March 2017 - Trip to Eugene

Ava was so excited for her birthday to finally arrive! It fell on a Wednesday which is the day I worked, so Brent picked her up from school and took her to Eureka Park, which is her favorite. 

She chose Chick Fil-A for dinner and sang to herself when the food came:

My big four-year old!

She wanted a cake with all the colors of frosting- a rainbow cake! I was tempted to say she could only choose one color, but since it was her birthday, we made all four.

She loved all the presents she got. These were Minnie Legos from Wasana

I love the way Ava says lemonade. "Ma-ma-maid"

We had a stake relief society activity with a taco dinner first and then a great speaker who paints pictures of Christ. I drove with some of the women in my ward and it was a really fun night. I was so stressed from work and the process of buying our house (a nightmare!) that it was good for me to get out and have fun. Brent watched the kids without a fuss, as he always does.

On Saturday it was my birthday, but that was the day we planned Ava's birthday party. She was confused and kept saying that it wasn't my birthday, it was hers! It was cold and rainy so we moved her party from the park to the church and it worked out perfectly.

We only invited three families in the ward, but that was just right. The kids just ran around and played and we had Papa Murphy's pizza.

Her friend Gibson gave her this Moana outfit.

Since it was my birthday and I decided to take a day off from the stress of busy season and issues with the house in Oregon. I just relaxed and let Brent pamper me! We went to Kohls and I got a wreath holder for the front door of our new house since the house needs a wreath. For dinner we went to Red Robin for my free birthday burger.

Mirror selfie. It feels weird to be 30 now!

This is what Coen does whenever we ask him where something is.

Birthday girls

The following week was more stress as I had to work a ton on Monday and Tuesday to get my work done before we went to Eugene to see our house. Then on Monday someone from Wells Fargo called me and let me know that we might not me able to buy our house after all since Brent is switching jobs in the summer. They wouldn't let us close on a house until 90 days before his new job in Oregon starts. Have I mentioned this month was hard for me?! At least we had a beautiful sunset at dinner:

Things were getting too crazy so I started sending Coen to Katie's (who used to watch Ava) once or twice a week. I was really sad to send him since he is my little buddy and always hooked at my hip. But he has done great and likes it. These are a couple pictures I got from Katie:

The state of our house when Brent and I are working a ton:

Our sweet friends the Merrells offered to watch Ava for us so we didn't have to buy a ticket for her to Oregon. She was excited to have sleepovers at their house and Brent, Coen and I flew to Oregon.

We stopped in SLC for a layover. Ahhh.

Our realtor picked us up at the airport and took us straight to the house. Coen went right for the stairs.

We really loved the house in person. It was built in 2013.

Brent and our realtor talking. We had had about a dozen and a half LONG conversations with her on the phone to get to this point of having an offer on a house:

This is the view across the street

The street (Adelman Loop)

We then went to get our rental car and checked into our hotel, completely exhausted since we had been up since about 3 am Oregon time.

The next morning we went to campus. I just kept saying, "the trees!!!"

The famous field that I was previously unaware of :)

We drove down to Creswell which is a little town south of Eugene that had a home we had absolutely loved before. It already had a pending offer on it so we were sad to miss it, but still drove to check it out. This is my, "oh mannnnn!" face:

We actually are really happy with the home we are getting and I don't feel bad about not living in Creswell at all (ghetto). The neighborhood where our home is the most beautiful we saw in Eugene, and it has a brand new park just one street from our house.

After Creswell, we drove down to Cottage Grove and Brent was super excited to see that the General (Buster Keaton's film) was filmed here. Brent has a connection with Buster Keaton and we nearly named Coen "Keaton."

We looked up good restaurants in this tiny town and found this amazing BBQ restaurant! 

This is what the whole area looked like. Gorgeous! But the buildings and houses are mostly ugly. Why!?

Then we went back to our almost-house to go over the home inspection, which went really well.

