2013 is already a new year full of firsts.....

We are only a few weeks into January, and already we have had a lot of excitement going on in the Cox household..... and some firsts as well.....

Nick & I attending our first ever Inaugural Celebration. I bought tickets for Nick for Christmas to the Inaugural Celebration for Governor Pat McCrory. We have been big fans of his for a long time, and have even heard him speak at several different events in years past. Well, I knew this celebration would be a hit with Nick. We loved getting to dress up and "hob-nob" as Nick likes to call it.

A first for Camille this year... She attended her first Children's Church this past Sunday. Our church has a time for the children during the service for them to come up front and hear a bible story. They then go to Wiggler Worship, which is like Sunday School for toddlers :) They allow kids age 3-5 to go to Children's Church, but we had waited a few months to send Camille since we know what a little chatterbox she can be :) She did great. Her buddy Mary went with her, so that helped and Camille made sure to be quiet while up front. We were proud of our big girl!

Another first for Camille.... she made her debut in our church newsletter..... and being that we attend a very large church, I was shocked! This is a picture of her during our Stop Hunger Now mission event where she volunteered packaging meals with me. She describes it as when she "helped mommy cook rice and wore a chef hat in school."

We have also had a lot of play dates already this month! We got blessed with a few warm weekends in between some freezing cold weekdays, so we took advantage. Camille had play dates with her M&M friends.... Madelyn, Mary, and Molly :)

So 2013 is off to a great start for the Cox family..... hope yours is too!

Merry Christmas 2012 From The Cox Family

We hope that all of our friends and family had a very blessed 2012, we sure did!

We always have several Christmas celebrations each year to get in a visit with each side of the family. This year we kicked off our Christmas celebrations in Sanford with the DesVergers side. We had a great time and Camille sure loved her play time with the cousins.

Our next celebration was in Wilson with the Cox side of the family. Camille and Emily found their fun through the new crimping iron.

We celebrated with Mom, John, and Aya on Christmas Eve, where one of Mom's gifts from us was a Mimi, Mommy, and Millie day trip to Old Salem. Always a favorite spot of ours, mainly for the bakery! Camille seemed most impressed by this big tree, oh and the hotdog she got for lunch.

Also on Christmas Eve we attending the Family Christmas Eve service at church. We took our sweet neighbors and the kids loved getting to participate in the service by being angels, shepherds, or wise men. Extra special this year was getting to see our friends Clint, Meagan, and their new baby Sam, play the holy family during the service.

We followed up the service with having our neighbors over for dinner that evening. The kids sure had fun as you can tell from the picture!

On Christmas Day, we celebrated Jesus' birth as a family of three. We don't do Santa at our house, which has proven more challenging than expected, but we were so happy that Camille is learning the real meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate with presents. She got several Barbie related items, clothes, shoes, and food for her play kitchen, but she seemed most excited about the gummy worms in her stocking. Go figure. Pops and Marla surprised Camille with a new playhouse for our backyard. Daddy put it together later that day since the weather was so nice. Camille played in it for almost 2 hours!

The adventures continued on our holiday break as we took in a couple of NCSU basketball games. Camille was excited to debut her new cheerleading outfit!

Our final celebration was with the McNeill side. We enjoyed the time together and Camille always enjoys the extra attention :)

We are looking forward to 2013!

Preschool Happenings

Camille loves going to school each morning. It is so reassuring to drop her off and see how excited she is to see her friends, her teacher, and especially ready to learn. Nick & I have been extremely impressed with the curriculum at this age and can already see so much advancement in Camille. At 3, she can count to twenty, do some minor addition (1+1 kind of thing), recite & identify all the letters of the alphabet, and say a few spanish words. She knows all her colors and shapes, even an octagon! She has developed a love for The Bible already and loves to recite bible stories that she knows from her books or from learning at school or in chapel. We truly love her school and are so blessed to have found it and blessed that Camille has had such wonderful teachers each step along the way. Mrs. Brenda is especially good at sending pictures throughout the week of what the kids are doing in the classroom, so here are a few I wanted to share.

Camille also has been pull-up free at night for two weeks!!! It didn't even occur to me to start trying to have her wear panties at night right now, but the doctor suggested it since she has been potty trained for so long now. Well, we have only had one accident over the two weeks at night. The key is usually to have her not drink anything after dinner and then she must go potty before bed, no if's and's or but's :)

Another funny picture I stumbled upon and wanted to share..... Camille and her buddy Mary playing dress up recently.... They had soo much fun together and even put on a dance recital for us between costume changes :) We get a kick out of the personality at this age! Very comical!

Our Little "Who"

 Camille's school had their annual Christmas program a couple of weeks ago. They decided to present "How Christmas Saved the Grinch." Camille was a "who." She loved dressing up for this part, as the only directions were to be mismatched and silly. While her class had a small part, Camille had so much fun. She sang all the words to her the song "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." We were so proud of her.

We have several upcoming family Christmas celebrations, so we look forward to sharing all those pictures soon!

