Merry Christmas to All

We hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas this year!  Ours was nice and somewhat quiet (until about 3 when Zander who refused to nap turned into a fury of rambunctious 2 year old boy and remained that way until we sent him to bed, around 6:50 again).  From Santa the kids got tool kits and some projects to build.  Of course some of their favorite Santa gifts came in the stockings such as glitter glue, bubbles, and strawberry shortcake chap-stick; I will miss the days when the kids get to old to be thrilled with dollar store gifts.  The kids also enjoyed many other great gifts from various family members.  Some of the things Zander got were building block type sets, a little puppy that barks,  books, some little dinosaurs, and a Noah's ark playset.  Teah's score included walkie talkies, a ukulele, cooties (the game), a beanie baby leopard, books and a puzzle.  As for the gifts from us, we decided to make the gifts for the kids this year.

For Zander, Manu made him a little tool bench which he got to use today with his new tools and one of the building kids he got.

 (who needs pants when you have a hat - especially when you have 70 degree days in December)

The finished masterpiece

One of the roof flaps lifts up so you can put stuff in the little house.

Teah put her also put her little house together.

As for the gifts from us, Teah got two.  The first was a Fancy Nancy hair things organizer.

You can put bows/clips on the ribbons, in Fancy Nancy's hair, or in the container on the bottom.  There is also a place to put rubberbands and hang headbands and a brush.  Is the decor a bit over the top? You better believe it!

The other thing Teah got was a carrying case and vet kit for her pet leopard Alicia.

The vet kit has has is a combination of dollar store hair and doctor play sets with things like a plastic blow dryer, brush, stethoscope, ear checker and play shot.  You can also see Alicia's baby sister that Christy got for her in the carrier for Alicia. 

After opening presents we had some breakfast and then spent much of the day playing with new toys.  At about 3 the kids were starting to show signs of overtired hyperness and so we decided to get a movie from redbox.  Manu, Teah and I watched G-force while Zander ran crazy and jumped and flipped all over the couches.  At one point he even decided to measure my hair with the tape measure that came in his tool kit and then, declaring I needed a hair cut, "cut" my hair with the pretend shot from Teah's vet kit.

When the movie finished we had our Shepard's dinner - a tradition we started a couple of years ago.  This year it included saltine crackers, plain yogurt, black berries, cheese, grapes, oranges, almonds and sparkling grape juice.  It probably is not very authentic but it gives us an opportunity at the end of the day to talk about the birth of Christ one last time and remind ourselves after a day of presents, the real reason we have celebrated. There is also something surprisingly refreshing about have the simple foods after a day of snacking on Christmas goodies and Christmas eve left overs.  Of course the easy set up and clean up is nice too.

After our Shepard's dinner we bathed the kids and then read the story, The Littlest Angel.  Even though it is not very doctrinally accurate, it was always one of my favorite stories growing up.  I think because I could relate/sympathize with the little angel who struggled with angelic reverence - so yes maybe a little bit of our kids wildness and tendency to get in to things they should not might have come from me.  In the story the 4 year old angel causes quite a disruption in heaven with his whistling, chasing his halo down the golden streets (just out of pure meanness it was always falling off his head), swinging on the pearly gates, messy appearance and other non-angelic behaviors. Because of his behavior he has to be sent to the hall of judgement where he explains to the understanding angel that although heaven is beautiful there is just not much for a little angel to do.  The angel grants him his wish of having a box he had kept under his bed of little treasures such as a golden butterfly and the strap from his old dogs collar.  After he gets the box heavenly peace is restored as the littlest angel's behavior begins to model how an angel behaves.  In the end he offers the box as a gift to the Christ child and it becomes the star of Bethlehem.  After we read the story we talked about how having a box of special things helped the little angel behave more reverently and I presented the kids with one final Christmas gift - a sacrament meeting reverence box.

The boxes are made from the Christmas tins you can buy to put treats in.

 They each got their own personal box complete with magnetic puzzles (the puzzles with pictures of themselves were definitely a hit today), paper doll magnets, a couple of books, coloring pad and crayons.

The top had felt on it, mostly to keep it from making a nice tin drum, but also gives a surface usable with felt or velcro pieces (the partial nativity was made by Janae as a sacrament meeting toy 3 years ago and we may have lost a couple of key pieces over the years, but its okay. I just got myself a laminator so now I can replace them.)

After showing them their sacrament meeting boxes (and they are only allowed to play with them in sacrament meeting) Zander, who had seriously been running out of control for the past several hours, was sent to bed and Teah stayed up for about another half an hour playing with glitter glue and other quiet Christmas gifts.

