November 2024- Coen turns 9 & Thanksgiving with new friends

 It's always a good Saturday when we get up with a plan and head to the beach. This Saturday we went to Kawela Bay, my favorite.

We had the beach mostly to ourselves.

A video of Coen trying to balance on boogie board:

We came home and showered, ate lunch, and then headed to BYU campus to watch the play for the semester, You Can't Take it With You.

I was impressed that Audrey sat through the whole thing since it's not a musical, and just had lots of dialogue and jokes over her head. She was fascinated with the whole thing (are they real life?) and wanted to go on the stage after. 

That evening I had a Taylor Swift girls party at my house. Ava was particularly excited about this! I invited lots of my neighbors.

We had so much fun watching the concert! A few of the ladies had never seen it before and loved it.

In the meantime, Brent took the kids out to Buffalo Wild Wings at the mall nearest our house (45 minutes away). 

He let the kids play at the mall which is a special treat since we have no playground near our home.

Audrey working on her bridge at tumbling.

The kids love playing with our duplex neighbor, Oliver. Their thing is to go on the trampoline and play "poison ball." Oliver is a year older than Coen and has down syndrome. Oliver's mom and I often chat while our kids play, and it warms both of our hearts to see our kids playing so well together. Oliver's parents are such beautiful examples of having patience and love for their children- I find myself trying to be a better mom when I'm around them. I feel like the luckiest to have them as neighbors.

Audrey can be such a goof. Here she is bowing to "your majesty." I think she got this from Bluey.

Audrey can also be determined... Here she is throwing a tantrum because she wants to wear her new sparkle dress that's too big, so we're saving it for a few months. 

Brent watched the younger two at his office while I took Ava to an appointment. If he has a student that wants to meet with him, the kids hang out in the courtyard or hallway just outside his office. I feel like this is a scene we might only see at BYU Hawaii- barefoot kids hanging out at dad's office.

A snapshot of our weather forecast -not much variety this week, and that's ok with me!

Coen came home from school with a birthday crown- they celebrated his birthday on Friday November 8th. It hadn't occurred to me to send a birthday treat before his birthday, so we did our treat on Tuesday after his birthday. 

Audrey really loves these monkey bars at her preschool and asks every day if she can play on them on our way to the car.

We went to a retirement party for Carol Petersen on campus. She was the secretary for Brent's department for many years -she and her husband lived here over 35 years. She and her family (grandkids too) were our first friends here.

Two videos of baby dancing in my belly- sorry about the garments, but the baby dancing is too good to not save these!

Ava was having a rough Saturday. Saturdays are always the hardest for her (and therefore us) due to no routine. We decided to split up and Brent took the younger two to his office and she and I went to the beach to read our books.

Of course Ava had to get in the water:

Back at home our neighbor got out water balloons for his kids, and many of the neighborhood kids ended up in the driveway playing with them. Our neighbor not only welcomed them, he created a game for all the kids to play together. This is just one example of the communal nature of our street.  

I went to a baby shower for a friend. It was held at an Airbnb of their friend. 

That evening we went to Food Fest on campus which is where all the different clubs cook and sell food from their cultures.

It was a hopping party!

Audrey was a stinker and crying and begging for cotton candy the whole time. We finally got some, and then she cried for face paint. At the end of the night, we had one ticket left and the only thing we could find that cost one ticket was the face paint, so little stinker got that! And then she still wasn't happy.... it was time to go home to bed.

Brent and I were called to be primary teachers together (best calling ever!) a few weeks before the primary program. So we were up on the stand but still enjoyed primary program day!

It was Ava's last primary program, which I don't think she was sad about.

As a reward for doing a good job in the program, the singing leader had all of the teachers dress up in silly costumes while they sang. That would be me with an elf hat and orange wig in the middle.

Coen's birthday was on a Monday and we had no school since it's on Veteran's Day. We went to the water park, Wet n Wild, and took our friend Emily. Her mom had taken our family pictures the day before-  I'll include just a couple of the pictures here. See the previous post for my favorite pictures!

Here's a video of the kids singing in car on the way to Wet n Wild:

Birthday boy

I spent a lot of time in the wave pool and lazy river.

We met up with some friends for a bit there too:

I took otter pops to Coen's class for his birthday. I felt slightly guilty for taking the easy, cheap way out for a birthday treat, but the kids all were excited and appreciative. 

A kitty showed up on our porch and really wanted to be ours. The kids begged, but I said no. The kitty sat on our porch for about a day and then moved on.

I looked out the window and saw Coen across the street playing a basketball game with neighbors. Another example of the kind of street we live on! Anyone, just join in. I'm glad Coen is out of his shell and runs around the street playing with kids. It took Audrey about 30 seconds, but it took Coen about 2 weeks. Ava only plays outside occasionally- there aren't too many kids her age, but there are quite a few girls two years younger that she sometimes wants to play with.

