Little Ava Big Texas: Christmas time in Texas & Brent's Birthday

At the start of December we had tons of leaves because Fall comes late here. Brent raked the leaves and let Ava play in them.

A rare moment of Ava snuggling Coen and Coen's enjoying it.

We went to Red Robin for Brent's birthday burger and the kids were wild.

Ava got a ring pop for sleeping in her bed all night (she gets scared and runs to our bed every night for the last several months. So annoying! We're working on it.)

Coen giving kisses:

Ava got to sing with her preschool at their Methodist service on Sunday morning. We enjoyed being there.

She is hiding there in the back.

One day while shopping Coen was crying because he really wanted to eat the bananas in the cart. He was reaching for them and crying the whole time. Finally we got to the car and he was so happy to stuff the banana in. It's fitting that his shirt has a monkey on it and says bananas.

Here is the kids' favorite babysitter, and my super sweet Laurel, Tabitha. She watched the kids every Tuesday while we went to our institute class.

On this Tuesday we went to dinner early at BJ's for Brent's birthday.

Brent's pazookie- a hot cookie with ice-cream on top. Sooooo yummy.

On Brent's birthday I took Ava to the library. While we were there she picked out a princess book (in Spanish unbeknownst to her) for Dad's birthday. I thought it was so cute and funny. That night she presented it to Brent and he started to read it in his funny American accent. Ava was getting so mad at him. "No! Read it! English! That's not what it says!" It was so funny.

We went to dinner at Souper Salad for Brent's birthday dinner. Ava ate SO much food. Way more than I did. She lifted up her shirt and said "my belly is like Santa."

When we got home I accidentally fell asleep at 8 pm when we were putting Ava to bed. So lame! Sorry Brent.

We went to Ava's preschool program and it was so cute and fun! Her class sang three songs and the entire time Ava danced in place and shook her hips. Brent and I were cracking up. Several of her classmates' parents commented to me after that they loved Ava's hips.

Here she is leaning forward to wave to me.

Afterwards her music teacher told me, "I'm sad Ava didn't break out her dance moves for the performance." I said, "oh no, she was dancing!" And her teacher said, "No, no. That was way toned down. You should have seen her during our practices." Haha!

Here's a little video clip:

Ava has some majorly strong opinions about what she wears and unless we turn it into a battle for an important occasion, Ava will be dressed like this:

The kids and I went to Brent's institute class for the final one of the semester, which is the musical program. UNT is known for their music program, so it's always a good time. Coen especially loved it. Here he is so interested in the guy playing the bagpipes in his kilt.

Our ward Christmas party was so much fun this year! We had a wonderful program and the primary did the nativity. Coen sat on our friend's lap for a long time so quietly.

The nativity. I took this video and was trying not to shake the camera because I was laughing so much. Brent is really just a big kid :)

On Saturday morning we went to Ava's preschool for a breakfast with Santa. This was so much fun!

They had face painting and Ava chose Rudolph. Right after she was pretty self-conscious about it. But then seeing her friend Gibson with his face painted too made her feel better about it.

Coen was not so sure about Santa but didn't cry.

Ava wanted nothing to do with Santa, except she wanted his candy canes.

They had areas where the kids could make ornaments too.

Right after this breakfast we went to our friend's son's baptism. Ava was peering into the baptismal font with her Rudolph face :)

After that, we went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant.

Ava licked the sour cream cup clean.

Brent decided Coen's Mickey balloon from his birthday was getting deflated so he took a knife and slashed it so he could throw it away. Ava flipped out. Luckily I had my phone on me and I got a couple shots of her dramatic faces. This is maybe the best one.

She calmed down soon, don't worry.

We left garbage on our back porch and heard rustling in the evening. We looked out and there was a possum! He just ate and ate away. When he got to the poopy diaper, he carried it away like a dog carries away their bone, so he could work on his prized possession. Na-a-a-sty.

Ava had her last week in nursery in our ward.

Every day when Ava gets home from preschool she runs into my office and shouts, "I'm home Mom!" She drops all of her stuff, takes off her shoes, and tells me about her day. I love it.

Trying to have family night is hard with this girl who wants to be the leader/teacher always. She wanted to be in charge, giving us a fake lesson. We humored her for a while, but then she did not want to give up her position to listen to my lesson. "No, I the teacher!!"