January 2022- Picnics and Tea Parties All At Home

 I'm looking over my pictures from January and realizing a couple things. We basically didn't go anywhere except school and church. All of my pictures are from home, which is where I prefer to be, so happy month for me. Second, most of my pictures are with Audrey. During January I took both Tuesdays and Fridays off work and it felt like I got to spend so much one-on-one time with Audrey. It was so much fun. Also, yes, maybe she is my favorite child of the month ;) 

I got a new phone and the camera is so much better on the new one! Trying out the new camera with my little buddy.

Audrey regularly goes pee and poop on the potty, often all by herself without us asking. We just haven't taken the plunge to fully potty train her because aint nobody got time for that.

Ava loves to give Audrey piggy-back rides and they will be cute sisters until something goes sour and then they're clawing at each other.

We didn't have any Friday night plans so we had a pizza party pajama picnic. I think Audrey was the most excited about eating on the floor. She was dancing around in between bites. 

We found out that a friend of mine named Krystal got covid and was in the ICU, and her boyfriend had just died from it. It broke my heart. We made a little care package to send to Krystal via her mom. We knew that Krystal was intubated and not doing well. Ava's card was so sweet, I had to take a picture. What better message to send, than simply: we care.

I took the kids to the park to play because we had some sunshine!

Here's a video of the kids dancing to Bluey. They watch a lot of episodes of Bluey, and every single time, they get excited and dance like this in the opening song.

Every day after school Ava practices the piano. About half of the time I sit with her and help her. She sometimes is in a good mood like in the picture below, and sometimes it's like getting a little monster to practice the piano.

While I was helping Ava practice the piano, Audrey snuck into the pantry and helped herself to some Doritos, while sitting among our grocery bags. 

I started doing Yoga twice a week, on my days off work. It's just usually a 25 minute video on Youtube, but it makes such a difference in how I feel! The first day I did it, Audrey jumped on my back throughout it and it was not a peaceful yoga session. After that I got smarter and set Audrey up with her baby dolls in another room, or with a movie upstairs. 

Playing at the park after school 

Audrey loves to take care of Coen like she's his little mommy. Here she is taking off his shoes and socks after school.

We had a warm day and tried out our bubble maker out front!

Audrey rode her little tricycle and was so excited about being able to go around the block for the first time. She got a little worn out and I had to carry her tricycle home the last few houses. It probably took her about 15 minutes to go around the block.             

          

Audrey having a tantrum that her clothes were "too tight." She had 5 shirt layers on.

I love it when I pick up my kindergarten boy and he's wearing a homemade hat! This was a special solar system day and he got to wear his pajamas as they learned about the stars.

I got a special girls night out to see Waitress at the Hult Center. The music was so good!

Earlier in the day I helped with the food at a funeral for a lady in our ward named Sandy. I couldn't quite remember if I had interacted with her, but I knew I must have at some point since she was at church until she started getting sick. I thought it would be good to serve at her funeral so that the people in our ward that were close to her could be present at the funeral. That night after the play I stopped by the grocery store to get some things for our breakfast that I had forgotten to get. As I walked down the grocery store aisle, I saw some Bubbly drink, and all of a sudden I remembered... Sandy had made me dinner after I had Audrey and had brought us Bubbly with the dinner. She had also put stickers in for the kids and I thought that was such a cute idea. I remember when she showed up at my doorstep to bring me dinner that I was touched that she would sign up to bring me dinner when she didn't even really know me. I stood there smiling at the Bubbly thinking, I do know Sandy- she served me! I am so glad I was able to return the favor a little bit and serve her. 

We hosted the YM at our house for a breakfast - they had a cereal bar.

Cute sisters after church:

We went to our friend's house for dinner and played a fun Disney game with them.

The kids had no school on Monday. It was cold, and Brent had to work so I didn't feel like taking them anywhere by myself. Instead we pretended to go to Disneyworld, at Ava's request. We flew on an airplane (the kids got pretzels and nuts).

Once we "landed" we watched videos of some of the rides and the kids ate Mickey suckers that their friends brought them from Disneyland. 

