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! 

Heidi-Ho and Sadie Mae

Last week, Heidi and Sadie came and stayed with us for 5 whole days that went by entirely TOO FAST! We have been looking forward to this trip for a while and I can't believe it is already over. It went by fast, but it was sure a good time! Thad I couldn't ask for anyone better as our best buds...We love you Madsen ladies!

Sadie and Heidi came last Thursday morning on a red-eye, so as you can imagine they were pretty exhausted when they first arrived, but it was so exciting to see them! We let them rest up a bit and then just headed around Norwalk to do some of the necessary errands when first arriving on vacation. Heidi and I rented a movie that night and actually crashed pretty early, but of course had some fabulous conversation and got sick from eating so many muddy buddies! Sadie and Thad couldn't get enough of each other and ran wild!

They really are besties and loved running around and copying each other!

We spent the next day hanging around Norwalk:

Stopped and the infamous Stew Leonard's and filled up on TONS of samples! 

(This is the cow that Thad is terrified of. He was in a bad mood the rest of the time we were there)

Went to the park near our house and had dinner at our favorite pizza place, Jordan's. Afterwards Heidi and I of course rented a chick flick and got some ice cream to finish off the night!

Saturday was our big day we ventured into the NYC! We love it there and love having an excuse to head into the city. Heidi and Sadie were the perfect people to go in with! Thad might disagree because he cried most of the ride in with Heidi sitting next to him, but I guess we'll never know;-)

We drove in and parked on the Upper West Side so we could take a stroll by the temple and just head to Central Park. It was a perfect, overcast day to walk around the city.

I was looking at this picture when I was editing all my pics and I couldn't figure out why we took it until I started thinking about our trip....the temple can get camouflaged in the background!

Central Park is ALWAYS a great stop and the kids got to spread their legs! As you can see in the bottom, left pictures, Sadie showed Thad her awesome climbing skills and he followed suit! I love that he learns something new when people visit: Leah taught him not be afraid of slides and Sadie taught him how to climb...Thanks girls!

After the park, we jumped on the subway to downtown and made a stop at Ground Zero. It was good to be there shortly after the 9th anniversary of the tragedy and it was neat for Heidi to see how different it was from 8 years ago when she saw it for the first time. The site was still a lot of rubble when she saw it, but it has progressed a lot and they are working on a memorial to be opened next year.

After that we took a rest at a little park and had some YUMMY New York Pizza..mmmmm!

We rode the Staten Island Ferry to get the fabulous view of the Statue of Liberty for FREE. It was a bit crowded, but we were able to get a few good glimpses of Lady Liberty. Thad and Sadie were somewhat intrigued by the water...

We then took a stroll through downtown Manhattan (where the kids finally zonked) and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Brian and I have done this before, but it was a totally different experience at night...I mean, look at that skyline!!

We really had a fabulous day in the city and were genuinely pooped at the end of the day knowing that we had seen so much and had a great time!

Sunday we went to church and lounged around eating caramel popcorn while the kids slept:) That night we headed to the beach so the kids could get their wiggles out.

The beach is awesome no matter who or when you go...So fun!

We loved waking up to this face every  morning:

But knew it wouldn't last, so we had SUPER fun our last 2 days:

BEACH, BABY! We headed to Wesport to this fabulous beach with a WAY FUN playground. It was a tad on the chilly side down by the water, but it was totally worth it. Heidi didn't listen to me or herself and she actually got FRIED. We're glad it was the last day, but we definitely slabbed the aloe vera on that night:( I hope it was worth the pain, Heid!? 

After the beach Brian was sweet enough to let us have a girls night out! We headed to the mall to find Heidi a late birthday present, then headed to the craft store so Heidi could help me with a Fall centerpiece for my table...

What do you think? Isn't it great?! I knew Heidi wouldn't fail me...have you seen her house?

We ended the night with TREATS, of course! We should have got pics cuz it was pretty disgusting, but we chowed down on M&Ms, Starbursts and soda while watching the worst movie ever made...Fame. If you see it in the Redbox, don't even think about it! Worst ever! I haven't had caffeine it quite some time, so was forced to watch it while Heidi snoozed. Awful.

