April 2017 - Our last month in Texas

April Fools Day was pretty uneventful, until I was making dinner and Brent was driving home from school. I've always been nervous about him driving on the twisty road by our house, Hickory Creek, and every day I pray as he leaves school that he'll be safe. I just finished my prayer when he sent me a picture of this and my heart stopped for one second. 

Then I saw that his car looked fine. Mean Brent! He saw this woman lose control and crash right into a tree. The streets were a little slick from rain. She was OK luckily. 

Here's a video of the kids performing on the shed stage. 

Coen wants me to put things on his head when I'm folding laundry.

This little girl does not stop talking. She always has lots of things to tell us.

Ava looking all cute in her [immodest] Moana outfit. :)

We had a super large lizard living in our garage that Ava was so scared of. One day the garage door smashed it. When we raised the garage door to leave, Ava was horrified. It WAS SO NASTY. I took this video when Brent was out disposing of the lizard. Ava says, that she wants "no lizards in Oregon, in the garage. Nasty nasty nasty." This video sums up Texas in about seven seconds. The crazy creatures, Ava talking non-stop, both kids without shirts, and Coen just being chill and watching Ava. 

Coen fell asleep on me one night and I have to say I didn't put him in bed for quite a while. I just enjoyed his snuggles.

 Coen learned how to say thank you and he knows it melts our hearts so he says it quite often.

I'm too cheap to buy school pictures so excuse the screen shots here :) Here's Ava's cute preschool class and amazing (AMAZING) teacher, Ms. Caresse. So we remember, front row left to right: Miller, Ava, Aiden, Daphne, Timothy, Claire, Ms. Caresse, Wren, Avery, Penley, Olivia, Gibson, and Kelly.

Oh how joyous was the day when we signed on our house! We took our kids to a babysitter's house and a notary came to our house and we signed the papers at our kitchen table. It was such a relief to finally have everything worked out!

Here's a video of Ava's hips. I think I need to sign her up for hula lessons. That would be cool.

Brent was really busy with his thesis so I took the kids to Young Women with me. Coen wanted to sit in Tabitha's lap the whole time.

On Thursday morning Brent left for his conference in Portland where he presented on eco-value messages in animation, specifically in the Disney Company's eco-friendly reaction to the controversial release of Wall-E. Got that?

He went to Japanese botanical gardens with his group.

Meanwhile back in Texas, we met our friends at Eureka Park. 

That one moment Ava had the cutest top-bun.

The days went by so slowly without Brent. I had fun with the kids, but it was hard and lonely too! On Friday evening we went to get hamburgers and we ate them at home.

On Saturday morning I had to have the house all clean for the realtor to come take pictures for the website. I took some so we can always remember our cute perfect Texas house! I loved this house so much and it holds so many sweet memories.

I took the kids to the library for story time

On Saturday afternoon we went to the grocery store. By this point I was feeling pretty super mom.

In Oregon, Brent went to dinner at some friends from his mission. Then on Sunday he drove to Eugene and went on a hike with our realtor friend. He ate dinner with the sellers of our home, and actually stayed at their new house, which is just down the road from our new house. He got the keys to our house.

I took the kids to church by myself and Coen got to come to Young Women with me (he usually doesn't.) He loved getting all the attention from the girls! Sunday afternoon and evening was really long without Brent. He just makes everything fun!

Brent came home on Monday night late and I was so happy to have him home!

We had an Easter party and Brent's preschool and neither of the kids wanted to sit on Easter Bunny's lap. Can you blame them?

The kids both loved finding eggs and got a ton of candy. 

We went to the Mazda dealership to check out how much we could get for our car. Turns out hardly anything. But Coen and I took this cute picture.

Easter Sunday with my girlie.

Coen's Easter pictures. Don't mind he doesn't have pants on! He got these little cars from the Easter Bunny.

Ava was so excited about the Rapunzel movie and pink dress in her Easter basket. The Easter Bunny didn't want to wake up too early before church so the Easter Bunny came after church while the kids and I were on a walk ;)

Brent defended his thesis on Monday. My friend Katie watched the kids so that I could go support him. Yay Brent!

Wohoo, done with UNT!

We went to the Merrell's house for FHE and had lots of fun. 

We had Tabitha come babysit one last time and Brent and I went bowling and to Sonic. It was a great date.

Ava drew this picture and it's the first time I have seen her draw something that looks like a person. I thought it was so cute!

Coen got suddenly very obsessed with the song "Try Everything"from Zootopia. We all love the song too, but this boy wanted to hear the song over and over and over any time he saw a phone, iPad, or TV. Here's a video of him asking for the song.

