December 2022- Walking in a (germy) Utah wonderland

 Since we were expecting workers to come move the stuff in our house and replace the carpet any day, we didn't get out a lot of our Christmas decorations. We just put up our little trees in our kitchen, and I convinced Brent that we had to hang our stockings.

Our ward party was a Christmas around the world theme. I made Brazilian brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls) and pao de queijo (cheese bread). 

Santa was at our ward party and Audrey especially loved him! She had to go back for a second visit. 

Different stations around the cultural hall included food from around the world. Brent went early to help set up even though he was so sick with a cough and chills. 

Audrey was fascinated with Santa. She couldn't stop talking about him for days!

Our activity girls had made a piñata for the party. The kids all swinging a real bat nearly gave a good portion of us heart attacks. Luckily no one was hurt, although we had a few close calls with kids trying to run out to grab candy, or just not paying attention and walking into the piñata zone. 

Cuddles on Saturday morning.

I found Coen asleep like this one evening. So cute! Both kids read in bed every night. 

We took dinner to our friends down the street who have had some hard health challenges recently. They have grandkids, but not around Eugene. The kids read books to them while we were there, and their dogs cuddled up with us. 

I'm not sure what this is about, but they were laughing and not fighting, so had to document it!

And sadly, that is the only picture I have from Brent's birthday- fail!! His birthday wasn't so thrilling- I had activity days and he went to YM. He was still sick with a bad cold this day, poor guy! He opened presents (he got an electric razor and bath supplies). We decided we would save celebrating for the weekend.

Audrey insists she has no graduated to being Audrey Dahn instead of Audrey Grace. A video of Audrey saying her middle name: 

Brent had movie club on a Thursday night, when he would normally pick up Ava from her song & dance class. So we decided to hang out with Brent at his office during Ava's class and we got yummy pizza for dinner! (Bonus- this pizza is not greasy and does not make me sick! It's a miracle!) Brent brought Ava back to his office when she was done with class and the kids watched a movie on his computer. 

On the way home from Brent's school, Ava remembered that the book fair at their school was about to close. I had a nice mom moment and took the kids and had them each choose one small thing with their own money. 

On Friday we went to Red Robin to celebrate Brent's birthday. 

On Saturday we went to the fancy part of Eugene to look at Christmas lights. We brought popcorn in baggies and capri suns to make it feel extra special. 

Ava says: Me and Coen got to ride in the back of the car for a little while and it was super fun. It was a little bumpy and we held onto the seatbelts since the seats were down. 

Audrey started to cry and fell asleep before we finished. I took this picture to show her Mickey that she missed!

I went to parent teacher conferences and both teachers reported that the kids are doing very well and are so good and respectful. Coen came home from school the next day with a special award, a certificate of good citizenship for being a "stand out first grader." We are so proud of our kids for working hard in school and trying their best! 

Audrey at her babysitter's house. This was a particularly calm morning!  

Coen has been asking me to sign him up for basketball for a year! I finally signed him up through the YMCA because my friend said they never have Sunday games. He was so excited for his first day of practice!

He practices on Tuesday and Thursday with his team at an elementary school about 8 minutes away from our house. On Saturdays they have one game. He loved his first practice!

Audrey's preschool Christmas program was so funny. It only lasted about 30 minutes since each little class just sang a few songs. Having 3 year olds sing was just so funny since they were all singing in their own time, in their own key, and in their own language.

Two special Tammy's: teacher Tammy

And Tammy Peaslee

Brent was about to disassemble my desk since it wasn't going to survive one more move with the carpet people. We took a picture to remember this good desk, that Brent found on the side of the road for free when I sent him garage sale shopping for a desk in Texas. (tithing blessing!) I estimate I worked at this desk about 9,000 hours!

Our last couple days before flying to Utah were so crazy! We were so busy and we also had to prepare the house for the carpet people to come and replace the flooring in our house. Brent moved as much as he could to our pantry and our upstairs bedroom so they wouldn't have to move his movies/books, or any little thing on the floor. 

On Wednesday, the day of our flight, Brent and I were racing around, trying to clean/prepare the house, do last minute errands like take books back to the library, and pack! I dropped Brent, the kids, and all the luggage off at the airport at 3, and drove our car back home and was home by 3:10. Then my friend dropped me off at the airport at about 3:15 where Brent and the kids were waiting for me after checking our luggage. We went straight through security and still had time at our gate before we boarded for our flight which was at 3:50. Ah, I love the little airport!  

Our flight was really smooth and on time, and the kids were all good! 

