December 2020- a Covid-19 Christmas Season

This was our first year to not go home to Utah for Christmas. We decided to spend Christmas in Oregon since we had just been in Utah for a lot of the year, because of the crazy cases of Covid and to save money. As a result, our Christmas season looked a little bit different than other years, but we still had a lot of fun as a family at home!

I created this list of things I wanted to do this Christmas season and I'm happy to say, we did them all!

Here's a video of Audrey saying "please" - she likes to use sign language.

On this Friday when Brent was at school, the kids were being so whiney and naughty! I took some selfies and that was how I got Audrey to stop crying. She even smiled for the picture!

Here's some more of what the day was like- a lot of fighting and crying:

We had our friends over for a playdate and I played mouse trap with the boys while Audrey napped.

We watched Elf and Ava was laughing a lot of the time, but cringing too:

The Wilsons gave us their desk before they moved! It is perfect since we were just using our folding table before for Ava's school work.

Here she is, ready for school!

Coen too- wishing he could do homework!

Brent bought a garland and finished our stair decorations.

Ava was helping Audrey- it's so nice now that Ava is getting older, that she can be pretty helpful sometimes! I feel like just in the past few months Ava has been getting a lot easier as she's been growing up.

Brent's birthday was on a Monday. He worked like normal and helped the Wilsons load their moving truck, but in the evening we had pizza for dinner to celebrate him. Then we had a zoom party with siblings and sang to him as we ate brownies, and everyone else watched us eat them haha. 

The kids wanted to create a scavenger hunt for Brent to find his cards they had made him. 

Ava's face was so cute when Brent was reading her card. She was so sweet- she put in $5 of her own money into his card. She has quite a few $1 bills, but she chose the $5 to give to him. He told her he'd take her out to dinner with her money, and he did. 

When Brent and Ava went to Red Robin to use his birthday coupon, they discovered the hard way that Eugene is still only allowing take out for restaurants, or outside seating. It was cold so they ate fast! 

Coen got to go to IHOP with Brent another day, and this time they got it to go and ate in the car.

Here's a video of Audrey signing "bath:"

Ava had to write a letter to a "community helper" for her homework, so she chose her aunt Laura since she's a nurse. It fit right in with Light the World.

"Dear Community Helper, I would like to say thank you for kaeping pepl helthe. It must be hard to wearing a mask all day. I love you Laura. Thank you for working hard to keep us sath and helthe."

Laura wrote her back- it was a sweet little exchange:

We had a gorgeous sunset one evening that made me feel so happy! I came home and got Brent because he had to experience it. We walk to the end of the street to get the best view.

For Light the World we were supposed to think of someone who represents Christlike love. Brent said he thinks of Barbara DeHart. I agreed! So I put a letter in the mail for her. 

This was on the door at Coen's preschool

Here's a close up of Coen, hehe.

Here's Ava's letter to Santa: 

Audrey loves to look out the window and see if she can find birds. This little girl is an animal lover and is thrilled any time she can see any living creature, but she especially loves dogs.

Having fun with sunglasses...

Until they wouldn't stay up on her face, and then it wasn't so fun.

Karen made us Harry Potter masks and gave us stickers! Coen says "I love that she gave me stuff. It was really fun and I brought a stuffed animal." I am not sure what he means about the stuffed animal, but he was very insistent I keep that part in.

Here are mine and Brent's masks- they have little Harry Potter glasses!

This little Audrey girl is so full of personality- it's so much fun playing with her!

Our Primary did a project where the kids made Christmas cards for some of the older sister ladies in our ward that are lonely. Ava was so excited and jumped right on it. 

Karen came over and made gingerbread houses with us!

Karen made Audrey a mask too, and she wanted to wear it to be like us!

Ava had a playdate and Audrey was thrilled to join the big girls at the table while they did playdough.

I coordinated with Ava's 2nd grade teacher to meet her outside of the school since Ava had never met her in person before! We brought Ava's bestie since she is in Ava's class and both of the girls were so excited to talk to their teacher.

Ava made Hermoine out of clay:

Cute little besties- they have at least one playdate a week (we switch houses back and forth). They help fill the social void that Covid has left us with.

We went to clean the church one Saturday- they just have one family come to clean since it's not very messy. We were all done and leaving and I couldn't find Audrey but I knew she was somewhere in the chapel. I was calling her name and it was silent. I couldn't even hear little footsteps. Then all of a sudden a tiny blonde head popped up in the middle of a bench with a huge smile. She is such a tease! 

My counselors and I made Christmas presents for the Primary kids. They got a gratitude journal and candy. It was a pretty simple present, but it took hours to come up with the idea, buy the supplies, and put together! I like how they turned out and I hope the kids did too!

As I mentioned earlier, our Primary kids had a service opportunity to make Christmas cards for people in our ward. I was in charge of coordinating it and assigning the families in our ward an elderly sister or two. Our family went to about 4 or 5 people's houses and brought them treats and a card. We also sang to them, standing far back on the porch and wearing masks! I thought it would be a good idea to use some of Coen's cute Christmas crafts he had brought home from preschool to give to the ladies. He brings home about 5 things a day and I just can't save them all! Coen was absolutely devastated that I would think about giving away his creations. Here he is trying to hold it together for a picture:

Here's a video of Coen crying as I'm trying to teach them the joy of serving, haha.

We got out Ava's 18 month clothes from storage and it was fun to see Audrey in her sister's clothes! 

One day we were playing a sort of guess the song, where Brent was saying a line from a Christmas song. He said "Sweet silver bells All seem to say Throw cares away."  Coen started laughing his head off and said "throw carrots away?!" 

