February- the 100 mph roller coaster month

Ava has been such an awful sleeper (waking up crying from nightmares approximately 5-6 times a week). One of the suggestions we got was to do yoga. She loved it. We did that, and had calm time, Brent gave her a blessing.... She still woke up screaming. So we gave up and moved her onto the floor of our room and it's been much better. Now she wakes up maybe 3-4 times a week. But we can go right back to sleep after shushing her. 

 Litle man likes to fit in small containers.

A video of Coen displaying his animal sounds. Hint: they ALL say roar.

Brent took the kids on a walk while I did some birthday shopping for Ava.

 Coen decided he wanted to be the one to feed himself. It's pretty nice! He does get fairly messy though. Worth it.

 Just me and Princess Belle.

 Ava in primary- what a big girl! She gave her first talk on family history and shared a story from her Great Grandpa Hansen's autobiography.

 Messy face, learning to feed himself.

Video of my Texan boy:

 I took a turn watching the kids during institute. There were two other moms luckily, because we had 22 kids.

Ava lost her hair clip at Sprouts. She was devastated. The next morning I found it on the bottom of the strawberries package! When I picked her up from school, I told her and videoed her reaction:

 Wasana gave Coen this car toy and he loves it :)

 Elizabeth Smart came to UNT to speak as part of a lecture series and so I went! I've read her book so I don't know if I learned anything new, but it was still cool to see her.

 Sometimes I just take pictures of Ava because she's looking so cute.

Ava was really liking to pretend that her Valentines cards were books.

"Only a Ho-man! (human). Not a mermaid blankie..."

 I went to Ava's preschool for her Valentine's party. I was the only mom that came, but she was so excited for me to be there and help!

 The Valentines party was basically just glorified snack time and passing out their valentines to each other. They say prayer before snack.

"Let us thank him for our food. Amen!"

 Ava and her favorite special friend, Timothy "Tiffy." He was quite the ladies man, leaning over the table and saying, "I brought purple dinosaurs for you girls." Ava and Timothy's pending marriage is sometimes on, sometimes off.

After school we went to the library with our friends.

Brent and I had a Valentines date and Tabitha came to watch the kids. They both adore her.

Brent and I went to Chuys, which is a Mexican restaurant we've been wanting to try. They had the most random shirts, and this one made me laugh:

Ava and I went to the dentist together. We went to a lady in our ward and Ava was so nervous before hand. Here's a selfie I found on my phone from the office.

As soon as Ava saw the toys in the waiting room, she was put to ease. The dentist only checked her mouth for a quick second and said she has no cavities, and then Ava got to choose a toy. I, on the other hand, have a couple cavities for the first time in my life. So sad! As we left Ava asked if she could come back the next day.

Coen helping me in the kitchen one day.

 Coen says "ba" for banana. And he asks for these constantly. He would eat three a day if I let him.

I cut Brent's hair and it is so hard! After I've done about half his hair, I start to panic because it looks so crazy being only half done. This time, I accidentally got the spot above his ear way to short. Here's Brent as I'm working on his hair- he was not thrilled. But he's also not thrilled about paying for a haircut.

In this video I say, "that's the bad part." Oops!!! Don't worry, I fixed it a little bit more after?? And it's grown in a little better now. Oh man. 

Family selfie that Ava requested. 

We went to our friends for dinner and games. We played charades again with them and Matt is so funny when it's his turn. Brent tries to help him out.

We started looking for houses in Oregon since we found out Brent was accepted, and we found this house that we loved:

I looked at it and thought I could totally picture it being our house. Brent text me from school and said "this is our house!" It's in a new development and has 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths. We put an offer on it and it has taken so much time working with our realtor, getting bank financing lined up, etc. SO much work to buy a house! We've been so stressed and going a little crazy between that and our normally busy March month we have.

Coen discovered Doritos and loved them:

I took Coen to a play date with friends in the ward. This little girl is from Nigeria and is so cute!

Coen threw up on a Friday night but then acted fine after that. On Tuesday night, it hit Ava and she was so sick all night. It was so sad. She slept on the bathroom floor part of the night. I got it the next day but not quite as bad as Ava.

Coen just being giggly:

 I'm not sure why I took this picture- probably just because he's cute.

 Brent was at Walmart and found tons of shoes on sale for $3 each. I've been looking for months for Sunday shoes for Ava but haven't found any cheap enough. These were a little tender mercy for us!

 This comment from her teacher at the bottom made me laugh a lot for some reason.

Making me play Cinderella with her new black shoes. She runs and it falls off and I have to try it on her foot. 

 Ava has such an imagination. About 80% of things that come out of her mouth are make believe. One day she casually pointed to the man in the center of this magnet and said, "this is my dad..."

 Picnic at the park.

 Brent hosted an oscar party on campus and lots of people came! There were great prizes and Brent did lots of games. We joined for a little bit and then I took the kids home to bed. I was in bed when they announced the wrong best picture winner. Doh.

Coen got very sleepy during lunch one day:

 I picked up Cat in the Hat from school. After this she said, "I no like hats on my head. Hats on heads is dumb."

February was such a whirl wind for us! Between getting home from Disney World, finding out Brent was accepted to Oregon, a few colds, the stomach flu, getting pre-approved to buy a house and putting an offer on a house, busy season for me, and Brent trying to finish his thesis, it was nuts! But we had lots of blessings along the way and we are grateful!