2013 In Review

2013 was full of fun times and living life.

Here is how we spent the last year!

January

We started the year off with a surprise trip to Disney World for Andrew's birthday!

Michael started Potty Training!

February

We had to say goodbye to our sweet Toby

Spent a fun girls weekend in Charleston with my friends for Jennifer's Birthday

March

Spent the weekend in Charleston with the family

April

Fun day at the zoo with friends

May

Had an incredible Disney Vacation

Celebrated 9 years of marriage while at Disney World

June

Watched Airplanes at the Downtown Airport, and got to go into a Big Airplane!

We spent lots of time playing in the pool

July

Michael's first Movie Theater experience

Girls & kids took a trip to Charleston

Another day at the zoo, but this time with Leilani.

August

Girls trip to Charleston for my birthday

Michael turned 3 and we celebrated with a Monster's Inc. Party

I turned 31

Michael moved to a big boy bed

September

We went apple picking as a family

October

Disney World! Yes, again!

Spent the weekend after Disney with Aunt Amy and Uncle Mike

Went to Skytop with Friends

Michael was the cutest little Spider Man for Halloween

November

We welcomed a new niece into the family, Lucy

We spent Thanksgiving with Granny

December

Took a quick trip to Charleston to see Jennifer for the weekend. Stopped at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia on the way down. 

We had a wonderful Christmas

Andrew took a trip cross-country with his friends

and turned 33 while on the road!

It has been an incredible year, and I can't wait to see what 2014 has in store for us. 

A ten year anniversary

A trip to Hawaii

A little boy turning another year older

Lord willing, this will be an exciting year!

Michael's Book of Disney Friends

For Christmas, I made this book for Michael with all the pictures of him with Characters at Disney World. It turned out great, and when he opened it, I had written on the tag, From: Mickey Mouse!

He loved it!

And the best part? I had a code for a free book, so this only cost me shipping!!

Click here to view this photo book larger

The new way to make a photo album: photo books by Shutterfly.

Christmas Night with the Cox Family

Christmas with my family is always CRAZY!! We have twenty five people there, and half of those are children! So you can imagine how chaotic it can get. But the kids all have a blast playing together and its kinda fun to all cram into my parents living room to open presents!

Everyone got over there around 4:30 and we snacked on a ton of yummy appetizers. Cheese dip, cocktail wienies, veggies, sausage pinwheels, shrimp, sandwiches, etc... No one will ever go hungry at my parents house.

Then it was time for presents! First, Papa told the Christmas story, and why we celebrate Christmas. All of the kids knew it was all about Jesus, so we are doing something right!

This year, we all picked names, and even the kids all picked names. It works out much better that way. Because buying 25 gifts would be a lot! My parents gave us the gift of internet! We actually got it a couple of weeks ago, and have been loving it! Up until now, we have just used our iphones for everything. But it is so nice to have wi-fi throughout the whole house! They also have us a new blu-ray player with wi-fi, so we can stream netflix through that! Now we just have to figure out if it will work with our older tv.

Michael got two more big trucks! And he did the same thing as he did at the Wolff house. He took them straight to the kitchen to play with them, and then would run back to open another present, drop it, and head straight back to his trucks. He also got the Planes movie! He was really excited about that, and kept saying, "I don't want to watch it tomorrow, I want to watch it tonight!"

For my parents, we all got together to take a picture of all of the grandkids together. We did a traditional picture, and then we did a Nativity picture. My mom and dad loved it, and even cried when they saw it! It turned out so good, and Sarah did a great job taking the pictures.

After traditional presents, it was time for the White Elephant gifts! That is always so much fun, and we all laugh a lot.

To me, Christmas night is a little sad, because it is all over. There is such a build up and anticipation, and just like that, it's gone. But spending the evening with my family, and staying late helps to ease that feeling.  We are so blessed with so much, and I am so thankful that we have the chance to spent Christmas with all of our family!

It's not about the presents under the tree, but about who is sitting around the tree with you. The best things in life, aren't things!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Morning At Home

Michael woke up around 8:00 Christmas morning. We were hoping he would sleep a little later, since it was so late getting to bed for all of us. But Michael snuggled in bed with us for a little while, and then we tried to get Andrew's butt out of bed. He would sleep all day, if we let him. I went downstairs and got the video camera ready, and put the casserole in the oven.

Then it was time for Michael to come down stairs!

I was so busy taking a video of him coming down, I completely forgot to take any pictures until after he was half way through opening his gifts.

The first thing he did, was walk over to the big box, and rip into it. We didn't even have a chance to tell him to wait. We had wanted that to be his last present, but he wanted to see what it was! He loves his new bike!!

 We all opened presents, and Michael loved playing with all of his new toys!

Daddy got some new sneakers!

The boys got some pirate swords, and they jumped right in sword fighting!

I was pretty excited about my new heating pad! The things you ask for as a mom!

New planes blocks!

Opening his stocking!

He was so happy he got his blue knife! You can see it in his left hand. 

He was not excited about his blue chap stick. Mommy thought that since the outside was blue, it would count, but I was quickly corrected and told that, "it's actually white, not blue!" just look at that face!

 After  we opened presents, and ate breakfast, we went outside in our pj's so Michael could ride his new bike!

 He loves it!!

 It's a good thing he had some new mittens in his stocking, because his little hands were cold!

And mommy and daddy froze!

 Then we had a last minute visit from Santa!! It was pretty exciting to have a special visitor. Santa said he forgot some of Michael's gifts, and wanted to make sure he got them. A candy cane, some chocolate coins, and a wiener dog! A couple of days before Christmas, Michael said that he wanted a wiener dog in his stocking! We were not going to get him a real one, so Santa brought him a little ornament! 

Michael and Santa!

We had such a great Christmas Morning! We relaxed, played with new toys, and napped! We had to get ready for the Cox Christmas Extravaganza that night!