The Big Two (Are You Kidding Me, TWO???!!)

While Nolan's birthday is actually December 1st, we celebrated this weekend. We are adamant about having parties on the closest Saturday, as we always need a day of rest afterward!!

I do have to admit that Nolan's birthday party will likely always be a bit of a challenge given the timing. It's right after Thanksgiving, so chances are we've JUST seen everyone and no one feels like eating. And, it's so close to Christmas that you feel like you can't do great gifts for both (just for gift IDEAS if not for the money factor) so one inevitably seems sub-par. I think this will get worse as he ages....right now he's only mildly interested in the present phenomenon. But, how quickly that will change. However, if our October baby plan had worked out, I'd simply be complaining that his birthday is too close to Bailey's. So, we love our little December 1st birthday!!

We were thinking that Nolan wouldn't "get it" that it was his birthday. We were sort of right. He seemed to play along with all of our "it's your birthday - yea!!" talk leading up to the big day. And, of course, he loved going to get his balloons and dragging them all over the house while I was setting up for the party. However, he didn't seem to understand (and why would he???) the flow of a birthday party. Here are some of my observations:

-From the moment people arrived, he stood by the cake table asking to eat cake....over and over again. He may have succeeded in procuring a fork and getting some frosting before I pushed it out of his reach. And, later, I may have started feeding him bits of cloud frosting (see pics below) just to quiet his incessant "want cake now" chanting while attendees finished their dinner.

-He looked at everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to him like they were C-R-A-Z-Y. He then tried to blow out the candles with his nose.

-I ALMOST thought I was going to have to accept his presents on his behalf when no one could lure him out of Bailey's room at present time. Finally he came into the living room and Bailey taunted him enough with a present that he became interested. Just like what I remember from Bailey's 2nd birthday, though, we got stuck on the first couple of cool presents and it was a little difficult to get him back on track opening more. Thank goodness for the 4 and 5 year-olds who were all too happy to open his gifts when he needed a break.

-It merely takes a birthday party to see how far you have to go teaching a toddler to share. Joseph (cousin), Owen (friend) and Nolan are all around the same age and played musical toys....when one had something, they all wanted it. Then, the whole group would migrate to the next coveted toy. They were so cute! It'll come one of these days after a bunch of tears and a few tantrums (oh yes, we've started that whole mess!!).

-He did tell a FEW people "thank you." At other times, when I asked him to say it, he responded with a definitive, "No." At least he can stand by his convictions, I suppose.

-When all was said and done, he was hyped up and we had to have our Cox Family Dance Party well into the evening, complete with Nolan's famous booty-shaking.

Thank you to everyone who loves our kids and packs into our house for these parties! We love them and we love you!

On to the pictures....

Sneaking forkfuls of frosting early in the party.

Saying hello to cousins Anna and Joseph.

They always have to check each other out for a bit! Can you believe that Nolan is the older of the two?

Here's the cute airplane cake.

All the kids: Anna, Joseph (cousins), Bailey, Owen (my friend's son), Lauren (cousin) and Nolan.

Future soccer star!

The girls hijacking the party with an impromptu performance. As you'll note, they've also changed out of their winter clothes and into Bailey's summer dresses for said performance.

I hate when pics won't rotate on here. He LOVES this microphone and piano stand!

Oh, the joys of a big squishy koosh ball!

This dump truck rocks! He also got a ride-on fire truck from the West family (pictured below) and he's been zooming around the house on it (it's lighter and goes faster!)

He's not really whacking Lauren with the bat....it's just the angle!! Although I wouldn't put it past him....

The day after.....the dump truck is fun to sit in, too!

My ice cream loving children doing their best work on the leftovers.

Pilgrims and Parties

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope that yours was also filled with family, food and time off from work (I'm not sure which I enjoyed most!!)!

Bailey has been looking forward to her acting debut in her kindergarten Thanksgiving play. We've heard for months about how she's a pilgrim woman and her line is "Mercy Me!" I was able to go watch the play and then help with the school party. Her teacher is so good with them, and I enjoy spending (limited) time in the classroom. :-)

I know this is a terrible picture, but we were far away and my others were blurry. They combined all the kindergarten classes for this performance. There were pilgrim women and men, turkeys, and Indians.


With some of her Pilgrim cohorts.

This is their feast. They all got to choose their character for the feast - whether it was their original for the play or a different one. Bailey chose to be an Indian woman for the feast. They had all kinds of finger foods (Bailey signed me up to bring fish sticks. Fish sticks??!! I thought that was random but I brought them!)


