August was a busy month, so this post will include our trip to St. George & Audrey's birthday. Our California trip will be in a separate post.
We went to St. George for my family reunion, and we went almost a week early so that we could be there for the twins' baptisms. Brent and I took turns working throughout the days.
I ran into Brittany at Walmart on the first morning, and she showed me there were some awesome $1 sales on clothes and shoes, so I bought Audrey these shoes for $1!
When the cousins came to play at our condo, we didn't have any toys or games, so we made an art competition. The kids had to draw certain things I said like a shark eating a cupcake, and then I would judge them. Ava says "Adalyn and I drew a Night Bus from Harry Potter."
Overalls I got for $1 at Walmart too!
We went swimming a lot! Coen still did not want his face to get wet at all.
The baptism was very nice! There were 3 other kids from their ward being baptized that month- it's a huge, growing ward!
Audrey loves Andrew, and he loves her! A few different nights he came over at bedtime to read books to her and they would snuggle. When he knocked at the door, she would jump up and down and say "Dah-doo!"
Ava says: Grandma said all the cousins could have a sleepover, so me and Adalyn got to have a sleepover. We had lots of fun. We packed our suitcases and we were so excited.
We got to go to the dollar store and we chose three things- I got paints and an owl, and Adalyn got a matching owl and a butterfly for both of us to paint. We baked cookies and made up a cookie song. We put Grandpa to sleep with the song.
Andrew went to Mexican food with us and Audrey loved the salsa.
Our regular Santa Clara evening stroll. Ava and Coen played at Andrew's condo, so it was just us pushing Audrey in her stroller and we went extra far and up a hill to have a view of the city.
Andrew & Brent took the boys to a jumping/ninja place right by the condos.
Barbara came to St. George for a few days and the first night she was there we had her and my grandparents over to dinner. Brent went to get an ice cream cake from Baskin Robins and they asked him what to write on it. He thought, and then said "Welcome Barbara." Haha, it was fun!
Ava and I went with my mom and Andrew's family to see Beauty & the Beast at Tuachan. It was so well done, we loved it!
Ava wanted to wear her yellow dress for the occasion.
We went to the fun dinosaur park and splash pad. It was so hot, you had to get in the water!
Cher's family & Laura's family arrived. We had dinners together most nights and went swimming together.
The kids loved this bingo game!
The night before Audrey turned two we had a pizza dinner picnic at the park. I did a little photoshoot for Audrey's birthday. I let her throw leaves at me while I was taking the pictures, so I got so many cute smiles. It was hard to narrow down the pictures, so scroll on through!
Audrey at age 2 is so funny and cute. I tell her that all the time, and she repeats that she is "nunny and toot." She is tall and skinny! At her two year old check-up, she was 78% on height and 25% on weight.
She is barely putting two words together at age 2, and can be pretty hard to understand. That doesn't stop her from jabbering all day long! She likes to grab my face with her hands when she talks to me, to make sure she has my full attention.
Audrey is so independent, brave, and assertive. She has always been a great climber and can get into whatever it is she wants.
She is very cuddly and loves to give kisses and hugs. She especially loves taking care of her baby doll and loves to wrap her in a blanket and pretend to put her to sleep while shushing her.
She calls Ava and Coen "Dee dah" and "Co Co." She especially loves Coen and wants to be like him- wear his shoes, copy what he does, etc.
Every night before bed we sing songs and read books. Her favorite song is "Tinko Stah" (Twinkle Twinkle) and she especially loves books and movies about animals. Dumbo is her very favorite.
She brings so much joy to our family!
Our pizza picnic
Audrey loves dressing up now.
We painted rocks to take to Aspiration Trail.
Grandma and Grandpa Hansen told us stories from when they were growing up.
We had a birthday party for Audrey that evening- we did a "wild one" theme since Audrey is a wild girl, and because she loves zoo animals! The kids really wanted to do a circus theme since Audrey loves Dumbo so much, so our treats were circus cookies, popcorn, cupcakes, etc.
We watched the first part of Dumbo to kick of Audrey's party. She was thrilled:
Eating her treats:
She knew right what to do and blew out her candle.
The cute card Ava made with Coen- "To are 2 year old sister"
Our wild one.
We had a dance party with glowsticks and all the cousins git into it.
The next day we went to Fire Lake Park for our first time.
The setting of the reservoir in front of the rocks was so beautiful!
Brent and the kids had a huge project of digging out a hole to make a sort of hot tub.
After the condos, we had girls day and boys day. Girls day included making bracelets, coloring, and talking. There are 6 girl cousins and 6 boy cousins, but the three littlest girls napped during fun.
Boys day included black light miniature golf, laser tag, and ice cream.
Cher quickly took a few family pictures of just our little family before the big group pictures. Coen wasn't cooperating (he stuck out his tongue in most of the pictures!)
All 12 grandkids!
I love my grandparents so much!
Brent and some others went to a Tuachan Play that night- the Count of Monte Cristo. When Brent got home at midnight he was looking on Facebook and saw our friends down the street had put their house for sale on the market. We've always talked about how much we love the house and wish we could buy it from them (they rented it to people who were in our ward). So I text my friend, at 11pm and the ball got rolling on this crazy scary adventure of selling our house and buying a new one.