One of the Light the World suggestions was to connect with your family virtually. I organized a zoom call with my family and we played Family Feud online. It was fun! Brent organized a call with the Dahns and we reminisced about old Christmas Eve parties.

Here's a video of Audrey just being silly.

Here are a couple funny things I want to remember about Alexa. We have one in just about every room in our house, so we use her a lot! We use her as intercoms constantly so we can talk between upstairs and downstairs. When she makes a certain sound to give us a notification that a shipment has arrived, both Ava and Coen will say, "Alexa... note-i-ful-ication." Alexa occasionally will suggest it's time to re-order something you have in the past if she thinks it will be useful, like I don't know, blueberry muffins. One day Alexa came on and announced, "it may be time for you to re-order Cats Blu-ray." Brent and I looked at each other and started laughing so hard. That movie was not good once. As if you would need to re-order the movie regularly! Epic fail, Alexa.

Audrey in the hat that Lucy and Ava wore. It makes me laugh.

Audrey was so crazy about our neighbor's snowman. Every day she would look out our front window and make the doggy sound (which she uses for anything resembling an animal or character). She went so crazy over this snowman every day! One day all of her dreams came true and I let her walk up to it and get a good look.

On Christmas Eve Ava and I delivered a few gifts to friends, and then most of the day was filled with the huge project of sugar cookies! We watched Home Alone and the Santa Clause while we made our cookies and frosted them. Ava made a special cookie for Santa and drew an "s" on the cookie with frosting. She told me, "If Santa isn't real, don't eat the cookie mom. I want to eat it." I think that basically sums up how she felt about Santa this year. 

Audrey was very good and quiet for so long upstairs in the morning and Brent found it was because she was ripping off each door to the chocolate advent calendar! Luckily it was Christmas Eve so she only found one chocolate to eat.

At night I let the kids open one present (new slippers), and I made Brent read Luke 2 because that's what dads do. The kids reminded us once they were already in bed that we forgot to set out the cookies for Santa! So we hurried and did that, and threw a carrot on the porch for his reindeer. Brent and I worked until midnight on Christmas preparations.

We warned the kids that they couldn't wake us up until 8am, and lucky us- they didn't come in our room until after 8! They were SO excited to go downstairs. It was really fun to be in our own home for the first time on Christmas! Ava got a Harry Potter Hogwarts costume.

She was SO happy. She has put this on every day since Christmas.

Coen, who didn't really know what he wanted (he told the missionaries a few days before Christmas that he wanted a shovel?!), got a scooter. He has been riding it every day and loving it!

We FaceTimed both sets of grandparents and opened presents from them. Thank you!

The kids got a big Lego set, LiteBrite, books, movies, and more. 

Audrey's big present was her toy push car. She was so excited and got right in and sat down.

Here is a video of Audrey playing with her cash register. When I was about 4, I wanted a "casserole" for Christmas. I of course had to get Audrey a baby version!

Audrey also enjoyed her new tea set from my mom and somehow knew exactly what to do!

We had roast and potatoes, rolls, stuffing, and a beautiful green and red layered jello that Brent made.

Brent only allowed the kids to open one present a day after Christmas, to spread out the joy of their presents. A couple days after Christmas the kids were so excited to discover the joy of LiteBrite!

Audrey looked so cute one Sunday. We still get her dressed up even though she mostly doesn't go to church! Brent and I take turns going to church while the other puts Audrey down for a nap and watches the broadcast from our ward online. 

Here's a video of the kids laughing so hard at dinner one night. Sometimes they get the giggles at dinner which I find kind of funny, but Brent doesn't. I was telling them a story about how Coen had come into my room late at night, basically sleep walking and had to go potty. He did a really bad job at aiming into the toilet though.

Since I had the week off work we were able to do a lot more playing, and some fun dinners like making our own pizzas. Ava didn't end up liking her pizza since it was "crunchy."

Audrey learned a new word on Christmas- thank you. She does the sign language with it. Here's a video of it:

It was so cute so we kept asking her to say thank you:

Coen always asks me to take pictures of his legos or blocks creations. It makes him feel a lot better if Audrey ruins it, if I have already taken a picture.

One day Brent went to campus and while Audrey napped, I sat and played legos with the kids. It was so fun!

We built some cool things, like this house Ava is holding.

It was after Christmas when we finally got around to driving to see some cool Christmas lights in Eugene. Some were timed to music that you tune into on your radio which was fun.

Cher did a little "art" lesson on zoom with the kids. They made paper snowflakes and then drew the northern lights. It was almost as good as hanging out in person! 

Audrey is a momma's girl. She also is not a big talker, so she really only calls me by name, and every once in a while, she'll say dada. Here's a video of Audrey saying everyone's names:

On New Year's Eve we did our new Toy Story puzzle while Audrey napped. We have to plan things strategically around her naps! She woke up when we were nearly finished.

Coen keeps asking us the same question about if people can come back alive. For example, "if you die in a tornado, can you come back alive?" or "If you die in an earthquake can you come back alive?" Here he is asking, "If you get cancer can you come back alive?" He's such an inquisitive little boy. In case you're wondering what my answer is, I tell him, "only when you're resurrected." I don't think that's satisfying him though, because he keeps asking.

On New Year's Eve we had a special steak dinner. We had sparking cider and counted down to midnight on the East coast (9pm for us) and then cheered for the New Year. We had a dance party which was so fun and cute. Here's a video:

Ava lay in bed while Brent and I played a card game. We finally let her get up, so she made it until midnight here. Brent was a little bit sad we didn't have a party or anyone else to ring in the new year with, but I was perfectly content! This was also really how we each felt about the year 2020- Brent itching to get out and socialize, and me, so happy to be at home! This was a year that we will never forget!