August: St. George and back in Texas

 This post is all about August and it's huge, just warning you!

Brent took Ava swimming at the rec center while I was at work. These two are fish together.

 We had a Brough reunion at the park after work and Coen loved the swings!

Cousins eating pizza together.

 I met up with my friend Erin at Jamba Juice. We were on the same floor freshman year at BYU and have so many fun memories together from college. It was so good to talk and laugh together again!

 Ava is really into taking pictures and wanted to pose each of us in these places for a picture. As you can tell, we are all laughing at her, but she actually framed the picture perfectly!

 Coen says "mmm" as he eats all the time. Here's a video: 

 I asked Ava to help me one evening by setting the napkins around the table. She threw the napkins around like parachutes and then she left them like this:

Brent and I went on a date to the SLC temple and then we went to Mimi's Cafe for lunch. It was so perfect! We took advantage of grandmas willing to babysit and a temple nearby.

 That evening the Grooms came over and we watched the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics. I LOVE the Olympics, and so does Coen, apparently.

 The Olympics were in Rio this time, and we felt a bit nostalgic about Brazil.

On Saturday we had the Dahn party, which included swimming, dinner, and then a movie back at Tammy's house in the newly finished movie room.

 Snuggles after swimming

 Baby boy's got blue eyes.

 Ava and her cousins. She's so lucky to have so many her same age!

 Then on Monday morning Ava started throwing up. Yuck :( I was at work and Brent cleaned it up all day long. What a dad. He said Ava was really good and didn't complain or cry.

 A couple days later I got the bug. Not fun! The miracle of it all was that Coen never got the bug, thank goodness.

 Ava and her cousins got to go say thank you to the firefighters put out the fire at their grandparent's house. They got a tour of the fire truck.

All of the cousins and grandmas.

Let's just zoom in on Coen and Great Grandma. Awww!

In the middle of August it was time to leave, after 2 1/2 months in Utah! We went to St. George with my family for a week first, on our way back to Texas. 

On our way down to St. George we stopped in Provo to visit Brother Rojas. We met at the mall and he treated us to dinner, as he always insists on doing. He also bought Ava a ride on the merry-go-round, which she was so excited about!

 When she got on, she asked me, "am I going to go to Texas?" haha.

Brother Rojas

 On the way down I discovered Coen really really loves animal crackers. I love how he chews with his front teeth and his mouth is all puckered.

In the car, Coen and Ava kept passing this orange toy back and forth. Ava was so excited that they were playing a game together! Coen kept a straight face the entire time. I thought it was so funny and cute. I love as Coen is getting older that they're getting to interact more and more.

 Cher's family came down to St. George too and Ava was so excited to get to see Lucy a lot! Brent, Lucy, Ava, and I went to Peter Pan at Tuacahn together. We had a lot of fun and all enjoyed the play. Before we had to take pictures at the beautiful scenic places in front.

 Such cute cousins!

 As we were walking in, Ava very nearly stepped on this tarantula. Ew! It was either dead or playing dead.

 Signs I know Ava loved the play and couldn't stop thinking about it:
She requests us to call her Wendy often
She told us that Peter Pan, Wendy, Michael, and John are her cousins
She has been singing songs from Peter Pan

On the edge of her seat, literally.

 We played at the park with cousins and grandma. I just love St. George vacations! Lots of playing, swimming, yummy food (Brent and I have our restaurants we always go to), movies, plays, and time with family.

 Coen loved this floatie for the pool and sat in it for hours every day. Worth the $20!

Ava was in heaven with all the swimming. Here she is playing with Coen in the kiddie pool: 

 While we were there, Cher took some family pictures for us. We went to a park just down the road from the condos and I love the colors and way they turned out. Thanks Cher! Side note: we did them at sunset and so Ava was really tired and grumpy and Brent and I were getting so frustrated with her. Luckily she smiled a couple times, especially when we told her she could go play with Lucy after.

After the family pictures we had a quick (5 min quick) pajama party with cookies. 

