Happy Birthday to my baby!!

And the day has come.  Mr. Gavin Cox is officially one.  He was the most unsuspecting of birthday boys and we had a very spectacular family day celebrating the third member of our family unit's special day.
Gavin awoke to his nutty parents singing him "Happy Birthday".  I think he would have rather stayed in bed a tad longer...but we were ready to get the party started.

   

He ate a delightful birthday breakfast of applesauce and oatmeal and then took a birthday bath. After his birthday nap and playing himself "happy birthday" on his birthday kazoo, we took a family trip to the pumpkin patch and petting zoo.

We had so much fun watching our little pumpkin play around and show all of the things that he's learned over the past year.

Gavin rode his very first horse with his daddy as a spotter. 

And then he enjoyed some birthday throws in the air!

He pet a very strange looking sheep that looked like he either had dreadlocks or had been put through the extra hot drying cycle...but either way, Gavin was a fan.

We ended the night by opening a few more presents.

And Gavin konked out playing his new drum.

I can't believe how much fun I've had over the past year, how much I've loved seeing this little boy grow and learn and be more amazing than I could ever dreamed my little boy could be.  If this is only the first year, I can't imagine what the next many, many could possibly hold. 

Happy Birthday, Gavin Levi Cox!

Geronimo!!!

Fun day Fridays are my favorite! A few short months ago, these next few moments would have not been possible. I would have been sitting at a desk working for the man...but THIS Friday, I got to spend the day playing with my little man and his daddy.

Last Friday we decided to take a little adventure out to our own backyard.  

 We highly recommend this destination. 

Check out the last time we played on this playground.  Gavin was just a tiny bit younger...

But a few months have gone by and on Friday Gavin was able to fully enjoy the excitement of our backyard playground.  And to think- we tried to sell it on Craigslist for $200 before we had kids.  I dare say that the next few facial expressions that diving down a slide headfirst elicited were priceless.   

 

 

 

I could not love that little face any more!

When life gives you limes...

then you might be 12 weeks pregnant (according to the Baby Center fruit and veggie baby size benchmarking scale)!!!

Matthew, Gavin and I are happy to announce that Baby Cox #2 is set to arrive in mid-April, 2012.  Our family of three will soon be expanding to a family of four!  Some days it seems a little more surreal than others, but we are thrilled. 

Some days the idea of having two kids under the age of two is a little overwelming- thinking of getting two kiddos dressed and out the door before work or church...or having two kids riding in the back seat...or packing up two kids with all of their stuff for a weekend trip to Texas. Sometimes the very thought of it makes me want to take a nap...so I do!  Then I think about how Matthew and I will be the two parents in charge of those two kiddos which is even more surreal!

  The most mind-boggling thought of all of them though is that God could somehow make room in our hearts for double the love and joy and amazingness that we've felt in our hearts over the past year.  I just don't know how it could happen!  The thought of having two Gavin's just blows me away- and then I remember that this baby is its own little person with its own little personality and attitude and character traits and facial features...and then that blows me away even more.  I'm glad that I have 28 more weeks to get used to all of this. 

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gifts!!

11 months

Is anyone else doing a countdown of the number of Gavin calendar pictures that are left?  Just me?  Oh okay...well in case you're not keeping up- there are only two more!  Actually one since this is the 11 month post.  I can't believe my tiny little jelly bean baby is now one month shy of being a year (okay, okay- I'm slow about posting, at "press time" he's only 17 days shy of being a year.  Don't make a mother cry!)

 

Gavin is doing something new everyday.  I know the big question that everyone wants to ask- is he walking?  And the answer is not yet.  He loves pushing things- he'll push things all the livelong day..but when it comes to stepping out free-style, he's not too much into that.  He's taken a couple of "lunge steps" but as for walking, he's not into that right now. 

As you can see, we're working on the sippy cup.  He's actually kind of getting the hang of it...and we're slowly transitioning to whole milk mixed with formula...which makes for some really fun diapers. 

Gavin is at such a fun stage and I feel like every day there is a new fun "Gavin story".  He's really enjoying mimicking things that Matthew and I do- like our "Halloween laugh".  Last night I was reading him his usual bed time ("I love you through and through") and there was a picture of a little boy crying with his mouth wide open and tears jumping off the side of his face.  I looked over at Gavin and he was trying to mimic the little boys face and made this little fake crying noise.  I don't know if you have ever seen a more amused mother.  That got him 5 extra minutes of play time before bed!

Every day we inch closer and closer to the one year mark.  As much as I joke about crying and not being able to believe it, I am so excited to see this little man grow up.  I love every new stage, every new milestone.  I love seeing a little bit more of his personality shine through each day.  It's like a huge giant jigsaw puzzle of a person and all I have are a few of the peices; I can tell it's going to be great, but I won't know just how great until we get further into it.   

So here's to one more month and one more peice of the puzzle.

Stuff Gavin isn't supposed to be doing...

Call James Dobson!  We have a strong willed child on our hands!  Okay, well maybe it's not that bad...but we have caught Gavin doing some pretty ornery things lately.  I would say the fault is probably 75/25 (majority ownership to the parent's)  And by that I mean that we'd probably be a lot more convincing in our discipline if we didn't say "no no" smiling with a camera in front of our face.

