Mother’s Day

I could go on and on about my boys and this baby girl in my tummy and how blessed I feel to be their mother. Heavenly Father has given me an amazing blessing to experience motherhood to it’s fullest, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

Thad and dad made a Mother’s Day Schedule, and the first thing on the list was

 –6am, Make Mom Breakfast

I am one lucky momma!

And don’t you worry, we stuck to this plan all day! Thad kept updating me on what was going on and he didn’t even mind when I wanted to take a nap during the 2:00 “Whatever Mom Wants” slot.
This was probably my favorite thing of the whole day. I love that Thad and dad had talked it over and decided what would go on.
They sure know how to make a gal feel special!

There is nothing I would rather be doing with my life right here, right now, than being with boys and baking this little gal inside of me.

It’s hard, and it’s not always as precious as these pictures, but I have no doubt it is what I am meant to be doing here and now.

How grateful I am for a testimony of this sacred duty.

Thad and Wes, I love you to the moon and back a million times.

Happy Mother’s Day to me indeed!

Baby #3

So, we finally told the world that Baby Monsen #3 is on HER way! As I write this post I am 21 weeks along and am feeling this little girl inside of me more and more everyday. This may be a long post, so if you’re not up for a read, go ahead and move on now.
We found out on January 17, 2014 that I was for sure pregnant. I had some indications that I was not and took a test prematurely that read negative, and although I was somewhat disappointed it didn’t happen the first month, I knew it was fine and I still had hopes for a fall baby to come. Well, when the expected kept not happening, I finally took another test, had to double take a few times (I actually threw the test in the garbage because I was sure it was negative), and low and behold, it was POSITIVE! My heart was racing as I ran down the stairs to double check with Brian that there were indeed two lines, and he confirmed that I was not seeing things. I went to the dollar store after playing volleyball with some friends later that morning just to verify, and sure enough, two lines again.

We had decided that if/when we got pregnant we wanted to for sure wait until we knew the gender to tell everyone, and preferred to wait until going to Utah in June for Stacie and Jared’s wedding since we didn’t have plans to see any of our family over the next 5 months. We knew it would be hard, but quickly realized it wasn’t that bad because I wasn’t feeling sick or tired so it wasn’t constantly on my mind (plus, telling Bre and Heidi right away kind of gave me an outlet). Well Brigitte booked a last minute trip to us when I was 7 weeks along, and there is just no way I was not going to tell my sister when she came to visit! So there was another outlet once she came, but she promised to keep our secret until June. We kept keeping the secret and even found out it was a girl at 15 weeks because I had some sporadic bleeding and had to get some ultrasounds to make sure all was well. When the ultrasound tech told me it was a girl, it was more of confirmation than and revelation. This pregnancy has been so different than my boys without the constant nausea in the first trimester and the overall lack of pregnancy symptoms. Also, when I envisioned our family I just couldn’t imagine a third boy before having a girl, it just didn’t seem to fit. I was overjoyed and shed some tears over the confirmation that we would forever have a daughter.
 

We decided that we couldn’t wait any longer to tell our boys that they had a baby sister on the way! The day after my ultrasound we finally told Thad what pregnant meant! He knew that I was pregnant because there were a few bouts of fatigue and nausea that I blamed on pregnancy, but in his innocence he just didn’t know what that meant. He even warned Wes one day not to drink my drink because he would not want to get pregnant! That is just the cutest ever. 

So on April 3, 2014 we sat these cuties down and told them about Baby Girl.

And if you can’t tell, our Thad was beyond excited:

We tried to help him guess on his own what pregnancy was, but this kid doesn’t read into hints very well and we just had to spell it out for him, which is totally fine with me!
When we said we were having another baby, he did a spin-jump and asked, “Is it a girl?” and celebrated with a, “Yes, I knew it!” when we told him yes.

I am so happy he is the forever big brother of this family and this baby girl is blessed to have him!

Wes will also be an awesome big brother, I have no doubts about it!

Even if he doesn’t really have any idea what’s going on.

