The Monhaut Family

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Summer, Summer, Summer Time!

How is it already July 26th?? I can't believe I have not written a single blog post in 3 months! I have probably lost all of my readers, but wanted to check in and jot down some summer time happenings for my own records!

We have been having such a fun and BUSY summer! We haven't really been home for a weekend yet. We ended the school year with John getting his first experience with pink eye, but he quickly recovered and we headed to Traverse City with Brad's whole family for my father-in-law's retirement. We had such a great trip. It was relaxing, we went to the beach, went wine tasting, ate great food, drank wine, saw the sand dunes, and drank some more wine :)

When we got home, my second niece, Josephine Nora made her entrance. Good girl, she waited until I got home! She was born at 1:21 am on June 26th, and is so beautiful. Jenny had a pretty rough post labor experience and was readmitted to the hospital for a few days (which I know seemed like forever), but they are all doing well now and Libby is a great big sister too. John is very interested in his new little cousin, and she has quickly been added to our nightly "John and Libby" bedtime stories. :)

We attempted to go to the lake for the 4th of July weekend, but the heat and power outage sent us home with John and Libby at 1 am. Thankfully we were able to go back for the day on Sunday and John swam and rode the jet skis, and had a blast!

The next weekend John and I headed down to Columbus, IN for a girls weekend. I was able to catch up with some of my best friends from Colorado and we had such a great weekend catching up like old times. My friend Lisa who lives in Indiana has an enormous family farm that is so impressive. Her two girls Morgan and Taylor are so good with John and now the bedtime stories include John, Libby, Josie, Morgan, and Taylor. The latest one (made up by John) is that John rides a blue motorcycle with Morgan on the back, and Libby rides a pink motorcycle with Taylor on the back and Josie watches. Oh, and sometimes Papa Don rides a motorcycle with Aunt Lisa on the back, or sometimes Papa Joe. This part changes nightly :)

Anyways, our Indiana reunion was so much fun and makes me so reminiscent of our weekly girl nights we had and the closeness we shared. These girls are as good as it gets, and I am so lucky to have them as friends!

Last weekend, we went back to Indiana to South Bend where Brad was inducted into his high school's "Athlete of the Decade" program. Very impressive, huh? They had a nice breakfast and then we headed to the county fair where John's dreams came true...he rode a horse! Well, a pony, but same thing. John LOVES horses, but is very nervous usually when it comes to the real thing. The weekend before in Indiana, he didn't want to even go near the horses, but he really wanted to ride one at the fair. He has not stopped talking about it, it is so cute.

So that is a quick summary of our summer. We have been super busy during the weeks too, spending time with Josie, Jenny, and Libby, a new swing set, swimming, taking gymnastics, catching up with friends, and a soccer camp! John just finished up a 4 day "camp" with some of his little buddies and he did great!

We have been having so much fun together being home this summer, but John has become pretty clingy and attached, which makes me think the fall will be hard on both of us when I go back to work. I have some work to do in August, so hopefully a day here or there will help the transition. He has been SO much fun, just talking up a storm and being such a goofball! He loves to joke around and he thinks he is the funniest person alive. He cracks himself up all of the time and I love his laughs.

I will leave with some pictures of the summer, I have probably thousands, but here are a few. I hope my next post is sooner than this last one! Hope you are all enjoying your summers too!

Traverse City

At the Pier

Group shot at the Sleeping Bear Dunes...so pretty!

Chillin at the house with my little man!

Playing in the sand

Sweet Josie

Proud to be a big cousin

Riding with Morgan on the Gator

My Colorado girls :)

Finger/Body Painting while eating a blue sucker...

First horse ride!

Soccer camp with Coach Ryan, learning how to trap the ball.

Ready to go!

John's new swingset given to us by our awesome neighbors

One of many breakdowns this summer...usually over wanting a clif bar, sucker, or because he wants a different cup...oh, the things that make you upset when you're 2!