The owner's cat is hilarious and has showed up in all the pictures that people take of the house, including the ones the realtor took for us. The cat is so social and follows everyone around, but was so scared of Coen!

Checking each other out:

The end of our street- just protected grasslands as we are on the very west side of Eugene.

That evening we went to dinner with our realtor *really our friend by this point* and her husband. We got "hippy tacos." Everything is so environmentally friendly in the city- it seems to define their culture. As we were walking back from dinner, our realtor's husband pointed out the Cannabis shop across the street. We got in the car and then a lady passed by, walking her ferret. I was like, what is this place!? Hahaha, so funny.

The next morning we went to campus for Brent to meet with professors that he may work with.

The campus is beautiful and has some of the only brick in the whole city. I love brick, so I may spend some time on his campus basking in it.

More campus

While he was in meetings, my mom's friend's daughter who lives in Eugene came and picked me up and took me and Coen to the park. This day was really special because... the sun was shining!! It was the only time the sun came out in quite a few days. So we enjoyed it at the park and it was so nice of Casey to drive me around.

After Brent's meetings we met up and did some house stuff with the realtor, and then we went for a drive around the west side of Eugene.

There are quite a few of these shops:

That evening we went to dinner at a young couple's house that Brent had met when we went out in September. They live in a different ward, but have two small boys. They were really nice to invite us again!

On Saturday morning Brent got up early and walked around town with Coen. Then we drove to Springfield (east side of Eugene) and took a picture with this Simpsons mural. The creator of the Simpsons is from Oregon.

Our future home for the next four years.

On the way home we had a layover again in SLC. Brent and I were excited to see Cafe Rio at the airport there! So we picked up some to eat on the plane for dinner. The flight attendant was obsessed with Coen and loved that he liked to put out his finger to touch hers, something we call "ET Finger" and he'll do on command. She learned that he liked bananas and so she went and got one for him!

Coen really liked her too, and peeked down the aisle, smiling.

Ava did so great at her friend's house, and she slept all night, all three nights! I was so glad because I was worried about her keeping them up in the night. I was proud of her for being so brave and having a fun time. They said she only cried once on the last day, and said she missed us. Other than that, she just played, ate all of her food, and had fun in their backyard! We are so grateful to them! We were happy to have seen our house in Oregon in person, and we knew that we wanted it, and would keep fighting to get it!

February 2017 - the 100 mph roller coaster month

Ava has been such an awful sleeper (waking up crying from nightmares approximately 5-6 times a week). One of the suggestions we got was to do yoga. She loved it. We did that, and had calm time, Brent gave her a blessing.... She still woke up screaming. So we gave up and moved her onto the floor of our room and it's been much better. Now she wakes up maybe 3-4 times a week. But we can go right back to sleep after shushing her. 

 Litle man likes to fit in small containers.

A video of Coen displaying his animal sounds. Hint: they ALL say roar.

Brent took the kids on a walk while I did some birthday shopping for Ava.

 Coen decided he wanted to be the one to feed himself. It's pretty nice! He does get fairly messy though. Worth it.

 Just me and Princess Belle.

 Ava in primary- what a big girl! She gave her first talk on family history and shared a story from her Great Grandpa Hansen's autobiography.

 Messy face, learning to feed himself.

Video of my Texan boy:

 I took a turn watching the kids during institute. There were two other moms luckily, because we had 22 kids.

Ava lost her hair clip at Sprouts. She was devastated. The next morning I found it on the bottom of the strawberries package! When I picked her up from school, I told her and videoed her reaction:

 Wasana gave Coen this car toy and he loves it :)

 Elizabeth Smart came to UNT to speak as part of a lecture series and so I went! I've read her book so I don't know if I learned anything new, but it was still cool to see her.

 Sometimes I just take pictures of Ava because she's looking so cute.

Ava was really liking to pretend that her Valentines cards were books.