On our last day we met Sophie and Hanna at Waveny Park in New Canaan and had lots of fun taking nature walks and goofing around. Heidi of course had to meet Hanna and Sophie so she would know who I was talking to her about ALL THE TIME:) 

We really had a blast and were so sad when it was time to head home and pack up. I mean, these two children should not be separated....their moms either!;-) 

Heidi and Sadie, we love you two SOOOO much and are so happy and grateful you were able to come visit us. Heidi, you were right when you told me when I moved that no matter how far apart we live, we will always be friends. I know that's the truth. Thanks for your friendship, we can't wait to see you in October!! 

Labor Day Lovin' and the Oyster Festival

When it came around to Labor Day weekend, we didn't plan anything too big because we heard traffic going in and out of here was pretty bad. We decided to stay close and on Saturday we went to Hoboken, New Jersey because we LOVE the show Cake Boss on TLC and I've told Brian since the day he got the job that it was one of the top places I wanted to go. The internet said it was about 1 hour 15 minute drive to avoid tolls, so we thought, what the heck? That's not too bad. Well it wasn't bad until we hit all the traffic in downtown Manhattan going into the free tunnel. It took 30 minutes to go 300 yards...I guess we weren't the only ones with that idea! Once we got there we thought, hey that wasn't too bad, we're here and it will be fun. Until we ran into this...

The line to get in!!! And that was only half of it, the other half was down the block across the street! We had no idea it would be that busy and at one point we heard it would be a 2.5 hour wait. We debated about getting out of line but decided to stay in line when we met some fun people that we talked to in line for the 1.5 hour wait. 

Finally made it to the front!

Just a pic of Buddy in the background when I was paying for our DELICIOUS cannolis!

T

This is Buddy's sister Madeline that is on the show a lot. You probably don't care if you don't watch the show, but it was pretty exciting. It was a ZOO when we got inside and this is the best pic I could get because there were people EVERYWHERE!

After the excited of the baker we headed over to a park and had lunch and our dessert right across from Manhattan.

Isn't that an awesome view! The cannolis were seriously amazing and we should have gotten a couple pounds of them. Next time, because I will go back. The wait was totally worth it!

This is the only thing in the park that Thad could play on. He loved it and was hilarious of course!

We just walked around the rest of Hoboken, not too exciting apart from Carlo's Bakery, but it was actually a very pretty city!

This is the view from Frank Sinatra Park. They have concerts here in the summer with this as the background...awesome!

We of course had to stop and swing at the park to finish off the evening:)

THE OYSTER FESTIVAL:

So we have heard about his celebration from the time we moved in because they block off several of the streets around our house for the event. We live very close to the park where the festival aka carnival is held and it was finally here. We attended with a lot of Brian's friends from work and we had a blast!

We hit the rides first thing and Thad LOVED the Super Slide. He has been in love with slides lately and especially daring since Leah came and showed him how to be brave no matter how tall the slide is!

None of us have had Funnel Cake before so we had to give it a try. Loved it!!! (Are you even surprised? If you know me you know I love treats;)

These are a lot of Brian's work friends. The girls are all so sweet and I am so glad that we get to hang out with them once in a while. They are all in love with Thad and so sweet with him.

We ended the night on the ferris wheel and thanks to the Farr's we were all able to ride together. They gave us some extra tickets to pay for Thad cuz we didn't think we were going to have to.

 The Farrs on the ferris wheel

 I really felt like a wannabe carni last night! I would have ridden all the rides if the didn't cost $2 a piece and bought a ton of stuff at the booths. Luckily we only took $18, and that doesn't go too far after funnel cake, Super Slide and 2/3 of a ferris wheel ride.

View from the top! 

It was really a fantabulous night and I'm glad we could go with such great company! We are having tons of fun back here and it is going to continue with our next visitors...Heidi and Sadie Mae! We are so excited to have them and can't wait to see them bright and early on Thursday morning:)