Ava's Terrific Baptism

 Leading up to her baptism the night before and morning of, it was so crazy, and things just kept going wrong! I think it was the adversary that didn't want this fierce little spirit to be baptized.  I'm glad we got things worked out and she was able to have a peaceful baptism. This is what I wrote on Facebook about her baptism: Ava has boundless energy and can be soooo stubborn, but she also has the kindest heart. During her confirmation, Brent blessed her that she would always look out for those who are less fortunate than her, and I have no doubt she will continue to do this.

 Ava is going to help with her baptism post now!

This is the invitation to my baptism. The picture of me is the year before in the rhododendron garden in Eugene. We chose a rainbow background because of the song "I like to Look for Rainbows."

These are my baptism pictures and these are a few that I chose. My uncle Daniel and Mark and my mom took these pictures on Grandma Tam's street. 

I got baptized on March 20, 2021 on a Saturday. 

My dad went to the font early in the morning with his computer to grade his paperwork while filling the font. They couldn't find the key to the font so it took even longer!

I got baptized in the same font as my dad. I'm happy that my dad got to baptize me. 

When I got baptized I felt loved and warm inside because I knew I was clean as white. I felt very special. 

For the baptism program, my grandpas said the opening and closing prayers and my aunt Marcie and Grandma Tam did the talks. Grandma Tam did the baptism talk and she talked about cotton candy, and wipes can make you clean again, like baptism. My aunt Marcie said "don't get too frustrated if you still can't find the Holy Ghost's voice for a while, I know how it feels," or something like that. I forgot to take a picture with my family members like my Grandma Tam and Grandpa Bob. 

Some people got to watch my baptism on zoom like my friend Karen and my friends the Wilsons in Texas.

My friend Addyson surprised me by coming without me knowing! She just tapped on my shoulder and I got wide-eyed. I was so happy she came. She lives near by us in Eugene and she came to visit her grandparents in Utah and she visited me for the baptism. 

My mom braided my hair, two braids and connected them. And she helped me get ready. 

I was so happy that my whole family could watch me get baptized. Even the ones that I haven't met or just passed away.

These are a few decorations that we borrowed from my grandma. 

Here's another picture of me and Addyson hugging.

Kay said that she knew that my Grandma Dot was here. A few months before I was baptized Grandma Dot passed away. Grandma Dot was my special Great Grandma. She left the picture of Jesus for me before she died. 

I told my cousin Boston when we were leaving, "why do I have to take a bath? I took a shower this morning!" But I was kidding. The water felt warm. When I walked into the font, the water made me feel warm, and when I came up I felt extra warm because I knew God was with me.

This is Patty, my dad's aunt, and my Great Grandma Cowley. They came for my baptism and I love them. Patty gave me a little hymn book that has my name on it and a card that everybody signed.

After my baptism was over, me and my grandma and my cousins had a little party and my aunt took a few of these pictures. 

The book I'm holding is my Book of Mormon that I got for my baptism. It has my full name Ava Dahn Cowley on the front. 

This is my Grandma JoLyn & Grandpa Jeff. 

I love my mom so much.

I love my family, even for eternity. I love my ancestors even they're gone. I hope my siblings do the choice to get baptized too. And if you haven't got baptized, I hope you choose it too.

Dear Ava, since this is the best way I'm keeping a journal right now, I wanted to let you know a few things I wrote down from the blessing Dad gave you in your confirmation: 

• In  your trials, rather than turning away from your family and faith, turn toward them. 
• Be mindful of those who are not as blessed as you are.
• Use the spirit to help you make choices like if you should go on a mission and how to marry. 
• Know that your heavenly parents love you and are proud of you.

March 2021- A Trip to Utah!

 We decided to go to Utah for Spring break so Ava could be baptized there. Since we didn't go home for Christmas this year we were starting to feel homesick! The girls and I went from March 11 to April 6, and Brent and Coen came one week after the girls. Before we get to Utah though, Ava and I had birthdays in Eugene!

I like to decorate the kids' door with hearts on their birthday. 

Our neighbor gave Ava Harry Potter legos and the kids played out in the sunshine.

The kids got Happy Meals for lunch and I let Ava not do her homework, to make it an extra special day. She chose lasagna for dinner. We had brownies and ice cream and zoomed with cousins and grandparents to sing to Ava. Ava got lots of Harry Potter things for her birthday- PJs, socks, and a shirt! She got a pink scooter from us as her main present, since she was always trying to borrow Coen's.

My friend Karen said she would babysit for us so we could have a date, as my birthday present. She knows me well! We went to Skinner's Butte and hiked up it at sunset. It was so beautiful and fun to be able to just talk.

Ceon's preschool does so many cute and fun ideas. One is that they have "journal time" each day and the kids can draw pictures of whatever they want. Coen is going to help provide some commentary on the blog today. 

