March 2023- Birthday Date and a Ferocious River

We have too many pictures from our Spring Break trip to the Redwoods, those will be in a separate post.

Coen woke up on Ava's birthday with yet another headache and feeling like he was going to throw up. I started to worry if something is wrong with him since he had two days like this the week before. Luckily he drank water and ate something and felt better and went to school.

I wanted to go to Ava's school to have lunch with her on her birthday. My work meeting went long beforehand so I didn't have time to go to Subway like I was planning, but she was still happy with her corndog that I brought her. Edit to add: Ava says she was kind of sad because she loves Subway. :)  

After school Ava had drama class and then we had Activity Days. I brought brownies to share for her birthday. 

We opened presents when Brent got home from his EQ meeting (he got a new calling!). She got a new dress, scrunchies, gel pens, a helmet, and candy. Some of those presents were from grandmas, so I didn't give her too much. She's getting old now it's hard to think of presents to give! Instead, I decided we should go on a birthday date.

At ten years old, Ava loves to do art, drama, music, and read. She is constantly doing cartwheels and handstands in the house and is either super enthusiastic and happy or in a "woe is me" mood. She is still the child that stretches and challenges me the most.  She has friends at school, but would prefer if she just had one best friend that they always know they'll be each other's partner and play with each other at recess. Right now she doesn't have that and it's hard for her. She is happiest if she is having a play date or out doing an activity. Ava is starting to be a good helper and will do things like unload the dishwasher, put away laundry, peel and cut a cucumber. 

Ava loves Coen from about 8:30 pm on, when they're going to sleep and they can talk in their bunk beds. Otherwise they fight like crazy. She loves playing dolls with Audrey and those two can also be little buddies or enemies (depending on moods). Ava is a natural leader and so assertive. She also has a tender heart and loves to bear her testimony and says some really insightful things. The other day I was cleaning up her desk and found her notes from General Conference. The heading said "what I learned from conference" and she wrote, "even though it's hard for me to feel the spirit, Heavenly Father and Jesus are real." I thought it was so sweet and earnest. 

From Audrey's babysitter- these two love to play dress up!

Coen had his last basketball practice and we took pictures. I loved his basketball season (and so did he!)

On Friday evening we went to Red Robin to celebrate mine and Ava's birthdays. 

After Red Robin we went to an arcade and I think skee ball was the favorite for all of us.

Saturday was my birthday and it started off with Coen's last basketball game. 

Coen had his best ever game and made 6 baskets! 

He had a loud cheering section :)

After the game Ava and I went on our birthday date, first to get yummy sandwiches.

Then we went to Target and we each picked out something. Ava got a swimming suit and cover up.

My friend remembered that I loooove German chocolate cake and made me one!

I opened up my presents and then we took the kids to Ben's house to be babysat while Brent and I went to the adult session of Stake Conference. It was a really great session and I think one of the most important things we learned from one of the general authorities was "parents are the primary enticers for good in their children's lives." He said that we shouldn't give our kids the option to do good things like go to church or go on a mission, and then step back and hope they make the right decision, and hope Satan also steps back. He basically said we need to help the kid make the good decision.

On Sunday I let Audrey sleep in so Coen and I watched Stake Conf on zoom on my bed while Brent and Ava went to the church.

Tammy Tuesday- sometimes she comes earlier to give Audrey some one on one attention.

Brent and I had an interview at 7am on zoom with Elder Sikahema for Brent's BYU-Hawaii application. That night I had been up with Audrey for a few hours (I think she had a cold) so I was tired! It went well though- there were questions for both of us throughout. He asked questions such as what Brent thought about gender and marriage, and what Brent would say if students asked about this or that. Brent did such a good job answering. At the very end, he asked me how Brent would fit in to BYU's mission and I cried when I explained that Brent is Christlike in that he is always looking out for the student who feels marginalized or lost. Brent is good at reaching out to them and making them feel loved and that they can pass the class.  At the end Elder S. said, "I'm writing up my report and you're passing with flying colors. Those students deserve to have a teacher like you." Then he said, "Sister Cowley, you married a very good man. Brother Cowley when you married, you knocked it out of the park." After we hung up, I said we need a selfie to remember this, teary eyes and all!

Oh and PS, I'm happy to report that the kids all slept until the interview was done, phew!

After school puddle jumping time!

I felt like this could be on the front of their studio album if they ever had one :)

Check out that action shot!

On Friday night Brent and I had tickets to see the Oscar nominated shorts at the theater. We decided to try leaving the kids alone at home with Ava as the babysitter since the shorts didn't start til 7pm. I was nervous about it but Brent said we have cameras, and we can leave one phone with Ava- they'll be fine! I fed them dinner before I left and so they only had to watch their movie and then go to bed. I left instructions for Ava and one of the most important instructions was "do not touch each other!" 

