Smith's Easter Egg Hunt

So, it's officially a tradition.  Every year the day before Easter for the last 3 years, we've headed over to our local Smiths Food and Drug store.  They put on an Easter egg hunt, and every year they've impressed me.  

You know the city-sponsored Easter egg hunts at local parks?  We tried those once.  When the whistle was blown to start the hunt, so many kids took off running that every SINGLE egg was gone within the first 30 seconds of the hunt!  Our two kids came home crying and empty handed.  
Once, a local park was "prepared" and had extra bags of candy for kids who didn't get anything.  We got in line to get a piece of candy since there were no eggs to be had, and they ran out of the extra stuff too!
Another time it was raining/snowing and freezing cold.  That wasn't fun.

Never again, my friends.

Smith's does it indoors, so I don't have to worry about weather.  They divide the hunt into different age groups so that I don't have to fear my young kiddos getting run over by teenagers.  They have kept it fairly small so the place isn't overly crowded.  They offer free breakfast (well, free donut holes and orange juice/chocolate milk, anyway).  They have PLENTY of stuff for EVERYONE to find, and even when the hunt is done and the kids are leaving with full baskets of goodies, the employees come around and give kids coupons for free products at the store!  They are so nice, so sweet, and I LOVE them for it. :-)

My kids, as usual, have highly enjoyed their haul!  Thank you, Smith's, for providing a stress-free hunt that even my anxiety-ridden boy can enjoy!

Family Christmas Letter (written by Munchkin)

Dear family and friends,

We hope you have a Merry Christmas.  Here are some things good about this year:

Because of Buddy Boy's autism, we were given an Ipad from a very special person!  We have found some educational apps to help him read and write new words.  He's very special to everyone, and he's the best little brother ever!

I (Munchkin) started the year by getting baptized.  I got on the honor roll this first trimester at school by getting 98% and above on ALL my subjects!  I have been kind to my wonderful and crazy cats.

Evelyn (mom) has gotten a wonderful new job at my school.  She found out about a carnival held at Wheeler Farm for families with autism, and we all went and had a blast!  She's gotten to be in the Mormon Messages for the church.

Clayton (dad) is still working at Verizon Wireless.  He took us on a weekend trip to Bear Lake over the summer.  He taught me to swim a lot better that trip!  He's the best dad...give all the cheers to our wonderful and great dad!

Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas!

Love, Cox Family and our two wonderful cats

Setting Up Christmas Stuff

Getting out Christmas decor,and Parker sees a plate that says, "Dear Santa, Here is a treat for you and carrots for your reindeer." The first "for" is missing the O and R. So he sounds it out and reads " Dear Santa, here is a treat. F You and carrots for your reindeer." Gotta find some replacement lettering!

 

Also, Akaila put on Christmas music and the song "Noel" came on. She listened for awhile, then came to me in clear distress and upset. "Mom, you know that Noel song? I don't think we should listen to it anymore. You know, cause of how it says 'Born is the kingdom of h**l'" I explained it's "born is the king of Israel", EL, not with an H.:-)

My Gratitude List

Throughout this month I've read hundreds of gratitude lists from friends.  I chose not to participate, because I didn't trust myself to remember every day, and quite honestly, because I didn't want to simply 'follow the crowd'.  I have, however, truly enjoyed reading so many thoughtful statuses, so many kind words, and feeling the feelings that were meant to accompany them.  I thank all of my FB friends and family who posted every day, because you really lifted my heart.




I'm not gifted in the way of words like some are (Yes you, Andrea Aquin and you, Kambree Miller).  I read the words of others; they are harmonious and melodious, they paint a picture, they tell a story, they speak to the heart.  You will not see that from me today, because that isn't something I'm good at, and that's okay.  You're just going to get a simple bullet-pointed list, because making lists, well, that's something I know how to do:

