Wednesday

Today is a Wednesday, which means it is inventory day, which means i have to be at work at 7, which means i am off early, which means my mom gets to watch Sawyer.  I put him in his "what happens at Grandma's, stays at Grandma's" because my mom gets a kick out of it, and she appropriately got back from Vegas last night.  Here is a picture for her, though you cant see his full shirt as well as i'd have liked, and it was cold out and didnt want to leave the already sick baby outside for a "good" picture.  The light indoors was awful, and outdoors was golden, so i picked a crappy outside one with his shirt wrinkly. Here mom:

It is nice to get off early once a week to relax.  Especially after this nasty cold I have (it has migrated from throat, to nose, to chest).  I do love my job though.  The job itself isnt that exciting, but hanging out with funny people all day is a pretty sweet thing to get paid for.  Yesterday we were discussing how hilarious it would be to invite people over for dinner, and casually leave a Natural Harvest cookbook out on the counter. I think i will do that actually. I wonder what people would do? "Ummm i think i left my curling iron on, gotta go." That book has provided hours of laughs. I like how the book says, it is available at "most homes and restaurants". Um someone call the health department. 

Anyway, i have one more picture. It didnt capture the cutest moment, but Sawyer kept crawling up Andy's arm.

Fair part dos

My brother Erik was in town from Pullman (he goes to WSU) this past weekend, and Destiny (his wife) got a few fair tickets from her work (if you can't follow that, it is because she lives over on this side, not in Pullman) so they invited us to hang out at the fair with them.  We agreed because 1. we wanted to spend time with them and 2. if there is a chance to get another earthquake burger, i'm on it :) It was fun! We walked around briefly, got earthquakes (we passed on the fries this time and Andy's friend worked there so we got a free coke so it was only $13 this time lol) and then just plowed through everything quickly.  We got there at like 12:30 and they had to be back by 2:30 for Cooper's visit. (His mom gets to take him 3 hours every Saturday and a guy comes to pick him up from Destiny at 3:00)  It was nice though because this time it was SUNNY! Last time it rained on us lol. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Andy and Erik pushing the babies down the hill (Des lives like 1/4 mile up the hill from the fair)

Monsons 

Destiny and Erik

We found a secret shady nook to feed the babies

Erik and Coop at the little nook

Andy took this from the nook

Ponytails and Pacifiers

I found a pacifier on the coffee table last night. It was almost bed time.  I went to put it in his bed since it seems like we can never find one when it is time for bed.  There was already one in there.  I went to set it down, and I also saw 2 on my night stand and 1 on my dresser. Hmmm. Why does it seem like whenever we dont need one, there are tons (he has 2 orange ones, 4 little blue ones, 2 green ones that are next size up of the blue ones, 2 nuk ones from the hospital, and 1 gummy one from the second hospital trip), but the second we need just one, there are none of them around and i cannot find them anywhere- even in the usual spots (his bed, diaper bag, and top of car seat head rest).  I noticed this same phenomenon with my ponytails and bobby pins.  When i want my hair down they are EVERYWHERE.  I've bought like 4 packs, each having like 30 rubberbands, so i know they exist, but when i want my hair up all i can find are 2 super stretched out ones. I think the same little gnome things that take your 'other sock' are the ones stealing my ponytails and Sawyer's pacifiers. :(


Part 2: We got a bill from the place that tested Sawyer's hearing in the hospital.  UGH. $230!!! All they did it see if he responded to beeps.  I KNEW he could hear because when someone would make a noise he would jump.  And what if he couldnt hear? I would teach him sign language.  I think i know enough sign language to cover him until he is about 4.  I definitely would not have approved if i knew i had to pay that much.  So lame :( I also think it is weird that insurance doesnt cover that.  It seems like a normal "check up" thing to do which is normally covered 100%. I am also annoyed that i still have the bill from his 'circ' to pay because insurance covered NONE.  That one is really dumb because the health org (whatever its called) suggests it because it reduces the risk of STD's and almost eliminates the infection that can be caused if you dont. You think they would cover at least a little bit :(  I havent received anything from his second hospital visit though so i'm hoping my "out of pocket" limit was maxed so i dont have to pay anything...i'm not holding my breath though.


Part 3: Here is a picture i took this morning when we got to Megan's to drop him off at 'daycare'. He was sleeping like this! He has been so tuckered out since he has been sick all week.  I am now too and it definitely sucks.  Neither of us can breathe and i am sure he has the same drowsiness and headaches that i have.  Poor guy. 

