Spring Break in Utah

This is a mega long post, covering from about March 12 through the end of the month. Brent convinced me to go to Utah for Spring Break, so get ready for lots of pictures!

First up, before Spring Break, Brent made the kids green coffee cake and put on Darby O'Gill and the Little People for St. Patrick's Day. The cake looks a little yellow here but it was kind of lime green.

Ava thoroughly enjoyed all of her birthday presents. We put them in a big box and she got to choose one thing a day to take out and play with. Here's her unicorn sleeping mask.

This was the most beautiful sunset but I couldn't quite capture the colors on my camera. I do love our view of the hills around us.

Ava has been leaving me little love notes around that are the sweetest.

Mr. troll in the tub.

Picnic lunch at Ava's school in the car. This is how we have to picnic in Oregon because of the rain.

This Ava girl and her emotions! Recently she likes to pretend-laugh for me when I take pictures.

My friend invited Coen over for a play date to help me out before we went to Utah. She sent me this picture and I thought it was so cute.

It took some convincing, but Brent talked me into driving to Utah for his and Ava's spring break. I didn't want to do it because I still had to work, the drive is so long with two little kids, and let's face it: I'm a homebody. But, as is typical in our marriage, Brent convinced me to live a little and go have fun.We left Eugene around 2:30pm on a Thursday.

Eugene is so green right now.

We went the way through Bend and at the top of the mountains we encountered snow but it wasn't too bad. This picture is about an hour after the previous picture.

Then, about 15 minutes after the snow, we see this view of this gorgeous lake and a volcano.

The kids were good in the car and we drove until dinner time where we stopped at McDonald's and let them play. Then we kept on driving and they went to sleep for the night and I stayed awake to help Brent. We pulled over in a church parking lot in Burley Idaho around 3 in the morning for a quick nap, and then we drove the rest of the way. Those last 3 hours were a killer because it started to rain hard and we were so tired, and tired of driving! We got to the Cowleys and Brent and I went to bed for a few hours while the kids were WAY to excited to go back to sleep. In the afternoon we played and enjoyed the sunshine.

On Saturday we went to the zoo with my parents and Cher's kids.

Cousins on the carousel:

A few days after this, Coen kept telling us, "lion almost bite me." We told him it was a pretend lion, but he was insistent, and compromised by saying, "ok. Almost almost bite me."

Ava put on some plays for my parents with her cousins.

She was awoken from her slumber by a true love's hug.

Grandpa Bob showing the kids some animals on his phone:

On Sunday we went downtown to hear Music and the Spoken word. We watched it from the visitor center since our kids are too young to be in the tabernacle.

After though, we went into the tabernacle and got to hear the choir practice for General Conference.

Then we went to visit both of my grandparents. My Grandma Hansen had the kids make a little bunny race car food craft. This was my kids' first experience to try a twinkie :) 

During the following work week, I worked my pretty normal hours, but it was so nice to have grandma babysitters! And that meant that Brent could work at the same time as me, and then we could have the afternoons and evenings to go play! 

Trying to convince Coen to take a nap at my mom's house when he was out of his routine.

This was a pretty nice treat, to be able to work together for a solid few hours, and without having to run pick up Ava from preschool, change a load of laundry, etc.

We got a pass to the museum by our house in Eugene that lets us get into lots of museums around the country. We went to the Leonardo one afternoon.

They had Lego displays that were pretty cool.

I discovered spirographs, which apparently I kind of missed out on growing up in foreign countries.  Brent taught me how they work and then I was totally amazed, and couldn't stop trying out the different shapes. We had one of those funny moments where Brent told the amused museum worker, "she didn't grow up here."

That evening Brent, Coen, and I went to Chili's for dinner (they don't have Chili's in Oregon, so we had to get our chips and salsa fill!)

And my parents took Ava out to Johnny Rockets for her birthday dinner. 

I think it's safe to say she had a great time.

Cher came to hang out at my mom's for a little bit and it was fun to see her!

This little video cracked me up, Coen imitating his cousin, saying "My name is Adam."

I went to get my haircut from Lori Hilton. Dang, she gave me volume, which I can never replicate!

