Thanksgiving...Finally!

Contrary to what it looks like on this blog, we did actually celebrate Thanksgiving this year and it was one of the best ones ever!  Unfortunately about two hours into our 11 hour drive to Park City, I realized that I had forgotten to bring the camera!!!  So I am stuck with stupid phone pictures but oh well.

The kids were amazing on the drive and we got there in record time.  Aside from the first few snowy hours through Idaho and Montana, the drive was not bad at all.

What is a Monson family reunion without matching shirts?!  This year we got super comfy zip hoodie sweatshirts.  This is the whole clan.  I swear it multiplies every year!

All the cute babies with Nana and Papa.

Since it was a Monson gathering, we dedicated two full days to cooking for Thanksgiving dinner so to keep the kids occupied while we cooked, Nana and Papa spoiled them rotten with Christmas presents!!  The kids had a great time playing with all their new toys.  The girls were loving the paper doll sets!  I have to say the new "paper" dolls made out of wood and magnets are so much more durable! 

Beckett was loving his new tools that came with his ride on tractor!

Carter got tools too but his were the big boy tools with a drill and even a tool belt.  

He and Rylynn also got Light sabers which they were dying to get and which I was not going to buy so it's a good thing they have a generous Nana and Papa around!

Beckett also got this cute race car track that he loves!!  He had to snuggle all the cars that came with it every night.

These are the only pics we got of the big feast but let me just say it was AMAZING!!

These cute kids were very patient wating for their dinner!

Here are some random coloring pics with Nana.  The kids had lots of fun activites to do thanks to Nana and Papa!  Coloring, treasure hunts, the fishing game, Wii, puzzles, and of course the favorite,  swimming.  

We got to meet my newest neice Gracie on our trip and she was making me super baby hungry!  She's adorable!

You can tell we Monson women take a lot of time on our makeup when we are together:)

We also got to meet Abby's boyfriend Matt and may I just say we are big fans.  His sisters are Abby's roommates so they all came up and had dinner with us on Thanksgiving and they were even brave enough to participate in our talent show and candle passing. 

It was Skyler's birthday the day we all arrived so we had a little lawn mower party for him.  He's obsessed with lawn mowers:)  The kids loved all the games and the lawn mower cake!

musical chairs got very competitive!

A couple days after Thanksgiving we went tubing and Gorgoza Park and it was so awesome!  We stayed forever and the kids were such good sports because it was crazy windy and freezing.

This is just a random night at dinner, but I just couldn't resist.  These kiddos are so cute!

The last night we went to see the lights on Temple Square for the opening night.  It was CARAZY!!  So many people!  It was still fun to take the kids to see all the lights and they were really excited to see the inside of the Tabernacle.

Beckett was loving the "baas".  He is slightly obsessed with Shepherds this year:)

Cute Rylynn was freezing cold at this point but I had to get a picture with the beautiful nativity in front of the temple.  Another highlight of this night was when we drove down a little bit early so we could see our sweet little dog Ollie.  The kids were so excited to see him again.  We love Ollie and I'm so glad he's happy with my sister.  

We Love Pre-K!

Carter has been waiting for a couple of years to get to go on his very own Pre-K fire station fieldtrip!! Every since we went with Rylynn he has talked about it and a couple weeks ago, his day finally came! 

He loved watching the firemen explain the different parts of the truck and all the cool stuff they have inside.

Here they are showing us where the firemen eat and sleep when they are on shift at the fire station.

This time it was Beckett's turn to be the little sibling tag a long and he was in heaven!

Carter thought it was awesome when the firemen put on all his gear and showed him how they sound with their masks on.  I think he mostly loved this part because he thought the guy sounded like Darth Vater who he is obsessed with at the moment:)

For some reason Beckett was not into taking the picture with Carter in the fire truck. 

This is Carter's new pre-K class that he just loves.  In fact this was his first day with his new class.  He used to be in the morning pre-K class because he has always been my morning boy but it was just not working with Beckett's nap schedule and the morning class had 16 boys so we switched him to the pm class to be with a smaller group and to be with his two best buddies, Sam and Aiden.  It is making my life so much easier with naps and he is loving his new class.  

Another milestone for our boys is that we finally got bunk beds!!  Garrett's cousin Stacey was getting rid of her boys' bunk beds and we were the lucky ones to get to inherit them, stickers and all!  If you know me at all, you know that I loathe stickers and that they honestly make me ill but I love my boys and I knew they would be so excited to get these bunk beds so I've only peeled off about half of the stickers:)  Carter had been sad ever since we moved here that he didn't get a desk(I gave Rylynn my desk from 7th grade during this move).  So it was especially perfect that there is a built in desk in the bunk bed.  It was like Christmas for him the day we brought them home!  Beckett is in his own big bed on the bottom and he does great and we are even back to full normal afternoon naps!!  Yay!!