The first morning I went to get my hair cut from Lori. That evening I taught a class for work for people in the Philippines from 6-9pm. While I taught, the rest of the family went to get wings, which I don't look, so that was prefect timing :)

They also went to Scheels to ride the ferris wheel:

The kids were sad Natalie's kids were sick, and my parents went to Mexico, and everyone else still had to work! But they had fun playing with all of the Cowley's fun toys and just relaxing at Grandma's house.

Saturday morning we had the Hansen party at Caitlin's house. 

They had a fun basement with a bounce house and an air hockey table.

Just relaxing!

My dad got us really great tickets to the Tabernacle Choir concert. Laura and Jordan drove us and we parked in my dad's office building. Thanks Dad! The girl who played Jasmine's singing voice (and Mulan) sang, and the story teller told a story about a man who saved children in the Holocaust. 

On Sunday we went to Mollie's baby blessing. She is such a sweet calm baby!

We hung out in Mollie's room for the luncheon. I cut off Brent's head in this picture, oops! 

The kids got to hold their cousin for the first time. 

We went right from one baby blessing to another in Lehi. As we were driving, Audrey all of a sudden started to scream that her ear hurt. I thought she might forget about it once she saw Matilda, but she wouldn't stop crying. I had to run to Walmart to get some pain killer for her. They were completely out of any form of children's Tylenol (ugh all these shortages!). Luckily I found once last bottle of children's ibuprofen and raced back to give it to her. After it kicked in she was happy and played with Matilda. 

Here we are with the Janes and their family. We wish they still live in Eugene!

While Grandma was at work, and Brent and I took turns working, the kids entertained themselves with all of the fun toys. This restaurant day cracked me up. 

Audrey was giving Brent money to pretend to buy food, and she was so animated about the exchange!

We enjoyed a Christmas tree since we didn't have one this year.

Coen lost his front tooth! 

Brent and I went on a date to see The Fablemans. It was at 9pm, so the kids were all supposed to be in bed, but Audrey got out of bed and was up for another couple hours with Tammy. Doh. Tammy let Audrey wrap "Christmas presents" (food from the toy kitchen.)

After Coen got money from the tooth fairy he asked if he could go buy Ava and Audrey a Christmas present with it. How could I not take him right away to the store?! He found some books for Audrey and an owl key chain for Ava at Kid to Kid. And got a little help from me since the tooth fairy only brought him about $1.75 :)

Brent's parents and our family were in the kitchen eating dinner, just chatting, when we noticed Bob was spitting his root beer out in the sink. Tammy asked what was wrong with it and he was basically speechless, just kept spitting it out and gagging. He dumped the rootbeer in the sink and it was thick. We were trying to figure out what could be wrong with this rootbeer, when Bob told Brent to smell it. Brent took a whiff and then started laughing/choking/dying. The rest of us started laughing so hard at Brent. "It smells like oil!!!" Brent said when he finally swallowed his food and got a handle on things. We were all dying laughing, trying to figure out what was going on! Bob said he got the rootbeer from the shelf by Daniels' truck, so I text Daniel to see if he knew what was wrong with it. Daniel text back that it was used motor oil. Poor Bob, but we were all in tears! The oil smell started to permeate the kitchen, and Coen got creative to plug his nose. 

We asked Daniel if the camera caught the incident, and it did:

 

After the memorable dinner, the four of us had tickets to A Christmas Story at Pioneer Theater. My boss at work had offered to buy anyone tickets, which was so nice! And I was finally in town to take advantage of something like this. 

On the way home we picked up some rootbeer for Bob to satisfy his craving.

The workers arrived at our house a few days before Christmas Eve and got to work putting in new carpet and new vinyl plank flooring upstairs. Brent checked on them a few times form the camera:

Grandma's first day off from work meant cookie day! We all look forward to this day! 

It's an all day process and people take the decorating very seriously.

Poor Natalie and her girls were sick and didn't make it this year. We had Emma join us while Livy was getting her broken foot looked at.

Here's Coen's cookie master pieces:

The kids went with Bob to leave a tree at Great Grandpa's grave.

The next evening my parents were back from Mexico and we had Chinese food with them and watched Claymation Christmas. 

On Christmas Eve I woke up with a swollen/infected eye. Ugh! I had had a sore throat on and off and I think my little cold just went up into my eye. 

Kay asked Brent to help be in charge of the nativity at the Dahn Christmas party this year. 

I played the piano while Ava and Coen sang Picture a Christmas. Then the kids acted out the nativity as we sang the Nativity Song.

Lois did a Hawaiian themed party and we had yummy rice bowls and then played glow in the dark volleyball. What a fun party!

As we were about to leave the party Audrey started acting really tired and when we got home she only wanted to go to bed, and didn't even want to leave a cookie for Santa. She wasn't feeling good, so sad! 