On Thursday, we served Thanksgiving dinner with the Salvation Army in downtown OKC. We have wanted to do this for years, and finally felt Bailey was old enough to help and to understand what it was we were doing and why. She really did well, and I hope we continue to find opportunities to teach her that helping others is a way to show the love of Christ to others.

We also spent time with my parents and brothers, as well as Jason's family for the big feast Thursday evening. Jason's brother and his daughter then came into town on Friday, so we had little girl slumber parties and lots of weekend family activities. In addition, we had Nolan's birthday party, but I will post about that separately!

Happy after Thanksgiving! Onward to Christmas....

Cox Family Pictures - 2009

As I mentioned previously, we indulged in our first ever location photo shoot! I've always wanted to do this, but it seems we always put it off in lieu of a quick trip to Sears or Wal Mart for annual pics of the kids.

I do have to say that this was a very stressful experience. As you may know, Nolan takes a minute (or hour) to warm up to people, so arriving at the location and immediately having to smile at some stranger with a camera didn't seem like an easy thing for us to do. However, we were pleasantly surprised with how well Nolan did.

AT FIRST......

Then, the tide changed. Perhaps the change began the moment Jason uttered the words, "Wow, Nolan is really doing well." Smile....

We spent 45 minutes of our hour-long shoot chasing Nolan around the park and trying to get him to play the "picture game." He ignored us in favor of the ducks in the pond. He then started yelling "NO" every time we spoke to him. Finally, he found a baby wipe in my purse (intended to be used to gently wipe any dirt off my precious children during our perfect photo shoot) and proceeded to clean the ground. He never relinquished the wipe, and it makes a few appearances in our pictures.

Bailey, on the other hand, was WAAAAY into the process. So into it that she actually thought she got to call the shots....literally. She kept telling the photographer how to pose the next shot and, of course, her ideas were outlandish (i.e., "What if I carry Nolan up that tree over there? That would be a good picture!") So, we expended our energy chasing Nolan and telling Bailey not to be so bossy. Not unlike any regular day, really.

Afterward, we were exhausted and I was convinced there wouldn't be a good picture in the bunch. But, I think they turned out a-okay. Of course, I'm not including the ones where Nolan is scowling or Bailey is making a monkey face. :-)

Enjoy the highlight reel....

Toothless

Another milestone for the books....

Halloween, Part 2

I decided to upload a few videos. They are really dark, but kind of cute.

Halloween 2009

Halloween was really fun this year! Both kids are old enough to enjoy the holiday, albeit in different ways.

I enjoyed going to help with Bailey's school party. The kids had a lot of fun and were very well-behaved. I, however, now realize that being a kindergarten teacher takes a very, very, very special and patient person. While we lament the fact that her kindergarten isn't all-day, that 2.5 hours was VERY long. :-)











We also had a great Fall Fest at the church. As you can see, there were all kinds of games to play, a cake walk, and pumpkin carving.






I wonder where the toilet came from? I tried not to think about it....


Nolan spent his time rolling a toy car down this ramp...even while the bigger kids took their turn tossing the balls into the hole.



Then came the big night. Jason and I whipped up a few ghoulish treats for dinner....you can't really tell what they are in the picture, but we had pumpkin pizza, bat wings (chicken wings), mummy dogs, eye balls (deviled eggs), and alien fingers (carrots). Quite the mismatched dinner, but it was fun for the kids.


The trick or treating was a highly anticipated event for Bailey. She was psyched and ready to go. We didn't know how Nolan would do, but he wasn't scared (for the most part) and got the hang of things really quickly. He walked up to a house, said "trick or treat" (his version of it, that is) and then "thank you" after he got the candy. Then, to us, he kept saying "more candy." Too cute.

The big news of the night was that Nolan was a celebrity. While I knew his costume would be cute...that's why I picked it.....people went crazy over it. Women called their husbands from in front of the game on t.v. to come look at the little golfer with his golf clubs. People on a hayride asked to take a picture with him. It was too funny. Then, to add to the sense of celebrity, Nolan fell into a habit of handing me both his candy bag and golf bag between each house and had Jason push him in his push car. Then, at the next house, he would ask for his stuff back and go up to the house, only to hand me his gear again immediately after acquiring the candy. We felt like personal assistants to our 2 year-old!

Happy Halloween