Here are some of the rules in the Cox house:

1) People under 2 feet tall are not allowed to rummage through the refrigerator- especially those who do not have the coordination to ensure that major spills do not occur.  There must be a special, high pitched noise that goes off in our house when someone opens the refrigerator; a noise that can only be heard by dogs and babies, because when the refrigerator door opens, Gavin comes acrawling.  I think he wants to live on the bottom shelf. 

2) No one in the Cox house is allowed to crawl in the additional storage space underneath the oven (please note that this is not a broiler and that the oven was also NOT on...although we actually are really strict about this whether the oven is on or not since we know he doesn't know the difference). 

3) No one in the Cox house is allowed to drink red food dye directly from the bottle...for any reason (I have to tell Matthew this all the time!) I must say, this whole ordeal could have been a WHOLE lot worse..and he's crying not because it tastes bad, but because I took the bottle out of his mouth.  And then we baby proofed the pantry...

4) People who don't know how to write are not allowed to have pens.  This is a very favorite obsession of Gavin's- he loves pens, straws...really anything sharp and pointed that he could wield into his eye.  Nice.  If you look really closely, you will see that he has a pen mark on his upper lip...and he's pretty pleased about it.  

5) You are not allowed to pretend that you're a samurai until you're at least 10.  Why I thought it was a good idea to buy a low sitting vase that would house hundreds of, you guessed it, sharp & pointed things, is beyond me.  Fortunately, Gavin forgets that we have this a good portion of the time...but when he's reminded, Look out!  

I am not sure if this list of rules is on any of James Dobson's top five lists...but we're working on it. 

Ranger Day!

It's no secret that the Coxes have a thing for all things Rangers.  There is no way that Gavin was going to make it one full year of his life without seeing the Rangers play live and in person.  And earlier this month- that's exactly what we did!  The Cox family took Gavin Cox out to the ole ball game! 

I must point out all of Gavin's Rangers' flare before he even left for the game.  Gavin is seen here dressed in his Rangers finest from head to toe. 

• Rangers hat? Check. 
• Rangers onesie? Check (He had a spare in a different color just in case his lunch didn't agree with him)
• Searsuckered shorts that match daddy's? Check. 
• Socks made to look like a baseball? Check.

The only kid more Ranger-fied then this one is probably Josh Hamilton's 4th daughter- who, by the way, was born the day before we went to the Ranger game....(Oh my gosh! I'm getting sucked in to- I know these people by name!) 

I must say I was filled with much mommy/wife pride and nostalgia as I watched Matthew walk up the stadium with his little boy for the first time.  I could practically hear the Rudy-like music playing in the background- it felt as all-American as we've ever been.  It was definitely one of those great father/son moments.  Matthew was one proud papa!

  

And Gavin was a champ! 

He loved the game and when he wasn't watching from his seat on Daddy's shoulders or in his lap,

he was climbing on the stadium seats himself

...or being passed back and forth by the many Cox family members who were there to watch the game Gavin.  

It was a momentous day to be sure...and I'm sure the first of many more to come!

10 months

The busiest of all the babies has reached double digit months- 10. In the words of Sarah Palin, "Say it isn't so, Joe."  I must say that Gavin is only getting better with age. Month 10 finds him standing, crawling, exploring and being overall the cutest baby in the world. 

My mother has given Gavin the moniker "Christopher Columbus" because he's the official explorer of anything and everything.  I have to admit that he is always moving and always into something.  Month 10 finds him weighing over 20 lbs, holding steady at 3 teeth with 1 more about to eek out any day, and doing a myriad of cute things.

Gavin is a most excellent stander and sometimes catches himself standing without holding onto anything...but those moments are few and far between..but getting less fewer and less farrer between as he gains some confidence.  The trick is to hold out something he REALLY wants right when he is only holding onto something with one hand.  That'll get him every time. 

Gavin is also saying lots of cute things like "uh oh" (on occassion) and "babababa"(quite often).  We may have even had an intentional "Daddy" the other day.  We can't be too sure until it happens again, but nine out of ten dentists would probably agree that's what he said.  He likes to mimic us when we make a funny sound.  He has also become really social and will call out to people that are walking by.  The other night we were playing in the front yard and he was practically beside himself yelling at the kids playing about 4 houses down from us.  They just would not pay attention to him and he needed to know why!  He has also become quite enamored with trying to snap his fingers.  He's so funny- he'll hold his fingers in a perpetual snapping position and watches with great interest when other people snap.  I'm not quite sure what that says about him, but his mama sure likes it.  He is also becoming quite the good helper. His two favorites right now are helping with laundry and cleaning out the kitchen cabinets.  He certainly didn't inherit either of those talents from his mother.

I am so happy to have such a happy baby.  I love that he smiles hundreds of times a day for everything from being woken up in the morning to seeing his daddy walk into a room to being ridiculously amused with himself when he opens and closes his diaper genie (that's one of the smellier games he has recently started enjoying).  Every smile is a precious gift and I am happy to be the mommy of the boy that smiles them.