Sleeping like a baby

Hmm. It looks like they have a new picture uploader.  Well, here I am trying it out.  I took a couple pics of the soy bean at my parents house today sleeping.  I think he has the right idea, I have been so tired lately.  Not due to having an infant, but the fact that i go to bed at midnight and wake up at 7 when i am used to 10 hrs of sleep at night.  My fault though :)

Sawyer, 3 months

Sawyer turned 3 months old on Monday, so it was time to take his 3 month pictures.  He has grown so much!  I realize the dimensions are off because i rotated them all to be vertical,  but here he is at 2 weeks (newborn), 1 month, 2 months, and 3 months.  The romper is 18 mos. and I thought it would fit him for a year, but I might have been wrong- he is filling it out quickly!

Close-ups of his face:

Full-time

My first full-time day= complete! Yuck. I do not like being at work 8.5 hours after being used to having half days/2 months off. It was nice just sitting around or playing with Sawyer all day. I have to keep full time though because i pay $80/month for medical/dental for us and if i went to part-time it would be a couple hundred :(!!!! Maybe it will be cheaper when Andy is a teacher. And now, since i pretty much finished the "make up" work that everyone screwed up while i was gone, work will be REALLY boring. I guess i will start playing words with friends (iphone app) again. Username: MonsonAC if anyone plays lol. And you will definitely see me on Yahoo!Answers for hours. I'm pretty negative today, but i'm tired so I have an excuse. Plus Sawyer is a little sick, he's had a lot of mucus lately and he chokes on it and sniffles. I feel like i need more vacation already lol.  I think we will go visit Erik in Pullman soon at WSU...apparently they have good ice cream there (we missed their hours last time) and maybe watch some Cougar football (they might actually win this year).  G'nite errbody!

Fish Fry

Today we went to Aunt Kandi and Uncle Dennis's house because my Aunt Linda and Uncle Ron were in town (they live in FL) recently returned from a big fishing trip in Alaska and brought a ton of fish.  Since my cousin got married, my Aunt Barb and Uncle Tom and her son Peter that rarely makes it over here from Spokane, and her other son Tommy from AZ was also in town- meaning all the "kids" in my mom's family could be there.  It was pretty much just a ton of salmon, but it is tasty and fun. Again, Murphy's law of "what can go wrong, will" happened when it came to Sawyer. He managed to get his first outfit wet, and have a blowout in his second (and only) other outfit.  This ONLY happens when it is inconvenient at other people's houses or in public lol.  My theory is that when other people change him, they dont tighten the diaper well enough because he has only had 2 blowouts up his back and they have both happened in other people's care lol.  Luckily after the blowout, the first outfit had dried up the little circle of wetness and we just put that back on to go home :) (As the hospital said, "urine is sterile" lol)  We then came home and went to Winco.  I <3 Winco.  We got an entire cart of groceries full for $130, and a lot of those items were full meals in themselves.  We also used their coupons and got (with NO catch) a gallon of milk, a jug of apple juice, a loaf of bread, and a box of honey nut cheerios FREE. We didnt even have to "buy one" or spend a minimum of a certain $ amount. Nice.  We got home and gave Sawyer his SECOND bath of the day lol. Normally he gets 2 a week so he doesnt get dried out.

People on the porch

My Aunt Irene (bean's "graunty") and Sawyer in outfit #1

My mom, my grandma, destiny (brother's wife), and Rob (family friend)

Sawyer in outfit #2

My momma and Sawyer

Cooper and Irene

Everyone watching Cooper and Lilly play (Lilly and her grandma Irene match shirts on accident lol)

Consider "The Puyallup" done

Fair day today! We had the genius idea to park at Destiny's house (my brother Erik's wife) and save on parking fees. The house just a couple down from hers was making bank charging $10 a car, but the whole street was a "no parking zone" so we got lucky she lives there :)  We walked down in a little sprinkle which was off and on throughout the time we were there. By the end, it was raining pretty hard though. We pretty much just walked around, avoiding the ride and animal areas because i dont really like those lol. When we first came in the little kids were doing that thing where they hold the sheep and try to stay on like rodeos.  Andy says Sawyer is totally going to do that one day. I think it looks barbaric though- you are pulling on the poor sheep's wool and skin and making it run through the mud, only to have your kid thrown off eventually... :(  I'm not into PETA or anything, and pretty much hate animals as a general rule, but things like that (and hunting) bother me so much! I just wish they could live in a giant pasture eating grass and not have to worry about kids tugging on them lol. Anywho, we visited the hobby hall and got our Earthquake Burgers ($25 for a double cheeseburger, fries, and drink which we shared all of them and was more than enough) which is the main reason for going to the fair anyway. I also heard Dierks Bentley singing "sideways" (didnt want to buy tickets to the concert though) which was kind of cool too. Sawyer loved it- he was not sleepy at all and you could tell he was just amused by everything going on. He wouldnt even eat at all most likely because he was over-stimulated; we tried to feed him long after he should have been hungry and he wouldnt even take it. Here are a few pictures:

Sawyer in his stroller

Earthquake Burger

We ran into Natalie and family, and she took our picture- andy's arm muscles are huge as you can see here- lifting all that propane lol.  We are both pretty sweaty because it was so warm and muggy!