Coen left a carrot for the reindeer, 

and a cookie for Santa. Earlier that day Coen lost his other front tooth so now he had both front teeth missing! 

Here's what Santa brought the kids- an art kit for Ava (a purple organizer bag with water colors and pens), magformers for Coen (magnet building toys), and a doctor kit for Audrey.

Audrey was up a lot of the night, not feeling well, getting a cough. I think we only got between 3 and 4 hours of sleep that night, ugh! 

We couldn't go back to sleep though because Ava and Coen were singing in my parent's ward at 9, and I was accompanying them on the piano. I still had my eye infection and was so tired, so I'm proud of myself for still getting up there and playing the piano! The kids had coughs and I was so worried they were going to have a coughing fit when they went to sing, but they did great. 

After church Brent stayed at his mom's with Audrey- she was lethargic and had no appetite- while I went with the other kids to my parents for Christmas lunch. I hate it when we're sick on Christmas! Brent watched movies and had Audrey play with her new toys beside him. 

We opened presents and had a musical program, with everyone participating. I even played a song on the piano from my new Marshall McDonald book!

Ava and Coen sang Rudolph:

We played the bells with an enthusiastic director:

The day after Christmas we moved over to my parent's house right as Ryan was coming into town.  Audrey was feeling lots better, but still coughing and I was starting to come down with it! We had the Cowley Christmas party with lots more yummy food and presents. 

Audrey looks like a giant!

Grandma asked the kids to sing "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus" for Grandpa since it's his favorite.

My eye infection wouldn't go away so I had to keep wearing my glasses, ugh! I also felt sick from the cough and laid around on the couch a lot. What a bummer, but also good that we got sick over the break so I actually could just rest. Brent and I watched the whole series of the Queen's Gambit this week, which I liked. 

Ava & Coen had lots of fun playing with their cousins! 

Utah got so much snow this winter! The cousins loved playing in the snow, but my kids only lasted about 20 seconds before coming in because it's "too cold outside." I think they get that from their parents. We are warm weather people!

These cute cousins are 2 years apart. And Mollie is one year behind that.

Audrey enjoyed petting the dogs. 

Brent always has to pull out the poster puzzles to do!

My cold went into a bad sinus infection and I was feeling miserable so I finally went to urgent care on Friday and got antibiotics. They tested me for Covid and influenza, which were negative luckily.  After that and some ibuprofen, Brent and I went on a date to Cheesecake Factory since my work had given me a gift card there the previous summer. We had yummy food and got to just talk and talk! 

When we got back we went to see the candy windows in South Jordan. It was so cold! 

On Saturday we had the Cowley party breakfast. We had to leave before the white elephant game and Ava and Coen were devastated, but we promised them that the play we were going to see was way cool! Thanks to Tammy for watching Audrey again!

Oh, did I mention my dad got Covid from coming back from Mexico? Because he did. Boo. Too many germs! So we were trying to stay downstairs and not hang out with them as much this week, which was a bummer. He also got the cough from us, we think, so he really wasn't feeling good on Saturday. So Brent took his ticket to see the Little Mermaid at the Hale. 

The play was amazing! This was the fist time we had been to this theater and all of the things the stage could do just blew me away!

New Years Eve Brent and the kids went to the Jazz game with Patty and she spoiled them with dinner and treats. They had so much fun!

Audrey and I had fun with my parents, having steak for dinner and watching Mixed Nuts. 

On New Years Day we woke up to about 8 inches of snow! Brent shoveled the driveway while I helped do about 5% of it. Dang that snow was heavy! 

My dad tested negative for Covid and so did my mom, so we hung out for the last couple nights. We played Guesstures which was a favorite of my family's when I was little. All of the kids LOVED the game! Here's Brent trying to help Coen act out his word. Haha!

On Monday we were all feeling nice and healthy for our last day in Utah, hooray! I took Ava and Coen down to Lehi to play with the Yaedes and then Audrey and I hung out with Laura and Emma at their house. 

When I went to pick up the kids it was snowing and dark and not fun to drive in! But, seeing these kids' happy faces was so worth it. 

While I was gone all afternoon, Brent organized and packed all of our stuff for the trip home, which is no easy feat, since we had 5 people's things for 3 weeks, plus all of the Christmas gifts! 

Our flight home the next day was in the morning and it all went smoothly. Here are the kids on the bus ride over to our plane. Because no one makes you feel like you've trekked halfway to your destination before you board your plane like the SLC airport does.

We were crossing our fingers we wouldn't have any delays since SLC had gotten so much snow, and because there had been so many airline cancelations! Southwest had a really bad problem with cancelations, but we were on Delta, which got us home right on time. And when we got home, we had brand new floors waiting for us! More on that next time.