Top 10 Things We've Done in 2010 So Far

Sorry that it has been forever since our last post. Life has been very full for us lately. Day after day I think to myself, "I am going to put that on the blog today," and then I never get to it and suddenly it has been five months. Wow! Time is such a crazy thing. We have had one thing after another, project after project, and I am ready for the summer to come and all these big projects to be done. So to give a recap of the year so far here is a top ten list of what has been happening here at the Monsons!

#10 SWINGING INTO SPRING
We are so glad the weather is getting slightly warmer. Every chance we get we are outside in the sunshine. We have a swing set in our backyard and both Brenna and Matthew love to swing on it.



#9 ART CLASSES
I have been teaching a weekly art class to some little girls in my neighborhood since January. It has been so fun to plan art projects for them and see their creativity blossom. It is nice to be able to use my college degree a little bit. I am planning on teaching some art workshops this summer too.

#8 WORKING OUT MY GREEN THUMB
So I have this dream of becoming a master gardener someday. This is my first year really jumping into gardening and it has been really fun so far. We have an area in our backyard that used to be a dog run that we decided to turn into a garden. My dad came down and helped us put in some garden boxes and till up everything. I have planted our early crops out there and just pray that something will grow successfully. I also have started some flower seeds indoors to put in the yard later in the spring. It has been fun watching them all peak up through the dirt and grow. I am gaining new appreciation of the "faith is like a seed" idea. What a miracle life is, even in the smallest seed.


#7 EASTER AT CEDAR HILLS
We went down to spend Easter with Brandon's whole family. We enjoyed watching General Conference together and we dyed some Easter eggs and sent Brenna and her cousin Rachel on an Easter egg hunt outside. It was lots of fun.



#6 EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER
Probably the biggest thing that we have had going on is home improvements. We put our homebuyer tax credit to good use and gave our house a makeover. We had vinyl siding put up on the entire outside and replaced the old rickety garage door with a new white one. We put in a new white vinyl fence in the yard and we got the city to come and fix our sidewalk too. We also got new countertops in the kitchen and bathroom. It has been crazy around here, but it is so wonderful to have the house so improved. We love it! Home sweet home is even sweeter! After almost a solid year of projects we are finally done with all the big ones for awhile.



#5 PLAY, PLAY, DANCE, PLAY
Brenna spends her days constantly singing and dancing. She has a keyboard that you can set to play piano renditions of popular songs. Brenna has figured it all out and turns it on and off at least 10 times a day. The keyboard music seems to have become the soundtrack to our lives lately. The first song that comes on is "How deep is your love" by the Beegees. Who knew I would come to know that song so well?




#4 BIG BABY BOY
Matthew has reached some milestones in the past few months. He can roll over really well and is eating solid foods now like cereal and baby food. He loves to eat. People keep joking with me asking "Aren't you feeding that boy? He looks like he is starving!" Haha! He is as cute and chubby as can be and we are so happy that he is so healthy. Now if only his hunger for constant undivided attention could be quenched life would be great!



#3 GO AGGIES!
We took the family to an Aggie Basketball Game. It was so fun to be back in the Spectrum. There is nothing else in the world like those games. Brenna loved it. She cheered and put her hands up in the air for the free throws and would say "Whoosh" along with the thousands of other fans. Matthew on the other hand did not have a good time. He hated the noise and would cry every time it got loud. We will bring ear plugs next time for him.


#2 VALENTINES DAY GETAWAY
We took a trip up to Idaho for Valentines Day. Brandon and I went up to Boise for a getaway and left Brenna and Matthew at my mom's house overnight. We stayed in a really nice suite and went to this amazing Italian restaurant and a movie. It was just what we needed. We felt so relaxed and rejuvinated and l loved spending a little time away from the kids with my sweetheart. Brenna had fun making sugar cookies with her Grandma Nilson.



#1 SLEDDING 101
We took Brenna sledding for the first time for my birthday back in January. We all laughed and giggled every time we went down the hill. Brenna would say "Again, again..." every time we reached to bottom. It was nice to enjoy the snow for a change. Winter just never seemed to end up here.

Happy Birthday Brenna!

Hooray! Brenna is two today! We love her so much and can't believe how much she has grown up! We are excited to celebrate today with her. We started the day out with some birthday Mickey Mouse pancakes and plan on playing with her new kitchen playset and going out for pizza tonight! Brenna's new favorite movie is Finding Nemo so we made her a Nemo cake. She loves it!!!
Happy Birthday Sweetheart! We love you!




Here is a look at our Christmas! We enjoyed the holiday here at home this year. Grandma Nilson, Grandpa Nilson, and Aunt Kati spent Christmas here with us. Brenna was excited for Santa to come. I don't know if she fully understood who he was but she says "presents, candy, and toys" whenever we talk about Santa Claus.
It was fun to see the wonder in Brenna's eyes on Christmas morning. She was so cute as she opened each present. Her unwrapping skills have improved greatly from last year so she had a blast tearing paper and discovering what was inside. She was so excited by each gift and we all were very entertained by her all morning.



