I Wasn't Dreaming of THIS White Christmas!

Christmas 2009 was amazing, despite the logistical challenges of having the holiday in a blizzard! As you will see through the pictures below, the IDEA of the snow was much more appealing to Nolan than the reality. Bailey, on the other hand, enjoyed her share of sledding! Here are some pics of the snow to get you in the blizzard state of mind.....

Front door after Jason had shovelled for hours to make a walkway.
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Jason digging us out of our driveway.... not a simple task!

Nolan's general disdain for the cold snow!

But he was happy in the minutes before heading outside!

We also had a wonderful time with both the Cox and Cruson clan. We ate TOO MUCH, drank champagne, had a few sing-a-longs and generally enjoyed the company. Bailey and Nolan were both pretty excited about the presents this year, which made the holiday even more fun. The snow (or "nose" as Nolan refers to it) kept us indoors, but we managed to keep from going too stir crazy!

We started our snowed-in Christmas Eve by making it over to Jeanne and Phil's. The kids put on their Christmas outfits, despite having been out playing in the snow all day. I kept trying to get Bailey to let me do something with her hair, but she wouldn't let me! Here's Bailey, Nolan and Lauren waiting on a special visitor.

It's Santa!!!!!!! It's amazing how he knew to come to Jeanne and Phil's instead of Uncle Bills, as was the original Christmas Eve party plan. Hmmmmm.....

Santa took a particular liking to Jeanne.

We all decided to sit on the big guy's lap.

See ya later, Santa! Thanks for the presents....you're bringing more later, right?

A pic with all the Cox grandkids and grandma/Pop Pop. By the way, where was Pop Pop earlier in the evening? Hmmmmmm.

Nolan didn't so much like Santa, but he loosened up by playing us some cool tunes on his guitar.

But then he started to wonder, "Where Santa go?"

Getting ready for Santa to visit OUR house, Bailey got the cookies, chocolate milk, and carrots ready for Santa and his reindeer. She also braved the weather to sprinkle reindeer food on the lawn.

And a few of the Christmas morning treats....

We then ventured to Clinton later on Christmas Day. Both the kids received wheels....Bailey's in the form of skates and Nolan's in the form of a tricycle. Grandma and Pa Pa Cruson's long hallway was the perfect place to practice.

Who knew a step stool would be THIS funny?!

Nothing says Christmas like matching Snuggies!

Or trying to pull out your Uncle Chance's teeth......

The new tricycle also makes a nice tv-watching chair.

Upon our return to OKC, we got to see extended family from D.C. Thank you, Susan, for the wonderful lunch! These are all the Cox-Dewey-Gateley 2nd cousins (minus a sick Joseph).

The following pics are a little random, and I'm not sure where to put them. The first is the kids when they went to take their picture with Santa several weeks ago. Don't let Nolan's smile fool you....he wanted to have NOTHING to do with the big guy once we got to the front of the line. I had to hold him in the picture.

Here is one of our several cousin sleepovers while Lauren was in town. This was popcorn movie night.

This is my kids in Sam's as I was trying to do some shopping on Wednesday. There was a huge t.v. showing the movie "Enchanted." My kids decided to make themselves comfortable and watch the movie for awhile. There may have been a tantrum associated with my decision to make them leave after about 15 minutes of the below.

Finally, Bailey got a Zhu Zhu hamster and several accessories from my boss. Apparently, these are the hottest toys this year and Bailey (and Nolan) thinks little Pipsqueak is pretty cool. She also got some water frogs from Grandma/Pop Pop Cox, so I think we are set on the pseudo pet front. :-)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!

Nolan at Two Years

This blog entry is dedicated to what and how Nolan is doing at 24 months.


Size: We had our well child appt. today and, despite the massive amounts of carbs he digests via pancakes, he's still on the small side. However, he's moved up on both the weight and height charts, as he's now 20% in weight and 50% in height. We've just now gotten to the point where 18 months pants fit okay in the waist. Some pairs are still fine lengthwise, while others are still too long and yet others are starting to get too short. I hate the notion of moving up to 24 mos., though, as he'll be back to looking like a gangster rapper with his pants sagging down on his hips!! Oh well, if I could just get him to wear a ball cap turned to the side, he'd really look the part!


Speech: It's funny how quickly he has added words to his vocabulary. Mere months ago I could tell people the words he was saying because there weren't a great many. Now, we're at the point where he's saying more than I could remember and write down. He's also stringing together several words to make short (and sometimes funny) sentences. Sometimes we still don't understand him, and I'm certain others would not understand enough to appreciate the funny things he says. A couple of my favorites:


-My dryer buzzes when the cycle is done. EVERY time, Nolan will ask, "What's that?", to which I reply, "Just the dryer." A few days ago, the front door creaked quite loudly and Nolan, without missing a beat, said, "What's that? The dryer?"


-He LOVES watching movies and asks for "a movie" all the time. Sometimes we just put it on the Disney Channel and tell him it's a movie (don't tell!). Other times, we rent dollar movies for the kids and they watch together (Nolan's attention span is surprisingly longer than Bailey's sometimes). When the DVD skips or gets stuck, he'll say, "What happened?"


He loves saying his own name now. He'll find any opportunity to point to himself in pictures and say, "That's Nolan." He also likes to name and claim objects or assign them to Bailey, mommy, daddy, etc. He seems to think we're the only people in the world, though. When he looks at Facebook pictures when I'm on the computer, he's inevitably go through all the people he knows trying to find someone who fits the look of the person or people in the pictures. It really bothers him when he can't make that work. He'll say, "That's Bailey....no. That's grandma....no." Eventually he gets tired and walks away and my speech about other families and friends is lost on him!


No one can quite figure out his titles. He calls both grandmas "maw maw" but yet he calls me either "meenee" or "meemee." Those are the phonetic spellings....I sure hope he's not just calling me mean, although several of my friends and family get a real kick out of teasing me with that. It drives people crazy that he can't just call me mommy. Oh well....he can call me whatever he wants!


Temperament: He has definitely started to cross the line into the Terrible Twos. He is a happy kid when everything is going his way. However, when he first gets up, when new people are around and he's nervous, or when playtime with Bailey isn't going so well he is a BEAR! He will cry and whine and growl with frustration. He's even thrown himself on the floor and writhed around for a few minutes. We just ignore him.

He's also started doing some deliberately naughty things though, too. He has always had a "thing" for crayons and markers. Every surface of Bailey's room has been desecrated by Nolan wielding a writing utensil. As he's gotten older, this has become more malicious and has resulted in several spankings. This kid will also get into ANYTHING that's not up high or otherwise strapped down. And, if you leave the bathroom door open, just know that the toilet is extremely tempting to little Nolan! We've learned that lesson the hard way!

Unlike Bailey, he's very good at cleaning up after himself. He won't usually do it without being told, but he has no problem putting all of his matchbox cars into a bag or taking clothes to the hamper. Maybe that will change as he gets older, but he's thus far been very compliant about those sorts of things.

Physicality: I may have mentioned this in previous posts, but Nolan is very coordinated physically. He runs FAST for a kid his age (with heels on, I can't catch him), and can throw and catch pretty well. He loves to do anything physical and never seems to get tired. Oh, to be a kid again...

Those are the things I can think of right now. Until next time....peace.

K