Coen: I wanted to do that because my teacher telled me to, and because it sounded good to me. We had a lollipop tree growing at school.

Coen: So, I wanted to do that because Pinkalicious reminded me of it. 

Coen: It was fun making that craft. 

This picture captures what Audrey has been doing a lot lately- chewing on allllll the toothbrushes she can find (Brent & I are good at keeping our toothbrushes up high, but she always finds the kids' toothbrushes so we've just started rinsing them off. Gross!) She also is always in my office chair. If you can't find Audrey, check my office chair.

I guess she likes to imitate me.

I turned 34! Brent got me a fancy blender and we had smoothies. I worked a little more than I wanted to that day, but then we had fun! I went on a bike ride and did yoga, and I chose steak for dinner.

I decided Coen needed some one on one attention so we rode our bikes together to the school and played there. He was so happy! And I felt like I could love him more when he wasn't fighting/hitting Ava constantly :) 

Coen: It was fun playing at the park and it was really fun with mommy. And I played at my favorite park, in my favorite bush. 

Brent was telling the kids a story about how Audrey kept jumping out of her pack n play so he hid in her closet in the dark, and scared her so bad to make her get back in her bed! The kids were laughing SO hard when he was telling the story.

Ava's best friend's mom asked to borrow her so that she could do a "best friend photo shoot" and try out her new camera. They went to the river at sunset and twirled in fancy dresses.

Coen: I didn't go to that, so I can't talk about that. Oh! When they were gone, I made a puzzle and it took a long time to do it. 

Ava came in the house one day after playing outside with the neighbors and I did a double take and said, what's on your face? Ava rushed past me and hid her face and said "nothing." I followed her and got a good look and said, "what is that??" Ava said, "oh, I fell and it's dirt." Hahaha. I was like, ummm that's not just dirt from falling. Finally she told me her friend put "chocolate makeup" on her face, and it tastes yummy. 

Coen: I wish I could do that pose, but I can't. Because it would be too hard.

Coen: That was the best picture ever.

Coen: That picture is funny.

The kids love to play at the end of our street where the protected grasslands start. There's a creek that runs back there and the kids call it "their lake." You can barely see Ava and her friend running around there in the picture below.

Coen: It was fun. Especially super fun.

Here are the girls on their way to Utah! 

I was pretty nervous about flying with Audrey since that girl does not sit still. We survived thanks to fruit snacks, toys, and books. I was also a little nervous about being around all those people in the plane so I double masked, which I hear really helps protect you. 

Audrey was fascinated with this guy across the aisle from us. He was sleeping, and she kept trying to touch his tattoos! She succeeded a couple times but didn't seem to wake him up.

We landed in the new SLC airport and it was really beautiful, but we had to walk SO far to get to the baggage claim. It was seriously almost a mile (according to my phone for how far we walked). Ava was getting tired pushing Audrey's stroller while I was carrying all the bags. When we finally got our checked luggage and the car seats, I realized that I was kind of stuck since I couldn't carry it all out to the car. I decided to have Ava wait with some of the luggage while I ran some out to the car, and then come back to get her. In Eugene that totally works, but I'm so glad that some strangers saw Ava and me and offered to help carry our bags and car seats, because it was a long ways to get out to the car in the new airport set up. It would have been so hard to find Ava again! I'm so thankful for kind strangers who saved me.

Audrey didn't have a nap that day (for the first time ever) so by that evening she was completely wiped out.

Brent stayed with Coen one more week in Eugene to get stuff done while Coen was in preschool. They went on lots of adventures after school though, and Brent promised Coen that they would have sleepovers while we were gone! This made Coen not too sad to not be in Utah yet. 

Brent made Coen lots of smoothies, every day. 

The first night, they had a sleepover downstairs on the couch. Brent told Coen he could stay up all night, knowing he'd fall asleep during their movie. When they called me, Coen said to me, "mom, I'm awake, and it's the middle of the night!!!" It was 9pm and he fell asleep shortly after :) 

The boys went to Skinners Butte, and Coen was decked out in his St. Patrick's Day crown. 

Sliding down the hill on cardboard.

Here's a little video from Skinner's Butte: 

I worked my normal hours and the Grandmas helped watch the girls. Grandma Tammy helped Ava make chocolate dipped pretzels.

Happy Audrey, getting lots of extra attention. She was pretty shy for the first few days but then let her personality out finally.

Ava was able to take piano lessons from my mom in person while we were there! 

Ava borrowed Boston's roller skates and was so obsessed with them. But she kept falling every few seconds and scaring us all to death.

My dad watched my kids so that I could go have a mom and sister day! We got yummy food and talked and talked. It was so fun and a treat, especially since I hadn't socialized much in the past 6 months or so.

Emma really liked me telling her stories about Rapunzel.