We went to a health night at the school, and this station allowed the kids to guess how much sugar is in different beverages like juice, energy drinks, and soda. The amount of sugar in the cups was gross! The funniest thing was when we got the answers at the end from this volunteer girl from BYUH. She showed us that coke had the highest sugar content, and one of the kids pointed out that she was wearing a shirt that said "enjoy Coca Cola." Haha. She looked down and said "Oh! Well, we should only drink it as a special treat."

A station at the health night for dancing the zumba. Here's Audrey and two of her best friends here, Claire and Zoe.

Brent took Ava to get shave ice as a reward for getting a cavity filled, despite her being scared of dentists (don't judge the irony okay?)

Audrey started speech at home on Thursdays. It's through a program that is funded by donors and we don't need to pay anything. Her speech therapist brings fun games and activities for Audrey and she loves it.

My view while working- I love the bump! It was starting to get uncomfortable to sit for too long at a time though so I had to take lots of breaks and stand, or lay on Ava's bed next to the desk. My feet were swelling each day, and I had a lot of pelvic pain, so I had to go to physical therapy and do stretches each day to try to help with that. It hurt so much to walk up the stairs, and by around dinner time I could barely stand for longer than a few minutes at a time. Still, I love being pregnant because the joy of growing a little person, feeling them move, and falling in love with them is unmatched.

Coen decided he wanted a minion birthday party. Here's his invitation (Crossed off personal info for the blog since I never know about crazies.): 

Pictures from Coen's party- he drew this pin the eye on Minion himself:

And for about 10 days beforehand, Coen and Ava drew different minions from the movies on index cards. A couple of our neighbors helped for a few, and in total they made over 80! We taped them all up on the wall for decorations, and then Brent turned it into a fun guessing game for the kids.

The kids had pizza and breadsticks for dinner and watched the new Despicable Me movie. 

Opening presents:

Our big 9 year old!

At nine years old, Coen loves reading, playing basketball, and playing with his friends. He is extremely smart and finds school boring. I've talked to his teacher about giving him the most advanced level work, and she does, but it's still too easy. Just last night I was sitting with him while he was doing his math homework, and I discovered he knows all of his times tables. I've never seen him practicing them, or helped him with them. I asked if his class is learning them this year and he said yes. I asked him how he already knows them all and he shrugged and said "I learned most of them in kindergarten." I remember this now- he watched Ava learning them and must have remembered them.

Coen is a homebody. He complains about going to school, church, the beach, Costco, etc. He usually is happy in the end that he went. He loves Dogman, playing games, and lives for movie nights. His favorite foods (and he reminds me often) are pizza, and steak.

He can be very moody and sassy and I'm hoping this is a stage since he has always been our mellow, sweet boy. He still is the peacemaker in our family and the one most likely to give in to both of his sisters. Coen plays well with all kids, and all kids love Coen. I often hear from adults about how well loved he is. 

Coen has an advanced sense of humor and can be so funny. He has the funniest, most contagious giggle, and we are so glad that we have him in our family!

Ava's plant cell project she worked hard on, and got a good grade! Ava really enjoys science and is good at it. 

We went to the salsa orchestra on campus and had lots of fun. The music is so lively and the singers are really good!

At church, I spied a girl making a lei with ti leaves. Can you spot her pile of leaves on the ground that she had woven and her leaves on the bench? Leis are given for all sorts of occasions- this was a farewell.

We had our friend Megan over to dinner- she was about to graduate! She was one of my YW when we lived in Texas.

We left the kids at home and went to the CAC to hear Elder Renlund. I love how many opportunities we have to hear amazing church leaders here.

We went to the Hukilau Marketplace at the PCC for a Giving Machines kick off for the Christmas season. 

Since we don't have annual passes to the PCC this year, it had been quite a while since we had seen the hula or other dancing, and I missed it!

A group of kids sang the anthem of Hawaii called "Hawaii Pono'i." Audrey surprised me by saying she knows the song, and sings it every morning at preschool. Ava said she learned it last year too. I took a video of them singing it:

Audrey learned a song for preschool turkey trot and asked Alexa to play it so she could sign along. It talks about how we should go and get an education and "climb the ladder."

There is a film club that meets on campus once a month, and Brent was the host for November. Each month a professor chooses a film to watch and discuss. Brent chose to do film shorts. 

Our Christmas cards arrived quickly this year, a Christmas miracle!

Coen playing nurf gun war with other boys at Primary activity. They hunted for gratitude turkeys, which were turkeys taped to paper cups. It was cute!

One day Audrey's speech teacher brought her this gingerbread house. Audrey had to practice saying her L sound and then would get a candy sticker to decorate her house.

Super citizen assembly- Coen was a super citizen! Each teacher from the whole school chooses two kids to be a super citizen, and the parents come to the assembly and give leis to their kids and friends.

