It's a...

It is with much excitement that the Cox family announces the gender of their new baby...

I can't even tell you how ecstatic we are to announce our news.  I mean, this is really huge...

Like bigger than finding a 55 inch plasma screen for $500 on Black Friday big...

Like gather the family and make a big announcement big!  

Okay- without any further ado, I'd like to announce that the next member of the Cox family is...

Keep going....

You're almost there....

 A GIRL!!!!

Matthew and I found out Wednesday at our dr's appointment and had the daunting task of keeping it a secret for 4 whole days...all through Thanksgiving!  Today we invited both of our families to a 4D ultrasound to take a peak at Baby Cox and announce the good news.  Everyone was on pins and needles..including me!  My fear was hearing one thing from the dr's office and having today's ultrasound tell us something different.  Eeks!  But alas- both techs saw all of the things that make a girl a girl.  And so it's official.  We went and bought our first girl outfit to celebrate!

We are so grateful to God for this new gift of life.  We know that every life is a gift from God and every heartbeat is so precious.  God showed us more favor than we could have ever deserved by giving us our son Gavin...and now we feel blessed for this new little life...this little girl life...that He is forming so fearfully and wonderfully inside.  So make room, world, for Baby Girl Cox...coming April, 2012!

Boy or Girl?

This week we will find out if Baby Cox #2 will be a boy or a girl!!! 

I have been counting down the days for weeks..nay months!  As much as I try to downplay the excitement so that I can get to sleep at night, it really is a life changing thing to find out.  Will our family of four be a two boy fam or a one of each fam? For the next little while this will remain a mystery to everyone except our baby's Creator...but in the meantime it makes for some pretty fun guessing! 
This pregnancy, I decided to do all of the old wive's tales predictors that I could find to see if there was any early indication as to the gender of Baby Cox.  The results?  Well, I'll let you see for yourselves...

1) High or Low- Is Mom carrying high or low? 

Low- BOY

2)Heartrate- Is baby's heart 140 bpm or higher?
Higher than 140 bpm- GIRL

3) Cravings- Are mom's cravings salty & sweet or sour?  Salty/sour indicates a boy and sweet indicates a girl.
This one's kind of a toughy- here are the list of my cravings throughout this pregnancy:

• crabcakes (salty)
• Runts (sour)
• Peppermint icecream (sweet)
• Honey comb cereal (sweet)
• Macaroni and cheese (salty)

In the midst of you judging what poor nutrition I am providing this child in utero, you also might notice that the cravings are both salty/sour and sweet.  Since the salty/sour outweighs the sweet by one, I have chalked this one up as a salty/sour win which puts one more in the BOY corner.

4. Chinese Birth Chart- Apparently with this one, you take the month that baby was conceived and the age of mama at conception and in some sort of equation it will predict the gender of the baby. 
The result of this test was GIRL; however I did a little validation testing by entering the information from when I got pregnant with Gavin and, based on this old wives tale, he should have been a girl as well...so I don't have a lot of faith in this one.

5. Mayan Gender Predictor- similar to the Chinese prediction, the Mayan prediction takes Mom's age at conception and the year of conception.  If the two numbers are both even or both odd, then the baby will be a girl.  If the numbers are one even and one odd, the baby will be a girl. 
The result of this one came out GIRL.

6. The great key picker upper test- Apparently if you place a key on a surface and ask a pregnant mother to pick it up, how she picks it up will predict whether baby is a boy or girl. 
I have a little bit of a hard time believing this since I feel that I pretty much pick keys up the way I've always picked keys up; however I tend to pick keys up by the round end; therefore this one goes to the BOYS.

7. Pimple Predictions- Apparently if mom is breaking out during pregnancy, all of the wise old wives say that a girl is stealing her mother's beauty. 
During this pregnancy I have not broken out, so I guess the easy answer is that the answer is BOY.  I will say; however that if we're talking about things that have stolen my beauty, that's a whole other answer!  When I was pregnant with Gavin, I don't mean to brag...but my hair looked AWESOME!  I would have done an infomercial for pregnancy as a hair product during that time; but sadly today, this would not be the case.  Stringy, icky, yucky, dull...all of the bad words that can describe hair would describe mine during this pregnancy!  Part of that might be that my hair is still recovering from the effects of nursing Mr. Gavin (who knew breastfeeding made you go bald?!  I'm serious!!), but I have noticed that as a distinct difference during this pregnancy.

 

8. Ring on a String- If you place your wedding ring on a string and hold if over mom's belly button, illegedly all of the manly energies of your baby will cause the ring to make a circular motion; however the feminine wiles within your womb would make it swing back and forth. 