It was a very Merry Christmas!

A Name and a Blessing

This past Sunday we blessed Matthew. It was so fun to have all our family up to visit and participate in the blessing. We feel so blessed to have such wonderful family. We love you all! We love Matthew so much and we are so grateful for him. He is a chunky little guy but he sure is a sweetheart. Here are some pictures of this special day.

Goodbye Fall

It seems like fall just vanished and winter blew right in. But before the snow fell this year Brenna loved playing the leaves.


Our leaves fell really late at our house so it was pretty cold, but we still had fun playing in the piles in our backyard and at Grandma and Grandpa Monson's house.

Halloween 2009

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays to celebrate and this year was no exception. We had fun carving and painting pumpkins and decorating the house with spooky decorations. I made these fun paper lanterns that we lit along our driveway on Halloween for the trick or treaters to enjoy. We ate loads of candy and of course went all out dressing up in costumes on Halloween night.
Brenna loves Minnie Mouse so I made her a Minnie dress and she has loved wearing it all month long. Brenna's friend Micah dressed up as Mickey Mouse this year so we had their family over for lunch and pictures.



Matthew was a very "little" league football player and gave us some fun smiles for the camera.


Brandon made a great Phantom of the Opera and I was a gypsy.


It was Brenna's first year to go trick or treating. Brandon had fun taking her around our new neighborhood. We were glad it wasn't too cold. She came home saying "Trick or Treat", "Go Walk", and "Nobody's Home" for the rest of the night. I guess a couple of our neighbors were not home, but she sure got a whole bunch of candy that she can share with Mommy and Daddy.
Happy Halloween everyone!

Welcome to the World!

Our little boy has arrived!

Matthew Brandon Monson was born on Monday October 12th. He weighed 8.0 lbs. and was 21 inches long.
He is a little angel and we are so excited to have him here! Everything went great during delivery and Mommy and baby are doing very well. Brandon was such a great support through everything and is so thrilled to have his son finally here!







Brenna is very excited to be a big sister. She gave Matthew lots of kisses when he came home and she loves to help hold him and read him stories.


Thank you to all the wonderful family we've had here to help us out these past few days. We love and appreciate you all so much. We feel so blessed to have such a healthy happy little baby boy join our family.


Welcome to the world Matthew!!!

Craziest Month Ever!!!

Wow!  What a month we have had!  June has had to be the craziest month ever for us.  We have had so many big things going on that blogging has taken a major back burner for a while.  But I finally have some time to give an update.   The biggest news of all is that we now are homeowners!  


We bought a house up in Smithfield and we love it!  It has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and feels like a mansion to us compared to our little apartment.  It is on a quiet street and it has a big fenced backyard that Brenna is loving to run around in.  There is even room for a garden someday and we have a cherry tree and two apple trees.  It has been a massive task to get moved in, especially with all the work we have needed to get done.  We replaced all the carpets and put tile in the kitchen and replaced all the baseboards. Flooring is definitely a big job to redo.  We couldn't have done it without all the help from our families and friends.  We have had my parents and Brandon's parents and siblings up here one after another helping us do it all.  Thanks so much everyone for your help!  There is a mile long list of other things we would love to do but we have to remember to pace ourselves and not bite of any more than we can chew (much easier said than done).   We will have plenty of projects to work on for the next few years.   We feel so blessed to be able to live in a house and to raise our family here in Cache Valley.  It is exciting, but also kind of overwhelming!

If moving in to a new house isn't enough we packed the two weeks before we moved with some major summer adventures.   Brandon's whole office at work earned a trip to go on an Alaska cruise so from June 12-20th we got to go north and take a cruise!  We left Brenna with her two grandmas and we got have a getaway with just the two of us.  We got to see a glacier and go whale watching in Juneau, visit a gorgeous rainforest filled with bald eagles in Sitka, see lots of totem poles in Ketchikan, and visit some lovely gardens in Victoria B.C..  The cruise boat was amazing.  We loved the food and the entertainment.  We had a wonderful time.  







Here is a slide show of our trip.  

Three days after we got home from Alaska we closed on the house and then that afternoon we drove up to Bear Lake for a four day - three night reunion with Brandon's family.   We rented a cabin up in Garden City and had a blast hanging out with Brandon's brothers and sisters.  His mom was injured in an ATV accident just a week before the reunion so his parents could only come up for a day, but we were so glad they could come for even a little while.  She is doing better now, but it sure was hard to see her in a wheelchair and unable to get around without a lot of pain.  We spent the weekend swimming, playing volleyball, and playing on the beach.  We rented a boat and a jet ski for a few hours one of the days. It was a lot of fun to be out on the lake.  Brenna loved playing in the sand.  She was content for a solid hour just playing with a bucket and a shovel.   Thanks to everyone for such a fun reunion this year.



  

Crazy huh?  We have been having a lot of fun, but it sure is a lot of work.  Traveling and moving can be very exhausting, especially back to back to back, but we sure have felt blessed to have had so many great experiences already this summer.  Now that we survived June, July has been nice to settle in and find a routine again.