Best Friends :)

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Potty Training

I apologize for my lack in updates. I promise once things settle down around here with work, I have a long upload in pictures and updates. For now, a funny picture from today. I ran to get something while John was going potty and came back to find this :) True 100% boy! Love him so much and love that the magazine is upside down :) Hope everyone is doing well and keep checking back...updates soon!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Guess who is turning TWO??

I can not believe that in one week John will be two! Holy cow! Time flies! Sorry for my lack of updates this past month, life has been crazy. My Uncle Mike passed away this part week from a very brief battle with kidney cancer. It has been very hard on our family. He was only 57 and was in perfect health otherwise. We headed to Columbus this weekend for his funeral and I know the months ahead will be hard for my aunt, cousins, and mom. It really makes you stop and think and appreciate the people and family around you.

John and Libby did so great this past weekend at the funeral and had so much fun at the hotel. Wish we were there for a different reason, but they entertained each other and love staying up late and playing.

John has been such a jabberbox lately. All he does is TALK! It is so funny, listening to the things he says and starting to put so many words together. His favorite expressions right now are "I need more" and "Stop it Mommy/Daddy" (usually when we are singing!). He loves Allie (Addie) right now and all things Sesame Street. He likes to use his potty and usually goes at least once a day, usually before bathtime. When we were getting ready at the hotel on Saturday morning, he came up to me when I was drying my hair and told me he had to go poo-poo. I put him on the potty and he went! Yayyyyy! I think we are going to try to begin potty training over my spring break, which will be interesting.

I am excited to celebrate John's birthday next weekend. We are going to have a small party here on Saturday (Sesame Street of course) and all John talked about tonight was having a Bert and Ernie cake (sorry bud, it is an Elmo cake). He has been practicing blowing out candles. The other morning he looked at us and we asked him what he wanted and he said "Birfay pesents." Hmmm, maybe we have been talking about his birthday too much :)

I took John today to get his 2 year pictures taken and of course he did great, causing me to spend way too much money. But hey, he is worth it :) Here are some of my favorites and some others from this month. Have a great week!

Fingerpainting!

Being silly with his friend Emily

Elmo! His best bud (besides Libby)

Grandma's Birthday

Saturday, January 28, 2012

22 Months

January has come and gone and it is crazy to think that in less than 2 months John will be 2! Wow! He is all of a sudden such a "big" little boy...he has been taking an interest in going on the potty...usually about twice a day. He even went #2 tonight!!! We are not going full force with potty training until either my spring break or summer, but at least he is starting to catch on.

On MLK day, we were looking for something to do when John woke up from his nap so we decided to check out this place by our house called U.Bounce. I wasn't sure if John would be too young, but he loved it. It was basically just two large rooms with bounce houses and slides. Check out the big slide he went on....I love the look on his face!

Today we went to Sesame Street Live with my mom. It was so much fun! He absolutely loved it. The minute the characters came on he got this huge grin on his face, yelling out their names and waving. It was priceless. Libby and Jenny went to, but we didn't get to sit by them. John had a blast though, it was definitely his highlight of the year so far :)

My mom's birthday is on Monday, so we are going to celebrate tomorrow night with everyone. Happy Birthday Mom...we love you!!!!
Here are just a few more silly pictures of our big boy...Enjoy!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Catching Up

Happy New Year! Yes, we are still alive! Sorry for the lack in blogging lately, November and December have been crazy months. Good crazy, but definitely busy. I admit I have went to update this blog several times over the past few weeks but have been so overwhelmed by the number of pictures to upload that I have not followed through. So, I am going to try to give the best wrap up of our last month and a half...

November/Thanksgiving:
We had a really great Thanksgiving this year down in Indiana with the Monhaut's. It seems like forever ago! We left Wednesday afternoon and headed down. Brad and I ran the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning with my sister in law and mother in law, which was a lot of fun. Okay, maybe not while running, but definitely afterwards! We went to the annual Monhaut Thanksgiving lunch/dinner that was fun as always. John was a real trooper (no nap) and had a lot of fun, although he really wasn't into the food...someday!