The first time that we did this, it was a complete flop.  Matthew held the string up with great care.  It initially swung back and forth...then it started moving in a circle...and then it went back and forth.  About that time my "ah baloney" husband was done playing.  We tried it again a few weeks later and the ring went in a circle; ergo this test is a reluctant win for the BOYS.

 

9. Ms. Sicky- The rule of thumb says that if you spend most of your pregnancy over the toilet, stricken with morning sickness, you're having a girl.  If your pregnancy is morning sick free, then you're likely having a boy. 

I will say (quietly since many of my friends don't take this news well) that I have had minimal morning sickness.  Although this pregnancy has been more headache/migraine-filled, I can't say that I have spent many mornings kneeling to a porcelain god.  So what does that mean?  Let's hear it for the BOYS!

 

10.  Baking soda- Who knew that urine could tell you so much?  You learn that you're pregant by peeing on a stick and apparently you can find out if your baby is a boy or a girl by adding urine to baking soda.  If the strange concoction bubbles, then you're having a girl.  If it does nothing, you're having a boy. 

I performed this one with minimal supervision and I'm not really sure if I did it right; however from everything I can tell there was a tiny bit of bubbling action going on, which would make this a GIRL victory. 

11.  The Drano test- Despite the surgeon general's warning that this method is not preferred, not reliable and overall not safe, it has still remained my heart's desire since I was pregnant with Gavin. First of all, you have to use chrystal drano (which I inevitably have been calling chrystal meth this whole time, so I am sure that everyone thinks I'm awesome)  Finding the chrystal Drano was a feat in itself; however Matthew found it and with careful precision we took the test this very morning.  The result was...The trick is that you add urine to the drano- if it turns brown and fizzes, you're having a boy.  If it does nothing, you're having a girl.  Our result?  Brown...and Mr. Cox is disposing of the "caustic" remains as we speak. 

So there you have it.  11 tests; 7 boy wins and 4 for the girls.  It's not really a slam dunk either way, but there's a 63% advantage considering me to be an official boy mom!! 

 

While I don't know today what Baby Cox  #2 will be, I do know one thing for sure; that he OR she could not be born into a family that could possibly love him OR her more.  He or she will have a mommy and daddy that are just as crazy about him or her as they are his or her big brother...and he or she will have a big brother and a playmate for life!! 

Whew- wouldn't have sentence have been easier if we just knew today?!

A years worth of Gavin

Our goal over the past year has been to capture a calendar picture of Gavin each month to document how much he has grown from month to month.  While our take on this fun idea wasn't always picture perfect, we sure had fun making this a monthy tradition.  And now that Gavin is finally one, we can finally call our project complete.  So here, ladies and gentlemen, with out any further ado; our Gavin Cox each month of his first year!

BIRTH- October

 1 month- November

 2 months- December

 3 months- January

 4 months- February

 5 months- March

 6 months- April

 7 months- May

 8 months- June

9 months- July

10 months- August

11 months- September

12 months- October

In Gavin's 12 month he has almost mastered the art of walking.  He is so wobbly and hard working- I love watching him walk and fall and get back up and keep going.  Some of his favorite words right now other than "mama" and "dada" are "s-that"which he says anytime he either wants something or wants to know what something is, "ah oh"- his version of "uh oh" which is really the joining of any two vowell sounds said shortly and succintly following him dropping something- sometimes it comes out "oh oh" or "ah oh" or "ah ah".  And my FAVORITE thing that he says right now is "tickle tickle".  He says this all the time and it melts my heart.  He'll reach out to Matthew or I and run his little fingers over us and say "tickle tickle" or when he's being silly he'll just say it for no reason.  I looked back in the back seat the other day and he was saying "tickle tickle" to his stuffed lion.  What a kid! 

He has lots of new games that he likes to play.  He got so many musical instruments for his birthday and I LOVE it.  He likes to beat his drum, play his egg shakers and the cutest, most cutest thing that he's started doing recently is pulling up on his piano, playing the keys and singing at the top of his lungs.  Be still my heart!  He also like to play ball!  He will roll the ball to Matthew and I- or better yet, he's just started kicking it.  Matthew is in heaven!  When he throws the ball or kicks it, he will smile at us so proudly and start clapping for himself.  This kid is going to have NO issues with self esteem, I'll tell you that!

So we have a six month hiatus from taking calendar pics until Baby Cox #2 will enjoy the special treatment of a monthly photo shoot.  We'll enjoy the time off but will soon enjoy the special memories we make during another first year of life.  But this time we'll also have a 1 1/2 year old running around trying to get in on the action.  My thoughts about this: the most sincere combination of "ay yay yay" and "I can't wait!" 