• I'm thankful for my kids.  There is no greater gift in my life than the gift those kids are to me.  With every breath they take, they take my breath away.  Their thoughtfulness, their humility, their eagerness to learn, everything about them sets me in awe.
• I am thankful for those around me who love my kids.  When aunts and uncles and cousins and friends treat my children with respect and admiration, I see it and my heart soars.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, for loving my kids. 
• Last Sunday I was (and still am) thankful for a positive strep throat culture.  Oh, the relief of knowing I was not going to be sent home without antibiotics!  It was a big deal.
• I am thankful to see Buddy Boy learning to read.  We were still working on him writing letters correctly, but he decided it was time to move on and just started.  It's so exciting to see his progress.
• I am thankful that Munchkin is such an amazing student.  I certainly never had all 98% and above in every school subject.  She's not only smart, but she's well behaved, and I've only heard RAVES about her as a student.
• I am thankful for good, kind, loving, and dedicated teachers (Ahem, Shelly Prettyman).  The difference in my children when they have a teacher who cares vs. a teacher who is simply working for a paycheck is HUGE.  We've been so blessed to have good teachers 80% of the time.
• I am grateful for the opportunities I've had in the last few months to be involved with a couple of church productions.  No big parts, mind you, but no matter the role, the spirit is there, and it's very uplifting.
• I am thankful for so many good people surrounding us.  From the neighbor who always leaves goodies on my porch when I'm down to the neighbor who invites Munchkin over to play to the friend who gave Buddy Boy an iPad....how can we NOT be grateful?
• I am thankful for good music.  For the Jack Johnson's out there to provide me music when I need to just enjoy the mellow, relaxing waves of life.  For the many Christian artists whose music uplifts me when I need it.  For the APPROPRIATE teeny bop music I can feel okay with my daughter listening to.  For the stuff that makes me wanna move, for the sounds that motivate and challenge me, and for those that soothe and inspire me.  I'm grateful to be a lover of music.
• I am thankful to have discovered how wonderfully soothing herbal chamomile tea is on a sore throat.
• I am thankful that Buddy Boy's trip and stay at the hospital did not lead to surgery as initially thought, and that he's already completely recovered.
• I am thankful for family in general.  I am thankful to have a home to live in.  I am thankful that my husband has a stable job with good insurance.  I am thankful for the gospel.  I am thankful for my Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And many, many more, but I'll leave it at that.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Easter 2011

Well schmuck...I've gotten behind.  I'll catch up as quickly as I can, starting with Easter.  The week before Easter, the kids did a lot of decorating.  We tried a new craft that we found HERE to make yarn eggs to hang:

Epic failure, by the way.  First we didn't use enough yarn, then we didn't let it dry long enough. 

The Friday before Easter, we boiled and decorated eggs.

Saturday we did a few egg hunts.  The first one was at Smith's.  They provided free breakfast and, just like last year, they did a fabulous job...we loved it! After that we did our own hunt in the backyard, and later we went to Granny's house to do another one.  Munchkin and Buddy Boy loved them all SO MUCH that they made us re-hide the eggs many, many times at home.  While we were gone at one of those hunts, the Easter Bunny dropped off some Easter buckets.

Sunday was the spiritual day.  We talked about the meaning behind the holiday, went to church, and had a Christ-focused day.  For dinner we had "resurrection rolls", and something else (but for the life of me, I can't remember what!).  The rolls were hollow...thanks Chandelle for teaching me how to do them!

And that...was Easter!

Halloween

For Halloween Munchkin was Hanna Montana, and Buddy Boy was a Pumpkin. Munchkin just loves Halloween. She loves dressing up, looking at everyone's decorations, making decorations, carving pumpkins, trick and treating, and handing out candy. Buddy Boy liked being in a stroller and walking up to people's doors and trying to walk inside. I was not able to make it to Munchkin's school dress-up and walk around, but I was able to make it in time for lunch. Here is some pictures of the fun. ~Dad

Happy Memorial Day

Freedom Is Not Free
By LCDR Kelly Strong, USCG - Copyright 1981

I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Service man saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He'd stand out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil
How many mothers' tears?

How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still,
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin.
Of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.

Happy Memorial Day to all....

Happy Belated Mother's Day

Everything Mom

How did you find the energy, Mom
To do all the things you did,
To be teacher, nurse and counselor
To me, when I was a kid.

