July 4th

It only took three years but we finally made it to the LL 4th of July parade!

Carter's Tae Kwon do class got to be in the parade and siblings were allowed to tag along too so Rylynn and Carter got to ride on the fire truck float and throw candy to the crowds.

Beckett stayed with us and collected plenty of candy for the whole family!

We got to sit with our friends, the Chambers and we saw lots of people we love.  LL is such a great community where everyone knows everyone.  It makes it so fun to go to community events like this one.  That afternoon we had a bbq with the Chambers and the kids had a great time swimming and running around.  Then we all headed up to the lake to watch fireworks.  It was a great day.

Daddy and the boys got lots of golf practice in this summer in the backyard.  Carter was getting so good though that we started losing a lot of balls over the fence.  So Rylynn and Carter got to go to the driving range a couple of times with Garrett while Beck and I took naps.

There was a lot of cuddling in bed with Mama this summer.  I hate being pregnant and huge in the summer!  I do love cuddling with the cute babies though:)  We spent a lot of time at the Taylor's pool too.  I got to sit in the shade and the kids got to swim to their heart's delight.  We also did a lot of olympics watching which inspired some very creative diving board tricks at the pool.  Carter of course loved the gymnastics the best and would pull out even crazier moves than usual.  He mastered his front and back flips on the trampoline and on the diving board.  

Fun in Utah

Our lives are somewhat insane at the moment which seems to be a reocurring theme in our family, particularly when I am pregnant for some reason.  So when we were hanging around doing nothing the first week of summer and my sister Marianne called from the cabin and tried to talk me into driving with my kids up to the cabin to hang out with her and her cute kids for the week I decided why not?  So two hours later we were on the road to the cabin.  Being seven months pregnant and without the help of my husband made the drive a little annoying but when we arrived it was all worth it!  The kids had a great time with their cousins, aunt, nana and papa, and great nana and I was able to escape the stresses of moving/possible job changing and pregnancy.

There is just something about being in the mountains that I loved as a child that brings me so much peace and helps me to feel so close to my Father in Heaven.  When we arrived at the cabin my kids and I just sat by the back river and as they threw rocks I just looked at the beautiful earth that God created for me and felt like everything was going to be okay.  There is no other place on earth where I feel so at peace than at the cabin.

We went on a hike up to, as we call it, "Aspen Grove" and had a little FHE on the importance and symbolism of mountains in the scriptures.  It was really neat to talk about that while surrounded by the beautiful mountains.

Beckett was a big fan of his walking stick he found along the way!

This is Aspen Grove.  It is so beautiful and the trees just surround you and stretch up to the sky.

Another day we floated through the culvert.  Carter and Nathan and Aria were loving it, but Rylynn was a bit hesitant to try.  She was gathering her courage and right before she decided to give it a try the intertube popped and the fun was over.

Nana tried to find anything else that would work even resorting to a storage bin, but it was no use.  We are determined to find some hard plastic bottomed boats for next summer as this seems to happen to us every year.  

These two cute girls had so much fun playing all week long.  They are such great buddies and I wish we lived closer!

This year the new attraction was a zipline that one of the neighboring cabins put in.  The kids loved it!  I was a little worried that it was too fast for Beckett and that he would fly off so I would run along side holding the rope about half way down and then let him go.  Let me tell you it was an awesome sight seeing me and my giant belly hobble along down the hill:) After a couple days he would freak out if I ran along with him because he is determined to be one of the big kids these days.  Luckily he held on really tight and never flew off.

Rylynn and Carter had no fear of course and were pulling all sorts of tricks while riding.  I'm so glad no one fell off or got hurt.  

We got to have Abby and Matt and Ollie come up and visit us a couple times while we were there.  The kids had a great time with Uncle Matt!  After they left Rylynn came up to me and said, "Mom, uncle Matt is going to be a really good Dad someday.  He is a lot of fun!"  I thought that was so sweet. The kids really loved playing with him at the children's pond and building a bridge to their island.  

Beckett loved getting to know great Nana's new little dog Lucy.  He was so gentle and sweet with her and Lucy just loved him.  One afternoon we found Beckett in her kennel just hanging out.  I think he was trying to see how it felt so he could relate to his new little friend:)

The day we left to drive back home Nana and Papa spoiled us and took us to Lagoon!  The kids had a blast and it wore them out for the first leg of the drive.

It was really hot that day which meant that everybody else was at lagoonabeach so the lines weren't long.  We had lots of ice cream breaks to keep us cool and one of the kids favorite things of the day was to use Nana's water spray bottle to cool themselves off.  It was a brilliant idea to bring that thing along!

Beckett was a big fan of the little tyke rides but not such a big fan of anything that went too fast or dropped.  Hmm I wonder why:)  I had a total "worst mom ever moment" when I sent him with Papa on a ride that drops about thirty feet.  I wasn't even thinking about the fact that he had fallen out of a third story window the summer before and is consequently terrified of heights and the feeling of falling.  Rylynn and Carter loved that ride last year and I was just excited that this year Beckett was big enough to ride it too.  So as he and Carter and my Dad were climbing up on the ride I had a panic attack and realized what I had just done to my baby.  I turned to my Mom and said what was I thinking?!!  Then she realized it too but by then it was too late to get him off.  Needless to say he hated the ride and was pretty much terrified to go on any rides for the next several minutes.  So when we found the tiny tug boats that go 1 mph he was a big fan:) Unfortunately, Rylynn was too tall for the boats so she had to watch and cheer for her brothers.

Beck also loved the train ride through the "zoo".  He was very excited to see all the animals but he was a little dissapointed that there was no crocodile.  He's a bit obsessed with crocodiles at the moment.

We had a great trip with people we love and it was a great escape from reality for me.  Now if we can just figure out where to live and when to move before I go into labor in six weeks!!!

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.