The next day before everyone went home, they took our rocks to leave them on the trail (while I stayed back and worked). Brent & I stayed in St. George for a few more days.
Brent finally got an interview with someone big he's been wanting to interview for his dissertation. He was really excited. I took the kids to the train park again and Chick Fil-a so that the condo would be quiet.
We drove back to SLC and I think Brent only slept at his mom's house something like 5 days this summer. Ava and I got our bi-annual haircuts from Lori.
On Friday August 13, we decided to take the plunge and put an offer on our friend's house. We had gone back and forth with the pros and cons, and it was really stressful! There ended up being only one other offer besides ours, and our friends chose us.
My parents watched the kids for us while Brent and I went to stake conference. We were waiting on the side during the prayer and I had to take a picture because I thought, this is what the pandemic looks like! In a few years, I'm hoping this will seem weird that we all wore masks all the time.
When we got home from church, we bought tickets for Brent to fly back to Eugene the next day to help get our house ready to show, and it went on the market that night. Everything happened so fast!
I went to the Brough party without Brent - he was sad to miss it.
My mom took the kids to the zoo and I flew to Eugene on Tuesday- we decided to drive our gray car on our California vacation from Eugene, instead of driving our red car back and forth from Utah.
I got to Eugene and we walked around the new house and wondered if it was really going to be ours. We had one week to sell our house, for the deal to all go through.
Ack! This was stressful for me, but Brent held steady and felt like if it was supposed to work out, it would. I felt really sad to put our beloved house on the market.
Back in Utah, the kids were spoiled by their grandparents! They slept at the Cowleys, and our moms took turns watching them while the other was working. I was gone 9 days! We are so grateful to our parents who watched the kids so that we could have a nice break after a rough homeschooling, everyone is home 24/7, Covid year. Our California trip was so fun and we took way too many pictures so that will be in a separate post.
Here are just a few of the pictures we got from our moms while we were away.
A video of Beauty & the Beast dancing:
I got home late at night (with a terrifying airplane landing in a lightning storm). Brent had driven our car back to Eugene and was going to stay there for a few more days to prep our house for the sale. I had been so worried about him driving all the way back to Oregon by himself. He actually made it home while I was still at my layover in Las Vegas. After my scary airplane landing (where I was telling myself, it's just a storm and turbulence, we aren't going to die) I fell into bed and said one of my most sincere prayers of my life- a prayer of thanks that Brent and I were home and alive!
In the morning, I got Audrey out of bed and she gave me a big hug. She leaned back to stare at my face for a while, and then hugged me again.
My parents took Audrey to This is the Place on her own special day. They said she was so good!
We went to Emma's royal birthday party and the kids loved the bounce castle.
Brent spent a lot of time planning where all of our furniture was going to go in the new house. He worked a lot on his school stuff while he had a quiet house.
We had a yummy Sunday dinner with the Cowleys, and a "surprise" baby shower for Natalie. We even had a gender reveal part at the shower, haha.
Brent was supposed to fly back to Utah on Monday, and that morning he called me and told me that a few hours earlier, at 2:30am, while he was sleeping in Coen's bed, he had woken up to a bottle crashing through the window next to his head. It shattered the window and freaked him out! He parted the curtains and looked outside and couldn't see anyone. He wasn't sure if someone was already in the house (he had forgotten to set the alarm!) or where they were. He text 911 for help. After a while he saw a white car circle around slowly outside, two separate times. The police found our side gate was left open and guessed the perpetrator jumped our back fence. The alarm people told Brent the guys threw a bottle at the window to test the alarm, and then would have kicked in a door. Ugh, so annoying! I was so grateful that when they saw Brent part the curtain they took off and didn't break in and hurt him or take anything. We are so grateful that by a fluke, Brent happened to be sleeping in Coen's bed and was right there to part the curtain open and show someone was home. And that the guys chose one of the few nights of the summer that someone was actually home.
So Brent had to deal with getting the window fixed, and changed his plane ticket for a few more days so he wouldn't leave the house empty very long. That was a bummer.
Our moms helped me and I kept working as I could. Tammy took the kids to the park:
Audrey LOVES popsicles and was even going to open the freezer first thing in the morning for breakfast!
The kids got to have one last fun play date with their besties:
These kids love each other so much!
Audrey got to go out to Mark's birthday dinner, and they said she ate a ton! Lucky girl :)
Brent flew in late at night and we were able to go to the temple the next morning. We hadn't been in 2 years because of Covid, and having new baby Audrey before that. It was nice to be able to go there and feel peace after some crazy moments in August.
After the temple, we packed and cleaned, went to a birthday party for Kay, and then we left the next day to go back to Eugene. So Brent was only in SLC for two nights and one day. We drove all the way through (left at about 10:45am and got to Eugene 15 hours later). We started packing and sorting things for the move our first day back in Eugene. It was an exhausting month and we are so grateful to all the helpers that we had, that made it all possible!
No comments:
Post a Comment