Today was also my cousin Kerrie's wedding. It was actually sunny this morning so that was nice. It was on lake tapps on a golf course.

The centerpieces

My cousin's in blue- i had a bad view

Some of the family

The cake

You cannot see it very well unless you look in the trees, but we parked at my Aunt Irene's house since she lives on Lake Tapps and carpooled over to the park w/ my parents, and in the short time we were gone, a spider had built an entire web from our antenna (left) to the corner of the house (right) CRAZY. I felt bad driving away!

Drive-thru etiquette

As a former drive-thru worker at DQ for 3 years in high school, and current customer, i think people need a lesson in drive-thru etiquette :)

People that should not use the drive-thru:
-Diesel truck owners (even if you turn your engine off when you arrive, you make it so the worker can't hear the car in front of you. Plus imagine that noise amplified 400x into the worker's headset- OUCH!)
-People with very large orders. The D-T is like an express lane at the grocery store; People go there for fast service.  Every fast food "doesnt make it until you order it" and very large orders make the people behind you have to wait forever (while running their engines), and the workers' "drive time" go up (causing trouble from corporate usually)
-People that have no clue what they will order (again, the whole express lane thing, i had someone wait 10 minutes at the box before ordering...we have a clock and time to keep it under and one person spending 10 minutes was ridiculous!)
-People with accents.  It is hard enough to understand through the speaker when people are speaking clear english.  Accents make it nearly impossible.
-People with complicated orders.  Again, it is pretty hard to hear through that thing and when you are very specific, details can be lost.

A few more things:
- Dont arrive on your cell phone and when asked for your order say "hold on a sec" to finish  your conversation. They can hear you on the other end talking to your mom, and it is rude to make people (in line, inside) wait for you to finish talking. This happened a lot!
-Dont arrive at the box, then call your family to see what they want, while listing the menu items.  The drive time is going up and people are waiting behind you. Plus it is annoying to hear someone listing the entire menu into your headset lol.
-Dont smoke in the drive through- it is illegal, uncomfortable for the worker getting smoke in their face, and it blows inside to the food!
-If you drop your change, dont expect workers to pull out more from their drawer.  It was your fault, and a lot easier for you to open your door than for workers to go all the way outside and around to pick it up.
-Motorcycles dont trigger the sensor very well. Even if it triggers it in the first place, sometimes even if you are still there it thinks you pulled away sometimes.  Actually, as a former gf of a firefighter, it is a bad idea to ride motorcycles in the first place lol- i would get daily accounts of what body parts he would find mangled and not attached to the body that day from accidents that werent always the motorcyclists fault! (lol safety lesson)
-Dont go up to the window on foot and knock. It scares the crap out of everyone lol

Funny phone pictures

I thought i'd put up a few random pictures i had on my phone.

What does my son and Saturn have in common? Rings! There is a ring of skin going through the middle.

This is Sawyer trying to roll over from back to front.  He even got his head and hips all the way turned, but his arm just wasnt moving so his shoulders were stuck!

Andy's solution to having to carry both the laundry AND Sawyer up the stairs to our room

This is the position he sleeps in.  I always try to put him on his back again, but he immediately goes back to this.

We were washing the bottles and there was a bit of excess foam.

Your problem negatively affects me in the following ways...

Ok, I just had to use a line from "Intervention" :) BTW i was watching Intervention one time and i totally knew a girl on there. I was friends with the addict's sister when i lived in Las Vegas for a year- she was in my sorority. It was pretty funny. I was like "man that looks like Nikki" and then it shows the mom going "NICOLE!", then it showed that they were in Las Vegas. I called my "sister" in LV and she confirmed it.  I thought the girl i knew had some issues but apparently her sister was a bit worse off LOL. Ok ANYWAY....

