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!