Little Ava Big Texas: Fall in Eugene and a trip to Denver

September 17-October 15
Ava did great in her first primary program. She was so excited and jumped right up there to say her part, "I choose the right when I color pictures for my grandma because it makes her happy." We practiced her part a lot and she had it down. Here she is on her program day:

My assignment as a counselor was to make thank you gifts for the teachers after the program. Anything crafty is a stretch for me, but I got it done.

Ava drew herself at preschool and this is the first time I saw her draw a person. I love the long arms.

Coen will go on the potty if we ask him but he's not really interested in potty-training all the way. He did go #2 on the potty and I thought we made significant progress, but he hasn't done it since.

Coen took the kids on a long walk in the rain while he listened to his book for school.

Ava's picture day- we took our own pictures at home before we left because we're cheap like that :)

Coen really likes fitting himself in small places.

There were periods were the sun would come out for half an hour at a time. A few of those times I grabbed Coen and we went for a walk in the sunshine!

Coen has been feeding himself for like a year, but for a few days he only wanted Ava to help him eat. He didn't want me to help him and he didn't want to do it himself. Ava was nice and helped him in between her bites.

Ava had a homework assignment to make her family tree, with each family member's hand being the leaves. She was really excited about it.

We went to an open house for the school of journalism and communications and I thought Coen looked so cute with this other boy.

We met lots of Brent's professors and the kids had fun running around.

We went to a really big second-hand sale that happens twice a year because I was looking for some warm clothes for the kids. We ended up buying a ton of toys for a great price, most of which we're saving for birthdays and Christmas. Brent was just as excited as the kids were.

I had a work training in Denver and flew out on Sunday. I was gone until Wednesday night of Brent's first week of school. It was pretty stressful finding babysitters and Brent had a lot of running back and forth between home and school, but we got through it.
My flight went through Seattle and I saw lots of cool and tall volcanoes out my window.

I missed my family so much even though it was only a few days! It was fun to face time with them. I did really enjoy having my own hotel room and being able to lounge around and do whatever I wanted to at night.

One day I presented on a new accounting standard coming out on leases. I sent Brent my selfie before:

One evening we went to the Rockies game. I am really blessed to have such great coworkers that are my friends too.

While I was gone Brent held down the fort like a champ and got the kids dressed up all cute.

My favorite men:

I was happy to be home and snuggle my babies! Coen makes a fierce duck face. Which is actually what he does when we say "what does the bunny say?" because he sniffs like a bunny.

We had some warm weather so of course we had to enjoy our park. Here's a video:

Coen's saying so many words. Heres' a little video:

General conference weekend was so fun as always. Ava and I painted nails.

Photo taken by Ava.

I really was motivated to do better at studying my Book of Mormon from Elder Nelson's talk. If he needs to follow the prophet's counsel, how much more do I need to? I decided to spend about 10 minutes each morning when I woke up reading the Book of Mormon.
On Monday morning after General Conference, I woke up feeling excited about my new goal and the promises Elder Nelson made if we would read from the BOM. After my alarm went off, my phone buzzed with a news alert that hundreds had been injured and about 50 people killed in a mass shooting in Las Vegas. I felt sick and horrified. I was so glad that I had already planned to read from my Book of Mormon and I knew I could turn to that for comfort and peace.

The kids sure enjoyed treats from conference weekend:

Ava went to school like this one day. She cracks me up.

This is Ava's new rainbow shirt. I thought she looked cute!

Every day after her afternoon class, the kids walk out to the foyer and the teacher tells us what they learned that day and then we pick up our kids. Ava hates it when I'm late and miss "the talking part." I try to get there early just to see her face when she walks out and she sees me and says "yessss!"

Just a picture that shows a typical day around here. If you look at the floor you'll see Coen throwing a fit. That doesn't happen ALL the time, but he does have a few break downs!

This is also typical in our house- both kids playing dress up, and Coen dresses in a princess costume. We have no boy dress ups currently...

The kids love to dance and are happy when Brent joins in. I took this picture just because I wanted to remember the moment. I was still feeling a little shaken from the Las Vegas shooting and felt like a cloud hanging over me. The kids dancing around to happy music really helped me.

We continue to have new friends over from our ward. This was Coen's nursery leader. Her sons adore Coen and he loves them back.

We went to a farm here called Detering Orchards. There are lots of farms here that you can go to and buy fresh produce. This was a fun one - we did a corn maze, rode a tractor to pick out pumpkins, and walked around sampling fresh apples.

The rain came so we didn't get a chance to go pick our own apples, but that's on our to-do list for next Fall!

There were lots of great photo opps!

Coen in his bow tie. So cute.

We have a college girl from our ward babysit the kids on Mondays from 1-5pm while I work. It works out really good as she can drive herself over here and the kids adore here. This day Coen fell asleep on the chair like this:

The view from our bedroom window- that's a park behind the houses. The clouds looked fake!

We went on a walk to enjoy the pretty sunset. Our mailbox is at the end of our street so it's a good excuse to go for a walk.

Coen got into my eyeliner. If he's unattended in my bathroom, he will be putting on my makeup.

Ava's been really into telling knock knock jokes for a couple months now, and all of a sudden Coen started telling his own. He only has one though, and it's about Buzz Lightyear. It cracks him up every single time. Here's a video:

I went to Book Club for my ward. We switch off every other month with a book and a TV show. This month was Stranger Things and the host decorated perfectly.

Our microwave went out. It was such a pain to heat up food on our stove top the old-fashioned way, how did people ever do it?! We had a home warranty which paid for a new microwave, but we found out after a couple weeks we had to buy one and install it ourselves. It was going to cost $150 at Lowes for them to install our microwave. Long story short, after about a month without a microwave, Brent was able to install it himself. I was proud of him!

I took Ava to Old Navy to get a few warm clothes. I am really missing my amazing second-hand store in Texas! It's so expensive to buy new clothes, but I try to be frugal, so this day Old Navy had 50% off kids clothes. When we got home the kids put on a fashion show for us in their new clothes.