We went to Eureka Park again with my friend Katie and Coen got into chalk that some people had brought. It looked like he had played in makeup.

Ava and her friend Lilian.

Ava came out of her quiet time dressed like this. Coen was happy to wear Mickey ears too.

We went to Kaylie's birthday party and the kids loved the piñata.

We had so much fun with the Merrells the past couple years in Texas. Brent and I got along so well with Vernice and Matt. Any time we were together there were lots of laughs. Ava and Kaylie are best friends which makes it extra fun.

Just had to include this to document Ava's funny faces in pictures!

Coen and Madison were cute little friends too.

Here's a video of Coen saying "Grandpa"

Brent took Ava to the new Disney nature movie, Born in China, and I stayed home with Coen, who is too hard to take to movies these days.

After the movie Brent took Ava to Gibson's birthday party at Chuck-e Cheese.

She didn't like the loud music during the show apparently :)

On Sunday my mom came into town to help us as we prepared to move. Brent had started packing some boxes each day a couple weeks before. I hate the packing phase so much. 

On Monday we had the Merrells over for one last FHE. It was Kaylie's birthday so she blew out a candle.  

The next day we went to Eureka Park one last time with Katie and her girls. We took some cute pictures in the wild flowers here:

Thursday was Ava's last day of preschool. I nearly broke down crying when I picked her up. I loved her preschool so much, and her teacher was just so good with the kids. I loved that it was a Christian school and they prayed before eating, they had chapel and learned bible verses and songs, etc. I also loved that they did so many different activities with the kids like science, singing time, Spanish, tablets, etc. Ava grew up so much this year and is starting to be able to write quite a few letters. Ava went here Monday through Thursday, 9am - 2pm, so it was a big part of our lives.

All the kids ran to Ava to give her hugs goodbye.

Sweet friends. The boy on the end, Timothy, was her crush during the year.

Ava found these baby swimming bottoms and insisted on wearing them on her head like this for a walk.

Oh this crazy girl!

Ava and grandma watching Trolls.

Packing up to go to the airport. Ugh, the lump in my throat. My mom flew with the kids to Utah on Friday evening, and we were to follow, getting to Utah on Thursday. I was so sad to not see my kids for a long time but Brent was happy! Haha.

After much debate and fights and tears, we (really I) decided to sell the blue car in Texas. We were planning on selling it in about a year anyway when we are going to need a bigger car to fit all the so very many babies we're going to have. I also didn't feel like I could drive it all the way to Utah on my own because I fall asleep so easily in the car. So we posted it on some Facebook groups and sold it to a mom buying it for her 18-year old son. Brent was just a tad bit devastated about it. 

We ended up forgetting our garage door opener in the car we sold (oops!) So we went to pick it up on Sunday and we visited Tara while we were in the area. It was fun to see her and meet her cute baby!

Brent and I felt weird and free without our kids. It was a hard time though, packing, and cleaning, and  prepping everything for the move and it was good they weren't there. I told Brent, it's like a honeymoon, only awful! 

Luckily the kids were in Utah having tons of fun with their grandparents and cousins! 

March 2017 - March Jenga

This month was so hard for me in the sense that it was sooooo busy and stressful. Just when I thought things couldn't get crazier or worse, they did. I called my mom one day and told her it felt like we were playing jenga with our life. We were balancing so many things, and then something else would happen and be added on top of us, and we would have to keep trying to balance everything. Piece after piece, I'm telling you! Luckily we had lots of blessings and help from family so that we didn't completely fall apart. 

Ava is a wild child. She takes her hair out when she gets home from school, but this day she looked kind of model-ish I thought!

Brent was brave and took Ava to her four year old check up. She was so so so sad to get shots. Check out this dramatic face- before the shots even happened:

 She was about 50% on height and weight. After, Brent took her to Chick Fil-A to cheer her up. Poor Ava was already sick with a bad cold and had two ear infections.

This week was so incredibly busy with my busy season and it was spring break for Ava, which meant no preschool! So the kids wen to the babysitters two days. Brent worked away at his thesis and we worked through all the jenga pieces curve balls Wells Fargo sent to us in trying to get the loan for our house.

On Wednesday and Thursday I got Ava's cold but I got so sick with fever, chills and body aches. I haven't been that sick in a long time. Jenga piece. It was awful, so I went to my doctor on Friday morning. She thought I had some form of a flu, and luckily by Saturday afternoon I was feeling better enough to go to the new Beauty and the Beast. It was so good!

Brent and Ava can be pretty picky but at least Coen thinks my cooking is yummy!