Audrey asleep at night with her baby and Dumbo. She has been sleeping on the crib mattress next to Coen's bed. Sometimes Coen sleeps in the bed in the room and sometimes Brent does (so that he can get up with her if she wakes in the night and I can sleep). At 2 1/2 years old, Audrey sleeps through the night probably about 30% of the time. Ugh! Sometimes she wakes up because her feet or legs hurt (growing pains?), sometimes she wakes up from bad dreams, and sometimes she wakes up ready to go and play. Sometimes she wakes up and puts herself back to sleep.

Rainy days in Oregon- everyone needs rainboots and their own umbrella!

Trying out my new phone camera settings with this cute little subject.

When we were driving home from school one day Ava and Coen were talking about what they want to be when they grow up. Then Coen asked me, "what about you mom? What do you want to be when you grow up?" I laughed and told him, I already did grow up! And I became an accountant. 

Ava made this cute Harry Potter card for her 2nd grade teacher. She still misses her 2nd grade teacher and loves talking to her after school.

Ava was grocery shopping with me and we were picking out oranges. She found one that was all misshapen and said, "can we get the underdog?" 

Occasionally if I have to work for a few minutes while I have Audrey I'll let her look at the pictures on my phone. This day she took about 40 selfies of us!

On Fridays I usually have the day off work and I spend time with Audrey, do laundry, and alternate between cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms. On the 21st I was super busy and I thought I would write down everything I accomplished so I can remember this phase of my life. With Audrey, I:

- Did three loads of laundry

- Cleaned sinks/toilets in three bathrooms

- Read to Audrey, and to the older kids

- Did yoga

- Had a work meeting, worked for 1.5 hours while Audrey wandered around- see selfie above :)

- Picked up the kids from school and gave them snack

- Helped Ava practice the piano

- Cooked chicken stir fry for dinner

- Proof read/edited Brent's application for a conference

- Spent a couple of hours in the evening preparing a talk for a RS conference the next day

- Come Follow Me with the kids

Most nights I fall into bed completely exhausted and fall asleep within 2 minutes.

I spoke in our RS conference on Saturday and I was so nervous! I was assigned to talk on living the gospel, after weeks of not knowing what to speak about, I felt inspired to talk about my friend Krystal who passed away from Covid. She was a perfect example of living without guile, so I talked about what it means to be without guile and how that relates to living the gospel. Forgot to take any pictures from this!

I did Audrey's hair in pigtail buns and I about died from the cuteness.

Brent was in charge of Hungry Hippos for YM/YW. He bought the dollies and laundry baskets and rope and blew up balloons. Sometimes one of the kids get to tag along and this time Ava got to go with him.

My friend sent this to me and it felt very accurate! 

Our neighbor's cat is so friendly and comes running whenever it sees people. Audrey looooves petting the cat! 

After we picked up Audrey from Matilda's house it was so warm and sunny that we decided to go to the park together. They have a dog named Jet and Audrey loves being around him all day.

Our RS had a great turnout for a paint night. It was so fun to paint a sunset scene and chat with friends! 

On Friday morning Audrey and I went to the church to play with some other mommies and two year olds in the ward. It felt so nice to socialize, like we're starting to have some normalcy!

This time picking up Coen he had a Pigeon hat since they were reading books from Mo Willems. This started a big LOVE of Mo Willems for Coen. He's been reading all of his books and giggling while he reads. Ava is holding a drawing of her dream house/mansion that she made.

We had so many foggy mornings! Sometimes it stayed foggy til lunch time, and the fog was so thick that we could only see a couple houses away.

We remembered one year since Grandma Dot died. On Friday night we had root beer floats, a favorite of hers.

On Saturday we had a tea party to remember Grandma Dot since she loved treats and was a classy lady. 

We had strawberry lemonade and cookies and got all dressed up for the occasion. 

After our tea party we watched the memorial video that Brent made for the funeral. 

That evening we had the elders over to dinner and Brent had fun chatting about movies with one of the elders who loves movies. 

Matilda's mom sent me this picture from a babysitting day. Instead of dressing up her bear in the book with the flannel clothes, Audrey wanted Matilda to dress her in the clothes. They are such cute little friends!

We have this letter board that I never change and Coen asked if we could change it. I told him, yes but later. That evening during dinner I looked up and cracked up! Little helper inserted one word haha.

I had to take a picture to remember what Family Night is like sometimes. Ava is doing some handstand/plank, Brent is tickling Coen, and Audrey is trying to join in on the fun. The amazing thing is that they retain so much! So we'll keep going, handstands and all!