Thad kept giving me lots of hugs and over the next several days would run up to my tummy and hug it and say, “I want to give the baby a kiss!”

I knew it would be awesome and exciting to tell him, but I didn’t realize how sweet and thoughtful he would be about the whole thing.
He constantly amazes me with his tender heart.

It was such a fun night for our family and we cannot wait for this girl to join us around my due date on September 24, 2014.

Well, we stuck to our guns that we were going to wait until June to spill the beans, but then…Grandma Cindy booked a flight to visit right before Easter and Grandma Teresa and Grandpa Russ, decided to take a post tax season road trip down to Austin since it had been almost 9 months since we had seen them last. How do you keep it from your mom that you are 17 weeks pregnant when she sees you in person?
You don’t.
SOOOOOOOO, I got super excited to tell her/them and bought my first baby girl item for the reveal:

The day I was looking for this, I finally understood Brigitte’s shopping addiction for Leah. I felt like I needed every dress and onesie that Target had to offer and that my daughter would not survive without it.
Luckily I showed some restraint (as I thought about all of the clothes we would get from Leah Shay) and bought only this.

I thought we got some pictures telling the grandparents when we told them, but we just got video and it’s AWESOME!
They were so excited to just find out that we were expecting, but the fact that we knew it was a girl was the cherry on top!
We Skyped/FaceTimed all of our other family members while they were visiting and everyone was so excited to find out that a girl was joining the family come September.

Sometimes I wish I was better with words to describe the happiness, joy, gratitude, excitement and all the other emotions I have felt about having another one of God’s precious children sent to me.
It is such an exciting time for our family and I cannot wait to meet this baby girl in a few short months.

April Happenings

We started out the month right, with a perfect General Conference weekend.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t perfect. We definitely should have listened more and focused the kids a little bit, but what I did hear, I loved and I am going to make my way back through the talks…hopefully…

Here are my boys reminding Grandma Cindy that she only had ONE more  week until she arrived in Texas.
They sure love that grandma!

Thad’s preschool hosted a “Dessert with Dad” event. They sent home a darling invite that I wish I would have taken a picture of, and Thad reminded Brian about it every night for about 10 days.
April 10th finally arrived and they headed off to spend an evening together, just Thad and Dad.

Well, as you can see, it was fun for those cute kids, but not the one on one time dad’s were expecting.
There was a bounce house to boot, so it ended up being more like dad’s monitoring children while playing. But fun nonetheless.

Brian is still a running fool, and found a fun, cheap race to keep him motivated.

It went right through campus and he said there were tons of fun people and things too keep you going.
All the frats and sororities even came out early to cheer all the runners on!

John and Brian ran the race in Houston together in February, and hopefully they will run some more together over our years here in Texas.

While Grandma Cindy was here we abandoned her one night and went to a birthday party for a darling little gal in our ward.
Holding some baby animals was the main attraction, and the boys loved it!

It was a fun night eating dinner and hanging out with lots of friends from the ward, but it didn’t end too well for us.
Luckily Brian noticed Wes had wandered off with a little friend to check out the murky stream and got there just a few steps too late as Wes leaned over too far and fell in head first.
We were definitely being watched out for because it could have turned out a lot worse than Wes just being shook up about falling in stinky, dirty water, but we skipped cake and presents and headed home quick.

Brian leaves every morning at 6am to head for campus. One morning he got this beautiful shot:

Not a shabby place to show up to every morning.

We finally got around to washing the van one Saturday morning, and the boys couldn’t even wait to get dressed to help dad out.

Yeah, maybe a little bit of Texas redneck is rubbing off on us, but then again, maybe Wes is starting a new trend…

For FHE Brian is usually in charge of the lesson, and one night he based it off of the Gospel Doctrine lesson he was preparing that talked about how God commanded the Israelites to make and wear phylacteries.

I really like the Monsen version, and I think it got the point across perfectly.

We had some beautiful days and really enjoyed some outside time in the back yard.

We Skyped with the Henrie’s and Thad and Caden decided to have a dance party.

