Little Ava Big Texas: Coen's First Birthday and Thanksgiving

November brought lots of fun: Coen's first birthday, and a trip to Arkansas for Thanksgiving!
To start things off, here is a random video of Coen laughing while eating. He is such a happy boy and I love that about him.

Looking so handsome and grown up.

Our Young Women in Excellence had an Alice in Wonderland theme and setting your goals/dreams in the right direction. The ladies in charge went seriously overboard. I only took a few pictures, but the details everywhere were amazing. These are Ava's black shoes here on the center piece. I had Brent bring Ava over because I knew she'd love the decorations. She kept staring at this table saying, "but where is her head?? I want to see her head! Why does she have my shoes?"

During the program Brent had the kids in a classroom. Coen all of a sudden started walking!! He had taken steps here and there in the last couple weeks, but this was full on walking.

I tried to capture Coen walking the next day to send to the grandparents.

We had Chris and CJ over dinner to say bye to them. They moved the next day to California.

I love Fridays when I get to play with both kids and not work. I took them to the big park by our house.

Coen loved the slide. I would just put him on his tummy and let go and he would squeal as he slid down.

The kids got stinky and dirty so they went straight to the bath when we got home. Ava made her hair "boy hair" with the bubbles and thought it was so funny.

Uh oh. This boy is starting to climb.

If I lay down on the ground, that's an invitation for both kids to climb on me. Not that I mind being loved on.

Brent took Ava on a date to the mall while I stayed home and watched Call the Midwife. She loved the attention, and the very next day asked for another date. So Brent took her to Target again on Saturday night.

Brent watched the kids for me on Saturday while I went to Super Saturday. He text me this picture of Ava's parfait breakfast. By the way, she calls sunflower seeds "flower beads."

I started writing down some of the funny things Ava says so I can sprinkle them throughout the blog. She makes me laugh every day!

A couple months ago when we were in Utah my mom was telling Ava about her Grandma Hansen. My mom told her that she died, and Ava was so worried and sad about it. She asked how she died and my mom said she got old. Ava was kind of devastated about it, and my mom told her, "it's ok, she's with my grandpa now, he died too." Ava gasped and was now doubly devastated.

Now here in Texas our shower head just snapped off one day. Ava asked me, "why did it break?" I said, "I don't know, I guess it got old." She said, "oh, like your mom's grandma!" Now if anything is old, she will say, "oh that's like Grandma JoLyn's grandma."

Ava loves to tell stories. Here is a video:

Here's a video of Ava telling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It's a little bit long but it gets pretty good there at the end, so wait for it around the 1 minute mark.

Coen can say a few words: mama, dada, ma (more), dis (this), uh-oh? (hello), and da (yeah). He can also sign "more", "all done," and wave hi/bye. Here is a video of Coen saying a couple words:

We finally got pictures hung up in our hall and it makes me so happy!

Ava says some funny things in her prayers. Here's a little sample of things I wrote down between two prayers: I'm glad I'm growing up. I love my friends and they love me. I love bad guys now. I hate daddy when him give me time outs and I love daddy when him no give me time outs.

Coen's face while watching the garbage truck.

Election day happened and besides being completely shocked that Trump won, I also was shocked to learn that Michigan includes that piece above Wisconsin. Blah. I hate politics with a passion. Moving on.

Oh wait, Brent would like me to share a few videos from the morning after the election. No judging.

Brent did not coach Ava to say any of this, although obviously we are a little biased:

On November 11, Coen turned one!
We were all excited, but most especially Ava. Here's a video of her saying "Happy birthday Coen!"

A short video of Coen saying "yeah"

Brent went to the dermatologist to have this lump in his arm looked at, right on Coen's birthday. They decided to remove it. It turned out to be a huge chunk taken out and he couldn't lift anything for two weeks.

Brent made me change the dressing on his arm a few days later and it was pretty nasty for me but I did it because I love him. I chose the right profession in accounting.

Back to Coen's birthday- in the afternoon we went as a family to play at the park, because I figured that's what a one-year-old really wants for his birthday.

Photo shoot on the way.

It's amazing how much this tiny little person can bring me so much joy. I love the little guy SOOO much my heart could burst.

He always laughs on the swings

We came back and our friend Rita came over to help us sing to him. He thought we were weird.

Then we face timed with Grandma Tammy while *Ava* opened the presents. Coen didn't care at all and Ava was thrilled to do it. He did love all of his new boy toys he got. He got some Little People action heroes, a toy where you hammer balls into a drum, stacking cups, a cell phone, and little bat man stuffed animal.

On Saturday we took Ava's friend Kaylie to the library with us.

That evening we had stake conference. We didn't want to pay for a babysitter so we went to dinner as a family and then we let the kids play in the primary room of the stake center while Brent and I watched the session over TV in there. It worked out perfectly.

