A crib and some sugar cookies.

I would love to post pictures but I just flat out don't have any. SO sorry. Anyways, Conner slept in his crib for the very first time! I am so glad the crib has finally been slept in. I was beginning to worry I would never have the guts to have Conner sleep in his very own room. Yes I am torn but at the same time... HALLELUJAH!

Oh and today we had the privilege to spend some good old fashioned quality time with our favorite Kerstin, Asia, Adalyn and Clara, Christian, and little Ben. They are so fun to be with. It was a little chaotic. Nonetheless, we still managed to make sugar cookies and frost them with neon frosting. Conner had a ball.... or I am sure he would have had a ball had he not fallen asleep.

Conner with a side of Don.

So much has gone on since the last time I blogged. We were in a 3rd car accident, killed a squirrel,  back pain 24/7, Crohn's issues, Uncle dies, cousin goes crazy, new baby, baby has surgery, baby gets blessed, baby gets infection in the incision site, and about 10,000 other things. I was going to do a "Chronicles of Monson" but that would be a dreary, long, and I mean LONG post. No one has that much free time. TRUST YOU, ME. I could go on with all the legitimate excuses I have for not blogging like Mark someday wiping the operating system on his dinosaur laptop making it difficult to upload pictures that will in time be deleted or moved to another location OR being a mom doesn't leave much time for keeping my house clean. Not to mention the trillion diapers I change daily.

Lets begin-
Conner Don Monson born Wednesday November 10, 2010 at 8:46 a.m. weighing 6 lbs. 9 oz. 18 inches long. Labor/delivery was actually not a horrible experience.... It was harder watching Mark hold my hand. I will leave you at that.

Conner had pyloric stenosis--Vomit the Comet! Now it is all better other than the fact he has an infection in the incision site. No fun. Antibiotic here we come.

Conner is 4 months old now and these are his accomplishments:
1. talking, jabbering, imitating sounds, and jabbering some more.
2. he holds his head up with his arms when he is on his belly for "tummy time" but he is not the biggest fan of "tummy time".
3. He pees a lot. I don't know where exactly he puts it all.
4. If you hold him so he is standing up, he will walk and it might be his favorite thing to do.
5. He loves the children's cartoon OSWALD. Don't ask me why my 4 month old likes a cartoon of a piano playing octopus with a pet wiener dog that looks like the actual American classic, processed, sports food stand, delicacy.
6. He doesn't like green beans or carrots all that much but he LOVES peas! (I still feed him green beans and carrots)
7. He is currently the record holding nail grower I have ever seen! I trim his nails 2 times a week now! Its ridiculous.
8. Did I mention he sleeps through the night?

Sleeping.

He loves to sleep. He gets that from the M.O.N.S.O.N. side. I am not denying that I don't love sleep. I really love to sleep. However, I have never met someone who loves to sleep and sleep in more than Mark. Hence, the sleep gene is graciously accepted from the Monson side.

Even though he loves to sleep, getting him to sleep is another ballgame. He does not like to fall asleep at all. He would rather scream his lungs out and turn purple in the face and rupture everyones eardrums before surrendering to his life long passion.

Anyways, I wanted to keep this short and sweet. But I have to bring this one topic up before I am done. I need to confess. I killed a squirrel. Well, Mark did, I was just an accomplice. I sat in the car and saw an innocent, live squirrel run in front of our car. I looked out the window in my rear view side mirror and watched its helpless body bounce to the side of the road. Hit and run my friends. And for that I am sorry.

Thats all until next time.

You know you are a red neck when....

I am so glad I live in Utah...