Audrey is at the age that she loves the play house.

Ava thought it was so funny to pretend to be a dog one evening and for me to ask her to do tricks, and for her to sometimes "disobey" me.

My mom took the girls to her neighbor's house to swing and look at their chickens. When I took Audrey, she put her fingers on the cage to help her stand up for one second and the chicken immediately pecked it. I was so worried she'd be bleeding but I couldn't even see a mark luckily!

Audrey leaned back and really enjoyed the swing.

Coen: That picture is cute.

Coen: I wish I was there.

Brent and Coen came after one week and we were so excited to have our boys back! Ava and Coen started fighting again after about 3 minutes. The morning after they had just gotten home, Audrey ran in and laid on Coen to give him big hugs. 

Coen: I remember it, and I fell off the bed.

Audrey's dancing is always entertaining.

Andrew's family came into town for the weekend so we got to see them too. We all went on a walk down the Jordan River parkway.

First we stopped to pet the horse Fincher.

Coen: I loved petting him.

Ava was baptized on Saturday March 20. We'll do a separate post about that. After the baptism we had a lunch at my parent's house with Cher's family. Cher made beautiful cupcakes.

Coen: I want to talk about cupcakes. I had a cupcake and it was nummy nummy in my tummy tummy.

We had a rainbow theme dinner with Brent's family the following day for Ava and Boston. 

Coen: That baptism dinner was really nummy.

Coen: I liked my balloon getting blowed up so biiiiiiiiiiig.

A video from that time Patty put chocolate ice cream in the very bottom of Bob's cone. He hates chocolate ice cream. Everyone just waited and waited as he ate his ice cream, waiting for the moment. 

Ava got so many baptism gifts! 

My parents watched Emma while her mommy went to the hospital to have a baby!

Coen: I love those toys, and I love Emma and I played with her every day.

Coen: I love that movie (Parent Trap) and I love popcorn.

Coen: That Clue is soooooo good.

Brent and I got to go on a date! We went to Chilis and it was my first time to eat in a restaurant during the pandemic. 

We went to Boston's baptism and drove past Miriam Way which is named after my Nana! My grandpa was a developer in the area and chose the street name after his wife.

Brent and the kids went out to Texas Roadhouse

On Sunday Brent and I drove up to meet my new niece, Olivia! 

She is so tiny and perfect.

It was so nice for Audrey to be able to go play in the Cowley's backyard! We were all in heaven. 

Silly Audrey.

I went to work one day to keep up the relationships and make an appearance. They got new desks that can raise to be standing desks!

While I was at work, the kids had a fancy tea party with their cousins! 

A couple days later we had an Easter party at my mom with other cousins. First we fed ducks.

Audrey just wanted to eat the bread.

Cute little cousins!

We had Chick Fil-A for lunch 

The Easter egg hunt- Audrey got it right off and enjoyed putting the eggs in her bag.

Audrey is such a goof!

We were able to go to the aquarium with Natalie and girls, Marcie & Tammy!

The kids loved walking through the shark tunnel.

Brent got a call that we were finally up on wait list for the COVID vaccine! Brent had found a little pharmacy in Roy that was giving the J&J one, which we needed since we couldn't come back in 3 weeks for a 2nd dose of the others. Thanks to our moms who watched the kids so that we could drive up to Roy on a Friday night and get our shots! We were so excited to get the vaccine and felt so much hope! That night starting at like 2am, I got a fever, chills, body aches, and I felt awful! Luckily it only lasted until around lunch time. (But I slept through the first session of General Conference).

That night the kids played croquet with my parents. 

Natalie was making sugar cookies and Audrey reached up on the counter and helped herself to one!

The kids on Easter morning- Ava got Cat's Cradle, Coen got a cool puzzle game, and Audrey got a toy with buckles since all she wants to do is buckle her booster seat.

We had Easter dinner with the Cowleys and then an Easter egg hunt.

We went to visit my mom and the kids got to meet Laura's baby. 

We met Emily at the park for a picnic and it was so fun to see her!

Grandma and Daniel were so nice to play Harry Potter Clue with the kids while I packed!

Ava drew a picture of the most exciting part of General Conference... a temple announced for Eugene Oregon! President Nelson said he was going to announce 20 new temples. Brent yelled, "Eugene Oregon!" and I laughed and said yeah right!!  And then President Nelson really did announce one and we screamed and just could not believe it!!  The cool thing about the announcement was that both of our dads had a temple announced in their mission too. 

At the airport, going through the metal detector, Coen kept setting it off and the TSA agent and Brent were confused. They found that Coen had this piece of metal for a fence in his pocket! He had taken it from the Cowley's yard, haha!

Flying home, I could see the volcanoes out my window! 

And that was our super fun vacation to Utah! We were so glad we went since we were there for baptisms, General Conference, Easter, and Laura's new baby.