Baby, baby, baby, Oohhh

But Mama- I don't want to have Beiber Fever!!!

Believe it or not- this is what happens when DAD gets put in charge of hair duty.

 

I have to say my baby Bieber is still way cuter than the original. 

 

I think knowing that made him feel a little better.

 



Two blue lines

This weekend in February is my Thanksgiving of weekends!  I get to celebrate two of the main men in my life and the beginning of my life with both of them. 
We can start with the more obvious- February 5th is mine and Matthew's wedding anniversary! 

This year we celebrate 7 years of wedded bliss...although the last seven years have been a lot of things besides bliss too.  Looking back at pictures, I sometimes wonder if those two kids had any clue what kind of commitment they were making, if they had any idea what "worse" could really be or if they could feel the weight of what love, honor and cherish really meant.  Not that our lives have been some kind of great tragedy or anything, but many of the things we've been through in the last 7 years probably weren't quite what we envisioned on that day. 

But you know what?  The most important day in a marriage isn't "that day" at the alter.  The most important day isn't the one day that you share together where everything seems right with the world, where everyone is there for you and where all the well wishes that can be wished are wished for you.  The most important day in a marriage is every single day after that.  It's every day that the two of you decide to choose each other all over again and realize that you committed to the "worse, sicker, poorer" parts as well as the "better, health and richer" parts. 

For this day in 2012, Matthew and I celebrate the day seven years ago when two kids innocently decided to take on the world!  But we also celebrate the past 2,555 days that again and again we have chosen each other- no matter how "in love" we felt or what circumstances were presented.  I'm happy that I chose Matthew on that first day and I'm happy that I've chosen him each day since. 

Here's hoping for 23,725 more!

And that's just the one man in my life!! 

The second part of my Thanksgiving weekend goes to my littler man!  One Saturday morning, the first weekend in February 2 years ago, I woke up as a married lady with no children.  Who knew that my life was about to change within moments!  That morning I saw the two blue lines that told this girl she was nine months away from being a mama, the two blue lines that represent one of the two biggest gifts that God ever entrusted me with, the two blue lines that took our family of two to a family of three! 

Today those two blue lines are a rascaly 15-month old with more personality and boyness than this mama knows what to do with.  

 

 

So happy anniversary to my husband and happy two-blue-lines day to my Gavin!  I am so thankful that God chose to bless me with both of you and gave me the responsibility of being your helpmate and your mother, respectively. 

It's a hard job, but somebody has to do it.

 

Being a big boy

After taking the month of December and most of January off from being a mom-blogger this mama is back and ready to brag about her baby boy!!!  I figure if I can't blog with one kid, there's no way I'm going to keep up with it once I have TWO, so I best keep at it!  It's a hard job, but somebody has to do it!
Okay- all I have to say, is when did I wake up to find a little boy living at my house and not just a baby?  Daily I'm amazed at the stuff that he does...stuff that I know I didn't teach him...and I don't know that his daddy did either.  Here are a few big boy things that Gavin is up to these days:

1. Taking out the trash- Gavin is totally into the trash these days.  This is both cute and scary at the same time.  Anything that we lose, we suddenly start calculating the last time that we took out the trash as we know our little "helper" might have disposed of it.  This is especially scary with phones and remotes.  So far we are still able to phone a friend and channel surf- but we keep a close eye on the trash these days.

 

2. Checking himself out in the baby monitor.  Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE our video baby monitor? 

Every once in a while I wonder how long it will be okay for us to watch our kiddo with a video baby monitor. 16 you think?   (Sidenote that I wish Summer Video Monitor Company was paying me for:  In all seriousness, I love our video monitor.  I've heard people say that they would never want a video monitor because they would watch it all the time.  It's actually quite the opposite- I love my video monitor because whenever I'm concerned about what's going on in his room, I just pop it on, see that he's A-okay and go about my business as opposed to standing outside his door, wondering if I should open it or worrying or whatever.  AND our monitor has four channels so it can connect to up to four cameras...I'm thinking that means we get to have four kids.  Aces!)  Well anyways- Gavin stumbled on this the other day- little does he know it's our very own "big brother". Mwah ha ha.   

3. Doing some heavy lifting.

Is this guy ready for an Iron Man or what?  I mean, that is showing some guts and glory!  Every now and then Gavin likes to clean out the kitchen cabinets and it takes all the brute strength he can muster.  But that kids got it. 

4. Feeding himself. 

Okay- I know that these are all things that all babies eventually learn how to do...but ay yay yay, how proud am I of this cute kid? 

A mom who was getting ready to watch her son accept a prestigious award at his university once told me that you're just as proud of them when they learn to wave and clap and do the little things like that as you are when they someday win big awards and accomplish big things.  I hope that's true because as sappy as it is, I can't imagine myself getting any more proud of him when he does silly little things like this... 

 

5. Checking his e-mail. 

HOW

 IN THE

 WORLD?

Genius.  That's all I can say.

6. Drinking from a big boy glass- I love the mornings when I get to wake Gavin up and we get to eat breakfast together. There aren't quite as many of them in a week as I would like..but that just makes me more grateful for the ones that we do get.  Gavin is a big fan of sharing food.  He always wants a bite or drink or taste of what I'm having...but he's sure to reciprocate.  MmMmMmm...got to love me some soggy cheerios.

 But Gavin's favorite breakfast item that I share is the OJ...although I'm not sure if he likes the juice more or the sound his voice makes when he makes noises into the glass.  Definitely only something a big boy can do.

7. Chillaxin' in his recliner...with a broom.  Obviously.  Isn't this what all the big boys do?

 

So clearly it's Christmas morning.  This was what Santa left at our house this year- a recliner and a broom.  Believe it or not, it's quite the toss up between which gift is the bigger hit.  Sweeping is a big deal in our house- not that we do it that often, but when we do, Gavin wants to be in on the action.  We decided to share the love and get him his own pint-sized sweeper, which he now pushes around like a vacuum. 

I'm so proud of my big 15 month-old boy!  I love being a part of so many new discoveries. 

 Each day is a new adventure with something new to learn or master or see through new eyes. 

 But I'm also glad that when he's not too busy being such a big boy, that he still has time to cuddle up and give us some love

 and remind us that he's still a little boy for just a little bit longer...

Random Gavin-ness

Just in case there were any of you out there thinking tonight "Man, I wish I could see a really cute picture of a baby dancing in a diaper with an icecream carton on his head, singing into a microphone"... Well, wish no more. 

We've got the cure for what ails ya!   

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?!