Thanksgiving 2012

I'm a few weeks behind in my Thanksgiving post, but its because the past couple of weeks have been pure chaos. However, I think this Thanksgiving was the most relaxing and low stress holiday we've had since Camille was born. It was nice to not feel rushed and to have plenty of time to ourselves and with family.

Camille's school kicks off the holiday by hosting their annual Thanksgiving luncheon. It is fun to get to eat with Camille, though she is much more well behaved when her parents are NOT there. Her class was very excited to recite a song for us about a turkey, as well as show off their turkey hats. Too cute!

Each child has told Mrs. Brenda what they were thankful for prior to our lunch. Camille response: "my monkey" There is a monkey stuffed animal in the class that Brenda allows Camille to sleep with at nap time since she has fallen in love with it.

Our first stop on Thanksgiving was at Nick's family's farm. We try to go every year, especially now that Camille can enjoy the hay rides and animals.

Can you believe we managed to get a picture with the whole Cox family?!
Next stop was Sanford for the DesVergers Thanksgiving. We had a small group this year due to others traveling and sickness. We still managed to completely stuff ourselves :)

The following evening, we got tickets for the NCSU basketball game, so Abe, Emily, and Jacob were able to join us too! Camille was thrilled to have her cousin Emily come with her to the game.

Nick & I followed up the basketball game with a football game the following evening. We didn't dare take Camille, as the two of us could barely handle the cold temperatures!

Hope everyone had as relaxing of a holiday as we did! Now we're all back to the grind and trying to get ready for Christmas!

Birthday Questionnaire: Age 3

These are questions that I asked Camille on her 3rd birthday. She was very thoughtful in answering her questions and took her time on each one.

What is your favorite color? Pink


What is your favorite toy? Baby dolls

What is your favorite fruit? Apple dapple (apples)

What is your favorite tv show? Olivia

What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? banana

What is your favorite outfit? Castle shirt (3yr old birthday shirt)

What is your favorite game? Kicking a ball

What is your favorite snack? Goldfish

What is your favorite animal? Snake

What is your favorite song? Jesus Loves Me and the Dora theme song

What is your favorite book? I Spy

Who is your best friend? Madelyn aka Maddie

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play with a ball

What is your favorite drink? Milk

What is your favorite holiday? Easter

What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Monkey lovie

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Pancakes

What do you want to be when you grow up? A tiger

What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy? Read books

What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy? Chase leaves outside and pick them up when they fall off the trees

Camille turns 3!

As fun as it was to count down the days until Camille turned 3, it is so hard to believe that three years have passed already! My little baby just keeps getting bigger and bigger (and smarter and smarter) :)

Camille had quite the birthday celebration, considering she had 3 parties and tons of attention in between. Her first celebration was the week before her birthday. She called this her "kid party" because we invited a lot of her little friends from school, church, etc. This celebration took place at Gymboree to which I HIGHLY recommend. It was so nice to come in with a cake and some favors, and let the hired teacher do the rest.  The kids had such a great time playing with each other. There was a lot of free play, but the teacher also let the kids in different songs, games, and other activities. It was fun to see such happy faces. Here are some pictures from her "kid party."

After her "kid party," we had her "family dinner party." Camille wanted to continue her princess theme, so I had fun decorating the house for that.

Camille loved having the family that was close enough to come over and celebrate. Our dinner was even themed and included Pocahontas Pot Pie. Camille enjoyed showing off her new toys to her cousins.

As if that wasn't enough celebrating, Camille got to make the trip to Wilkesboro on her actual birthday weekend to have her "McNeill party." My dad and Marla went out of there way to make Camille's birthday extra special. She had a Barbie Princess cake and got to have her Gran and Poppy over to help in celebrating too.

Camille loved getting another round of presents. She got a Barbie makeup set from Dad & the gang and was quick to spot the nail polish portion... so we painted her fingers and toes.

They also gave her a princess helmet and padding!

To complete the look, Poppy had given Camille a ride on scooter that is motion activated. Camille didn't appreciate that she couldn't use her feet, so she made up her own method for riding. Mommy & Daddy however had a lot of fun using it the right way :)

Camille found her love for the ipad during our visit. Maybe we'll have to add that to the list next year ;)

Our fun day ended with a delicious dinner in downtown Wilkesboro. Believe it or not, Camille's favorite part of the meal was the mushroom bisque.

On our last day in Wilkesboro, we ate lunch with Gran. Leave it to Gran to arrange for yet another birthday celebration. The staff brought out a piece of cake and a candle and we all sang happy birthday (again).

After writing this, I'm starting to see why our birthday girl has been acting so rotten lately...... someone had a little too much celebrating and overindulging!!

I found a cute idea on Pinterest that I will include in my next post. It's called 20 Questions for Kids and has you make a list of questions for your child, starting at age 3, and continuing every birthday until they turn 18.... you then make a book out of all the years of questions to see how they grow and change in their responses. So stay tuned!