June 2018 (Part 1) - Cher comes to town!

The week before Cher came into town I worked a ton. When I work anything over 25 hours a week, it seems things start to get chaotic. The kids are a little less supervised and I find scenes like this:

 And their room starts to look like this: (see if you can spot both kids in the picture)

Coen got dressed in his Donald Duck costume again, killing us with his cuteness:

Ava is getting really good at riding Coen's bike. She can balance for so long! Here's a video:

 Coen needed extra snuggles since I work so much:

 Our friends the Wilsons picked up this playhouse on the side of the road for us because they knew I was looking for some fun things for our yard. What good friends! They even had a friend deliver it to us and the kids were so excited to play in it!

Coen gets in such silly moods and gets the giggles. Here's a little video of him cracking himself up at dinner.

Cher came into town Memorial Day weekend, on a late Thursday night. On Friday morning we went to a local farm. Coen said hi to the goats, and Cher and I were thoroughly entertained by the goats trying to get their heads in and out of the tight fence.

Beautiful produce at the farm:

 Next we went to the Owen rose garden. There were SO many varieties of roses, I didn't even know that many existed!

 Ava was excited to have some attention from Cher and they played in Ava's new playhouse.

 That evening we met Brent and walked around the University of Oregon. We walked a LOT! We saw Hayward Field and there was a track and field event going on. Then we went to get Mexican food.

 On Saturday morning we went to the Saturday market, which Eugene is famous for and I had never been to. I got this beautiful bouquet and the kids chose fresh strawberries. We left Brent home doing lots of homework.

 Later, all of us went to the arboretum, which is a beautiful nature area. It was the perfect time of year, so green!

 Cher took a few pictures of our family.

 The trail we went on was along the river. There was a spot where the river slows and you can wade in it. Of course Ava had to get right in!

After the arboretum we drove to Cottage Grove which is a little town 30 mins south of Eugene. We had been there the year before and found the yummiest BBQ! We had a yummy dinner and a beautiful drive home. Then we watched a chick flick (Far From the Madding Crowd) and it was just so fun to have some girl time.

On Sunday we drove to show Cher the vineyards we had recently discovered,  then we went to church and hung out.

 Look how cute, Ava was just loving her time with Cher.

 On Monday morning Cher went home and I worked on stuff for my Primary calling on the holiday. Ava's last day of preschool was May 30. I never thought I would be the type of mom, but I did shed a tear when I saw her last day of school labeled in my planner a few days prior.

 Ava's preschool program was the next day and she performed lots of songs since she has both morning and afternoon class.
Here's a little video. Notice her hips, that's my favorite part.

Here's her morning teachers: Mrs. Tigue and Mrs. Lohr:

Here's her afternoon teachers: Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Hubble:

 We got home and there was a beautiful double rainbow! Way to end our school year!

May 2018 - Our 8th Anniversary

What it's like to live with a 2 year old:

 Ava and Coen each got a little bean seed to plant at a special library time. The kids were excited to take care of their plant and see it sprout so quickly. Every day when we would water them, I would remind them not to touch the plants since they're so fragile. One day when they were about two inches tall, I noticed Coen's plant looked odd. Looking at it closer, I could tell it had been plucked. Ava did it! I was so mad and told her that she had to give her plant to Coen.

Almost every day when Ava's carpool would arrive for afternoon preschool, Coen would want to ring the doorbell and "surprise me." He also would pretend he was going to school as I would put a pretend backpack on him and he would walk next door and then back and give me a hug.

 The sun started coming out a lot in May and we had to always go out and enjoy it. Ava cracked me up this afternoon:

 Making a fort with Max:

 Giggles at bath time:

 We went to our ward auction to help support the young women for their camp and came home with way too many desserts:

 Ava loves this unicorn sleeping mask and she looked so funny sound asleep in it:

 My Coen boy loves to paint:

 It was beach day at Ava's preschool and she was SO excited. She had her swimming suit out waiting for about a week before.

