Happy Birthday Poppa!

Hope you have a terrific day! We can't wait to see you tonight!

Owen's got a girlfriend

Friday night the Langstons came over for dinner and games. They have a daughter Natalie who is about 4 months older than Owen. Because of their young age, the two of them usually don't interact much with each other. This Friday was different though. David held Natalie up to Owen and what played out there was hysterical. Baby flirting is what I call it. Natalie would "say" something and then Owen would reply. She then tried to put her feet on him (see above) and then play with his ears. It was so cute as I have never heard Owen respond back to another baby before. My son the ladies' man!

Diaper snob?

We have been blessed to only have to buy one pack of diapers since Owen has been born. Sadly our supply is running low and it's time to buy some. I was looking around at the store yesterday and realize there is quite a bit of difference in prices. Before I've always been a Pampers lover but they are the most expensive. What about you guys? What diapers do you use?

Baby Sign Language

One thing I knew before Owen was even born was that I wanted to do baby sign language with him. I first saw this in practice at our church. Babies were able to tell us when they wanted more cheerios or when they were all done. I thought it was amazing that they could communicate with us though they couldn't even talk yet. My neighbor at Southeastern also used sign language with her son and again I was awe struck.
For Christmas, I received this starter kit from the Baby Signs company. I haven't had time to watch the DVDs yet but I'm super excited to get started. I found out that the company also offers parent classes. Anyone interested in taking one with me? I talked to my local instructor and she would do a class at my house if I could find 4 other women. Anyone game? You can find out more information about the program and its benefits you can check out the website.

PS I've posted quite a bit lately..keep scrolling down.

A Year in Review

One thing I love about keeping up with a blog is that I am able to go back and see how the Lord has worked in our lives. 2008 was an amazing, exciting, but also hard year for the Cox family.

The year started off hard as I was in the midst of a major discipline problems in my classroom. I was constantly upset and frustrated for a handful of males students. Later the situation would escalate and led to many conferences with my principal. She would later give me a poor review and ask a behavior specialists to come in to assist me. This was by far my hardest year of teaching.

January also brought the beginning of Jeremy's job search. We started off by following a lead to Charlotte. Though we were offered the job, we feel very confident that we were not supposed to be there.

February brought the best news of all...we were expecting our first child. The blog the next few months was potporried with updates on my belly and the baby growing inside of it.

May brought a month of graduations. My brother graduated from ASU and Jeremy graduated from seminary. It was a huge milestone for both of them! We celebrated by taking a family trip to Williamsburg, VA.

This year was also the year of weddings. This summer we went to 8 to be exact. We were really excited for all our family and friends but it was exhausting..and expensive!

I spent the summer sewing and preparing for Owen's arrival.

Jeremy searched and interviewed for jobs all year and finally at the end of July accepted a job at Nash Community College. The job was not church related and was back in my home town...totally different than anything we imagined. We were grateful for the Lord's blessings and now can see how His hand worked through the whole process. (Jeremy is now enjoying his new position and have adjusted to life in a small town.)

In July we also celebrated our 4 year anniversary. It was our last one kid-less!

August brought a new teaching position for me. I moved into a specialist role as a technology teacher. It was an awesome position and perfect for the state I was in (big!).

September brought the early arrival of our beautiful baby boy. He is such a joy in our lives and we couldn't imagine our lives without him now. As you know, his birth was easy but the days following were very hard. He is now healthy and strong and growing like a weed!

October 31st we bought our first home! We feel like such grown-ups now! We spent most of November unpacking and organizing.

The holidays were great and we enjoyed all of Owen's firsts!

What an amazing year! We can only praise God for His many blessings and provisions. I can't wait to see how the Lord is going to work in 2009! Happy New Year!

Christmas 2008

The Cox family had a great but busy Christmas. Jeremy was blessed to have the whole week off so we had lots of family time. Sunday the 21st we were supposed to go to Greensboro for the Piner family celebration. Sadly my aunt and uncle came down with the flu so the event got canceled. Instead we went to Beulaville to visit my grandma, who was thrilled to have Owen all to herself. Here is Owen dressed and ready to go.

