February 2021- A Harry Potter Birthday Party

Audrey discovered that when she pushes her face against the pack n play I laugh really hard. So every time she goes into the closet, she does this.

Whenever I hear a noise, I put my hand to my ear and say, "what's that?" Audrey has started doing it and saying "sat? sssat?" 

More of Audrey's squishy faces.

Brent had good days and then bad days with his kidney stone. On the bad days he took ibuprofen, paced, and slept more than usual.

Brent was asked by a French filmmaker to be interviewed for Christopher Nolan documentary since they found his Masters Thesis on Nolan. While Brent was being interviewed over zoom at home I took the kids to the park. Audrey was happy on the swing!

Cheese!

Ava and Coen wanted me to paint their faces to match their blankets. 

Ava bunny and Coen skunk.

Audrey turned 18 months! It's crazy to think she would be in nursery in a non-pandemic world. 

We decided our tree was getting too big. Even though we trimmed what we could, it was started to rub the paint off our house and the roots were coming up through the grass. Ava was so sad when we hired someone to come cut it down. 

Coen was so worried about the guy climbing our tree with a chain saw and then chopping down branches. The guy was quick and our tree was gone within a few minutes!

Our neighbors keep finding snakes in the canal at the end of our street. 

Audrey likes to look at the pictures of her silly faces. 

Ava was so sad that Coen got to celebrate Valentines Day at preschool and she didn't get to go to school. So we invited her friend over to decorate sugar cookies and have a Valentines Party at home. 

It was pet week at preschool, so Coen brought a picture with his favorite stuffies. 

We had the Elders and Sisters over for dinner two weekends in a row for a Valentines dinner. We set up our garage so that they could eat at our house social-distanced. Unless they eat outside, they need to take the food to go.

Audrey loves to watch Baby Einstein videos. She'll sit in her car seat and watch a whole video. Here she is dancing along.

Valentines dinner- we had steak and all of the kids loved it!

Karen decorated our door for Valentines Day, so nice!

I know you're getting sick of seeing Audrey's squished faces, but here's a video of her cracking herself up.

I don't remember why we took this picture- maybe to document that we were hanging out without kids after they were in bed!? haha.

I bought this rain jacket for Ava's birthday and she has absolutely loved it, which I'm glad about because if she doesn't like something, she will NOT wear it. 

The kids had a play date and got to play Nintendo Switch. 

Young Men started back up, finally after a year off from COVID. Brent has felt the weight of organizing and preparing the YM activities. 

The first signs of spring- the huge bush at Coen's preschool has a lot of buds!

Audrey loves books! It's the only time I can really get her to sit and hold still.

We discovered that Audrey raises her hand and says "me!" whenever we ask the kids if they want something. It's so cute that we've been asking all sorts of questions like "who thinks Audrey's cute?"  just to see her raise her hand.

Our friend was about to take the Bar exam so we put together a care package for him. 

When we took the care package, the kids got to see their cute little dog.

The kids and I enjoyed the Primary broadcast! Audrey loved the music at the end. Here she is dancing to it.

Audrey loves her baby dolls. I loved baby dolls too when I was little and my parents think Audrey looks just like me when I would carry my dolls around.

When it was time to go pick up Coen from preschool, Audrey got ready by putting on a necklace and getting a purse.

Just a week later and the rose bush was really starting to bloom! Coen is showing off his show and tell Dollar Store toy he brought.

I was reading Audrey books before bed when an elephant trumpeted on the movie Brent was watching. Audrey looked up, totally fascinated and signed "more." Brent rewound it over and over, and this is what her face looked like:

We have since discovered that Audrey LOVES elephants. We put on Dumbo for her the next day and she has learned how to say "bumbo!" 

Ava wanted a Harry Potter birthday party and Karen has a lot of decorations she was willing to share with us! She came over for dinner the day before the birthday party and helped us decorate. 

Here's a little tour by Ava:

Ava's birthday party was on Friday evening. 

Ava & Karen

The kids took pictures in front of Station 9 3/4.

We had pizza for dinner and then had a potions lesson (baking soda and vinegar, combined with dish soap, glitter, and leaves) Ava made up the names for all of the ingredients and I wrote out the labels and recipe. I think my favorite was the glitter was "dragon boogers."

The kids played Quiditch in the hall.

We had a glow in the dark dance party with "glow wands."

It was a fun birthday party! I worked so much this week, but with Brent and Karen's help, we pulled off an awesome birthday party for cute Ava.

The kids and neighbors went to play at the soccer field at the school by our house. Audrey and this little boy are a couple months apart and couldn't look more different :) 

Ava is really taking off with her piano- she loves playing and constantly plays her favorite songs. Here's a video of our duet after she's been taking for almost two months. Thanks for Grandma for teaching her over FaceTime!