Thanksgiving Weekend

We were lucky enough to have one of the most fun Thanksgivings we have ever had! Back in September I asked my parents to if they would want to join us for the holiday since it is the off year with all of my siblings. They jumped at the opportunity and bought tickets to fly down the next day. Thad and I talked about it daily leading up to Thanksgiving and we had to wait right up until that afternoon because they didn't fly in until Thanksgiving! We decided to have a late dinner so that we could do some prep once they arrived.
We had a very productive morning cleaning and prepping the house for guests, each of us going on a run, Brian mowed and trimmed the lawn and I put our presmoked turkey from Rudy's BBQ in the oven to heat up for 3 hours at 2:15pm. When Grandma and Grandpa arrived we got to work making the dressing, pies and finishing up the sweet potatoes. I almost felt like it wasn't Thanksgiving because we didn't feel stressed at all! My neighbor Charli let us use their oven, so that helped with wondering what to heat up and when. Our neighbors, the Beckers, came around 6:00 to get our eating on!

Thad couldn't wait to show of his Indian attire to Gma and Gpa as soon as they arrived!

Man, I love this mom of mine!

It was so fun preparing dinner with her and just enjoying being together! She is a good lady.

 These three boys were definitely what I was most thankful for on Thanksgiving.

I was lucky enough to know right where the electric knife we received as a wedding gift and never been used in our 7.5 years of marriage was hiding. These boys got right to work carving that bird and we got right to our Thanksgiving feast!

Really, all the food was absolutely, positively scrumptious! Not a soul complained about the food and we all ate our little hearts out. After a very enjoyable meal, we just visited and hung out for the rest of the evening.

Me and my next door neighbor, Wendy:

They moved in a couple days after us and we have had such a fun time living next door to them! 

Cayin(13).Thad.Jaden(10).Wes

They have two boys, and even though Jaden is older, you can see he plays very well with my boys! He holds Wes a lot and always uses a sweet baby voice when he talks to him. I love when older boys are kind to little kids. It makes me want to make sure my boys do the same.

Their dad, Thon, even joined in on the fun!

At about 8:00pm our neighbors Liz and Ralf came over and we all enjoyed some pie together. 

What a fun night to enjoy with family AND friends! 

We are so thankful we could have such a successful holiday with so many wonderful people.

This was Thad at 9:00pm

Luckily we got him to be somewhat coherent for ONE more picture: 

On Friday we headed downtown to experience some of our favorite and new things.

 Hopdoddy

The Capitol 

Wes had ZERO fear when Brian helped him look over the ledge from the top floor: 

This is the closest Thad would get:

He is a scaredy cat.

I do have to admit my heart jumped a few times when I didn't know exactly where Wes was...Those are some big gaps!

Sam's Club

 I told my parents that for Christmas we wanted help putting shelves in our garage. No basements in Texas is no bueno. Grandpa Kent was going to build them, but on Thanksgiving Ralf mentioned his pre manufactured shelves that he bought at Sam's...DUH! Perfect solution and saved us a lot of time to do other fun things over the weekend!

For the remainder of the their visit, we shopped, napped, pedicured, ate out, relaxed, movie watched, chatted, cleaned, Chistmasfied and just enjoyed each other so much!

Please note the title of this book. 

Perfect.

Wes threw a huge fit after Grandma would not keep doing this 100 times in a row, but he loved it while it lasted!

Farewell lunch at Torchy's tacos.

76 degrees on December 2nd -- I think I can handle these Texas winters!

 And here is my favorite picture from the whole trip: 

I love these parents of mine and am so thankful we could spend such fun holiday with them.

They are so easy to have around and I'm just so grateful for their willingness and desire to come visit our little family wherever we are.

November Fun

Before Thanksgiving, we had a pretty low key month, but it sure did fly by! The holidays hit fast, but at least we had some fun in the process.

The weekend after Halloween, I went to Time Out for Women with some gals from the ward. It was in San Marcos, which is about an hour away, so we stayed in a hotel and were able to have a fun girl's weekend. We were able to hear several awesome speakers and have some fun shopping at the outlets!