 Coen is so obsessed with the Mickey Mouse characters. Whenever he sees me wearing this PJ shirt, he begs to wear it. He loves to wear his own Mickey shirts that my friend Wasana gave him, and sometimes won't take them off for bed and sleeps in them.

We had the sister missionaries over to dinner. We haven't done that enough this year! We also got a call from the realtor of the house that we're living in that we were going to have to start doing showings. It got so crazy and stressful, having to keep our house clean with babies! (Jenga piece). People also would put in requests for showings at 3:00 pm for... 3:00 pm. Like, now. Ugh.

I thought Ava looked cute when I picked her up at school, so I took her picture by her building.

 Coen just looking cute at the park. I love that pot belly of his so much.

 Mr. blue eyes.

 Ava's favorite park is Eureka Park, which is next-door  to her school. I took the kids there on Friday afternoon since I felt like we all needed to get out of the house! They were so cute together, running around like this.

If Ava ran off without Coen, he would shout, "Ava!" until he found her. Then he would get all excited and walk up to her and wave to her. It was the first time I really heard him pronounce Ava so well. So I took a video :) 

We finally got all dressed up to take a picture to announce we are moving to Oregon!

 Ava's faces are so funny.

Brent was gone to the library quite a bit to work on his thesis. On one afternoon, I was making dinner and Coen was getting restless in his chair. Ava brought her table over and moved her chair by Coen and got them both coloring pencils. She was such a good helper!

 I took Ava visiting teaching with me and she was excited to come. She packed a little bag with a few toys and books.

Sunday afternoon we had a storm move in and the tornado warning started going off. The sky started looking like this: 

Brent liked watching the storm for a while until I convinced him to come in the house. 

Here's a video of the storm before it got too bad:

It started getting a little crazy and the tornado siren (Ava called it the tomato siren) was still going off and she was scared. So I gave the kids popsicles to distract them. I had them sitting at the kitchen table when all of a sudden it started to hail. The hail started to sound so huge that I ran to the window to try to see how big it was. Then I proceeded to do a u-turn since it started sounding REALLY big. I yelled to Brent to help me get the kids away from the windows. We moved them just before our kitchen window shattered! (Jenga piece)

 Here's one more video during the hail storm so you can hear how loud it is.

After it was all over, Brent picked up a few of the hail in our yard and we couldn't believe how huge it was! Our entire neighborhood, part of the city really, was covered in this size of hail.

 Lots of roofs in our neighborhood needed to be replaced, and people's cars were damaged.

We should have known that this hail storm was the signal of the most crazy week! The last week of March I worked 45 hours. That may not sound like a ton, until you think about that Brent also worked that much and we only had a babysitter for Coen for 15 hours that week. Basically that meant a lot of late nights working for hours after the kids went to bed, and little sleep. (Jenga piece)

Here's Coen and his friend at the babysitters looking cute:

 Ava has gotten so into coloring lately. She is starting to get really good at staying in the lines and it's fun to see her so excited and proud.

 Since I was working so much, Ava was really craving my attention. I let her bring in her table and sit by me coloring while I worked.

 Here's another jenga piece thrown at us: Coen woke up with a crazy rash one morning:

 He had had fevers on and off for a few days, but I thought they were just from his teething. He was also on amoxicillin from ear infections, so the doctors thought he might be allergic to the medicine. My friend's boy had just had scarlet fever and it was going around, so I thought he maybe had that. Either way, it was not so fun, poor buddy. We later found out after his babysitter's daughter got the same thing (oops) that it was a virus called roseola.

Ava was excited to wear her new favorite dress for picture day at school:

 Inspecting hail damage on the siding of our house. We have about 5-7 of these holes.

 Ava was getting in the car one day and Brent was coming around to help her, when she got spooked and ran to me and said, "mom, there's something in the garage!" I told her that it was just dad. She said, "no, it had legs!" I thought Brent had just surprised her so I told her it was just dad, go get in your car seat. A little bit later Brent found this guy:

Brent and I laughed a lot that I told her "it's just dad." Ava was terrified of this lizard that made his home in our garage! Sometimes it would give me a heart attack too when it would just run out in front of me. Sadly, he only lasted a few weeks and then he got SMASHED by the garage door. It was so gross, we aren't even going to go there.

Electronic babysitters. Coen will play for quite a while in their bedroom with toys if Ava is up on the bed watching a show and not bothering him.

 We were going to the park and I put Ava's hair in a clip. She took it out and re-did it herself, miss independent girl. Look at how she did!

 This little boy loves the slide so much!

Luckily we were able to do some fun things on the weekends to keep us sane! I am happy to report that we kept all of our jenga pieces balanced. Phew!