I was thinking yesterday how someone's small actions can affect you so much, and how some people are just mean inside.  Yesterday i was in traffic and i came around the corner and my lane was blocked off. They say if a lane is blocked off and they have to merge, that cars should go to the end, then take turns to have the most efficient flow of traffic. I did just that (besides the fact that i couldnt merge earlier because i didnt know it was blocked off).  Well it was my turn to go between a car and a truck and i started to pull into the lane when there was a space.  I was halfway into the lane, and the truck behind me just kept going....not letting me in at all. She was exactly next to me!  I looked at her and gave her the "wtf?" look. She just raised her eyebrows as if to say "sorry sucker!"  This was a grown woman (probably at least 50), not a punk teenager.  What causes someone to be so mean? Would she get there any faster because she let ONE car in? No. All she accomplished is making me upset and angry the rest of the day because she ruined my morning.  The worst part was as soon as the blocked off part of the road ended, i pulled into the lane again and turned at the next light, passing her (she was stuck at a red light).  She ruined someones day just to be one car ahead for about 50 feet.  This also applies to people who don't push the door open for the person behind them, but just slip through the open door. You can brighten someone's day by doing such small things that don't inconvenience you at all, or you can make them upset. It just makes me sad that some people are wired to want to bring others down.  My last example is that when people would see we were expecting, they would say things like "enjoy your sleep now" or "you wont get to leave the house again so go out now while you can".  Is that really necessary to say? Cant you just say things like "congratulations, you must be so excited!"  And guess what? Babies can go pretty much anywhere except bars. So far we have gone out to eat MANY times, gone to soccer game, gone to a concert in Eastern WA, gone to 2 weddings, gone away for an overnight at the beach with just the 2 of us, gone to stores at least once a week, and all of andy's indoor games.... and i have got plenty of sleep thank you very much! I got less sleep when i was pregnant because my stomach was so big and i had to empty my squished bladder every hour.  People should do little things like smile at strangers more, let someone out while driving that is waiting (and courtesy wave in return), and hold the door open for the person behind you and i think everyone would just be a lot happier!

Gross Spider

I was wiping off the counter and i found the biggest spider i have ever seen in a house. I don't kill things, but i planned to make my second bug-kill to save Sawyer. I went to squish it and it didnt move. I think it might have been dead already.  I squished it anyway for good measure.  Here's the kicker...it was stuck to a lint roller!  Pretty sure it couldnt escape! I took a picture of it before throwing that piece of roller away.

On a lighter note, Sawyer was super smiley just now while i was writing that so i went to take some pictures....the flash just caused a bunch of funny faces/pictures so here they are :)

Oh and i did a cool edit today that reminds me of kind of dreamy so i'll post that too. I guess today is a mash-up of posts :)

"Just another American Saturday night" with Brad Paisley

We got free tickets to the Brad Paisley/Darius Rucker/Justin Moore concert a couple weeks ago and yesterday was the day. We left at noon and arrived at 3:00. We had to wait in line outside, then wait again inside.  They had the main seating blocked off until "6:00" probably because there were some acts on a smaller stage.  A couple people ran under the rope and chaos ensued so they just let us all in at like 5:30 because they couldnt stop hundreds of people. We found our spot on the hill and waited a few more hours.

These people next to us were smoking. We were trying to fan it away from Sawyer because we knew there was nothing else we could do- it was legal to smoke outside and there was not a square inch of extra space that we could move to.  Some girls behind us yelled at them "they have a baby and the smoke is going into his face" so the old couple started to walk down the hill whenever they had to.  That lasted until the concert started at dark and they stopped leaving so every 5 minutes (yes that often) we had to fan him :( Even though a lot of people around us were making comments like "WE HAVE LUNGS" and "ITS GETTING THE BABY".  It makes me so mad! If you have a dirty habit and either you will have to suffer waiting a while, or 20 people around you have to suffer inhaling cancerous toxins (including a baby) you think people wouldnt be so selfish as to make the 20 people suffer. It is your dirty habit, you can be uncomfortable for a couple hours. Especially because towards the end some punk-looking drunk 20-something year old came next to us and lit up and andy was like "hey i have a baby" and he was like "oh my god, i am so sorry, i didnt see!" and went far away.

That aside, the concert was awesome! The Gorge has always been my favorite venue because of the view.  Sawyer was so good- didnt cry or anything and was only hungry at convenient times.  Justin Moore was good, played the only 3 songs i knew. Darius Rucker was awesome- i didnt expect him to play any of his old Hootie and the Blowfish songs but he did, along with his new country hits.  Brad Paisley was awesome with a cool backstage light up thing going to the music and playing every song i would want to hear.  He even played old songs like "celebrity" and "mud on the tires".  It was definitely worth the  drive, wait, and sore feet (one of my boots was tearing up my feet while the other fit perfect).  We ended up getting home at 3am and i dont know how andy did it because i slept the whole time.

Cowgirl me and Cowboy Sawyer

Laying on the hill

Andy and the pretty view

The sun setting

Outfit close-up

It was a handkerchief-bib

Justin Moore

Not that you can see, but Darius Rucker

YAY finally Brad Paisley!

"I'm so much cooler online"