Sunday, November 25, 2018

Halloween 2018, the Fall farm, and another trip to the ER

During October we went to Disney World, but that will be its own post because I have a million pictures from that trip. So here's October 2018 minus the trip. 
I started writing down a few funny things the kids say so that I could include them in the blog. 
Ava's funnies: 
-Feel my water bottle. It's very freaking freezing.

-I got a library book about a girl who has strong feelings. 
Me: what do you mean strong feelings? Ava: Like mad and sad.

-(Talking to me) Wouldn't it be cool if all of us in our family had blue eyes? But you don't. You have green eyes. But not pretty green.

Coen's funnies:
-(When his babysitter was joking around and pronounced it skissors) "Karina, it's scissors. Say ssss-isors. Good job, you said it right."
-Doing his first homework, he had to find safety items in our house. I explained the assignment, and then gave him an example like our house alarm.When I asked him what else in our house helps him be safe, he said "mom's hugs."

Coen took this of me. Mommy in her natural element :)
 We had some sunny days where we could go to the park. The trees were gorgeous at the beginning of October!
 I gave Coen a haircut and he looked super cute.
 Ava's friend invited her to go to her dance class. Coen fell asleep during the ride there and slept all the way through class.
 Here are the cute little ballerinas.
 Coen had two little friends over for a play date and they were adorable playing dress-up together.
 Coen was so happy!
 General Conference brought the big announcement that we were going to have two hour church. We had heard it as a rumor for months, but we weren't totally sure if it would ever really happen. When the prophet started speaking and we knew it was actually coming, I snapped this picture of Brent:
 We love General Conference at our house! The kids did a good job doing their conference bingo.
 Brent makes coffee cake every General Conference, and on Saturday morning he got up to make it while I was still in bed. He told me he had breakfast for me, but I reminded him I couldn't eat it now. He said, "yes you can, this one is gluten free!" He had looked up a new recipe and used gluten free flour, which was so sweet of him! It tasted so good to eat something cake-like. Is there anything better than being spiritually fed while lounging in your pajamas with your family? I think not.
 We had some friends from the ward over to dinner and played Headbands with them.

 Coen and Ava love to hide behind our coffee table and pop up and shout "surprise" any time Brent or I are coming down the stairs. Coen has started getting, either lazy or innovative, and instead of running behind the coffee table, he just "hides" by covering his eyes. He's like this when I come into the room and then he takes his hands off his face and shouts surprise!
 After lunch and before it's time to get Ava, Coen loves to play games with me.
Here's a video from when we're playing matching. I just love the way he talks.

 At the end of our street are these stepping stones that the kids love to hop on. You can see the open land surrounding us at the end of our street.
Ava has started telling me that she doesn't like school anymore because it's boring. She doesn't like doing homework, and she really only likes recess and "pack n' stack," which is when they gather their things to go home. Here's a video of her telling me this at dinner:


Coen also struggles going to school just for the fact that he's a homebody and he wants to be with me. I always feel bad sending him out the door with Brent, but he always is happy when I pick him up and his teacher says he does well. When we got home from preschool one day, Coen started doing this on our carpet, see the video: 


 Work got really really crazy around the middle of October and I got super stressed. I was working a ton of extra hours with a crazy demanding client, and just felt really worn out. On a Friday morning when Ava was off school, I took a break and we went to the Wilsons to play. We just sat there and all worked on a puzzle (two year olds included) and had good conversation. It was so relaxing and I felt so grateful for good friends. Plus, Diana made me gluten free pumpkin muffins, so even better!
 On this busy week, I worked evenings after the kids went to bed, and even Friday night. Brent also worked a ton like normal. We did manage to get away to the farm for a bit on Saturday since we loved this one so much last year.
 Here we are on the hay ride.

 The hayride took us to a pumpkin patch where we picked out a white pumpkin for our porch, not the one pictured.
 This pumpkin was huge!