Uncle BP had fun playing Owen.
I think Owen tired him out. Aren't they sweet?
Granny was in Heaven...she got Owen all to herself.
All this family time made the boys sleepy.
Wednesday we spent the day with my family. Mom and I made tons of cookies while the boys played golf. Christmas Eve we had our traditional Italian feast then headed to Christmas Eve service. Owen did an awesome job at church and even giggled and laughed his way through the service. Afterwards we partied with the Adams family.

Christmas morning we woke up early (thanks to Owen) and headed over to my parents' house to open presents. Francesco, my aunt and uncle's exchange student, summed it up best when he said "You couldn't tell America was going through a recession right now by looking at this room." The presents were literally in mountains next to each person. Here is Francesco, BP, and Owen waiting for the opportunity to open their gifts.
Ma-Ma was surrounded by mountains of presents.
Uncle Mark, Aunt Jen, and Francesco watching Ma-Ma open her gift.
They gave her a beautiful ring.
BP was excited about getting dress socks.

Mom opening her personalized stationary we gave her.
Owen got this fun/silly hat from BP. It's still a little big!
Uncle Mark and Owen watching everyone open their presents.
Owen got all kinds of cute and fun stuff, including a glider rocker for his room, clothes, stuffed animals, and games. We gave him a Radio Flyer wagon, because all little boys need a wagon. I can't wait for the spring to come when I can pull him around the neighbor in it. He also got a lion that he can ride on. Poppa has to hold him on it right now.
Christmas was just too much for Owen and Poppa tried to coax him to sleep.
After breakfast, we headed back to our house to unload and shower. We then took off to Wilkesboro for round #2 with the Coxes. We arrived in time for dinner and then began the present opening. Again Owen racked up some cute clothes, toys, and books. Our 20 month olc niece Madison was the cutest thing. She was waiting at the door for Owen and wanted to hold him immediately. Emma gave her this cute little pink suitcase full of dress up clothes and she went to putting them all on at one time. She was so cute!We stayed in the mountains until Sunday morning then came back to RM for the Miller family Christmas party (my mom's side). Over 40 people showed up for the big event and again we enjoyed more Italian food (my uncle is part Italian, which explains our love for Italian food). We also played Dirty Santa/Yankee Swap. It was by far the biggest game of Dirty Santa I had ever played. I ended up with a bottle of champagne while Jeremy won a BUNCO game.




Life is getting back to somewhat normal pace. We celebrated the new year with our friends the Langstons and now we're working on house projects. I won't know what to do with myself next week when everyone goes back to work!

3 months old

Owen turned 3 months on the 28th. It's hard to believe he has been with us for 3 months... sometimes it seems like longer then other times I don't know where the time has gone.

Because he won't visit the doctor again until he is 4 months, we decided we wanted to know is newest measurements so we did themselves. After weighing ourselves first then adding him, we found out he now weighs 14.8 lbs. and 25 inches long. Just trying toting him around for a while and you can tell he is quite the heavy boy!

He is now sleeping 7-8 hours a night and we have finally moved him upstairs to his crib in his own room. No more sleeping in the room with Mommy and Daddy! We are enjoying the extra sleep and I don't feel as sluggish during the day anymore.

Other things he is doing:
He is smiling and laughing at us. He tries to talk to us but we haven’t figured out what language he is using. :)

He is able to hold his head up for extended period of times and is almost able to sit up in his Bumbo. He is not thrilled about playing on his tummy but will tolerate it for a bit. I can tell that the tummy time is really helping his neck muscles.

He is loosing his mohawk!! As his hair gets longer it is starting to lay down now causing him to have a lovely comb-over look.

He is grabbing onto things when they are placed in his hand as well tracking objects.

His reflux has increased in the last week or so. I think his dosage needs to be increased since his weight has increased. He still can't hold a pacifier in his mouth, which is annoying since he likes sucking on it to go to sleep.

We are falling more and more in love with him every day. His smiles and response to our voices make us feel more connected to him than ever before. He is so stinkin' cute, but then again we're a little bias. :)