2 1/2 months

Today Beckett did his first full bellied laugh!  That has to be one of my favorite sounds in the world.  He did it when I was singing popcorn popping with him and do the hand motions with his tiny hands.  I can't believe this baby is going to be 3 months old in two weeks.  I wish babies could stay tiny forever, but then every new thing they learn is so fun and exciting too.  I just love everything about this sweet boy!

He Passed!!! (And Other Exciting News)

I am happy to announce that Garrett PASSED the BAR exam!  It took for stinkin ever to get the results but today they finally came!!!  Though Garrett had several anxiety attacks in the last few days, I never doubted him for a second.  Congratulations, honey!  We are so proud of you!

Now for the really, really exciting news!  Garrett is opening his own law firm on November 2nd!  He has been planning and preparing since early in September.  We realized in September that we had been pushing this idea off over and over again hoping that a job would come along and then we thought maybe there is a reason that this idea keeps coming up over and over again.  So we just decided to go for it!  From that point on miracles have been happening left and right.  We feel so blessed and know that this is the path that the Lord has set out for us from the beginning, it just took us awhile to figure out His plan and forget ours.  Among many other miracles, we found a great building in Liberty Lake and got a fabulous deal on the lease.  The inside was just a vanilla shell so we got to design the layout and we have been able to watch them build it out step-by-step.  Here are some pictures of the office...

This is the waiting room/reception area.  The window in the wall looks into the conference room.

This is the hallway from the back of the office looking towards the lobby.  There is a conference room, an office for Garrett, and then a second office/copy room.  Then in the back there is a kitchen area and bathroom.

This is Garrett's office.

Obviously there is still a bit of work to do, but everyday they get closer.  We get to pick out the paint and carpet this week.  We are getting so excited!!  There is currently no lawyer in all of Liberty Lake which has a population of about 17,000 people so the client to lawyer ratio is amazing.  We just feel so blessed to see how every door has been opened to us.  It seems like every person we come in contact with after learning that Garrett is opening this office tells him that they have some legal work that they would love for him to do.  We will keep you all posted as the progress continues but for now you can check out his website here.  Thank you ALL for the support and prayers during the Bar, it definitely paid off!  Now we're off to celebrate!

UPDATE:

The Bar Association provides for a formal swearing-in ceremony for all the new lawyers, but you have to wait a few weeks.  As Garrett hates formal ceremonies and is in a hurry to get started, he drove to the courthouse after getting his results and managed to get a judge to swear him in as a lawyer on the same day he received his results.  Here are some pictures:

This is Garrett taking the oath.

This is Garrett shaking hands with Superior Court Judge Harold D. Clarke.

He is an official lawyer now and we are so proud of him!

Leavenworth and POYFAIRS!

On Saturday we drove for a few hours to meet up with our favorite POYFAIRS in Leavenworth for Octoberfest! It was so much fun to see them and to spend the day together. I wish I had taken a picture of Rylynn jumping off the curb and almost tackling Oliva with her hug, but I couldn't get the camera out fast enough.  The weather was COOL but beautiful! I love Fall, it is definitely my favorite season, and Leavenworth had such beautiful fall leaves and mountains for us to enjoy. Leavenworth is a little German style town and all the buildings look like they are old fashioned swiss or German chalets.

Beckett was so difficult and slept almost the whole time in the stroller, which is why he isn't in any of the pictures.












Rylynn was loving all the flowers everywhere. If you look at the Bavarian Lodge pictures you can see the same pretty flowers in flower boxes on every window. I felt like we were in Europe for the day!

The kids were loving the street clown performer!  Carter's favorite part was when he juggled with fire.But the highlights of the day for the kids were the bouncy castle and obstacle course.  This thing cost 2$ to go through it 3 times.  I'm pretty sure that for every 2$ we spent for Carter he made it through about 8 times without the lady noticing.  She was NOT paying very close attention.

After the bouncy fun, we went to lots of fun shops around the town.  There was a really cool Christmas shop called Kris Kringle's that had really cute decorations.  We also went to a chocolate shop and a cheese shop.  For lunch we had brats and apple cider.  I have to admit, I expected a little more from the Brats being that it was a little German town.  Oh well.  After the kids had had enough of shops we drove down to a little pumkin patch place that had lots of fun things for the kids.

The boys were loving the airplane swings.

We tried to enjoy our McDonalds dinner in the cold even though we could barely feel our fingers

Rylynn liked this giant tire but I think she liked getting totally dirty even more!

Then the kids and Dads went on a cow tractor ride all over the little farm.  They loved it!

I have a great video of Rylynn squealing with delight, but my computer hates me when it comes to uploading videos.  Any suggestions?

Rylynn was so sad to say goodbye to Olivia.  She is trying to smile through her sadness.

The moms warming up by the fire pit.  I promise the Dad's were there too, but for some reason I have no pictures of them.  They had a lot of fun being goofballs together as usual.  It was so much fun to chat and catchup.  We had a great time.  We love you Poyfairs!

2 month stats

Beckett had his two month appointment the other day and he weighed in at a whopping 13 lbs 6 oz and 23 1/2 inches. Over the 90th percentile for each! As you can guess he is a great eater.