"Only a Ho-man! (human). Not a mermaid blankie..."

 I went to Ava's preschool for her Valentine's party. I was the only mom that came, but she was so excited for me to be there and help!

 The Valentines party was basically just glorified snack time and passing out their valentines to each other. They say prayer before snack.

"Let us thank him for our food. Amen!"

 Ava and her favorite special friend, Timothy "Tiffy." He was quite the ladies man, leaning over the table and saying, "I brought purple dinosaurs for you girls." Ava and Timothy's pending marriage is sometimes on, sometimes off.

After school we went to the library with our friends.

Brent and I had a Valentines date and Tabitha came to watch the kids. They both adore her.

Brent and I went to Chuys, which is a Mexican restaurant we've been wanting to try. They had the most random shirts, and this one made me laugh:

Ava and I went to the dentist together. We went to a lady in our ward and Ava was so nervous before hand. Here's a selfie I found on my phone from the office.

As soon as Ava saw the toys in the waiting room, she was put to ease. The dentist only checked her mouth for a quick second and said she has no cavities, and then Ava got to choose a toy. I, on the other hand, have a couple cavities for the first time in my life. So sad! As we left Ava asked if she could come back the next day.

Coen helping me in the kitchen one day.

 Coen says "ba" for banana. And he asks for these constantly. He would eat three a day if I let him.

I cut Brent's hair and it is so hard! After I've done about half his hair, I start to panic because it looks so crazy being only half done. This time, I accidentally got the spot above his ear way to short. Here's Brent as I'm working on his hair- he was not thrilled. But he's also not thrilled about paying for a haircut.

In this video I say, "that's the bad part." Oops!!! Don't worry, I fixed it a little bit more after?? And it's grown in a little better now. Oh man. 

Family selfie that Ava requested. 

We went to our friends for dinner and games. We played charades again with them and Matt is so funny when it's his turn. Brent tries to help him out.

We started looking for houses in Oregon since we found out Brent was accepted, and we found this house that we loved:

I looked at it and thought I could totally picture it being our house. Brent text me from school and said "this is our house!" It's in a new development and has 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths. We put an offer on it and it has taken so much time working with our realtor, getting bank financing lined up, etc. SO much work to buy a house! We've been so stressed and going a little crazy between that and our normally busy March month we have.

Coen discovered Doritos and loved them:

I took Coen to a play date with friends in the ward. This little girl is from Nigeria and is so cute!

Coen threw up on a Friday night but then acted fine after that. On Tuesday night, it hit Ava and she was so sick all night. It was so sad. She slept on the bathroom floor part of the night. I got it the next day but not quite as bad as Ava.

Coen just being giggly:

 I'm not sure why I took this picture- probably just because he's cute.

 Brent was at Walmart and found tons of shoes on sale for $3 each. I've been looking for months for Sunday shoes for Ava but haven't found any cheap enough. These were a little tender mercy for us!

 This comment from her teacher at the bottom made me laugh a lot for some reason.

Making me play Cinderella with her new black shoes. She runs and it falls off and I have to try it on her foot. 

 Ava has such an imagination. About 80% of things that come out of her mouth are make believe. One day she casually pointed to the man in the center of this magnet and said, "this is my dad..."

 Picnic at the park.

 Brent hosted an oscar party on campus and lots of people came! There were great prizes and Brent did lots of games. We joined for a little bit and then I took the kids home to bed. I was in bed when they announced the wrong best picture winner. Doh.

Coen got very sleepy during lunch one day:

 I picked up Cat in the Hat from school. After this she said, "I no like hats on my head. Hats on heads is dumb."

February was such a whirl wind for us! Between getting home from Disney World, finding out Brent was accepted to Oregon, a few colds, the stomach flu, getting pre-approved to buy a house and putting an offer on a house, busy season for me, and Brent trying to finish his thesis, it was nuts! But we had lots of blessings along the way and we are grateful!