We went to the Museum of Natural History up at the U with our museum pass and loved it! There were some really cool things to see, like all of the dinosaur stuff. Here are the kids in a footprint mold:

There was a display where you could walk across glass and underneath there were "dinosaur bones" buried in the sand. Coen really takes after me in how cautious he is. Brent and I were laughing at how nervously he was walking, here's a video, although it's after he had been walking for a bit and wasn't quite as funny:

View at the top of the museum:

At the end you could donate money by putting it in the dinosaur's mouth and he would light up and say something. It really fascinated/freaked Coen out.

My new haircut and the pretty spring flowers:

The next day, we went to... another museum!! We got so much use out of our museum pass, which is totally awesome since we only paid $25 for it. This time we went to the Discovery museum at Thanksgiving Point. It was so much fun for the kids! Brent helped them build this brick wall:

Floating Ava head!

A fun water center:

Coen got to sit in the table and play with water:

After the museum, we dyed eggs with Grandma, Kay, and Natalie's family.

We had new friends come over to dinner who will be joining us in Eugene for a PhD program next year. (Thanks for cooking the dinner Tammy!)
Then we went to the Jordan River temple open house. It was so crowded that night! But fun to see inside the temple, and I was excited for Ava to get to go in.

It was a long day filled with a ton of activities, and the kids were pooped.

On Saturday morning Brent went downtown with my parents to the conference center. (He found tickets for them by asking people off of trax). The kids and I stayed home with Bob and Tammy, and she made them Mickey Mouse pancakes. We had the solemn assembly that morning and I don't think I'll ever forget the spirit that came in and filled the home as each auxiliary stood and raised their hand to sustain President Nelson as the new prophet.

My little Easter bunnies.

I went downtown and met Brent for the afternoon session. We really enjoyed some time alone this week thanks to our moms for watching our kids!

That evening we had a birthday party for Grandma at Kay's house, complete with an Easter egg hunt.

It was fun to be able to be with family!

Brent and I totally photo bombed this picture Natalie took of Grandma. Ha. We sure love Grandma- she is one amazing woman!

Easter morning- Ava peeking around at what she got. Coen recognized the popcorn bowl that Ava's things were in, from when he went shopping with Brent earlier that week and shouted "we buy that!" Ava didn't hear him, so it was still magical :)

Hunting for eggs:

Laura came into town early Sunday morning, so I got to see her for a couple hours!

The kids climbed all over my dad during one of the conference sessions:

We had Easter dinner with my side of the family before we had to start driving back home.

Three sisters!

Yay! We are excited for our little niece in there!

For the drive home we stayed at the DeHarts in Idaho. The drive was great and the kids were great until the snowy part of the drive a couple hours outside of Eugene. This time the snow was more like a blizzard and it was a little more scary. Kind of really scary for about 15 minutes. 

We made it through, and then when we were about 40 minutes from dropping Brent straight at school, Coen got carsick and threw up. A lot. All over. Ugh. I was happy to get home! But I was glad we went to Utah, we had so much fun and the joy on the kids' faces from being at their grandmas' houses made it all worth it.

I wrote down a few sentences that Coen has said recently because I think it's so fascinating to see how quickly he learns! He is now talking in about 5 or 6 word sentences. Here are a few examples:
"My bubbles all gone! Need more bubbles mom."
"Found it! Yessss! (When he saw we found a lost toy)
"Got an owie on mine elbow. Need medicine."
"Make this and build a house, right?"
"Big one ant on mine book!"
"Mom, please find it." (when I mentioned that I forgot to check out a movie from the library).
When I asked him which is his favorite of his lego toys: "Like the Minnie Mouse one so much." (The way he says so much just about makes me melt)
Coen also pronounces finish as "imish." Mom, I imish my show.

I also wrote down a couple funny things Ava said:
Ava: good thing I'm 5. Five year olds know what to do (while folding clothes with me).

When I asked Ava if she wants me to have another baby. Ava: No, four people is good. Me: But you could be my helper and give the baby a bottle. Ava: No. Me: You don't want a baby like Van's (her friend) baby? Ava:NO! They cry. I hate crying.

Ava got a sticker sheet at school that she could use to create the scene at the tomb of the resurrection. I was admiring how she put it together, and how she had placed the little bunnies looking up at Jesus. Ava turned the sticker sheet over where she had unused squirrel stickers. She pointed to them and said, "I didn't use these because I don't think there are squirrels in heaven." I laughed so hard!