After each short we'd check on the kids via the cameras and we saw that Ava even read Audrey a book before bed. We came home to three sleeping kids and looked at each other and thought have we entered a new phase of parenthood?! What is this?!

On Saturday my friend invited me to meet up with her and a few other moms at Sweet Creek Falls, which is about an hour from our house. Brent had to work on his dissertation, as he has been most weekends for months, so I was brave and drove alone with my kids. We put on the Winnie the Pooh CD and they sang along happily as we drove. 

Sweet Creek Falls was so different in the winter than in the summer when I've been! The amount of water was stunning, but scary! Audrey and Olivia wanted to hold hands a lot of the way.

This is about the same place where the kids had waded through the gentle river a couple summers ago and thought it was so fun. On this day the water was ferocious and there is no way anyone could have gotten in, even if it was warm.

A couple videos to show you how beautiful it is:

That evening we all went to see Avatar The Way of Water at the theater. Brent had gotten an Oscars pass and saw about 7 or 8 Oscar movies that week at the theater. Audrey lasted the whole 3 hours of the movie! We had suckers and other snacks to help, but she was a good girl on Brent's lap.

Oscar Sunday was maybe a little boring- we didn't have a party this year. We all filled out predictions and watched with Brent though. While I was cooking dinner Coen came to me with his troubles, "I don't know who to put for Best Picture. I really want to put Avatar, but Dad says it's going to be Everything Everywhere All at Once. I just don't know what to do!!" I laughed and told Coen he could guess whoever he likes, it was OK. 

Cooking with Audrey- she randomly told me she was excited for her birthday on August 8.

We have been working on filling our pom pom jar for a couple months and we finally got the last pom pom in! It's hard to tell, Coen is holding the little glass jar with 100 tiny pom poms. Their reward was in a few days.

Audrey's speech teacher sent this to me- Audrey is doing well in speech and works hard!

We had a watercolor night for Activity Days and it was super fun!

Happy Audrey on our way to meet the kids as they walk home from school:

Doing Come Follow Me at Night, we talked about Jesus walking on the water. Audrey said, "I not brave. I not even walk on water. That not work." Haha. 

Audrey's thing she says now all the time is 'bout for how about. For example, if I ask her to get her pajamas on, she might say 'bout I not tired? She says the word at the beginning of nearly every response she gives me. 

When Brent and I kissed in front of Audrey she said, "stop getting married!" 

We had the Sister missionaries over to dinner and had a lot of green food on St. Patrick's Day. Green noodles (pesto), broccoli, and green jello. 

A video of these two gigglers:

Coen told me one day, "I want to be a vegetarian when I grow up, so I can be nice to animals and take care of them." I asked him, do you mean a veterinarian? 

On Saturday we took our friends dinner that had just had a baby. Then we went to Winco and let the kids pick out some candy from the bulk section as part of their reward for filling the pom pom jar. 

Then we made a blanket pile and watched a movie. The kids chose Spirited because they have been listening to that music non-stop since we watched the movie at Christmastime. 

Kids all in green for St. Patricks Day!

On Sunday the Sisters came over to film our kids talk about General Conference so that they could create a video for their Facebook page. Audrey's contribution was singing Follow the Prophet with Coen at the very end because we couldn't get her to make a peep otherwise.

That evening we had the Elders and Josh and Amaya over to dinner. This made three nights in a row of making dinner for people! After the missionaries left we played Life. 

Audrey's preschool class picture that sits outside her classroom, I wanted to remember them! From left to right we have Rylan, Haisley, Barrett, Hailey, Audrey, Colby, Elias, Aberdeen, Owen, Taeven, and Teacher Alexa.

The kids had spirit week and this was "dress like your teacher day." Ava was Prof. McGonagall and Coen was Brent.

Check out this huge spider Brent found in our living room. We re-homed him, outside.

We're going to skip over our Redwoods trip since that will get its own post. We traveled Friday through Tuesday. When we got back into town, the kids had no school for Spring Break for the rest of the week so they did things like read, watch movies, play legos, etc while Brent and I worked. Audrey did go to her babysitter's one day which was helpful, and I got this cute picture:

Coen looked like Andrew my bother so I sent a picture to show him:

One evening we were invited to "Grandma Audrey's" house (from our ward) to play a monthly mystery game, this one was based in Canada. So we had Canadian food for dinner and then played the game while the kids watched Cars. 

And that wraps up March! Very busy with movies, interviews, dinners, and also not pictured as much- Brent and I working. It was much better than February, luckily!