 Playing at the splash pad, Coen loved it! He was not afraid to get his face in the water.

 I've been wanting to try Swig for a while and I wouldn't mind eating one of these sugar cookies every day for the rest of my life...

 Swimming together

 Ava has no fear.

 Splash pad again, the little guy loved it so much.

 After Cher went back to SLC my parents and Brent and I went to see Hunchback at Tuacahn. We took the kids to the child care right there and it worked out great. We loved the play so much! Ahhh the music was gorgeous, and the set was amazing. It was so good I nearly cried.

 It doesn't look quite as cool in the day, but the church of Notre Dam was amazing on set!

Brent and I went to the temple 

 We took my parents to Outback to say thanks for babysitting the kids throughout the summer. Yummy food! If you love Outback, raise your hand.

 My parents watched the kids while Brent and I went to see Florence Foster Jenkins at the theater. We had these gift cards that were going to expire and a free popcorn, so we got a ton of treats (not pictured: huge churro). We stuffed ourselves and laughed ourselves silly. Way fun date!

 On Sunday we went to the visitor center and watched a few new Meet the Mormon episodes. Then it was time for my parents to go back to SLC.

 We went to Snow Canyon and walked around a bit.
Check out these two cute buddies:

 It seems we are often paired up this way. Brent and Ava go on a little adventure while Coen and I stay back and cuddle.

 I love this part of Utah.

On Monday morning we packed up to go back to Texas. But first Coen tore up a tissue :)

 We drove through Arizona and the scenery was gorgeous!

I was really worried about this drive home because now Coen can crawl and likes to be a lot more active. He was so good again! I sat by him and handed him toys and treats every so often.  Here's a video of the cutie.

Ava takes my phone and likes to take pictures. When I was looking through my phone a few days later, I noticed this creepy picture from her:

 I could not figure out where it came from, because these two days we were only driving in the car! But, we figured out it's a picture of a show on her iPad. Haha. So the first day we drove all the way to Albuquerque. About 8 hours of driving plus a little bit of time for some quick stops. I am so not a fan of Albuquerque.

The next day we drove the rest of the way back home (about 9 hours). In Amarillo we stopped at this super yummy burger joint called Blue Sky. YUM.

We were so happy to make it home and find all was well!

The next day at young women's the girls played Hungry Hippo with balloons and laundry baskets. 

At dinner, Ava disappeared and came back as a dragon. Coen loved it. 

This bump happened while I was at mutual. Coen was standing at his walker and Ava came up and just took it. Coen fell forward and hit the coffee table. Poor buddy! Brent said Ava only felt bad once she got a time out. That girl!

 Despite the little accident, Coen has been loving the walker!

 Coen came down with hand foot mouth disease a couple days after we got back to Texas (so grateful he got it after the long drive home!). We think he either got it from the splash pad or visitor center in St. George. It was a little sad because we had to be hermits right when we got back into town and couldn't go visit our friends like we had planned.

Here we are on a Saturday, holed up.

 Brent went to play games with his friends from school and I stayed home and cuddled these two.

 Coen didn't seem to have too bad of a strain of HFM disease (mostly wouldn't eat for a few days and only wanted to drink milk).  The weird thing is that he would not take his binky since he had the sores in his mouth, and then he weaned himself from it! Brent is happy about that but I'm a little sad because he's growing up too fast. :(

While the little guy was sick we went on a walk and look how happy he was to get out!

 Ava was excited to be back with her dress-ups. One day Coen put his bottle on Ava's lap when she was wearing this dress and maybe one drop of milk dripped out. Ava said, "I'm going to put this in the washer mom.... Ugh! Coen! This is my best costume!"

 Ava and I then came down with the hand foot mouth, but for us we mostly just had sores in our mouths. They were really painful and Ava would cry during meals and I would try to get some food down. But then we had to stay in for another week!

Here is Ava talking to me one day during lunch. I took this video just to remember how she just jabbers to me and no one can understand much of it except for Brent and me. More on her speech therapy next post.