December 2021- Visitors for Christmas

We kicked off the Christmas season by having a cookie decorating party at Karen's house. As we walked up to Karen's door, the kids were giggling and jumping up and down in excitement. We had a fun Christmas party with Christmas music going and hot chocolate, and tummies full of cookies. It's so nice to have a friend like Karen. 

Brent got creative and hung our stockings on our curtain rods since we still don't have curtains in our family room.

We got a big box of stuffed dogs delivered from Grandpa to hand out!

We love having our Christmas decorations up!

For Brent's birthday I tried to do a few special things for him, even though he says he doesn't care too much about his birthday. I took the kids to school (he normally takes them every day), and then for something really special, we went to get the brakes fixed in his car. Haha just kidding, but really I planned to take some time off work and we did some errands together while his car brakes were being fixed. That evening we got Papa Johns pizza for dinner. 

And then we FaceTimed with family for a bit. 

Sadly, Audrey was coming down with something really nasty and kept getting sicker as the day went on. By night, she had a fever, a really bad cough, and was lethargic. I took this picture at 2am after we had held Audrey by the hot shower to help her dry barking/coughing. If she slept sitting up, she didn't have as many coughing fits. Brent insisted that he could be the one to hold her while she slept, even though it was his special day. Happy birthday to my Brent, who is always willing to take on anything hard, if it means helping me. 

Audrey was really sick for about a week and after looking up symptoms, I'm sure she had RSV. It was the sickest I have seen her and it was so sad! 

Brent was caroling with the YM/YW and they came to our house!

Audrey started to feel better and it was so nice to get our Audrey back!

I helped Ava with her first school project. She researched and learned all about butterflies.

Brent had an appointment to get his infected tooth removed. He was a champ and didn't complain, even though he had pain for quite a few days.

Not pictured- our ward Christmas party was very nice. I was one of like 8 people who cooked a turkey for it, and I think it turned out well! We were nervous to bring Audrey since she had been sick that week so Brent just stayed at the party for a little bit and held Audrey on his lap the whole time. He was able to eat the turkey dinner, even though he had his tooth pulled earlier that day.

We got home from church and found a box of presents for us. The kids were so excited! It was from our friends across from our old house (who used to be Coen's preschool teacher). The kids spent the afternoon setting up a wedding for their new stuffed animals.

One day I noticed a large bird in the green field right behind our house. A blue heron just moved in to that spot and came every day for about a month!

Ava did Audrey's hair for church and was so proud. She tried to do it in a pony tail, and sprayed what little hair Audrey has, with her detangler spray. Then, we found this dress in the closet (not even sure where it came from) that was way too short for Audrey. Audrey needed her necklace and sunglasses as accessories. We were dying with the combination of it all but let her go to church like that because, well, she's two. 

We sit on the very front row at church, and Audrey can just play right in front of us. As she twirled around, a friend in the ward (who's a grandma) caught my eye and gave me a big thumbs up. 

Cuties reading together:

I had planned to go on a date with Brent for his birthday but we had to wait a week since Audrey was sick, so we were able to go on the 14th, which is the anniversary of our engagement. We saw West Side Story and really liked it. 

Here's a video of Coen reading (if blogger ever fixes their issues with videos!)

Brent found this thing on Facebook where a lady named Sharon Weiss completely burned her Marie Calendar's pumpkin pie and then posted, "Thanks Marie Calendar for ruining thanksgiving dessert." There is a whole Facebook group where people shared funny memes about this. He had to interrupt my work to have me look at them and we were both in tears laughing. 

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Brent taught Coen how to play Stratego and they sometimes spend a long time playing this game that seems to go on for ever!

One day Coen asked me for help finding hair clips. After he finished pinning up his shirt, he proudly told me, "I'm Winnie the Pooh!" He had Pooh's ears, a short red/orange shirt, and no pants. Haha. 

Audrey got a new hat to stay warm outside. You can't see it very well, but it has a unicorn horn, so she's happy with it.

My parents arrived on Tuesday, the 21st. That first night we went to look at the Christmas lights in a fancy neighborhood. There were so many impressive houses! We listened to Christmas music as we drove around (sometimes the houses provided an AM station so that their lights would be timed with music). This house looked like a gingerbread house!

The next night, my mom, Ava, and I went to the Hult Center to see the Nutcracker. I only remember going to the Nutcracker once, to a school production, and I remember being bored. This time though, it was the professional ballet company with a beautiful live orchestra. It was so beautiful and fun! 

We had to show our immunization cards to get in. 

The next day, Thursday, we went to the mall and the adults bought shoes at JC Penney's. The kids also got to meet Santa! Here Coen is telling Santa that he would like Lord of the Rings legos.

On Christmas Eve, Coen lost his first tooth! He and Ava were so excited that the Tooth Fairy and Santa might meet in the night.

We cut sugar cookies

I made chicken parmesan for dinner and Brent made homemade bread with it. It was yummy!

