Catching Up!

This past week my dad retired after working 29 years as a Statistician for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. On Monday his work through him a nice farewell party. My sister Megan and her family were here from San Diego, my sister Ann and my brother and his wife Alisha came here from Denver. My mom's sisters Mary and Carolynn also came.

Megan has two sets of twins. Coleman and Chloe are the same age as Ethan and Sadie and Dallas are the six months older than Eliza. The kids had a lot of fun playing together.

Here are Grandpa Reed and Granny Pam with seven of their grandchildren!

Ethan balancing Eliza and Coleman overlooking the Utah State Capitol.

Lora, Emma, and Eliza taking one last look at Grandpa Reed's office.

After my dad's Retirement party we went and ate lunch at the Lion House.

Here is Eliza eating a snack before dinner.

We had to divide into three tables. Chloe joined the Monson's at their table.


Granny Pam, Grandpa Reed, Alisha, Will, and the rest of Megan's family sat at this table.

My sister Ann along with Aunt Mary and Larry choose to avoid the chaos and sit at their own table.

Coleman and Ethan had so much fun together that Coleman came up later in the week to spend more time with Ethan. Making a snowman was one of the many fun things they did together. After spending the day with Ethan Coleman is asking for a basketball and basketball hoop for his birthday!

This past week I had a visit from my old roommates from Bowling Green State, Shirley and Melissa. Melissa and her family drove all the way to Utah from Ohio to surprise her family for Christmas. I am grateful I was able to spend an afternoon with her. We made pizza and had fun visiting while our children played together. This is the only picture I have of the kids eating pizza together. Between the two of us we have a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 year old and one on the way... and no I am not the one who is pregnant!

Merry Christmas!

This past month has been filled with fun activities and excitement for the children! For FHE, Ethan and Emma made a gingerbread house. Emma had managed to eat most of the candy off of it in about a week!

Both Ethan and Emma's schools had Christmas programs. Here is Emma holding a doll preforming in her Preschool program.

We spent Christmas Eve at Micah's parents house. One of the highlights of the evening was the Nativity put on by the kids. Taylor was a wise man, Ethan played Joseph and did a good job of holding baby Spencer who was our six month old baby Jesus, Sara was Mary, and Angel Emma and Shepherd Olivia had to keep a close watch on wild animal Eliza!

We spent Christmas morning at our house opening presents. Later that day we went to Provo to spend time with Lora's family. We had a good time eating, doing puzzles, and watching movies.

Here is Emma helping Eliza open her baby doll.

Emma is trying out her new kitchen while holding her new doll.



Watch out! Here comes Ethan on his new green bike!

We hope that you had a Merry Christmas!
Love, The Monson's

Fun Busy Week

Today Micah had the day off of work, but Ethan and Emma had to go to school. When they came home we decided we wanted to do something fun as a family so we took them to the zoo. Overall, we had a really fun time seeing the animals and zoo lights.

Here are Ethan, Emma, and Eliza in front of the Cougars!

Ethan's favorite part was riding the train!

Emma enjoyed watching the giraffes!


The first time we walked by the elephants they weren't in site. Ethan and Emma were excited to finally see the elephant!

Emma had fun riding the Rhino!

Ethan and Eliza took a turn on the elephant trunk.

Micah and his nephew share the same birthday. This past Sunday we celebrated at his sister Natalie's house with a yummy dinner and fruit pizzas and homemade ice cream for dessert.

Over the weekend Micah and Ethan went camping and Christmas tree cutting. Here's Ethan in front of the campfire.

After the Christmas trees were cut Micah went shooting.

Later that night we had Micah's parents, brother Alan, and our friends the Hovey's and the Heumann's over for a BYU-Utah Football Party. All I can say is that the food was really yummy!

Denver

Last week Micah and I decided at the last minute it would be fun to drive to Denver to attend the BYU vs Air Force football game and visit our family who live there. (My sister Ann has lived in Denver for over ten years, my sister Mary moved there two years ago with her husband John and they have two children Spencer and Molly, and my brother Will has lived there four years and has been married to his wife Alisha for two years who is from Denver.) My dad surprised us all by wanting to come with us. So Friday we all loaded up in the van and made the eight hour trek through Wyoming to get to Denver. Overall, it was a really fun trip and we are glad that we went.

Saturday we all headed to Colorado Springs to watch the BYU vs Air Force football game. Below is Molly, Mary, Ethan, Micah, Eliza, Lora, Emma, and my dad.