So that is our day in a nutshell, albeit a fairly long nutshell. We did have a very nice Christmas and hope you all did as well.  Thank you for all the treats, gifts, and Christmas wishing this year - we were all quite spoiled and still have a kitchen filled with pie and Christmas goodies and lives filled with many gifts to be grateful for - the first of which being the gift of our Savior.  And with that a wish a all a final Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Christmas Eve

 This year we just had a small family Christmas and Christmas Eve started with getting the house cleaned up and making our dinner of ham, rolls, potatoes, salad, yams'n'apples and 3 pies.  Yeah we really did not need 3 pies for 4 people, but we did a chocolate cream, pumpkin and peppermint ice cream pie, so we really had no other option.  We had dinner just after 3 and then bathed the kids.  Once they were bathed we had a rather entertaining version of the Christmas story, with Teah playing both the angel and Mary while sprinting back and forth between her room to get props.  Zander wanted to be a wise man and had to have the largest present under the tree (almost too large for him to carry) to bring to the baby Jesus.  Once we finished the Christmas program we went caroling and took a Christmas basket to a family in our ward.  When we got home we had pie (yeah there is still a lot left) and let the kids pick one present to open early.  The kids played with there new presents for about a 1/2 hour and then it was time to go to bed - at 6:50.  Yes it was pretty nice - all kids in bed by 6:50 on Christmas Eve.  By 8:30 we had completed all the Christmas preparations including my 45 min search for the camcorder battery charger and we were in bed before 10.

Gingerbread house time

Last monday we were supposed to do gingerbread houses. I was going to make them sunday night so they would be set and ready , but I found I was lacking in ingredients so it got pushed back to tonight. The recipe I used made 6 houses (I didn't do really big ones), so we invited another family to join us. Unfortunately they had a child who ended up sick so we just decorated all 6 and figured we could give some to people. Each of the kids did there own to keep and Manu and I both did 2 that we could give away. We found, however, that our gingerbread house decorating skills are a bit lack luster, so we may just keep them all. We can blame it on the kids, right? And we had fun and that is what matters!
PS If anyone is interested, I did find a ginger bread dough I really liked - it was really easy to work with and did not require floury messes to keep from sticking every where.




From left to right
Dad, Teah, Mom
(you have to love the classic 4 year old yard - just fit as much candy in there as possible - and yes she did try to pile it even higher, but we suggest that the yard was a little bit overfilled)

Dad, Mom, Zander
(and yes Zanders already has a lot of missing candy as well as a half eaten chocolate covered cherry)

Playing in the Leaves

A friend watched kids this saturday while I went to the youth temple trip.  The kids got very spoiled between McDonalds, seeing Santa, and playing in the leaves in their front year.

Backwards Advent

Between pregnancy, Manu being in the bishopric and having his early december trip, two very active children, being young womens president, the upcoming young women in excellence, being in charge of playgroup and deciding to make many of our kids christmas presents, this holiday season has seemed a bit crazy and overwhelming.  Growing up we always did an advent calender for Christmas and it was one of my favorite things, but this year I was thinking it might just be best to forgo this tradition to simplify our life a bit.  The idea of coming up with things to put in every day and then make sure we actually do that thing on that day just did not seem practical this year.  However today when I saw these . . .
http://iammommahearmeroar.blogspot.com/2010/12/fourth-day-of-christmas-with-christie.html
an idea hit me.  We could do a reverse advent.  Everyday Teah could do something that represents a gift to Jesus - help her brother clean his room, be patient or help play with her brother while mom is busy, etc.  And then rather than taking something out of the pocket she can put a little heart in the pocket each day until we get to Christmas.  So much simpler for me and more in the spirit of Christmas.  Of course we will still do lots of other things to get ready for Christmas (including making some of those ornaments), but now it will be a bit more flexible as to how many and when.  And for the advent calender now all I have to do is print out a page of hearts and hang it.

Anyway I have more things that I should post complete with pictures, but we will see if I get to it.  I just wanted to get this up in case anyone else was feeling a bit overwhelmed this Christmas season.

PS here is a page of hearts I found
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fontriver.com/i/maps/hearts_galore_map.png&imgrefurl=http://www.fontriver.com/font/hearts_galore/&usg=__VzK8z0QtuXSv4C72m61NU_KTkqo=&h=577&w=532&sz=22&hl=en&start=84&sig2=J4aD1r63VZVwXtZbffzYRg&zoom=1&tbnid=bXXnPPb1NXJIzM:&tbnh=168&tbnw=155&ei=ebn3TJXyKMWclge0uJyLAg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhearts%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1109%26bih%3D821%26tbs%3Disch:10,3125&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=311&oei=17j3TOHIDoT6lweqyqiKAg&esq=2&page=5&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:18,s:84&tx=77&ty=68&biw=1109&bih=821

and I am going to print them on a manila folder to make the a bit stiffer.