In the evening we had a little program with a few musical numbers, my dad reading "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Brent reading from Luke 2.

Here we have a lamb and a reluctant Mary who's not paying attention to her baby.

Coen told my mom he'd like to play the violin for a musical number. She told him, but you don't have a voilin. He repeated, "but I want to play the violin." So he improvised and used two pieces of PVC pipe. Maybe my favorite part of the whole program, haha! 

Video of Coen playing his violin:

Yes, I will definitely be signing him up for violin in a few years.

The kids were so excited to leave out cookies for Santa and a carrot for his reindeer. Ava had a hard time falling asleep and was sobbing that it didn't "feel like Christmas." She wasn't in Utah, and we didn't do gingerbread houses. We told her not to worry, that that it was only Christmas Eve that day, and that she'd enjoy (or better!) the next day on Christmas.

Christmas morning - we came down about 8am (but Audrey slept in for another hour!) Their Santa things were in the living room, and the other family presents were in our "homework room" under the tree. 

Coen got a Baby Yoda, Nerf gun and target, and a tiny Lord of the Rings lego guy. 

Ava got Harry Potter barbie dolls (5 of them- they're really beautiful) and Harry Potter pencil toppers (which are basically like all of the characters in a tiny form that can fit on top of pencils). 

Don't you love the Christmas morning mess of presents and paper? Happy mess.

Audrey got a baby stroller and scooter from Santa, and a dog carrier from us. 

Video of Audrey running around with her new stroller:

Ava gave Coen these puzzles that come in tiny "cereal" boxes.

We decorated the cookies that we had cooked on Christmas Eve: Brent's favorite is the Santa cookie. 

After we put the kids to bed, we played Brent's new game, Chameleon, with my parents. It got pretty funny and late. We went to bed late and we could see snow starting to fall- almost a white Christmas!

My grandma gave Audrey a book with matching monster socks

We were basically snowed in for a couple of days since we had no plow on our street. The kids were super excited to play in the snow, but they didn't really have proper attire. They didn't last too long at a time- maybe 30 minutes. 

We borrowed our neighbor's shovel and my dad shoveled our driveway and sidewalk, only for it to be covered again immediately after.

Ava was having a little bit of a rough time (she always about loses her mind when she stays home for too long) so I took her outside to play at the end of the day and she perked right up and built a snowman. 

The next day she had dad's help to make a family for her snowman. 

My mom, Ava, and I were able to get out on Tuesday and we went shopping at the mall. Ava and I got some birthday presents. 

We finally did our gingerbread houses. It was fun! 

And some people got messier than others....

On Wednesday my parents went to the airport for their flight and were given the option to bump and get a lot of money. My dad ended up not doing it since he had to get home for work, but my mom did, so after a few hours of waiting to get her luggage back, I went to pick her up at the airport again. My dad got home in SLC before they had finally squared away her reward money and given her her luggage! 

The kids played with Grandma while Brent and I worked the next day and that evening my mom watched the kids and Brent and I went on a date to Outback (a Christmas present from my work since I couldn't go to the Christmas party in Utah).

My mom went home early on Friday morning, New Years Eve. Brent & I took the kids to the Eugene Science Center for something to do. We were happy to find Glow Dough that my aunt and uncle make in Utah so we had to take a picture and send it to them.

The kids loved playing in the museum, even though it's fairly small. Brent and the older two got to watch a show in the planetarium too.

That evening we had the Janes over for a New Years Eve party. We had dancing, glow sticks, and party hats! 

We had hamburgers for dinner and then counted down to midnight, east coast time, which was 9pm our time. 

Since I had gotten up so early that morning to take my mom to the airport I was so sleepy and fell asleep before midnight. So Brent rang in the real new year all by himself! 

A couple funny things the kids said this month:

One day Coen told me, "I'm starting to not like this day." Because he couldn't find some things he was looking for. I feel you Coen. Sometimes I want to say that too.

Audrey always wants to mother Coen. She likes to get him a cup of water, share her food with him, etc. One day she patted her lap and asked Coen to sit on her lap, like she was going to hold him like a baby!

Audrey was being so grumpy. I told her she was being grumpy and she got excited and said "Snow White! Grumpy!" And did an angry face. 

A few things I want to remember about Audrey's talking:

She calls Jungle Book "Baba Gook," and calls all villains "the mean." 

Happy birthday is "boppy ah you."

Quesadilla is "Baby Ee-yah" 

Eggs and tortilla (what I eat for breakfast every day) is "geggs and ee-yah" 

Help is "bop you."

She calls her heel her elbow. After thinking about it, they do look similar. 

The most common phrase she says right now is, "It's ok mom." It's so endearing when I'm stressed or getting mad at something. But sometimes it's really not ok, Audrey. Like when she found a push pin and decided to try pushing it into my hand. I wasn't paying attention and shouted "ow!" and looked down to see her holding a push pin. She said all soothingly, "it's ok mom."