I seriously loved it!
Thad talks about Caden at least once a week, and Skype is an awesome thing because when we see them this summer, it will be like they haven’t even skipped a beat.
Thank you technology!

My boys have this cutest nightly ritual with their dad. Whenever we say, “Time to go upstairs!” they all head to the starting line while yelling, “Poses! Poses!”

After assuming their positions I say, “On your marks, get set…” and Wes yells, “GO!” and they all race up the stairs with the boys saying, “Get me daddy, get me!”

I seriously need to take one hundred pictures like this before this cuteness ends because I love it so much.
These poses are so funny, but this was a fairly conservative pose night. Things can get crazy here in the Monsen house around 8pm!

Here is Thad teaching Wes Thumbs Up.

What a good big brother teaching Wes such a vital skill.
What would they do without each other?

Wes can get in and out of his crib now on his own when the side is down, but he is usually clothed and slips right in.

Naked, post bath Wes doesn’t slide in so easily.
I was on the computer as Wes dried off (as you can see, that swass induced diaper rash and eczema needed a little air drying) and I heard him say, “Hewp me mom, Hewp me!” and I turned around to this beautiful site!
He wasn’t panicked, so he didn’t mind that I grabbed my phone to take a picture. I mean, how could I not take a picture? It was so funny!

And here is my favorite April moment:

I made these dino tails for Thad and I for Halloween the fall I was pregnant with Wes, and I made mine (the blue one) with Wes in mind as I knew that these two brothers would run around in them together sometime down the road.
Thad saw them in the closet and these two ran around all morning with them on and my heart just smiled. The day had come.
I love these brothers so much!

Grandma Teresa and Grandpa Russ Take a Road Trip

Gma and Gpa Whitehouse had talked about wanting to take a road trip down to Austin after tax season before it even started. It started out that they were going to ride the motorcycle down, and then when the weather became more unpredictable they were going to drive the Corvette, but when it came down to comfort and practicality, they decided the Lexus was they way to go! They were smart and made the drive a week long trip. They headed down through New Mexico and stopped at Carlsbad Caverns. They said it was awesome and we will for sure have to take that route some time over the next four years! They weren’t supposed to arrive until Thursday, but we were so happy when they decided to drive a few extra hours and arrived late Wednesday night following Easter. It had been eight long months since we had seen them and it was so fun to give them hugs and catch up. We couldn’t hold it in long and told them about Baby Girl on her way, due in September.

They were so excited and just like everyone else they weren’t super shocked to hear we were expecting, but shocked to know that we already knew it was a girl!
Yay for more grandbabies!!

The boys were so surprised to see them in the morning and didn’t waste any time showing off their Texas home.

We headed downtown their first day to show off Austin to Grandpa Russ who had never visited before. Grandma Teresa needed a refresher too, as her visit in August was short and sweet.

Grandma and Grandpa wanted some Longhorn gear and while we were there,

 we finally hooked Thad up with is first “Hook ‘Em” horns shirt!
He looks good as a Longhorn!

Friday was spent making strawberry jam all morning while Thad and Dad were at school, but we rounded out the afternoon with some fun at the swimming pool!

The water was pretty freezing, so I think this is Grandma and Grandpa giving Thad some extra encouragement to stay in the water.

Wes loved sporting his life jacket and goggles. I loved it too!

As you can see from these boys’ faces they loved having Grandma and Grandpa with them! Having family around is the best!

We headed to Rudy’s for some delicious BBQ that night and they were also lucky enough to see Thad play in his Tball game the next day. We got a sitter that night and headed to the movies at the Drafthouse and they loved the dinner-in-the-theater experience!
There was lots of lounging and chatting and catching Grandpa up on the Disney movies that he doesn’t watch by himself for some reason…?? Thad loved watching Grandpa laugh at the minions on Despicable Me 2 – It’s the simple things.

After an awesome long weekend with them, we said our goodbyes after sacrament meeting on Sunday.

As you can tell, none of us wanted to say goodbye, but we were so excited knowing that we would see them in just over a month!
Thanks for visiting us all the way down in Texas, Grandma and Grandpa, we love you so much!