On Sunday morning Ava came into my room and said, "I pray to Jesus but him not come to me." Brent explained to her that she won't see him, but she can feel him. I thought it was so sweet, picturing her praying in her room all by herself, fully expecting to see Jesus.

This is how Coen rides the motorcycle:

We have these cool purple flowers right by our front door and I think they're cute.

Brent flew to Colorado Tuesday evening to Thursday evening. It was only two days, but I was stressed before to be all alone with the kids and have no help from him! Plus work was really busy and I was hoping I wasn't going to have a melt down. But it went really well. (Except for the fact that Ava was sick with a cold so I couldn't send her to preschool on Wednesday!)

Wednesday morning we got up and went to Coen's Coen's one year check-up. Here's his stats: Weight: 20 lbs 9 oz (37%), length: 29 inches (17%), head:46.5 cm (62%).

Poor boy got 5 shots! After the doctor we did all the grocery shopping. At this point I was feeling like a rock star.

I did chores and worked a couple hours while Coen napped. Ava came out of her room dressed in Coen's Halloween costume, which made me laugh so hard.

I can't believe she fit into it, even the shoes! Ava loves doing this play dough kit where you can form dresses on the princesses. I took a picture because I thought Cinderella's turned out pretty funny this time.

Coen has a love for belts. Sometimes when I'm going to the bathroom he will just walk up to me, pull my belt out of my pants, and then walk off. Haha.

In the meantime, Brent was enjoying Colorado. He stayed with my friend from work, so that worked out nicely.

The first day it was a high of 79.

The next day it snowed all day. He had good meetings with lots of people and had a great visit. Although his heart is still in Oregon.

On Thursday we went to get Brent at midnight from the airport. We were so excited to have our dad home!
On Friday I prepared my YW lesson while Ava colored by me at the table. She is so into coloring right now. Then she climbed into my lap and she's still my baby.

Brent took Ava to get her flu shot. She was pretty sad about the shot, but after he treated her to Chick-Fil-A, and she saw her preschool teacher and her son there!

At dinner Ava said she wanted to see her cousin "Allie." I couldn't understand her and I asked, "your cousin Kali?" She said, "no. Allie. D-O-E-N." I tried not to laugh too hard and told her that those letters don't spell Allie. Apparently when Brent doesn't understand me or I want to speak secretively I spell out words a lot to Brent, so she thought that she could emphasize it better by spelling out some letters.

Cute Ava ready for church. As we were getting ready I told her she and Coen needed to have a bath. She asked if I would get in with her. I told her I didn't think there would be room for me too. She said, "You're gonna be fine Mom. Us gonna be chugga-chugga-choo-choo."

Ava was coloring one day and showed me this picture and said, this is jail heaven. This is where the bad guys go and Jesus' friends can teach them.

I was like, uhhh Brent? Did you teach Ava about spirit prison? And he said no? We aren't sure where she learned this, but she had the right idea! Although she said that the bad guys can't see Jesus, only they can see him on TV there.

Coen boy loves noodles and looked like Buddy the Elf in this picture!

I worked a lot (like 30 hours/week) these couple weeks, busy with an audit. On Tuesday before Thanksgiving we had Tabitha come over to watch the kids while I worked. Taking her home, I realized Brent had Coen's car seat, so we put Coen in Ava's. He was pretty proud about it.

We drove to Arkansas that evening (about 6 hours) and the kids were good in the car. We stayed with my uncle and aunt, Marv and Terri. I worked till midnight after we got to their house to help get my audit done. The next day we went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with my cousin Dustin. It was pretty good, but confusing. We went out to yummy Mexican food and Ava loved the salsa. She licked the bowl clean!

Dustin was cute with the kids and liked reading Ava books with funny voices.

Ava was so excited to help set the table for Thanksgiving dinner.

We had a nice dinner with my parents and Andrew's family. After I took this picture I realized Coen's pretty hilarious/creepy in it.

Let me zoom in for you.

Cute cousins.

Coen was the hit.

At 6 pm we did some Thanksgiving shopping at Walmart. Can you find Brent in this picture?

Haha Brent took this when he was helping Ava get ready for bed.

On Friday we did some more shopping (which involved Ava getting lost at Kohls for a little bit and a worker helping her. Luckily Brittany found her with the worker and Ava cried when they brought her to me). We played at Andrew and Brittany's house, and we went to see Moana. It had cute music but the story felt a little bit like a repeat of their recent Disney princess stories.

Triplets!

We played some more and shopped some more on Saturday and we went out to super yummy BBQ food with everyone.
Here's a video of Ava playing Andrew's xylophone.

In the evening we went to Fayetteville to see their town square. They had camel rides! But we didn't dare to do those.