My parents had a few days left of their Thanksgiving trip at the beginning of December. We went to the PCC, except for Ava who was at dress rehearsal for her play.
Even baby Kai got a tattoo in Fiji!
Kai also tried his hand at fire knife spinning.
My cute parents.
Audrey was going through another stinker phase. Sometimes I just don't even know what to do and feel very unqualified with these feisty kids! She can be so frustrating, and then she goes and does something like this- I found this note on my pillow "Look under the pillow" in her best kindergarten handwriting. And then my gift- a Frozen picture and a picture of the temple with her words, "I love you By Audrey"
My parents watched Ava's dress rehearsal for a Midsummer Night's Dream and loved it.
His other new trick is growling when we ask, "What does the dinosaur say?" We ask him a lot, because it's so cute! Here's a video:
We said goodbye to my parents- thanks for coming to visit mom and dad! That evening was the kids' Christmas program at the CAC. Audrey was starting to not feel well, but after some tylenol, she wanted to still go. She requested pig tails. Her grade was singing The Chipmunk Song and each kid had their name's first letter on their shirt.
Each grade does a musical number, and at the very end Santa comes. It's a fun tradition to bring in the Christmas season! I love how excited the kids got for Santa- here's a video:
This year BYUH put their lights in the grassy area between the CAC and the cafeteria since the whole front of the school is under construction.
Brent with his Pop Culture & Disney class on their final day. He likes to turn it into a party.
I took the younger 3 kids to the ward Christmas party. Ava was performing in her play and Brent had to work in the temple. The highlight was the shadow nativity story.
A cute video of Kai walking, look how proud he is.
I was able to go see Ava's play on Friday night. It was so funny! And fun to see her in her element.
A video clip from the play:
Her YW group from our ward came to support her and the other girls from our ward in the play.
We remembered to take Kai's 11 month pictures. Oh my goodness we all adore this boy so much!
Brent went to the closing night of Ava's play. The school has no stage or budget, so they perform in the cafeteria with minimal props, and everyone creating their own costume. They did such a great job and the director is amazing for doing all this with no budget.
Since I decided the day of to do this, we quickly threw together appetizers/snacks that we had on hand, and all of our neighbors that we invited were able to come!
The kids decorated Christmas card envelopes and this one Audrey did of the reindeer was cute!
I gave Kai a haircut. It was very hard since he didn't want to hold still very long. It wasn't the best, but after a few days it always seems to look a little better.
We love our neighbors and are so lucky to live around talented, kind, amazing people.
Singing happy birthday to Brent:
The next day I had a CPE and could hardly keep my eyes open. It was a long three hours. Later that day I started getting Audrey's weird fever virus - a fever that would come and go, making you think you were better, and then strike again.
The kids decorated Christmas card envelopes and this one Audrey did of the reindeer was cute!
I gave Kai a haircut. It was very hard since he didn't want to hold still very long. It wasn't the best, but after a few days it always seems to look a little better.
A video of the little cutie:
Ava loves to make Kai giggle.
Other notable things this week: We had the Rappleyes stay with us for a few days as they were back visiting their mission. Brent went with our neighbors Mason and Erika to watch Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair at the theater, an almost 5 hour epic Tarantino film. He says you can never get enough Tarantino, although it was a very bloody affair.
Kai practiced his walking a lot. Here he is walking to Claire, Audrey's bestie who lives two doors down, and who I'm pretty sure Kai thinks is his sister.
Brent, Mason, and Joel Campbell with some of their graduating Communication majors. Brent teaches senior seminar so he gets to spend their last semester with them and really loves it.
The new plaza offers space for the community and families to celebrate the graduates through many cultural expressions. Lots of posters, leis, drumming, singing, and dancing. Here's a group doing the haka:
That evening Ava had her first band concert. She plays the flute. Brent stayed home with the other kids since it was late and would be too hard for them to sit still. The high school, as I mentioned, has no stage or auditorium, so everyone was packed in the cafeteria (with pretty bad acoustics) trying to get a glimpse of their kid.
Audrey lost her front tooth and looks so cute!
Random funny kindergarten story Audrey told us at dinner one night. She told us that they were put into pairs and needed to tell their partner about some things they really like. Rex told Emma that he loves robots more than anything in the world. Emma said, "robots are not for me." That made Rex burst into tears. Audrey was giggling so bad telling us the story, which made us all laugh too.
That evening was Ava's choir concert. I took her while Brent stayed home with the younger kids again. Her choir teacher is intense and had said she didn't want babies at the concert making noise (maybe because the acoustics are already bad enough?). After Ava's play performances the previous week and the band and choir practices and performances this week, she was wiped out. This video kind of cracks me up- it looks like she's going to sing her self to sleep:
We decided to invite more families over for another Advent celebration. We invited about 5 families, so like 25 people, each week for 3 Sundays in December. We had no Christmas parties, no family events, etc, so this was really our way to celebrate Christmas. It was exhausting but fun!
