loved it. His favorite song's lyrics start out "There's a place in France..."--you fill in the rest! We have to tell him to stop playing sometimes! Sam was reading a book recently without the light on in the room. Garrett came in and told him to turn the light on or he wouldn't be able to see the words. Sam said, "Well, I'm on page 143, so you tell me if I can." He's always looking for another book to read because he is such a speedy reader. Sam's gone secretive on the girl front, so we aren't quite sure who his main squeeze is right now. He loves playing with Noah and Isaac Bradford, Laura and Lincoln Fletcher and anyone else--he's friends with everyone. Last Friday my boys all came home to tell me they had a pizza party. It was a pizza party for student council. It was kind of fun this year because Sam, Jacob and Mason were either voted in by their class or chosen by their teacher as the student council reps for their class, so it was a little Wood boy family reunion at student council meetings, and let me tell you I'm sure that they had a major sway in some very important issues, like after-school popsicle sales.

Jacob is 9. He loves playing Star Wars legos video game, putting legos together, drawing, playing with other peoples' dogs, riding his bike and jumping on the trampoline. When he gets older we hope that he marries Laura Fletcher, his best friend (her mom Jen helped me enter the world of the blog-thank you, thank you , thank you!) Jacob was in a skit for primary on Sunday and he was supposed to show a bad example of being a brother. Sam came up to him and said, "Hey, I just won my baseball game, can I tell you about it?" Jacob said "Sorry, I'm listening to my music right now and put on head phones and starts singing really loudly "I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day!" I could feel the color rise in my face--maybe a little too much guitar hero is going on at our house, but who's to know for sure. Jacob's the only kid I know who has understood adult humor from about the day he could talk. He's constantly cracking us up, which you'll see in tales to come.

Mason is 6, but he wishes he was 9 like Sam and Jacob. He picks things up so quickly and is driven to keep up with his brothers. He is an especially good artist and loves to ride his bike (he was the first one to learn to do it!), play on the trampoline and play with his friends. Mason is always good for a hug. He's always doing thoughtful things for us, like he made a bead necklace for Garrett and me to share. I wore it yesterday and told Garrett it was his day today, but somehow he must have forgotten about it in his rush to get to school--don't worry, I'll make sure he wears it tomorrow! Mason is also always good for telling me how beautiful I am, which I will take any time I can hear it. His best friends are Isaac Bradford and Alexander Swack. Mason wants to learn to play the piano, so I told him I'd try to teach him. We'll see how it goes. He is motivated enough that he may just be able to get by on my shoddy teaching skills.

Joseph is 4. He was a little upset when we told him that his next birthday he wasn't going to be three again, but had to move up to 5. Joe loves Darth Vader and likes to practice is vice-death neck grips and electrocutions, like the Emperor. He spends a great deal of time practicing his light saber skills, which are surprisingly realistic. When he isn't dressed up as a super villain or superhero, he is playing with "his guys"--a large collection of star wars action figures or super hero action figures. Joe was walking through the room when Garrett was playing guitar hero the other day and saw that Garrett was "The Devil", one of the characters on guitar hero with read skin, horns, a pointy beard, no shirt and jeans. Joe said "Yes, I love the Devil!" We are working on steering him away from bad guys, but they always seem cooler. Anyone have any cool angel action figures? When he grows up he wants to marry his friend, Lorili Thorson and have his other friend, Devanee Smith as his girlfriend. Maybe he'll be a polygamist, or he might just have to share one of his girls with his other friends, Jace Cherry and Isaac Fletcher.

Garrett is finishing up Dental School at the University of Iowa and will graduate on June 6th. He did some major surgery on a "tumor" on his arm last week and I'm still worried that his use of dental material on his arm may cause the whole thing to get infected and fall off. For a day after he had done it, you could see a white spot around the stitches and then white streaks shooting up his arm from the slice and dicing. I didn't realize he'd take the title "Doctor" so literally in every sense of the word. He's actually done alot of work on my teeth and I've been impressed--I hate going to the dentist--and now I can be a big wuss and he still loves me. We are going to Stuttgart, Germany around the 20th of June to do a 4 year payback to the army for dental school. We are so excited! I'll give you more news to come.

Well, I hadn't intended to be so wordsy, but it was fun. I'll close like I'm in the army, they always close all their voicemails or e-mails with "Have a blessed day!"