 We got out the water beads and they entertained the kids forever.

 Coen's half birthday, we celebrated by getting him Donald Duck orange juice and we had sherbet and sprite. He's now proud to say he's "two half."

 Coen loves the squirt bottle so much. I sent him outside to water the grass instead of our bathroom!

 We went for a Saturday adventure, driving around the outskirts of Eugene.

 It was so beautiful and green!! We came to this vineyard in a valley that was just so pretty.

Mother's Day- I got breakfast in bed! I also got nail polish, a spirograph set, and flowers for our yard. Good job Brent. 

I feel like one lucky mom!

These two little cuties make my world go 'round.

 We went to a rhododendron park with the Wilsons because they were in bloom. Pay off for all the rainy days we had in Oregon!

 These four are the cutest friends:

 I had to include this one because Max's face was making us laugh!

 Ava and I got matching shirts at Old Navy and she proudly told her teachers at school that we matched.

 We went to a birthday party for our friend at the park:

 Brent took Coen to the public works day but Coen was not thrilled about any of it apparently.

 I attended an online conference for auditing 401k plans and worked a lot extra this week. It was so crazy and I literally had no spare time at all the whole week. This means that Coen had to get snuggles while I worked. 

 I went to a surprise baby shower for my friend Diana at a restaurant,

while Brent took Ava and Coen to a birthday party at a trampoline park.

Here's a little video:

 The kids loved it! Nice daddy award goes to Brent for taking them because I was nervous about them even going since I thought they could get hurt. They had so much fun though.

On the 20th it was our 8th anniversary! We decided to go back to the reservoir where we went last year, but this time Coen would not break his arm! We gave the kids iPads so we could have a nice romantic drive listening to "our songs." We were almost there when Coen got carsick and threw up. 

We didn't have a change of clothes for him so he ran around wearing only Ava's jacket:

It was a beautiful sunset.

 These two are such little peas in a pod, so much alike.

Ava took our picture - here we are, married 8 years! He makes me so happy. 

May 2018 - Where have you been?

July 7, 2018 - Entry 

I feel like my inability to keep up on my blog is a reflection of how things have been going in my life lately. So, I thought I would do a different kind of a post and document at least my feelings I've had lately because I use this as a journal.

The 2017-2018 school year just about whooped my butt. Brent's PhD program turned out to be a lot more work than we were expecting, my work got busier, and we had Ava in two preschool sessions which meant a lot of driving back and forth. One Sunday, probably in February, I said to Brent, "if you compare each week in our life to riding around on a horse, do you feel like everyone else is trotting around on their horses and we're being dragged by our horse?" Brent laughed and responded, "that's a weird analogy, but I'd say it's accurate."

Life was just too crazy for me and I don't thrive on living a stressful life with hardly any downtime. My stomachaches started to come more often, and it seemed everything I ate hurt my stomach and made me feel unwell.

My anxiety that I have been battling since I was about 18 struck with full force.

Then I got called to be the Primary President at the end of April. While I felt peaceful about accepting the calling, it seemed that any spare moments of free time were now taken up by my calling. I know I'm going to grow a lot in the calling and be stretched in new ways but it was challenging.

In June I finally got into the GI doctor and she put me on a strict diet to find out what's bothering me. As soon as I stopped gluten all together, my GI issues stopped. My blood work came back with a possible diagnosis of celiac disease?!? I'm sure we'll learn more over the summer as I experiment putting things back in my diet. It's been really good to start feeling better, but really hard not to eat so much of the food that I love. I have been so thankful for both of our moms who have been so accommodating in preparing special meals for me, which is really hard to do since I'm not eating dairy, gluten, beans, garlic, onion, etc.

All this isn't to say I was miserable the whole year. In fact, every day was filled with happy moments and I feel like Brent and I grew closer and clung on to each other through the stressful times. It's interesting how you can simultaneously go through a hard experience and have personal growth and happiness at the same time.  When we're going through the toughest times is when we can have the most tender experiences.

So...that's where I've been :)