Wednesday, December 26, 2012

A Very (Un)Merry Birthday!

Fox and His Boys


  Fox had a birthday a couple of weeks ago! He had a busy but good day that started with volunteering at Cash's school and ended with chocolate cake! However, as per tradition, his birthday triggered a string of unfortunate circumstances! His birthday weekend was spent dealing with a case of lice on Cash (curse you, public school!), hours at a laundromat using every last cent of birthday money to get everything dried, and as a result, an unfortunate shrinking of his favorite wool coat.
     
   The day after that, my parents' car got backed into while we were leaving a Target parking lot. We also found a few more straggling lice throughout the week, which meant everything got washed 3 more times to be safe. So, life lessons were aplenty as Fox started the next year of his life.

Lessons learned:
--Take your wool coat to the laundromat
--RIDx does nothing for lice. Stick to tea tree shampoo, olive oil, and a hair dryer.
--Don't go to Target in the midst of crazy Christmas shopping!

  As far as "tradition", last year, Fox had an all-day migraine on his birthday.  The year before that, he was recovering from his second hernia surgery.  The year before that, our car broke down on his way home from work and the beautiful cheesecake I baked him turned out to be completely uncooked in the center!

   This past year has been really hard on him--hello, months-long unemployment--yet he continues to amaze me with how strong he is staying! In fact, after that string of trials and doing countless loads of laundry, he said, "You know, we really are blessed." I wanted to say, "Are you kidding me?!" but it's true--we have been kept healthy this year, and our children are growing and thriving.

So, a very MERRY birthday and BLESSED new year to my husband of a DECADE who literally drops everything to serve me and our children the minute he walks in the door...

You deserve the best, and I know that good things are coming your way this next year! I love you, my lifetime boyfriend :)





Wednesday, December 12, 2012

When Mom's away, Coco will...


...color her entire hands in blue "washable" marker. Washable? Really? Hmmm, Crayola, this is after 15 minutes of scrubbing with various solvents...



...pour herself a bowl of sprinkles, breakfast of champions.
Don't worry--she only ate a few spoonfuls before I got to it! I think...
 I think someone is LOVING having a baby brother who needs to get laid down for naps gets mom out of the room for a few minutes.

And thus begins her year as a 4 year old!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Coco's 4th Birthday Recap!

   Cosette had her birthday last month, and, despite going to the ER in the morning, she had a good time! 

Grandma gave her a fluffy unicorn before heading out to Wisconsin.

On the way home from the E.R., she got to go to the toy store and pick out this bow/arrow/dress set from the movie Brave.

She requested strawberry angel food cake for dessert!

Auntie Ru gave Coco the movie Brave and a ton of her favorite treat--bubble gum!

She spent some birthday money on this color-your-own purse.  So cute that Daddy is helping her--she did great staying in the lines!


  Coco is such a fun, goofy girl!  She really doesn't care much for dolls and would much rather spend her days dressing up, singing, or playing horsey (oh yes, that is where I pretend I am the horse and she sits on my back while I gallop-crawl around the house. Not my favorite). She is working on her Scottish accent to be like Merida from Brave and has gotten quite good at it!  She is definitely her Daddy's girl!

Sunday, December 9, 2012

2 months later...

  Our laptop is slowly dying, so it's hard to upload pics--but here goes! Here is Quincy at 9 months:




And the other crazies...

  For his 10 month shot, this dark, dark photo is the best I got out of the bunch :(


 He was wailing and wailing and only little distractions could console him (after I decided that chopsticks aren't the best things to chew on):

 
 Now here is my happy Quincy boy when not being forced to pose on a chair!  He is standing and actually started taking steps tonight!


  He is growing 4 top teeth right now, so we've had some sleepless nights these past few weeks.  Other than that, he is a fun, curious baby boy.  I can't believe he'll turn 1 in 6 weeks!  Too crazy :)