 On Sunday after ward council I came home and took a nap since I was so tired from the busy week. As I was getting up from my nap I heard Coen fall in our living room and do a loud scream that I can only describe as a "hospital scream." As in, we're going to the hospital. He had been running and dancing and tripped and flew head-first into our coffee table. I came downstairs to where Brent was holding a paper towel on Coen's forehead. Brent said to me all calmly, "I'm going to take this paper towel off his head. No big reactions ok?" He took the paper towel off and Coen had the deepest cut I've ever seen. I yelled "oh my GOSH! STITCHES!" Brent said, "I said, no big reactions!" I just could not believe how deep the cut could could be on a flat forehead.
 Long story short, I went to church with Ava while Brent took Coen to urgent care (who then referred him to ER). Brent said Coen was super brave and didn't cry. Luckily they were able to glue it back together pretty quick and they were on their way home.
Coen has really loved doing his puzzles. He can do this 24 piece puzzle all by himself in just a few minutes. The puzzle-solving side of this boy's brain is going to get him a great job some day, I'm sure of it. 
 We left for one week to Florida - see our next post coming up!
Our flight got back at midnight so we stayed with friends in Portland. We went to the temple visitor center and I think it was the most beautiful I've seen the grounds.

 Our friends that we stayed with in Portland gave us this entry way table which fits so nicely in our hall! Here Ava is modeling the table and also her souvenir from Disney World, a Minnie Mouse purse that she's so excited about.
 We got a LOT of candy at Mickey's not so scary Halloween party at Magic Kingdom. Each of us got one of these bags and we filled it up trick or treating there. When we were flying home, going through the security, a security man pulled Brent's backpack and asked if they could take a look at it closer. The agent said, "there's so much candy in here, we can't even see through the scanner what's inside the backpack." Brent had stuffed ALL the candy in his backpack. The agent brought it back and said, "ok, you're good to go. Wow. That was a lot of candy." Brent and I got a good laugh out of that.
 Ava's school picture... I'm so cheap I couldn't bear to order any. Rip off! I'll print my own cute ones I took :)
 Coen helping Bren rake the leaves.
 We went to a Halloween party at our friend's house, with Coen going as Woody and Ava as Belle.
On Halloween I took the kids to Brent's school to trick or treat in his building. Coen went as Donald Duck, and Ava as Jasmine. As we walked through the halls, people were flipping out at this Donald Duck: 
 Most of the students don't see young kids very often, so some of them were beside themselves. Some of the comments we got: "Oh. My. GOSH!!" "That is literally the cutest thing I've ever seen." "OK, he just made my day."

 For trick or treating in our neighborhood, the kids got into their warm costumes, Ava as Rapunzel and Coen as Buzz Lightyear. They had so much fun, and Brent did too! The next morning, Coen asked me, "can we go trick or treating tonight?"

Sunday, November 4, 2018

September 2018- Ava's half birthday

Ava's half-birthday was September 1, and we decided to "celebrate" it by going to the coast. Really it was a Saturday and we didn't have plans. Ava took her half-birthday so seriously. She was having breakdowns if we weren't mentioning it about every 30 minutes or letting her choose everything. At one point she shouted "You're not making my half-birthday special!" As we were hiking up to the lighthouse, she said, "I just keep forgetting it's my half-birthday! It feels like all the other days!"
 It was a little chilly at the coast but the kids had fun playing in the sand.
By kids, I mean Brent, most especially had fun ;) He created this island in the river that feeds into the ocean. You can't see well, but that's little half-naked Coen sitting on the island, covered in sand.
 Snuggling up in the towel to keep warm.
 We hiked up to the lighthouse and the view of the beach was just gorgeous.

After we got home, I made Ava cupcakes for her half-birthday and perhaps satisfied her. When she asked if they were going to sing to her in Primary, we tried to explain that half-birthdays aren't really a thing, and we just do a little celebration in our family.

On Monday we had the Wilsons over for FHE. These two are the best of friends.
Ava requested it be a PJ night.
First day of school! Coen has Mrs. Heather for preschool, with only 3 other kids in his class.
Coen was very nervous for his first day. He cried when we left but then they said he calmed down quickly and had fun... Until lunch time, they said he cried because he didn't want to eat the food.
Here's his classroom.
Ava had a great day at kindergarten and had no fear going in. Our school district has a "smart start" where the kids go for one day and rotate to all three kindergarten teachers. The teachers all meet that evening and divide up the kids into the classrooms based on academic skills, behaviors, etc so as to make the classes even. We got a call that Ava will have Mrs. Whitten for kindergarten.
Brent started the huge project of tearing up our carpet to put in vinyl flooring.
Just a selfie with the kids.
A friend came over to help Brent lay the vinyl on a Saturday. It took from about 9am to 5pm. After, Brent finished by himself with the transitions from our tile to the vinyl.
I took the kids on errands and to the farm while the men worked on the floor.
It looks nice!
(A "before" picture, just for reference).