Fun and Games

As we have clearly established, Gavin is officially ONE! (yes, yes I promise to post pictures of his birthday parties-plural- and his calendar pic progression- I'm a terrible blogger mom) I know we're only 22 days into this new age, but we are finding that it's completely fun...not that we thought it would be anything but.  Gavin is walking more and more.  It's so fun to watch him just take off.  And even when he falls, it's so cute and he's so proud of himself! 

His most fun game right now is "What can you dump in the diaper genie"- pun definitely intended.  The general jist of the game as I understand it is that Gavin tries to stuff anything imaginable from his room into the diaper genie. 

The goal, apparently, is for him to make the item fit in the diaper genie hole and to successfully close it, causing the deposited item to go into the trash portion (he's not aware of the magical trash portion- he just knows if he pulls the lever down and then back up that the item disappears).  

It would seem that he also gets additional points if he can get the item into the trash portion without his mother intercepting the item before it's sent below, causing yours truly to have to retrieve it from amongst a pool of dirty diapers.

 He's gotten quite impressive with items that he's attempted.  Soap, toys, stuffed animals, books, shoes...pretty much anything laying around.  Below is a picture of some of his attempted endeavors.  As you can see he doesn't quite have a concept for size, shape or scale.

But occassionally, he finds something that turns out to be a winner.

He's got to at least be at intermediate level by now.  I mean, look at this kid.  

He didn't quite get the maximum number of points for that one.  While he did get points becuase his mother didn't have to intercept it, but he wasn't quite successful at stuffing the full contents into the diaper genie.

Now that's a one-year-old game if I ever saw.

Hobo Joe, a sheriff named Jack, Fred & Barney Flintstone and a really old hot dog

It appears that Gavin has gone from riches to rags.  After an evening fit for a prince, Gavin has now reached the opposite extreme of the social spectrum- this weekend he was a hobo. 

Before you judge, let me at least explain.  Gavin's favorite toy is his trusty shopping cart.  Not only is it fun to play with- it's a walking aid as well.  As long as he's leaning on his shopping cart, Gavin will walk and walk and walk...but without it, he's more of a crawling type of guy.  So, we (and by we, I mean me) decided that what was more appropriate than to incorporate Gavin's favorite toy for his 2nd Halloween ever?!  The only two options I could come up with were a hobo or a Walmart worker..and those smocks are really hard to come by.  So this past Saturday, Gavin donned his extra small hat, extra large jacket, his fat (aka. a shirt stuffed with Target bags) and an old hankie...and thus you have the cutest hobo Tulsa has ever seen.  

And he was a hard working hobo at that.  He pushed that cart all over Brookside...until we decided he was slowing us down and we took the cart back to the car.  We then realized that we didn't have a place for our his candy, so what do you think we did?  Hobo Joe went on a diet and we pulled out one of the Target bags from underneath his shirt.  Need is the mother of innovation.

Have you ever seen a happier hobo?!

I must say that in all of his cart pushing-

which he did with gusto by the way 

 - our little hobo looked a tad...well, you know....

We decided he looked a tad like Otis from Andy Griffith.  So it was only appropriate that the friend we met up with was in law enforcement.  Gavin's friend Jackson was dressed as the cutest little sheriff this side of Mayberry...and he definitely was out to keep Gavin in line.  I love this picture- I can totally hear Jack saying "sir, I'm going to need to take a look through your shopping cart."

Later Saturday night, Gavin met up with a few other zany characters- Fred and Barney Flintstone (aka. my nephews Paxen and Bennett) were in town from Bedrock and paid us a house visit.  My sister MADE those cute little costumes- aren't they awesome?!

So of course, I have to reminisce that only one short year ago, my sweet little hobo was teeny tiny little hot dog baby...only 7 days old. 

Isn't it amazing how time flies and this...

turns into this?

Gavin goes to a princess party

Gavin shares his birthday with a very close friend who happens to be a girl.  Yesterday she had her birthday party and being the chivalrous, knightly gentleman that Gavin is, he had to be a part of the party.  Her birthday was a princess them, but the invitation said "knightly attire welcomed." So just in case you were wondering, this is is what a Knight Gavin looks like...

If that's not the cutest little handsome knight you've ever seen, then you clearly don't have a lot of exposure to handsome knight party scene.  He's a dashing man among men!   

And if you're waiting for my DIY costume blog to come out, then you'll have to ask Matthew about that one.  He was the primary contributor to the knight outfit that was put together about 45 minutes before the party started.  Not too shabby if you asked me.   

But what do you expect?  I'm a little bit partial towards my little knight.