90 pregnancies at one high school

By James Eng
About 90 teenage girls at one public high school in Memphis, Tenn., are either pregnant or have had a baby this school year, according to media reports.
Frayser High School has 978 students – 508 of which are girls. That means nearly 18 percent of teen girls at Frayser are either currently pregnant or recently had babies.
As a Title One school, Frayser receives federal dollars based on the number of students from low-income families who qualify for free or reduced lunch, according to WMC-TV.
Pregnancy is not a new problem for the school, one Frayser graduate says. "When we would come back from summer break, there would be a thousand people pregnant. We were like, what's going on?" Alicia Williamson told KTUU. Williamson graduated from Frayser in 2004. She added, "There were a whole lot of bellies. You had to watch out so you didn't bump into them. Being 2011, I thought a lot of them would have thought this is not the right way to go, having babies during school time.”
The news comes as the city plans an initiative to fight teen pregnancy in their community with a nonprofit organization called Girls Inc., which teaches girls about pregnancy prevention.

Say What?

Okay, this post is random, and I have been just accumulating these sayings over this last year and a half.

Random things Sara says....

Sara: "Are you having a baby in you?" (because both Nat's were pregnant)
Sara: "Do you have friends?" (Nope, I was born in a bubble.)
Sara: "Does your mom like her house?" (I am pretty sure she does.)
Sara: "Do you like me? Cuz I like you." (I'm married. Plus, you're too young for me.)
Sara: (hugging her "Baby Alive" with a big, fat, cheezy smile) "This is my Baby Alive. She really is alive!"

Sara: "Will you give me a bath?"
Me: "Okay."
Sara: (giggle) "You can be Ariel's friend." (not having a clue about what she was talking about...)
Me: "Okay."
minutes later...
Sara: "Sing the little Mermaid."
Me: (I start singing)
Sara: "THATS NOT HOW IT GOES! It GOES like this..... aahhhh ahh aaahhh aaaaaaahhhh" (eyes closed, really feeling the moment)


After Sara is usually done with the questioning....(sometimes)Emma finds the opportunity to come sit on my lap... it goes like this:
(One particular instance)

Emma: "Why you like Sara?"
Me: "Because she is just so cute, just like you!"
Emma: "Wwhhhhhhhhhhyyyy?"
Me: "Um, because she is sweet?"
Emma: "Wwhhhhhhhhhhyyyy?" (geez... ya got me)

Another instance...
Emma: "Why is your hair black."
Me: "I was born with it."
Emma: "Wwhhhhhhhhhyyyy?" (again.. ya got me)


Off and On....

Ethan: "ANNNNIIIIIEEEE!"
Me: "Hey Ethan! Come here give me a hug!"
Ethan: (runs up to me as if to give me a hug.)
Taylor: "EEWWWW!!!"
Ethan: "EEEWWWWWW!!!" (screams and runs away with Taylor)
Me: (I think I'll just hug myself)

Running straight to my face...
Ethan: "Jazz is UP!"

Taylor just kills me....

When we were in St. George (was married for almost 2 1/2 months)....
Taylor: "You are my aunt."
Me: "Yep, I am."
Taylor: "Do you know what that means?" (Nope, enlighten me)
Me: "Yeah! That means I am your aunt!"
Taylor: "No, it means you are Aunt Nat's sister!"
Me: "Um... yeah. Technically we are."
Taylor: "So why are you brown?" (I was born with a defect called brown-syndrome)
Me: "Because my mom's hair is brown?"
Taylor: "Oh."

My official opinion of Obama.

Can they be anymore obvious?

In Memory

I used to think people who got so attached to their pets were weird. I couldnt understand why they would, because animals cant talk, they cant go shopping with you, they cant understand you when you talk to them. Well, I was gravely mistaken.

When I was 13 years old, my bishop's daughter gave me her dog. The dog's name was Preslie. She was a spirited dog. She loved to play and run everywhere. She would sleep with me, she would wake me up in the morning after my alarm would go off. Through some rough patches of friendships in high school, and all of the inconsistancies, she was the only "friend" that was a constant. When I would get home from school, she would be waiting for me in the front window as I would pull into the driveway.

My mom was really attatched to Preslie as well. She would try to make Preslie like her more. It was hilarious! After I got married, my mom had Preslie. She loved that dog so much! She would even dress her up in clothes for goodness sake!