On a random note, our two oldest kids built a snowman a couple weeks ago but the snow started melting the next day so they tried to save their little friend by moving him onto the porch.  Well the next day they were out on the porch playing with the then ice ball that was once their snowman and somehow it ended up in our window!!  I don't know if you can see how bad it is, but it is really bad!!  

Here's our beautiful taped up mess of a window.  Luckily it only broke through the outside pain so it isn't freezing in our house, but it is the front window on the front porch so we officially look like the ghetto white trash family on the block.  I tried to make it look somewhat like a snowflake design so it would at least be festive:)  I was just so thankful that no one got sliced up.  Those glass shards are huge!

October in Review

I seriously can't believe it is already the second week of November!!  October went so fast and now I am left with tons of pictures and events to get caught up on.  So here it goes!

I LOVE Fall leaves and October is the best month to see all the beautiful colors.  I still miss Ohio every fall because as beautiful as it is here in WA there just aren't that many non-evergreen trees around which makes for a very green fall.  There are some here and there and I couldn't resist taking this picture in front of the church with the beautiful red leaves.

Beckett and Rylynn were big helpers to rake up the leaves in our yard!  This is Beckett's patented smile these days for the camera.  Do you love the eyes?

The play broom wasnt really cutting it but I'm not going to complain when my kids are volunteering to help!

This little man is more opinionated than ever these days!  He will not let us help him do ANYTHING.  I am definitely having flashbacks to Rylynn as a two year old.  He insists on pouring his own cereal and milk, but I don't let him hold the milk.  I had hopes of holding this one back in school since he has an August birthday, but I can already tell he is going to have none of that!

Again with the horrible camera face!  These two boys are having more and more fun together in the afternoons and one of their favorite activities is bathtime!  It seems like we average about 3 baths a day for Beckett these days.

Garrett went on a weekend hunting trip with his Dad in UT so I took the kids and drove to Portland to celebrate my nephew Nathan's birthday.  His party was at Sky High and the kids had so much fun!  It was a really fun weekend except for when I lost my wedding ring.  Don't worry, my sister found it the night after I left Thank Heavens!!

This little man was loving the trampolines with the balls.  He got so sweaty!

They also loved the foam pits.  Carter was pulling some serious flips, but I only got it on video.

When we got back the Halloween festivities officially began.  It started off with the ward Halloween party which was awesome this year.  Rylynn was our little witch, Beckett was a monkey, and Carter was a race car driver.  I have used this monkey costume for all of my kids when they are two but Beckett has by far loved it the most!  He seriously wore it about 50 times in the last two weeks of October.  He even kept the little hand mittens on which Carter hated as a 2 year old.

Rylynn was trying so hard on the donut on a string contest:)

The boys were loving the dessert walk!  They also had trick or treating in the classrooms, a bouncy castle, and fish pond.  The kids loved it and got tons of candy.

Carter got to perform in his first Pre-K class play "Miss Wishy-Washy".  He was so excited.  He was a cow and did a great job!

I was able to help out with Carter's class Halloween party this year and it was a lot of fun.  He got to have some yummy treats and then they played a bunch of games.  I was in charge of the Go fish game and it definitely kept me busy.  It was funny because his teacher explained all the games to the kids and then said go and the whole class except for two kids came running over to my station.  Fishing was quite the popular game!  

After the games were all done they played musical chairs.  Blurry phone pic.  Sorry.  It was a fun party.

We have had a beautiful fall so far with a lot of sunny cool days so the kids have loved having their trampoline again.  See, Beckett wore his costume every chance he could get!

We finally carved pumpkins the night before Halloween.  The kids designed the faces themselves and did a great job.  Plus we got lots of yummy toasted pumpkin seeds.

Our spooky jack-o-lanterns!

On Halloween we had some friends over for our traditional dinner-in-a-pumpkin, rolls, salad and the famous triple chocolate mousse cake!  Seriously that cake is dangerous.

Here's the trick or treating crew.  We picked up some more friends throughout the night too.  Overall it was a great night of trick or treating except the babies got cold and had to come back early.  I have to say it kind of stinks to have Halloween on a school night.  Everybody was quitting at like 7:30, plus we were so exhausted the next day for school.  Oh well.  Some punk kids stole my cute Halloween candy bowl from off our porch but luckily I bought a replacement the next day on clearance for $1.99.  Gotta love after holiday clearance sales!

And finally, to burn off the candy craziness, Garrett has done "flippies on the bed" with the kids a lot lately.  Carter and Rylynn love this game and they totally get a work out.  Garrett throws them up in the air and they do all sorts of crazy moves.  I love Rylynn's face in this pic!  Hilarious.

Beckett is a little gun shy of anything involving flying/throwing/falling due to recent events:)  So he gets a way toned down version of flippies but he still has fun.

Carter is by far the craziest and pulls out all kinds of crazy moves.  This is his self-named "Thundermove"!  I swear I hope this kid doesn't turn out to be a cage fighter:)  Now on to November!