No more homework, no more books...

The end of the school year is always so crazy and crammed with award ceremonies and programs but I have to admit it is one of my favorite times of the year!  I love when summer starts and the schedules and the rushing and the deadlines come to a halt and life just slows down.  

Carter has been taking Tae Kwon Do for the past few months and he has loved every minute of it!  He kept asking when he would get to test up to his green belt and in June the day finally arrived.  He took it so seriously and did a great job.

Look at that smile!  He was so happy to finally have his new fancy green belt.  I think every single person we talked to for the two weeks leading up to his test heard all about how he was testing to become a green belt:)

Rylynn is still our little artist and has loved taking monthly art classes from my friend Christine.  These were her two latest paintings from a class on Monet and impressionistic painting.

Here is a collection of her other pieces she has worked on throughout the year.  She loves her art classes!

Carter's pre-K class had an end of the year talent show and Carter performed his amazing summersault rountine where he rolls around in circles so fast you can't even believe it.  He does it forward and back. His teacher calls it the human hamster wheel.  He was excited about the cookies at the end!  I was so proud of him because he is my shy boy and he got up there and did a great job.  When he was finished he ran right over to me and stayed on my lap until the adrenaline died down.

Rylynn has also been in piano for the last few months and she is doing a great job.  She had her first recital and played two songs, one of them by memory.  She did great and we were so proud of her.  She is my worrier child(I have no idea where she gets that from:) so the last few days leading up to the recital were very stressful for her.  She didn't sleep very well and kept worrying about messing up.  But then true to form and again like her mother, on the day of the performance she marched up there with total confidence, announced her name and the songs she was going to play and then did a great job!

Carter had a huge Preschool graduation celebration complete with caps and gowns.  He was quite the excited little graduate!

These are his two best buddies at school and church. Aiden and Sam.

I couldn't resist a pic with two of my soon to be three boys!  Beckett didn't get the memo to smile apparently.

Carter getting his diploma from Miss Teri.  We have loved this preschool and Miss Teri so much!  Carter was so excited to get to go to Miss Teri after he saw Rylynn have so much fun in her pre-k class.

The proud graduate!

They had a cake party afterward and the cakes were so cute with little individual pics of the graduates on the cake.  It was yummy too!

This is the happy third child who gets to play with his sissy and Carter every day now that they don't leave him to go to school anymore!!

Just in case June wasn't busy enough we also celebrated Father's day.  This is the yummy strawberry cheesecake french toast I made for Garrett's father's day brunch.  It was a big hit.

Sadly, we also had to say goodbye to some of our favorite people in June.  Our neighbors and friends, the Albrechts moved away to Boston.  Rylynn loved their girls Maya and Eden!

These were our parting gifts from the Albrechts.  They are kind of big on gift giving:)  Garrett got this classy shirt!

I got this very practical pregnant belly mug filled with carmels.  My favorite thing about this gift was that when Carter saw it on the counter the next day he asked me, "Mom is that a bum on that cup?!"

Since Aric had to leave early we got to go and cheer on Jessica in her marathon and be her surrogate family(along with her real kids of course).  We had a celebration dinner after complete with a marathon themed cake!  I look awful in this picture by the way.  Oh well.  I hate preggy pictures!  I can't find any pics of little Camden but the boys really miss their little friend.  They would ask me almost every morning if Camden was coming over to play.  We miss them sooooo much but are so proud of them for taking a huge leap of faith and moving to Boston.  Our late nights have been quite a bit more boring since they left but we hope to live close by again sometime soon!  We lovingly refer to ourselves as the Hallbrechts:)

Abby's fabulous wedding!

 We got to fly out to Utah in May to attend my little sister Abby's wedding.  For those of you who live around me this is the "French Wedding" you heard so much about:)  It was a wonderful trip and the wedding was amazing as usual.  I say as usual because anything my Mom is in charge of turns out to be amazing.  I also mentioned this to some of my friends so I have included tons of pics for you wedding design friends out there.  You know who you are:)


Beckett took his job very seriously(as you can see).  Although to be fair, his official title was cute wedding boy so I guess he actually did do a good job!

All the grandbabies!  The girls all got to be flowergirls and they were so excited to be Abby's little entourage.

Rylynn and Thais looking beautiful!

Beckett is such a kisser these days!  Abby was loving it.  She had a line of boys waiting to kiss her that day although Matt definintely got the most kisses:)

The whole gang

All the flower girls and the bride.  The only girl who was missing was Gracie.  She just started crawling:)

The thing I love the very most about Monson weddings is getting to hang out with all my awesome family!  This is all the Monson kids and the new addition, Matt.