Look at how many leis this girl has! And lots of them are bags of chips, or candy bars, tied with a ribbon.

Beautiful sunrise:

Beautiful sunset. I try to look at the sunset every night. We get so many beautiful ones here, and I love it.

Baby bump picture- 32 weeks! Baby is getting very big, and things are starting to feel very real.

I heard that the a Polynesian canoe was going to be stopping at Hukilau, and our relief society was invited to bring desserts. We went over to check out this cultural events, because I didn't quite understand what was happening. I learned in the Polynesian culture, as a canoe makes stops around the island, each community is supposed to welcome the sailors and feed them. So this was the Hokule'a canoe that stopped at the Hukilau, and Laie celebrated with songs, speeches, and chants. 

A video of them singing in Hawaiian

Then we watched as the sailors were taken back out to the canoe, as someone blew a conch shell, and the canoe sailed south.

A treat for Coen because he was super citizen- this is what he picked out at the convenience store:

Look at this active baby! Sooooo amazing. This NEVER gets old.

We went to the BYUH studio orchestra concert, and it was SO good. We brought along a few kids from our neighborhood and they all loved it. Our friend, Prof Henderson, had gone to the archives at BYU and found that the music for Mickey & the Beanstalk was housed there. (No one knows how it ended up there!) He and some of his students orchestrated the music for the full orchestra so they could perform it. This music had never performed live since it was originally recorded in the 1940s. 

The girl who played the giant was so funny and good. Here's a clip of Coen and his friends laughing at her performance:

Another baby bump picture, with Audrey. 

Someone in our ward that I didn't know yet text me and asked if I would like their baby swing? I said sure! Seeing this baby swing made things get really real. And also made me realize I should probably start preparing for the baby!

Audrey had a turkey trot at the beach across the street from her preschool. Each class has races with the girls and then the boys, and they just run a short distance. In every race someone fell, and as you'll see in this video, Audrey fell! She jumped back up and kept running, and didn't seem fazed by it at all.

Each kid got a price for participating which thrilled Audrey. The real winners got mini trophies too, but Audrey was happy with her glow wand.

The kids helped decorate the backs of the envelopes of the Christmas cards. This is always people's favorite part!

A walk along the beach with Brent on a Wednesday morning before starting work. 

Audrey's preschool had a celebration for Thanksgiving which always includes jumpers (jumping castles).

The night before Thanksgiving we were invited to the Packers (who live two houses away) for a pie night. We had fun with lots of our neighbors.

Thanksgiving morning- we watched the parade! Coen was very into minions, so needed a picture with this balloon:

They also needed a picture of Bluey:

Brent grilling (barefoot) part of our contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. We made lots of bacon wrapped chicken, rainbow jello, stuffing, and pie. 

We were invited to the Henderson's for Thanksgiving, along with 5 other families. We didn't know any of the other families, and by the time we left, we had lots of new friends. 

Audrey dressed up as a monkey to go.... (?) No one batted an eye. Things here in Hawaii are just very laid back and I feel no pressure to look a certain way or dress my kids in the latest styles, which I love. Here's a video of her doing her new thing, telling me she's watching me. This girl is so entertaining!

Lots of new friends. On the left we have the Morrises - he's the new drama teacher at BYUH. He's a convert to the church at age 18, and his wife is from England and is so funny. They have 7 children, and have fostered even more children. On the right we have the Fosters- he's half Latino, and she's from Turkey. She is a ballerina and a dance teacher at BYUH. They met here in Hawaii when she was is in her early 20s, and she was baptized. In the center we have Brother Henderson (didn't get his wife in the pic!) He is an orchestra professor at BYUH and so amazing at what he does, and so funny. All amazing, accomplished people we got to sit by- it was a Thanksgiving to remember!

Lucky me, Brent decided to hang Christmas lights on our house! He always tells me that he doesn't want to, but he knows I love it. Plus he found them on sale at Costco :)

Black Friday- we went to the beach of course! A video I sent to my sisters to get them excited about visiting us.

All afternoon of Black Friday I spent buying alllll the things we'd need for baby. It was a great time to buy everything on Amazon. Ava loved sitting by me and helping pick stuff out. 

We went to our friends, the Tuutau's house that night for Thanksgiving leftovers on Friday. Audrey dressed in Brandy's Harry Potter stuff:

The kids created a city with their Little People, complete with Christmas Town, Halloween Town, the woods and mountains.

On Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend I took Ava on a special girls day out. First we went shopping at Target and she got a couple new dresses.

Then we met up with friends to watch Wicked. I had seen it with my parents when I was about 20, and listened to the music ever since, but Ava only knew a few songs from the play. We really loved the movie, and Ava has been obsessed with it ever since!

And that completes November! It was such a great month!