Preschool mini concerts

Rylynn's pre-k class has a mini concert every month to get the kids more comfortable performing in front of large groups. Her first one was last Friday and we all got to go cheer her on.

Carter was so excited to see Rylynn that they hugged for a long time and then Carter just stayed at the front of the class like one of the big kids. They sang four songs for us. I loved hearing the songs from beginning to end since I have gotten random snippets of all the songs at home and they haven't really made much sense. Rylynn did a great job and had so much fun singing with her friends!

Here is a little snippet of her performance. I tried to upload the best video but it never worked, so this one will have to do.

Beckett is two months old!

Well actually he is two days shy of two months old, but he's basically there. He loves to goo at us and smile. He is such a sweet boy. He is the first of our children that does NOT like binkies. I never thought I would have a child that didn't totally depend on those things like the other two did. I was really scared at first that it would be hard to have a baby who didn't take a binky, but he is so calm and easy most of the time that he really doesn't cry unless he's really tired or hungary and then I just feed him or put him to bed and then he is perfectly content. His reflux is getting a little bit better. The medicine seems to be helping a lot with the pain for him after eating. We still have spit up on most things but that won't kill us.

Carter loves his "baby brudder"

I love this little outfit. He looks like a little elf with his pointy hood!

This picture is so sweet. Beckett is gooing away at Daddy.

I love this crooked smile!

This little munchie is in heaven with a baby in the house!

We just love our baby Beckett!

Monson family reunion 2009

Our family reunions every year are in Mexico, but due to drug wars and swine flu we decided to take a break this year and go to Las Vegas instead. It is just as hot, but not quite as pretty and tropical as Mexico:) We had a great time and our family felt very lucky to be able to go. The only reason we were able to is because my recovery went so well after Beckett and that was because his delivery was so miraculous. So not even two weeks to the day that he was born we hopped in the car and drove to Utah. We got there at about 3am and stayed with Garrett's brother Clayton for a couple of days.

The kids had a great time with their cousins Braden and Logan and we got to meet little Preston for the first time too. He is just four months older than Beckett so it was fun for them to get to see Beckett so little too.

A couple days later we headed down to Las Vegas. We stopped by St. George and picked up Abby on the way. It was so much fun to see everyone and for everyone to get to meet little Beckett. In traditional Monson fashion we had a reunion olympic day. This year Jordan and Danielle were in charge of the events and they did a great job! Since Danielle was an all star college track athlete, this is kind of her thing, so she suggested that the boys race the girls in a 4 by 400 relay. I of course could not participate because of just having a baby, but it was sure fun to watch! Jordan and Danielle organized all the games at the UNLV track which made it so much more fun. Unfortunately it was like 105 degrees the whole time.

The girls team: Danielle, Marianne, Abby, and Molly

The boys team: Garrett, Ben, Jordan, and Papa

After much trash talking and even some intense training, the boys came out on top! I must admit, everyone did awesome, but I was most impressed by the athletic ability of my 57 year old father. He was awesome. I hope I can kick my kid's trash when I am 57!

Next came the highly competitive children's 100. I love this picture because you can see how hard the kids are all trying.

Our cute, determined Carter pulled up the rear and finished strong! Surprise, surprise the children finished in order of age. First Nathan, second Aria, third Rylynn, fourth Thais, and fifth Carter. We can't wait till next year to see what kind of heat Reagan and Skyler are going to bring!

Aria is proudly displaying her medal which all the kids got for the race.

Next came the long jump and shot put competitions.

Nathan nailed his landing.

Is it just me or does this look like a Nike poster? Nice pose uncle Jordan!

Cute little Rylynn trying with all her might. There is no shortage of Monson competitiveness in this girl!

Daddy representing for the Hall clan.

"Daddy Jordan" (as Thais calls him) and aunt Marianne are cheering on little Thais.

Papa reliving his track and field high school glory days.

And of course no Monson reunion would be complete without countless hours lounging and playing by the pool.

Little Skyler showed off his mischievous smile!

Silly Skyley gathered quite the little crowd with his crazy tricks!

Rylynn jumping off the side which she did over and over again. She was such a confident little swimmer because of her swimming lessons this summer.

She loved just floating and swimming by herself for hours.

Carter had a blast playing in the sand in the "beach pool" and diving for rings with Daddy and Papa.

I found Carter flirting with some random middle aged ladies. For some reason wherever we take this boy the ladies fall in love with his big blue eyes and long eyelashes!

Daddy and Papa kept track of all the crazy kids in the pool. Good work men!

Molly and cute little Reagan enjoyed some splashing in the shallow pool.

The proud Daddies uncle Ben and uncle Jordan loved watching their babies play together in the shallow pool.

Again in true Monson fashion, we had fabulous food and great conversations. Papa shared a family history night about his father (0ur grandpa Monson) and Nana shared some inspiring family history she learned about our relatives at Martin's Cove. Garrett lead a book review on "The Alchemist" which we all read and loved discussing. And of course we had to have a gambling night "when in Vegas!" Papa bought all the equipment for craps and roulette. We had a lot of fun, and of course we played without money:) I have to say the highlight for me was to have my whole family there for Beckett's blessing. It was such a special memory for our family. It is always so sad to me to only have a short week together with my family all together. The cousins have so much fun and then they have to leave and wait a whole year sometimes to see each other again. Can't wait till next year!