Carter caught the kissing bug too!  

 

 Okay here are some of the decorating pics I promised.  The reception was at the Grand America and the table linens and decor was all done by my amazingly talented mother. She even designed and printed up the table numbers.

These two fabulous people are my amazing parents!

Yeah she made all those linens!

We did a sparkler tunnel to send the happy couple off to their new life.  It was so romantic. We are so happy for Abby and Matt!

Those cookies boxes are french macarons for wedding favors for the guests.  And there's another centerpiece my mom made.  She didn't arrange the flowers however.  She has done that for other weddings but she wanted to be sane for her daughter's wedding:)

These are the little flower girl shoes that my Mom made.  Abby wasn't a huge fan of them actually but I thought they were adorable and Rylynn is obsessed with hers.  She wears them every chance she gets.

Beautiful bride and her bridesmaids.  Notice the fat pregnant sister didn't make the cut but I was okay with that!  

And moving on to the unprofessional pictures:)  I love this one of my kids after the wedding.  That's how I felt too but I couldn't show it!

One of the highlights of the wedding for the kids was getting to see their beloved puppy Ollie!  It was a very happy reunion.

Another highlight was the plane ride.  We haven't travelled by plane since we moved to Spokane and added child number three so it was quite the thrill.  I have to document this for posterity eventhough Carter may kill me, but when we were taking off Garrett leaned over and asked if it was scaring his tummy(which is what we say when your stomach drops).  Carter said back, "no it feels like my penis got electrocuted!"  Garrett burst out laughing and then Carter said, "daddy what does it mean to be electrocuted?"  Oh man I laughed so hard!  The kids also got to go to the zoo while the adults got to do a session at the temple the day before the wedding.  There was a lot of fun cousin time.

After the wedding we drove down to St. George with my parents to relax and play in the pool for a few days before heading back home.

The kids were loving the real summer weather!

We also got to celebrate Mother's Day while we were there.  This is our four generational picture with my Mom's mom, Grandma Allred.  It was so fun to celebrate with two of my favorite mothers in the world.

My kids and wonderful husband spoiled me too which is always fun.  My dad and Garrett made us an amazing breakfast and also a delicious dinner after church.

I love this lady so much and it was so fun to be with her on Mother's Day.  I couldn't dream of a better mother.  

handsome boy

I had to record this quick story:

A couple of weeks ago the share letter of the week was C at Carter's preschool.  We talked about what he wanted to bring and he came up with the idea to bring himself:)  When you bring in a share you have to write three clues for everyone to guess what you brought so here were the clues he came up with:
1) It's handsome
2) It has blue eyes
3) It's favorite color is green

He was a little dissappointed that all of his friends guessed his tricky surprise.  I just thought it was so cute that he wanted the first clue to be that he was handsome:)  He is!

Love One Another

(This is a picture of me and my babies at my little family birthday party on Sunday) 

 I find it interesting that sometimes the hardest commandment to follow in families is the most simple one of all; love one another. I don't think I'm unique when I say that as a mother, the most frusterating and annoying part of my job is seeing or hearing my children fight.  I honestly cannot stand it.  My parents were amazing at teaching us that we needed to love one another and treat each other with kindness and respect.  I had a lot of friends whose parents seemed to take the opposite approach and just say that kids fight and that's normal so they need to figure it out.  Well Garrett and I are trying our hardest to follow the first example and not the latter.  We do not allow our kids to say mean things to each other or hurt each other and we feel very strongly about encouraging them to talk about their feelings when some one does hurt their feelings.  But eventhough I feel like my kids are really close,  I still feel like I am failing pretty much every day because someone at some point in the day is fighting.

Well lately I feel like we have been putting extra effort into teaching our kids to be kind to every one and to forgive and to show kindness in return for meanness and I was so thrilled to hear that some of those efforts have paid off.

Rylynn had been struggling with a girl in her class for most of the year.  This girl stole things from her desk and told her that she wasn't good at things and was just not very nice.  This seemed to be a common complaint in her class against this girl so I just told her to try to be nice to her but to stand up and tell her you don't like it when she says that, or when she takes your things, etc.  Well after awhile she was getting so frusterated with this girl and I told her she should pray about it.  So for a few weeks straight she would pray for A--- to be nice and for help to be nice back to her.  One day after praying for a few weeks she came home from school and said, "guess what Mom!  A--- and I are friends now!"  I was kind of shocked and asked her what had happened.  She said, "well I just went up to her and said, A--- let's be friends and not fight anymore.   And she said okay"  Then she went on to tell me that they played together at recess and I followed up with her for a few days to see if it had been a fluke, but every day she had good things to report.  Now I have to clarify that they are not best friends or anything, but they are nice to each other and get along each day.  