Happy Birthday Manu

Manu's birthday was earlier this month. Teah was incharge of the decorations and wrapping the presents (I failed to get any pictures of the presents).

I was incharge of the dinner, chicken enchilladas and for dessert, homemade ice cream. Unfortunately, we got everything set up with the ice cream maker plugged it in and tried to turn it on only to discover it was dead. We tried to just use the beaters and the ice bath to see if we would eventually get ice cream. After attempting for over 2 hours, Manu took the kids to lowes where he got a new ice cream maker. Once they got home we transfered everything and luckily it was all pretty cold from the previous attempt and 1/2 an hour later we had ice cream - then sent the kids to bed. Luckily the ice cream was very good and even if it was not worth the 3+ hour attempts, Manu certainly is.

Happy birthday to a wonderful husband and dad.

Happy Halloween

For halloween this year we just did the ward trunk or treat last night, which was still plenty of candy for our kids.  Zander let me do a beast on his face after I showed him the picture of the person with the their face painted like a beast and as long as I did not use the brown cream that you smear all over the face.  Once his face was done he did greatly enjoy running around, roaring, and being as beastly as possible.

It was a bit difficult to get pictures of them because Teah wanted to do her princess poses (not really sure where she got her idea of princess poses) and of course Zander had to do what his sister was doing so most of the pictures looked something like the ones below.

Busy Saturday

You know those days when everything is scheduled on top of each other.  Yeah this was one of those days.  Manu had chapel cleaning at 8 to about 10.  While he was gone I got the kids dressed up for the Boo at the Zoo.  As soon as Manu got home he took the kids to the zoo because I was scheduled to tutor for a couple of hours.  While they were I the zoo I tutored in between coming up with some pirate costumes for the birthday party they had at noon.  When the kids got home at 10 to noon we traded Halloween costumes for pirate costumes and headed out for the 12:00 birthday party.  We were at the party till three then ran home.  I   got the kids changed into regular clothes and their faces cleaned while Manu got some clothes washed for his trip tomorrow.  Just before 4 we headed out for the 2nd birthday party of the day.  We arrived home just before 6 and sent the kids to bed.  Unfortunately between it all the library was having their halloween party, but you just can't do everything. And yes, I know it would be a slow saturday for the Cox Clan, but it was busy for us.

So the kids are supposed to be Beauty and the Beast, but I haven't really done Zanders costume yet, he refused to let me paint his face like the beast, and he took his horns off almost immediately so he basically just looked like a dirty kid in a blue coat. (Manu also decided Teah is not allowed to wear makeup until she is 16).

Arizona, Disneyland and California

We recently took a vacation making stops in Arizona and LA. I was not very good about taking pictures, but we did have lots of fun. We first stopped at Manu's grandparents house where we got to enjoy conference weekend. Below is a picture of our little monkeys reaking havoc in their home. We all loved being there and despite the best efforts of T and Z, the time at Manu's grandparents was pleasant and relaxing, as it always is.

After leaving Arizona we traveled to LA. The plan was to spend the night in a hotel across from Disneyland and go to Disneyland the next day. However, the next day was cold and rainy and rather than having miserable kids we decided to postpone Disneyland for a day. Instead we went to Charles's house a day early and had him sprinting to get the house ready in time. That afternoon we went to Santa Monica pier and the kids played at muscle beach where Charles had them performing tricks for peanut butter cups. (Sorry no pictures).

The next day we headed out to Disneyland for a warm, sunny, crowded day. Luckily we had gotten the scoop from more experience disneylanders and knew what to do right when the park openned. There was much we did not do, but pleanty more we did. And it is official, Teah loves thrill rides. So as she gets older I will have someone to ride the rollercoasters with me, even if Manu does not want to. Zander was about a 1/4 inch to short to do any of the real roller coastery rides, so it is yet to be determined, but he did like all the rides he could go on including the pirates of the carabean, jungle cruise and teacups.

Pictures on the Teacups

Picture with Mickey Mouse (who Zander now loves. He also sounds incredibly cute when he says Mickey Mouse.)

Zander wasn't tall enough to ride this one, so I thought it could be fun for me and him to watch Manu and Teah on it. We discovered this was not a good idea as he just cryed because he could not go on. After that one of us just took him to do something else if Teah was going on a ride he could not.

We returned to Charles that evening with both kids completely out, but having thoroughly enjoyed the day. The next day we went with Charles to the natural history museum. There were animal displays and a very impressive gem stone section. However the biggest hit was the bug zoo with a variety of different creepers we could look at. The kids also really enjoyed the hands on exhibits and play areas in the discovery section.