Ta-da!
Here is a video of Ava sounding like her dad. She started talking like this at dinner and cracking me up.
I bought a box of tomatoes at the farm and made some batches of marina sauce.
On Monday, it was Ava's real first day of school with her teacher and class.

I made a back to school dinner for the kids and Ava chose lasagna. I got them a few school supplies and balloons at the dollar store and they were so excited.
Ava's school provides free breakfast every morning. She goes to get it most mornings.
Coen goes to preschool Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. On Wednesdays he has some "daddy time" while I work and Brent watches him.
We went to the park to meet up with some of Ava's preschool friends. She was excited to play with them! We took a cute picture and you can see Coen in the background running up, feeling a little left out.
He came and posed and cracked us all up.
By Thursday afternoons Coen is tuckered out after a full week.
We went to an outdoor movie that Ava's school hosted.
Since I typically only take pictures of our family when we're doing something fun or people are in happy moods, it doesn't fully reflect our actual lives where the majority of the time we are working, and quite often Ava has some really difficult moods. She was being so dramatic, screaming, and sliding down the stairs, frustrated at something, I had to take a picture so I could remember how she is a fair amount of the time.
I felt like she needs more one-on-one attention and love, so we started Wednesday night "mommy time" where she and I read books together, do her homework, etc. Brent and Coen have boy time downstairs, and the kids really look forward to their individual time. Sad to say, it wasn't a magic fix for Ava's tantrums though, so we're still looking for things to help her. 

Ava taught Coen a game of hiding something under one of two cups and having the other person guess which cup. Coen was making me laugh, trying to do the game for me. 

We went to Red Robin because they had their hamburgers on sale and the kids were so excited to eat out.
Driving down the road, I saw this truck advertising that they sell these coffins for $69 each. The coffin is standing upright in the bed of the truck. So weird.
We went to a welcome BBQ for Brent's school at his professor's house. Ava had fun climbing a tree with other girls.
We had friends over for dinner and a movie (to say thank you for helping us do our floor).
We babysat the Wilsons while they went on a date one Saturday. Coen wanted to have a turn holding the baby.
Brent told Coen he couldn't have a cookie until he finished his noodles. Coen asked for the cookie to be on his tray. I thought it was torturous for a two-year-old, but Coen just looked at his cookie while he ate his noodles one by one. Finally when he was almost done, he took the tiniest nibble of the cookie because he couldn't help himself, but then he put it back and kept going on his noodles dutifully.
Coen found a hat and was excited to "be like daddy."
I curled Ava's hair for our Primary program and she looked so cute! I took lots of pictures of her and couldn't decide which was my favorite.



During the program I sat on the stand and helped all the kids with their lines. I had written the program before summer break and luckily it all came together really nicely and was timed just right. Brent helped me put on a little movie for the kids afterward during sharing time, and then he ran to teach Elder's Quorum. It was a busy stressful day since I had been up early for ward council before church too. We came home from church and just sat on the couch like this for about 30 minutes, until we had to go to a BBQ for Brent's school.
We went to a consignment sale and I got these Disney puzzles because I remember having similar ones as a kid. I felt like they were a little expensive, but man have we gotten our money's worth! Coen has spent 30-45 minutes every day doing these puzzles, he's obsessed.
I flew to Utah for an audit training. I stayed with my parents and the training was at Little America. It's times like these that I'm reminded what a great firm I work for. In this picture, we're playing a minute to win it game, where people are wearing pantyhose on their head, with a tennis ball at the end of the pantyhose, and they're trying to knock over water bottles with said tennis balls. Haha, it was pretty funny.
It took a lot of coordination and a lot of friends helping us out to watch the kids while Brent was at school and I was in Utah. Different people picked up the kids from their schools and watched them until Brent could get them. Here's a picture my friend sent to me of Ava at her house.

Brent was so busy with his first week of school but still managed to take both kids to each of their back to school nights the week I was gone.


I promise we worked on serious accounting stuff at my training, but here's a couple pics from a photo scavenger hunt we did.

Another friend took Ava to dance class with her daughter.
I went to the Cowleys for dinner and got to see everyone. The girls were sad I didn't have Ava with me, so I sat at the table with them :)

On Friday I went to aqua zumba, then shopping and out to lunch with my mom. That evening Cher came over and we watched I Feel Pretty and had fun. It was a nice little break for me!
When Brent and the kids picked me up from the airport, the first thing I saw as the car drove up was Coen's huge smile.

At church, Ava looking so cute, I had to take a picture.
Hugs! They sometimes get along.