For the past while, she had been sick. She had surgery and they removed her uterus. For a while she was doing fine until December 2008. She started having problems eating and gaining weight. She was skin and bones in no time. January 20th, Preslie started to have siezures and uncontrolable bowel movements. She died in my mom's arms. She died with her eyes open.

I just had to blog this because blogging is like writing a journal. So, there ya go.

Lightning strikes twice

The day after Christmas we decided to take a trip to Idaho to visit Annie's family. We were on I-15 just past 5300 South driving in the middle lane. The roads were icy so we were driving about 45-50 mph.

All of the sudden Annie point and says, "Mark! There's a car!" I look and see a car that looks like it's backing out across the freeway. I was so surreal. We found out later that she lost control on the onramp and spun out. Anyway, I hit the brakes as the car was coming in front of us and turned, but it was too late. We hit her and the airbags went off in a cloud of smoke. Our car bounced off to the right side of the freeway and she ended up on the left. Fortunately, neither one of us hit any other cars in the process.

The Altima pre-accident



Altima post-accident. If you look carefully you can see where the other car ended up next to the police truck in the background



A better angle of the damage. The car was a total loss.



A few weeks later we're out shopping for a new car on the day before our first anniversary. We come to an intersection to turn right onto State Street and stop at the red light. The light starts to change and I see all the cars in the lane I'm turning into come to a stop. Everything looks clear so I proceed to make my right turn. Next thing I know there's a honk, I hear a car skidding and BOOM! I didn't even know what hit me. Our car spins 180 degrees into oncoming traffic and as we come to a stop the guy hits our car again by t-boning our car. I guess he wanted to make sure he got us good enough.

Annie is screaming in pain and I yell "Not again!" We're both laying all the way back in our sets because they got knocked back from the impact. Annie had some glass in her eye and starts to shiver cause it's cold and she's going into shock. I put my coat over her and soon after that the EMT's show up. They ask us if we're ok several times. Annie's obviously has a lot of pain in her neck so they put a neck brace on her. When they first tried to get her out of the car it hurt too much so they decide to cut the frame between the doors out.

Next thing I know we're in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital. They have to take Annie's coat off to get her IV started. At first they ask if it's ok to cut it off. Annie just got it for Christmas and really likes it so the answer was a big NO! With some pain we get it off and they start the IV. It worked for a little bit, but doesn't stick so they have to do another one in the hospital. Considering how much Annie hates needles this is not so much fun. At the hospital they check Annie out, give her some nice drugs for the pain and do a CT scan. The CT Scan didn't show any breaks so they let us go home.

After seeing the police report we've been able to reconstruct a better idea of what actually happened. According to witnesses the green Focus (the car that hit us) was driving possible up to 96 mph. There was a car turning left opposite him and they started to turn becuase the light was now red. When they saw him coming so fast they honked and turned back to the middle of the intersection barely missing him. The Focus also swerved to miss the car turning left which put him in the lane we had just turned into. The police report estimates that by the time he hit us he was going 58 mph and we were probably going 15 mph.

Just to give you an idea of what kind of people we're dealing with here: according to the guy who towed us, when the Focus driver's girlfriend was coming to see the accident, she blew by the police barricade at around 50 mph and almost hit the tow guy and a cop. Several officers chewed her out, but didn't give her a ticket for some reason.

Here is the beginning of the Focus's skid marks.



The skid marks continue through the intersection till he hit us.



This is where he hit us. The marks on the road are from his car fluids, but it shows the general direction our car spun out. You can see some glass from the wreck too.



My seat won't move anymore and you can see from the crease in Annie's seat that it broke.



Here you can see the rear impact and where they cut the door out.



What's left of the trunk.


"Air Conditioning"


Our super subcompact car. You can also see the dent to the left of the tire where he hit us the second time.

Car Accidents

Word of the wise:
"Don't get in one-- they suck."