LIftin' & Portland

Saturdays are super long days at the gym.  For some reason this last Saturday, it was just girls and we KILLED those workouts.  It was the hardest I've had to work- not cardio, but just completely maxed out muscles.  I can't even remember all we did, but the important thing- we ALL PR'd our deadlifts that day!!! It was grand.  I was the newest and at the bottom doing 210, and the highest was 310.  I also managed to bench 105 which I am proud of, because a lot of women that have been going for awhile and can do movements and weights I can't in other things, are lower than that.  I love how much progress I've seen in the 2 months since I've started the gym :)

I think this was technically 205, but my 210 pic was worse ;)  My muscles look big here hahaha

We spelled PR lol. From left to right: me, Jenna, Tracy, KC, Leah

Afterwards we went down to Portland.  We got burritos and sat by the waterfront.  Andy's cousin Duncan is leaving for a church mission so we went to see him (and everyone) and his talk in church.  We had fun catching up with the Vancouver family :)

Almost two

Kellan has been a roller coaster the past few weeks. He is just what you'd expect for an almost two year old.

He is really talking much better now though.  He says quite a few things pretty well, Sawyer's name is actually starting to sound like it.  He even puts words together such as: I won, I want it, no _____, I want _____, that's funny, 3-2-1-blastoff (fwee, coo, one, blavaths), love you ("wuvoo" while crossing his harms in sign language) and I wanna play.

He loves Octonauts and says Kwazii, Peso, and Barnacles ("wazii, Ay-so, Buckles) and says Explore, Rescue, Protect (sore, recue, prockeck) and says "Yo Ho! Let's go!" from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

He doesn't have a huge vocabulary but says foods and drinks he uses a lot (milk, juice, bagel, apple, nana,..) Basics, like yes, no, night-night, bye bye, socks, shoes, shirt, hat, on, off, up, down, truck, go, mine, baby, drink, ball, etc. He will repeat things we ask him to say though.  My favorite is when he goes "Heeeeyyyyyyyy" like when someone takes something of his.

He has had the hardest time sleeping.  Sometimes he won't nap, and won't fall asleep until late.  Andy has been driving him around at night to get him to fall asleep.  He also likes to hit people thinking it is funny and seriously does not respect the word "no" even after trying to nicely tell him, shouting it to him, spanking, putting him in the corner, or anything.

He and Sawyer are still best buddies but they do argue over toys a lot.

He dances whenever there is music, loves to jump off things, and always moves the chairs over to the counter to get things he shouldn't be getting (or to take apples then take 3 bites out of them before hiding them places we find much later), always steals my drinks and won't eat his food but will eat all of mine of the same thing.

He is definitely a handful, but luckily he's cute so we keep him around.

Yep, he's biting his brother here because he wanted to lay down in the spot but Sawyer wouldn't move.  I let them work things out themselves a lot. Pick your battles, you know?

My coke he stole

Twenty-eight

Soooo, I'm 28 now.

I didn't think much of it until my guitar teacher (who has been 28 all of 3 weeks now) reminded me that the number is closer to 30 than 25 and I remembered how old I feel.  Seriously though, I have the joints of a 90 year old (knees, elbows, wrists) and I go to bed at like 8:30 now which is before my children even.

Anyway, Jenna took me out to celebrate the day before.  My birthday was Monday (President's Day just like when I was actually born) so I took it off.

First we drove up to Seattle and went to Fremont.  We ate delicious gyros.

We decided to walk around next and found a sweet alley I couldn't help but want to take pictures in.

We found a cute guitar shop with all sorts of variations I don't even know what they were.  We then went over to the Fremont bridge that happened to need to open for a sailboat right as we got there (always exciting as long as you're not in a rush in traffic)

We decided to walk down to Gasworks Park

And took jumping pictures

And bad windy-hair pictures

The sun was setting and it was starting to get chilly so we headed down the street to Ballard for Hot Cakes.  The most delicious molten lava cakes (I got peanut butter chocolate) and some sort of raspberry/spice/champange punch that was delicious.

We headed back to P-town after that and after a quick stop at her house to arrange our hair, we headed to Tacoma.

We started at the Matador (which is awesome but you have to be 21 even to get in the restaurant so probably won't be frequent visitors)

Then popped over to the Stone (the gay bar) in attempts to not get hit on (it didn't work, who assumes you are straight at the gay bar?) But they had Karaoke going on and Jenna is an awesome singer so we danced and had a ton of fun.  It wasn't crowded at all since it was a Sunday too, despite being a holiday for some people.

Jenna signing Carrie Underwood's "last name"

I got back around 2 but still woke up at 7:30 even before the kids.  Darn internal clock.  I wasn't really tired though, and despite being old and having way more drinks than accustomed to, I just felt a little bit uneasy in my stomach.  Success!

We didn't do much on my actual birthday but my parents took the kids while we went to the Ram which was SOOOO GOOD.

I don't really eat sweets so this weekend was a bit of an overdose!

I got to work on Tuesday and thought taking the day off would have avoided any shenanigans, but they got my cubicle while I was out, which was funny.  They all signed a card too :)

I guess 28 isn't TOO bad, if only my knees would stop aching!

IKEA

I don't blog that much but that is because we are busy and we are busy doing the things we always do so there isn't too much to put in the blog.

We did go to IKEA on Sunday though, and that was exciting.  We were bored and Sawyer doesn't have a dresser so we thought we'd browse.  We bought a dresser.  A big one.  And a mirror.  And a bed.  Whoops!

Sawyer has been asking to share a room with Kellan so why not?  Funny timing though because Davey finally moved his stuff out this week so we have our room back and now we have 2 extra rooms.  This is useful though because we can have an office for the documents and crafty stuff and still have the spare bedroom without crowding either.  I am SOOOO excited to have storage space back.  I hated having the crap in the hallway for months.

Anyway, in true Monson fashion, we bought more stuff than fits in our car (remember last time we actually brought the CAR but luckily the seats folded and we only had one kid.)  This time we had to smoosh the 2 kids on one side, have stuff out the back window, and have boxes over their heads.  I'm glad we didn't get in a wreck because we'd probably all die between Kellan facing forward with a skewed seat, and the boxes decapitating Andy and me.

Kellan was annoying as he has been lately but he loved the end part where we let him help push the cart.  He actually cried until I pushed his cart up to the other cart and he could put his hand on the handle to help push.

It's pretty nice- it's a full size rather than most which are twin-sized.

The bed was finally done around 10pm lol