Back Row: Rebecca.Emily.Stacey.Katie

Middle Row: Mindy.Heather.Shelly.Michelle

Front row: Shelley.Jaime.Shelley

(Yes, you read that right...there are THREE Shelleys in my ward and we were all at the same function! Isn't that funny!)

Wes is scared of the car wash. Am I mean that I think it's funny?
 He starts out with these confused faces looking around...

And then he gets sad and cries.
Sorry baby, I just think your sad face is so cute!

 Wes LOVES our neighbor, Liz...I think it is mostly because of her chihuahua, Petey, but she loves him too, so it is a great friendship that has formed!

Picture day!

Here is my handsome pre-schooler on his way to school on picture day. 

I almost didn't buy the pictures but am so glad I did. It turned out AMAZING!

SOCCER

Thad's last soccer game was this month. He was bummed it was over, but we had such a fun season!

There were a steady handful of kids that would play every week and Thad was one of them. Half the team was unpredictable, but we could always count on him to play. He made a lot of improvement over the season and I'm sure we have lots of Soccer Saturdays to look forward to over the coming years!

 Isaiah.Cosmo.Sean.Thad.Atiana.Alesandro.Samson

Maria and Coach Robert in the back

Wes LOVES cars right now. He can't get enough of them and he is not partial to any in particular. I took this picture to send to Brigitte and tell her that he threw a huge fit when I made him leave this wall:

She likes it because Caden is a car boy, so it is a fun thing they have in common!

West Side Christian Preschool Thanksgiving Feast

Thad's school had a feast the last day of class before the holiday break and Wes and I were able to join! It is always fun to go and see where and who your kid is with when they are away from you. It is so fun to see Thad interact with his cute school friends and talk to his teacher. I have been so happy with his preschool and know he will love it for the rest of his time there.

And to top things off -- just my boys being cute:

 Thad's shirt made me long for the east coast that day! (and right now as I look at this picture)

 Wes is that blur, but these boys maul their dad the second he walks in the door. They love him!

 Wes has been going to Time Out a lot lately because he's either throwing a fit or some sort of toy-

  Isn't it cute!?

Aunt Kayci - Soon to be Sister Monsen, Comes to Texas!

Awesome Aunt Kayci got her mission call back in July telling her she would go to the Morristown, New Jersey Mission, Spanish speaking on November 27th. Back in the summer, that seemed like an ETERNITY, and then adding a few little love bumps along the way, we weren't even sure it was going to happen. Well...it's happening! We decided back in the summer that she would come to Texas before she left and practice traveling all on her own before the real deal! She came the second weekend in November and we had a blast!

And man, these boys of mine are just the best: 

Luckily we ran into a little campus event while we were exploring. College life is so fun!

 And these pictures just make me happy!

Haha! I love this!

Kayci is such a fun aunt and Thad adores her. She just left on her mission last week and I know that girl is going to do great things and realize she is capable of things she didn't know possible. How blessed we are to have such a wonderful family. 

Thanks for the fun memories, Aunt Kayci!

And He's Off!

Our almost-five-year-old Thad learned how to ride a bike on November 4th! It was seriously so fun and I was so proud of him! Since we have moved to Texas and he has been playing outside with his friends, he has been on a the little Diego trike that we got a while back in Connecticut. He did great, but he started getting sad about not being able to keep up, and plus, our three year old neighbor just learned how to ride a two wheeler...Thad was feeling left out! We found out about balance bikes and a gal in my ward had one she wasn't using. A balance bike is a bike without pedals, so you run and get going and get comfortable with putting your feet up and balancing. Thad had been doing it for one week when Charli, Wendy and I were out watching him and we all decided he was doing so well that we would try him on one of Brayden's bikes. Since Charli had just taught Brayden, I had her help him the first time and he seriously took off down the street the very first time she let go! Brian was a little sad that he wasn't there to be a part of it, but he was more proud of that boy than anything. The child hasn't looked back and has LOVED riding his bike until dark everyday with the neighbor boys!

Here is our little stud the morning after showing off his skills! Of course I didn't take any pictures, just video, the first day. 

And of course this little monster had to get in on the bike/picture taking action!

Happy Biking!

Love,

The Monsen Brothers