Here's our house ready for 2nd week of Advent:
Most of the families we invited didn't know each other, so there was lots of mingling and getting to know each other.
A video from the party- luckily each week we had someone who could play the piano well (sometimes only having chords to go off of for the songs).
One day after school, I found this scene- that's whipping cream. Oh boy. No wonder Kai loves Ava.
We have to keep our bathroom doors closed, or this is what Kai will do every time, along with throw something in the toilet.
The Hukilau at the PCC hosts fun Christmas activities the week before Christmas. It's fun to walk around and see the lights and ride the polar express in our shorts and t-shirts. I will never complain about no snow.
These two looked cute walking around together
Mele Kalikimaka!
Meeting Santa for the first time!
I don't have any pictures, but I hosted a Taylor Swift night with some ladies! We watched two episodes of her documentary about the Eras Tour. It was a fun girls night.
I'm looking at my calendar, and we had some busy days. For example, one day besides our normal schedule of kids to school and working, I had a 7am CPE class, followed by an 8:30 blood draw for my physical, Brent recording a podcast at 4pm, and that night hosting my girls night.
BYU hosted a live nativity on campus which was very sweet. Students acting out different scenes of the story while a narrator read the scriptural account.
A lady on our street teaches gymnastics in her gym, so it's very convenient for Audrey to walk down there to class. Here's a video from the Christmas showcase.
The YM/YW went caroling around the neighborhood in the back of a trailer:
The visitor center hosts music night each night in December- different wards or groups sign up to take a night. We happened to go on a night where everything was performed in Hawaiian. I loved these girls' voices and harmonies. Loved them so much that we decided to go see them perform at the Waikiki Beach Walk a few days later!
I had bought some instruments for the kids like bells and triangle for our singing time. On this day our friends brought their instruments like flute, guitar, drums. Take a listen:
Kai made a laughing buddy in Michael Morris. We caught the end of it, but they were making each other go into fits of laughter.
Kai loves water so much. So when it's raining, he still wants to go outside!
A video of the happy guy standing directly under the rain gutter.
We went to Waikiki to see the singers we liked from the other night. Brent knows one of the girls' dads from BYUH so we were able to see their family. But first- in order to not pay for parking right in Waikiki, we parked at the Ala Moana mall (picked up Chick Fil-A for dinner) and then walked the 1.2 miles. Luckily it was a gorgeous night!
After the performance and our long walk back to the car, we went to see the Christmas trees downtown and the Christmas lights. The Christmas lights were not nearly as good as last year, because I think they had moved most of them to a park a couple blocks away. Walking through the Christmas tree set up was bringing back all the memories of one year before when I was waddling through these 9 months pregnant, having lots of contractions.
We did our sugar cookies on Christmas Eve. I always wish we were with extended family sharing in the mess and the fun!
We had ham for our nice Christmas Eve dinner and the most exciting part of dinner was the rainbow jello I made. Although for Christmas I made it red and green striped.
The early risers in the family went on a sunrise walk to the beach.
Kai's first Christmas!
Then they came home and got the rest of us and the kids were so excited to see what Santa had brought. Although I think Audrey had snuck downstairs earlier to have a peek when I was getting up and the rest were at the beach. Stinker.
A little video from Christmas morning:
If you listen closely, you'll hear "Alabama Christmas" in the background. Brent always puts this on Christmas morning when the kids are coming down the stairs because he knows that's what my dad always played at my house. It makes it feel like real Christmas to me and it's so sweet. It's the little things! This year was a lego year.
Ava was the sweetest and surprised us with a gift. She had used her own money and walked to the grocery store by our house and bought a beach mat I've been wanting.
Merry Christmas from the Cowleys
The day after Christmas is for playing with all the toys! We got out Kai's water table which he loved, although it was a bit chilly!
Ava laid out her presents and took a picture, just like I used to do.
Kai in his Aloha shirt!
Brent took the kids swimming at the BYU pool while I worked.
On New Years Eve we decided to get one more use out of our waterpark pass that was expiring in 2024. It was such a fun day for everyone. I even went on many water slides which I hadn't done before since I was pregnant or had a little baby when we came before.
Kai thoroughly enjoyed the splash pad part.
After the water park we went to the Costco there in Kapolei, then on home for our New Years Eve celebrations.
On New Years Eve we decided to get one more use out of our waterpark pass that was expiring in 2024. It was such a fun day for everyone. I even went on many water slides which I hadn't done before since I was pregnant or had a little baby when we came before.
We counted down with a Youtube video of NYC at about 10pm our time. I'm not sure why Audrey is only in a swimming suit bottom, so I edited the picture.
Although I can't edit this video so sorry! Ava went with me to the pharmacy at Longs earlier that day and requested we buy these New Years Eve supplies. The little confetti poppers were so hard to do, hahaha.
Finally Coen got his!
At midnight we went to the temple and watched the amazing fireworks. These are just neighbors around that buy thousands of dollars in fireworks. Happy New Year!