The museum closed at 5, however, they had a special spider exhibit outdoors that was open until 8. We got tickets to see that and then waited outside a bit for my good friend Brittany, and her wonderful sister Courtney and Courtney's little girl Ava. They got a bit hung up in traffic, however, and we ended up going in a little bit before them. The kids got flashlights and buttons that lit up (although we had to take Zanders away from him because he kept licking the battery in the back). Then had several craft tables where Teah and Zander made spider hats, glitter webs, and colored. We then went into the exhibit where they had some spiders in little containers, just like in the bug zoo, and some interesting info on the spiders. For example, did you know that daddy longs legs are not technically spiders and the myth that they have the most poisonous venom, but can't bite humans is simply that, a myth. The final section was a green house with over 100 essentially harmless spiders from all over the word. You could walk through and see spiders and there webs everywhere. The largest ones were between the the size of my hand and Teahs. We were "lucky" to come in the evening when all of the spiders are active. Apperently during the day they just mostly sit one their webs. However, we got to seen many spinning their webs and some who had just caught dinner.

It was about this time Brittany, Courtney and Ava finally conquered the LA traffic to join us. It was wonderful to see them again and Teah had so much fun with Ava. We walked through the spider green house together and Brittany and I were lucky enough to have one of the active spider drop down right inbetween us. It or it's web brushed my face and it swung about an inch from Brittany's eye. We obviousely darted out of the way, although I dont think it was very thrilled either as it quickly climbed up its web to get away from us.

After the spider exhibit, we all went out to California Pizza Kitchen and enjoyed a wonderful evening together before parting ways. Seeing them all was one of my favorite parts of the trip and I only wish we could have enjoyed more time together.

The next day, we got to see more wonderful people as we went to the park with Charles to have any early birthday celebration. My aunt came down, as well as my cousin, her husband and their two boys. It was great to spend time with everyone and we had a wonderful afternoon.

With everyone warn out (inluding Charles) we headed out on Sunday. We stopped by Manu's grandparents for the night and enjoyed dinner with them, as well as his cousin who stopped by. Then Monday morning we finished our journey back home to rest from our vaction.

Some basic equations

toothpaste + hair  =

                         watercolors+Zander=

Rain + Teah =

2 carseats + 1 more =

We are all some what excited about the new car.  It is the most basic edition of the 2006 Chrysler town and country which means no stow and go, no leather and no self opening doors, however as it is more than a decade newer and has over 100,000 miles less anything we have been driving it still seems quite luxurious to us.  Of all of use Teah has been the most excited about the new car and has made a couple of entertaining observations. 

The primary sent home a CD of the songs for the primary program and I had tried to play them in the old car, but the CD player has had some trouble picking up CD's for sometime now and I just never could get it to work. With the new van I was able to play the CD no problem and as it start Teah exclaimed, "Mommy this car plays church music!"

On the way home from church yesterday she was in the back row by the window when she observed, "Mommy there are cup holders back here.  This car is just amazing!"

Who need self opening doors, they are much more likely to break than cup holders.

If you have not noticed, I have been a bit slacking on the blog front.  But I thought I would share a couple of funny and cute stories from the past month or so . . .

The other night around bed time I laid down in my bed for a quick rest before going to gather the kids and get them ready.  Zander came into find me and I asked him if he was ready for bed.  He looked at me, smiled and quickly climbed into our bed and over me to Manu's spot.  Upon noticing Manu's pillow was not in its place he stopped abruptly and said, "Hey, where's my pillow!"

(He has discovered that if he wakes up around 5 am, he can come in our bed because Manu is leaving for work and he gets his spot.  This morning, however, because it was a holiday when he came in Manu was in his spot and Zander responded shoving Manu and telling him to "Go!")

And this is one of the things that happens if Zander sneaks into our room unsupervised.  For what every reason he thinks lotion is a hair product and will put it all over his hair (and get it all over our bed making it stink!) The pen is from a little bit earlier that day.



The other day I told Teah it was time to pickup.  She looked at me and said, "pickup what?"  I replied, "pickup toys."  To which she said, "No!   Pickup . . . . Nana?"

We have come to discover that Zander has a very 3 stooges-esk sense of humor.  For those of you who are familiar with ice age, he thinks scrat is hillarious or anything that involves someone falling on their head, getting squashed, slipping, etc. Consequently one of his new favorite things is run up to Manu, wack him and take off or just look at him and start shaking his booty while chanting nahnahnanahna. Naturally Manu can't resist and Zander ends up getting tickled for it.

The other day I was not feeling very well while I was trying to get an uncooperative Teah dressed.  Teah asked me, "Mom, why are you mad?"  I told here I was not mad, I just wasn't feeling well and I needed her to do what she was supposed to.  She then asked me, "Are you mad at your sickness."  I responded, "Yes, I am mad at my sickness."  Then with complete sincerity she said, "Oh, that is just terrible.  I am mad at my sickness too."