Here is my sister Ann holding Emma and I'm holding Eliza. This was the first football game that all three of our children went to together. It was nice to have some extra help with the children.

Here is Spencer and Ethan bundled up at the game.

After the football game we went to Qdoba a Mexican restaurant for dinner. We ordered some nachos for the kids and they had a blast eating together. My brother Will and his wife Alisha are sitting at the table next to the kids.

Here are the kids eating Sunday dinner at Mary and John's.

After dinner we went to Will and Alisha's new house for the grand tour. Emma and Spencer had fun dancing around to the Wizard of OZ while Ethan reenacted some of the plays from the BYU football game the day before.

The weather was beautiful on Monday so we decided to let the kids play together one last time in Mary and John's backyard before we headed back to Utah.

Happy Halloween

This year we celebrated Halloween three days in a row! Emma goes to Preschool every Wednesday so she had a Halloween party at school where all the kids dressed up and did fun Halloween things. When I was getting Emma ready for school she did not want to wear her Halloween costume. I did everything I could to try and get her to dress up but she was insistent on wearing her blue dress with white hearts. So she went to school wearing her blue dress with white hearts instead of her princess costume. When she got to school and saw all the other little girls dressed as princesses she wanted to wear her princess costume too! Luckily we had put her Aeriel dress in her school bag and she was able to put it on over her blue dress with white hearts.

Here is Princess Emma with her preschool teacher Miss Suzanne (who is not really a witch)!

On Thursday we spent the day at Ethan's Kindergarten class helping out with his class Halloween Party. Ethan wanted to be Mater again this year (which was fine with me) and Emma had no problem putting on her Minnie Mouse dress that morning before the party! I dressed Eliza in Ethan's old devil costume because I knew she would terrorize his classroom!

Here is Ethan with his Kindergarten teacher "Dr. Shaw"!

On Friday, Micah's sister Natalie invited us to her house for a Halloween party. The kids went trick or treating in their neighborhood and we ate yummy food at her house. We had to leave early because Emma had decided earlier that day to chew and swallow a whole pack of bubblegum. She threw up pieces of chewed gum.

Here are Minnie Mouse "Emma" and Tinkerbell "Eliza" posing with their candy.

Seattle

Earlier this month, Micah and I were able to go to Seattle without the kids! The main reason why we decided to go to Seattle was to go to a BYU football game.

Here is Micah and I with his dad at the Washington football stadium which overlooks Lake Washington.


That night we were able to go a Seattle Mariners baseball game with Tim and Mark Heumann. The New York Yankees were in town which was a real treat!




Micah and I love waterfalls. We drove an hour outside of Seattle to see this one.


This sign says the name of the beautiful waterfall we were able to see.





Before we flew home we were able to go to downtown Seattle to Pike's Market and to eat at Ivars!



Here we are at Deception Pass!



We were able to go to the grounds of the Seattle temple. Across the way was a wooded area with tons of blackberries. One of my favorite parts of the trip was picking fresh blackberries.

When we came home one of the first things I did was make blackberry jam! Yum Yum!

Happy First Birthday Eliza!

Our sweet baby Eliza turned one on Saturday. She is our football baby! The day she was born was the opening day of college football and this year her birthday fell on BYU's first football game of the season. Because of that we celebrated her birthday on Sunday and had a really fun party. She really enjoyed eating her cake!

Here are a few endearing things about Eliza that make us love her so much.

1. Her teeth have come in an unusual way. The first teeth to come in were two on the top, but not the two you would think, making her smile all the prettier!

2. She loves to point at people and say hi. This makes her a hit whenever we go shopping, she will randomly point at someone, look at them and say hi. This definitely catches people off guard to be greeted by a baby, but most the time they respond to her by smiling and saying hi. I think it the cutest things!

3. She loves music. When Micah and I play the piano, she crawls over and stands against the piano playing the top keys while bobbing her head and shaking her stuff. Her favorite is when Micah plays "Boomba"!

4. One of her favorite places to play is in the dishwasher. She loves to help unload it by throwing all the silverware on the floor.

5. She loves playing with Ethan and Emma, especially with Ethan's trains and Emma's dolls. If she starts annoying them, they will carry her away from where they are playing to the other side of the room, but she quickly crawls back over to where they are.

Eliza holding one of Ethan's train not knowing what to think of the fire on her cake.

Posing with my Aunt Mary with her musical Elephant, trying to keep Emma from taking it away from her!

Admiring her new doll with Grandma and Grandpa Monson.


Consider this your "hi" from Eliza!