Phebe's Blessing in CA

 

 

 

 

 

We went to Ryan and Venessa's in March for Phebe's baby blessing.  We hadn't gone anywhere since December, so we were ready for a trip and to see family. And we were all excited to meet Phebe. Kristal and my parents came too.  The weather was a little cold, but we still had a great time. We went to the beach and played in the sand and saw some seals, we walked to their hoa and played basketball and climbed trees, and the kids loved to watch cartoons in the mancave when they needed some downtime.

Snapshot

Danny is playing basketball right now.  He loves it and he's really coming along in his skills. He practices every day in our backyard. His best friend in the whole world is CJ Dean. The first thing he says to me when he gets home from school everyday is "Can CJ come over?" He has a pretty hard teacher this year for fourth grade.  She's really making him work for the grades that used to come really easy for him. It's been quite an adjustment.

Rachel is doing great with tennis.  She was just moved up another level by her coach.  She's really enjoying going to her lessons.  She rides her bike over to the courts every Saturday with her tennis racquet down the back of her shirt, ninja-style, so she can steer with both hands. She loves playing with her best friend, Savannah Dean. They like to make fun crafts and play Just Dance on the wii.  Rachel is a wonderful helper with Seth and Ruby. 

Aaron is getting excited for baseball season.  He's been taking this season off from sports, but we've had a Dean/Cox basketball camp on Saturday mornings at the church gym, which he's loved.  And he plays basketball and football with Danny in the backyard everyday.  He loves to ride his Trike he got for Christmas. Seth is getting old enough that he and Aaron can play together too. Aaron is loving kindergarten and works hard there. He's so proud when he can come home and tell me he "stayed on blue" all day. (He used to have a hard time not talking to his neighbor and pulled a card fairly often).

We just found out that Seth needs tubes in his ears. He has 30% hearing loss because of constant fluid in his ears.  But they think tubes should correct that.  He gets them next month.  Seth is a solid little man.  He's not really chubby, but he's our thickest kid.  But he's also our best eater.  He'll eat anything I cook. At a typical dinner we'll sit down to Aaron having a fit about whatever I made and Seth will clear his plate and ask for more before we've even convinced Aaron to take his first bite. Seth also loves to eat junk food and candy any chance he gets too.

Ruby's personality shows up more every day.  She loves to get her finger- and toenails painted and she likes necklaces, bracelets and purses.  She found a roll of duct tape yesterday and was wearing it around like a bracelet. She likes to laugh and tease and be silly. She sleeps with the fleece blanket Danny made her for Christmas.  She rubs the fringe on her cheeks as she goes to sleep. She only drinks water. She won't adjust to drinking milk.  I've tried whole, 2%, skim, chocolate, strawberry, soy. She won't drink more than two swallows ever. And she doesn't like juice or koolaid either.  It's just water for her.

Seth is 3

Seth had a great birthday weekend.  He turned three on a friday.  That morning he and Ruby and I went to Krispy Kreme.  He loves donuts.  Really he loves most food and isn't a picky eater at all, but he really loves donuts. We had a movie and popcorn night that night instead of his party because Bob had to go on a campout.  Then Saturday we had his party, We had the Deans over to celebrate with us.  We had pizza and cupcakes (we love that he calls them puc-cakes).  He got several Cars toys, new Diego sheets for his bed, and new sand for his sandbox.

Age: 3
What makes you happy: Going to the Park
Favorite food: Donuts, Lasagna ("jonya")
Least favorite food: vegetables
Favorite thing to do: play toys
Favorite TV show: Go Diego Go
What are you really good at: jumping
Favorite color: green and yellow
Favorite song: Once there was a Snowman
Best friend: Rachel, the guys (Danny and Aaron), Ruby--she hugs me
What do you and your mom do together: mom fixed my foot (he dropped a screwdriver on his toe)
What do you and your dad do together: soccer
Favorite sport: soccer
Favorite place to go: Grandma's house

New Year's

Everyone left the day before New Year's Eve so we celebrated all by ourselves.  We started out the party with our first annual Cox Polar Bear Club.  Aaron, Rachel, Bob and I all took turns jumping in to our 38 degree pool.  It was a great time.  It's pretty shocking at first, but we warmed back up fast. Especially since we all scrambled right back out of that water in 1.2 seconds! Then we all had hot chocolate.



We played our new games: Uno Roboto and Twister, we watched the Smurfs Movie, and we did sparklers and popits.  What a party!

Christmas

We had a full, fun Christmas this year.  Everyone from the Woolley side of our family came and stayed at our house for a week.  Even Grandma Monte and Grandpa Gene were with us.  It was great to all be together.

We acted out the nativity on Christmas eve. Here are some of our sketchy characters:

The presents for all 20 people filled up the space around our tree.

There were so many packages, Santa couldn't find room under the tree and all his gifts spilled into the other room.

 

We had great weather. We spent lots of time over at the middle school playing basketball, kickball, riding bikes and mostly playing tennis. We went to Valley of Fire and saw Elephant Rock.  We saw the Christmas lights at the Speedway, the gardens at the Bellagio.  And there was lots of eating and shopping and more eating.

Our favorites this year:
Danny--Present: Case for his Ipod, Memory: In-n-Out
Rachel--Present: Iphone, Memory: having everyone here
Aaron--Present: Trike and Ipod, Memory: Lights at the Speedway
Seth:--Present: PlasmaCar and play kitchen, Memory: Grandma and Dustin
Ruby--Present: blanket

December Activities

Danny and Rachel had their annual Piano Recital.  They did a great job.  I love hearing them practice their Christmas songs all the time while they get ready for the recital.  Danny took a little time off during the first half of the year, but we're so glad he started back up.  And Rachel is really developing into quite a pianist.  

The kids made homemade gifts for their secret siblings this year.  They each got to get out of school early one day to do their shopping and make their gift in secret.  Danny made a blanket for Ruby, and she sleeps with it every night, Rachel made an indoor hopscotch game for Aaron, Aaron made a blanket fort kit for Seth, Seth made some balloon poppers for Danny and Ruby made a friendship bracelet kit for Rachel.  They had a lot of fun making an giving their gifts.

We made candy trains with the Deans.  Such a great tradition.

The first weekend of Christmas break we went up to Utah for a whirlwind visit.  We hung out at Grandma's. We visited BYU and went bowling on campus. And we watched a BYU basketball game with Casey, Kami and Boston. It's so cold in Utah, we were happy to come back to our perfect Las Vegas winter.

We slept under the Christmas tree.

We went to the Springs Preserve for their Holiday Spectacular.  It was pretty great. The kids did a train ride, a huge blow-up slide, face painting, made ornaments, and rode on real reindeer (ponies). The weather wasn't too cold and we all had a great time.  We even bought year passes to the Springs Preserve so we can visit more often.

Thanksgiving

We went to Visalia for Thanksgiving. We had a great time. The weather was great and we played at the parks and in the backyard.  Everyone always loves to feed the turtles, but Seth is especially mesmerized by Grandma's pond.  He's climb around it and watch the water and fish as much as we'd let him.  He found a fishing reel somewhere and "went fishing" in the pond a lot.

We had lots of pumpkin pie and a great Thanksgiving meal. We played games and watched movies.  It was a great holiday.