The rest of the weekend was fun as well. The weather was so nice all weekend, so we took advantage on Friday and went downtown to feed the ducks. John loved it. We also got to see Lisa and Greg's new building, which was awesome! Overall we had a great trip and headed back home on Saturday to get caught up around the house. Here are some pics from the weekend:

John and Aunt Lisa...he loves his "neighs!"

Thanksgiving with Aunt Lisa and Uncle Greg

Papa!

John and his cousin Bailey

Feeding the ducks

December:
December flew by so fast because we were so busy. December is always the month that I seem to sign up for more than I can take on. Our school always does a Families in Need program in December for our students, and I have always "shopped" with donated money to help out. This year I was a little overwhelmed because I was hosting our annual neighborhood cookie exchange at our house, so we just adopted our own family from the school's list and I was going to leave it at that. However, I ended up helping out last minute by shopping for 11 extra kids. I was so happy I did it though. As stressful as it can be, it is the time of year to do it and very rewarding. I also saw several students today wearing clothes I had purchased, so it makes me happy to know their Christmas was a little brighter! Our cookie exchange was fun too, and we celebrated Brad's birthday that same week. Don, Nan, and Lisa all came for the weekend which was great. Add in two adult work parties, parent group party, daycare party, Gingerbread party, and holiday family celebrations, it was a busy month!

We have started our annual tradition of having "Brunch with Santa" to celebrate my sister and Brad's birthdays with my parents and Jenny, Doug, and Libby, so we had a lot of fun again this year. John wasn't too sure of Santa, but he did stand by him.

I had the entire week of prior to Christmas which was great. Great because I ended up with a horrible sinus infection and felt yucky. So it was nice to lay low with John and have some cuddle time! We celebrated Christmas with my dad's side of the family that week too, which was great. My family (parents, Jenny, and Doug) adopted a family of our own as well for Christmas. We delivered the gifts the Sunday before Christmas and it was so great. The woman was so humbled and couldn't stop crying. It really was a highlight of the month.

i also got to meet up with my great friend Angie, who is a college roommate. She lives out in Boston now and I haven't seen her since my baby shower. We met at Bronner's where she got to meet John and we caught up. I miss you Ang!!! John actually sat on Santa's lap at Bronner's, so I was able to get some great pictures.

Christmas Eve was at our house this year and it was a lot of fun. I wasn't too stressed out because we usually have a pretty low key evening which is perfect. My cousins and their young kids all came and the kids were hilarious running all around. After they all left, we celebrated Christmas with my family. John and Libby were fun opening presents. I wouldn't say John really "got" it, but he definitely enjoyed opening things!

Christmas morning was also a lot of fun. Again, it took a while to get through because he wanted to play with things, or randomly go into the other room to play with toys. It was so much fun though, and I really can't wait until next year when he "gets" it.

Christmas morning we headed to Indiana to celebrate with the Monhaut's. Again, it was a great weekend and John did awesome. I had so much fun with him over the past two weeks. Brad also took the week off after Christmas, so when we got back on Tuesday, we had a few days to just hang out. It was so hard t go back to work today! He has been talking and communicating so much, and just keeping us entertained. We all had so much fun!!

We celebrated New Year's at our house with my parents and Jenny, Doug, and Libby. it was fun as well. My mom, sister, and I have become addicted to Words with Friends, so I'm sure the guys thought it was a great time to watch us all play each other! Ha!

Well, that is the past month in a nutshell. Sorry for the long post, if you are still reading! Just wanted to get it documented before it all becomes a blur. How is it that time is going by so fast now? Is this what happens once you have a child??? Well, if you kept reading, thank you! If not, I don't blame you! Hopefully you scrolled down to see the pics.