This happened about a week before Parent/teacher conferences so when I met with Rylynn's teacher we discussed it and she went on and on about how proud she was of Rylynn and how everyone in the class struggles with that particular girl but that Rylynn's efforts to reach out to her and be her friend had made a huge difference.  She even had Rylynn stand up in front of the class and gave her a reward for being a great friend to someone who needed a friend. 

I tell this story not to tell how awesome I am as a mother.  In fact, I feel like it is the opposite.  I feel so humbled to see the faith and obedience of my children and I know that they are amazing spirits who have been sent to me but it also strengthens my testimony of the power of the teachings of the gospel in my children's lives.  I know many people who claim that they don't want to raise their children in any specific religion because they want their children to have the choice when they get older so they don't feel forced into believing one certain way.  I have never understood this line of reasoning because we all teach our children right from wrong and we all prepare our children to enter Kindergarten by teaching them colors and numbers and letters so why would you ever leave your child's eternal success to chance and hope that someone in their lives can teach them of their individual worth and potential?  I know that the simple truth that my children our children of God and that their choices have consequences and that they can be like Jesus on this earth have blessed their lives and mine.  

I also just have to add that when I met with Rylynn's teacher I told her that I don't believe that any child is naturally mean and belittling to those around them.  I learned a lot about social and emotional developement in my major and we specifically did a lot of research on bullying.  I told her that I believe if a child is saying certain things and doing certain things that are mean or hurtful that they have learned that from someone else.  She confirmed that this girl does not have an ideal home environment and it made me really sad for her that she is being exposed to insults and unkindness in her home.  Children are so sensitive to the examples around them and that is why I feel like more than any job in the world, parenting helps you to see very clearly your own weaknesses and if you are humble can help you to improve yourself in a way that is so unique to the job of parenthood.  It is not an easy job however, and I have a very, very long way to go but I am so thankful to be a mother and to have this opportunity to learn from such amazing spirits in my home. 

A Hoppy Easter

My sister Marianne and her cute kids Nathan and Aria got to come up for Easter weekend this year.  The kids were so thrilled to see their cousins and it was the perfect end to our spring break.  We had lots of fun dying easter eggs.

Beckett was determined to dye the eggs himself which resulted in several cracked eggs and several cases of him drinking the dye(gross!!) but we managed to preserve enough for the yearly egg rolling contest.

Nathan and Carter put on a star wars type of "fight show" for our entertainment.

The girls put together some awesome songs with dances to go along with them for their show.  The kids had constant playing and cousin fun to keep them entertained.  Garrett even set up our enormous three room tent in the basement for the kids to all sleep in which was a big hit.

The egg rolling contest was as intense as ever!

It started out girls vs boys and as the rounds narrowed down it ended up being the Halls vs the Portland visitors!

The final showdown was between Rylynn and Marianne's boyfriend Brian.

Rylynn represented and came out victorious for the Halls!  Can you tell by her mid air celebrations how excited she was?:)

Then we ran out the door to the annual tri-ward egg hunt they do here.  Three families in our stake open up their land which is over 5 acres and hide 5000 eggs each year.  I took Beckett over to the 4 and under area and he was in heaven.

I finally had to make him stop when his eggs kept overflowing out of his basket.  The bigger kids had a great time too.  Nathan kept searching for like 2 hours for the coveted camo eggs but sadly, did not prevail.  There is a bbq and potluck too and the weather was beautiful so it was lots of fun.

We came home to discover that the Easter bunny had been to our house and the kids got to do yet another hunt in the backyard.

The bunny was very creative this year and even used the trampoline to hide eggs:)

Everyone came out with far too much candy which amounts to very happy and hyper children.  At least my first born is very in tune with her sensitive stomach and know when to stop!  She is very responsible about candy intake but unfortunately that means that she is the only one who has any candy left throughout the week so she ends up doing a lot of sharing with her little brothers.

This little one has no will power whatsoever and his basket gets hidden everyday.  

Carter and Nathan were happy to empty their eggs and admire their loot.  Unfortunately, we have no pictures of the most important part of Easter which was on Sunday.  We went to church and I was able to do my favorite thing and sing in the choir.  The talks were wonderful and the songs were beautiful.  Then after church we had the yearly delicious lamb roast and feast.  Marianne did her tradition of teaching the kids the passover and how it relates to our Easter celebration.  The day was wonderful and it was a very tearful goodbye when it was time to part ways.  Carter even tried to stow away in Marianne's car, but we discovered him before it was too late!