The Monsen Hive

Happy Halloween!

Just Thad

In between all of our awesome visitors and fall fun I haven't really posted pics of our adorable boy. He is the light of my life and makes every day a special one. He is growing so fast and sometimes I start to get sad about it, but then I take a step back and realize how much fun he is, all the patience and love he is teaching me every day and it just makes me grateful that I am HIS mommy and how blessed I am to be a part of his growing up. I am truly so lucky to get to wake up with this face every day:

Isn't he gorgeous!? My sis Brigitte took his 18-month pics at the beach while she was here in August and I never got them posted...I love them and have several hanging in my house:)

As you can see, he loves rocks and they definitely helped to get some great pics.

Thad at the Bronx Zoo enjoying all the sights. His eyes were always wide and just taking  it all in.
Love him.

Just batting those big blue eyes!

We went to our local zoo w/ some friends last week and he LOVED all the animals and fun stuff to do. 

Just being outside...his FAVORITE thing!

He loves his stuffed puppies lately and carries them everywhere:)

This morning I wasn't paying the best attention and I caught him playing in the laundry:

This adorable image is what prompted this post. I just looked at this boy and how awesome he is, and I just needed to let it out:) I love these moments and I love seeing this smile everyday when I play with him. 

Thad Man, I love you!

Thad and His Girls

Thad doesn't have any boy-friends his age, but he is always happy to have the company of the many wonderful girls in his life. Last week some of our besties came back to visit us and it was an absolute pleasure to have them here!

These 2 lovely ladies showed up first and we spent our first day at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT. 

We had an AWESOME time in spite of the rain, and that is only because of Breanne. She can take any situation and put a positive spin on and I seriously love that about her. I started stressing about the rain the closer we got and she just says, "Let's buy ponchos, it will still be fun!" She was absolutely right!

Brian was (and always is) an amazing husband and was more than willing to head to LaGuardia after our long day in the rain to pick up these 2 beauties:

Aren't they just 2 peas in a pod!? They are so sweet together and they were as enjoyable as they look to be around for 5 days:)

We were a little tight on space (as you can see) after they arrived...

So we stuck around town and visited the infamous Stew Leonard's (and yes, Thad is still very scared of any life-size cow)

and headed to Calf Pasture beach, of course! It was a tad chilly, but it was so fun to be by the water and the kids loved being out in the fresh air and getting their teeter-totter on!

Friday, we braved the train into NYC...another thing I was extremely nervous about w/ 3 babies and 3 gigantic strollers, but if I was going to do it, these are the gals to do it with! They are so easy going and made the trip an absolute breeze!

We made it to Grand Central as you can see...

and did some WAY fun things that I hadn't done before: checked out Dylan's Candy Bar, Serendipity (tho the wait was too long) so we went to Pinkberry which was just AMAZING, and strolled down 5th Avenue!

The second half of the day was spent:

Strolling through Central Park, browsing the MoMA (we hung around about 15 minutes...I guess we just don't appreciate/understand), checked out Rockefellar Center and hit Times Square at night which is A LOT more exciting than during the day. 

Needless to say, we had an amazing day in the Big Apple!

The next day we headed to Castle Hill Farms and took an AMAZING, GORGEOUS drive and got a great glimpse of the beautiful New England Fall season! It was so picturesque with little white churches and every color of autumn leaves you can imagine. The pictures definitely don't give the beauty of the day justice!

It was an adorable farm and we were able to check out the baby animals (the goats being the highlight), go on a hay ride, eat hot dogs and check out the pumpkin patch.

What a perfect fall day spent with the perfect people.

Bre left very early Sunday morning out of Newark, NJ cuz that's the only standby flight she could catch and we were so lucky to have Stella and Tar stay until Monday. We were pretty lazy on Sunday, but Sister Wives kept us pretty entertained and we were able to enjoy each other's company.

I am truly blessed for these women in my life and I am so grateful for the sacrifice each of them made to come back here and see us. It is so wonderful to have meaningful conversation and get to know good friends even better. I love you gals and can't wait to see all of you SO soon!

Rhode Trip

This last weekend we headed to Rhode Island to visit our newest married friends, The Hawkers. They got married a little over a month ago and moved back here shortly after. I didn't want too much time to go by before we saw them, so Conference Weekend was the perfect time to head north and check out their new stomping grounds. It is really easy to get there from our house, we head north on I-95 for about 2 hours and boom, we're there!
Brian had to study most of the day Saturday because he takes his first of four CPA exams tomorrow (cross your fingers or say a little prayer for him), so we got there in the evening and headed to one of their favorite restaurants, Chelo's. It was really yummy and we had a blast catching up!
Sunday morning we took a nature walk near their apartment and Mike tried very hard to find a turtle for Thad, but was unsuccessful:(

Thad lagged behind a little bit, but we caught up!

They had the cutest little pond near their place and Thad LOVED throwing the rocks, of course!

Next, we headed to beautiful Narragansett Beach! It was very chilly, but it was so fun to be at a beach with real ocean waves! People were even surfing...cool, dude!

The adorable newlyweds!

Huddling together to try and stay warm!

Again, Thad LOVED the rocks and it was difficult for him to keep up with us because he had to switch every few strides for a bigger, cooler or prettier rock:)

Just carrying the biggest rock he could find.

Dad and Thad with the cool waves in the back!

The Fab 5;-)

We finished off the weekend with lots of yummy food: homemade cinnamon rolls, tortilla soup & homemade caramel popcorn to go along with the wonderful words shared in General Conference. I will admit that we had a poor showing the first hour of the second session, but other than that we were wide awake! We are truly blessed to hear from our leaders on a regular basis and we are so grateful we could spend such a wonderful weekend with such a wonderful couple. We plan on seeing lots of them over the next few months!