How did you do it all, Mom,
Be a chauffeur, cook and friend,
Yet find time to be a playmate,
I just can’t comprehend.

I see now it was love, Mom
That made you come whenever I'd call,
Your inexhaustible love, Mom
And I thank you for it all.

By Joanna Fuchs

Happy Earth Day!

I admit it...my family, we are a bunch of tree huggers...literally:-). I love the whole "green living" movement that has swept the nation, and I have a lot of fun trying to figure out how to reduce my carbon print on our planet. I admit I haven't spent as much time this year trying to find new ways, but I have improved on some of the ways we were already trying:

- Reuseable grocery bags - We bought a bunch of these last Earth Day, but I didn't use them regularly. I didn't really get into the habit. Now, we're in the habit, and the bags have paid for themselves since I get a $0.05 discount for each bag used. (I always have to remind the checkers to give me the discount, and they're not usually nice about it, but I want my 5 cents, dang it!)

- Driving less - We've done this, but it's been more out of necessity than choice. Thank goodness for necessity! It's been good, I've lost a few lbs and gotten more fresh air, right?

-Gardening - We're expanding our garden this year, although not to save the environment as much as to save MONEY! I'm super excited with my new canning supplies!

Easter Weekend Fun

We had a pretty fun filled Easter weekend...and we hope you all did too! I love reading about all the fun things everyone did. Since I love it, I'm gonna assume that you all are dying to hear about ours...so here you go!

We started Thursday afternoon. While Buddy Boy was napping, we colored some hard boiled eggs.

After Buddy Boy woke up, he discovered the new colored "balls" and began rolling them around and lining them up. I figured there was no harm in that, until he decided he should throw them instead.

Saturday we went to the Taylorsville park Easter egg hunt. The eggs were all gone within the first 2 minutes, and so Munchkin didn't get one and was disappointed. Luckily, there were volunteers handing out handfuls of candy to those who didn't find anything. We then ventured over to the playground where the kids played and we climbed trees.

Immediately following the park, Dad took Munchkin to Lowe's to build her free birdhouse with their workshop they do, and I took Buddy Boy with me to my cousin's baby shower. Vicky, my cousin, was able to adopt a precious baby boy, after waiting and wanting it for so many years, so it was a beautiful event! I didn't get pictures of that, but here are some pictures of Munchkin at the workshop.

After that we did our own Easter egg hunt in the backyard. The kids enjoyed it so much that they kept going outside and re-hiding the eggs. Sunday morning the Easter bunny brought Easter baskets, and then we went to church for a wonderful meeting. I taught sharing time, it was my first time as the counselor, so I was nervous, but it went well. We got out of church at 4:00, headed over to my mom's for 5:00 dinner (which was delish, as always), and then headed home so I could take my dreaded math test!

Good weekend, all in all, I'd say.Frugal and fun packed.

Merry Christmas

Here's the letter we sent out to people...most people on our blog list probably didn't get one, so here ya go!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Greetings!! We hope this letter finds you doing well, and enjoying a wonderful Christmas season. Here’s an overview of what’s going on with us:

In September Munchkin started Kindergarten! She has really taken to school and loves to learn. She’s doing well learning to read and has made about a bazillion friends. When we attended parent-teacher conference, we received her first report card. She had all perfect scores!!!

In July Buddy Boy was diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. It has presented us with a lot of challenges, emotional, financial, and other, but we feel SO grateful that he received a diagnosis at a young age. He’s an absolute delight in the family, and we’re now armed with more information to help him continue learning and growing.

In the summer Mom learned how to can, and began canning everything she could get her hands on. It was a lot of fun learning a new way to be more self reliant and to build up the food storage. We have much bigger plans for the garden next year!

All throughout the year Dad has been building things using scrap wood we have around the house. Among his creations are 3 fabulous food storage shelves, a new garden box, and a bench for the playroom. We’re loving that we can make such great use of scraps and not spend money.

In May we went to San Diego for vacation. We played at Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park. We also visited with family. We slept over at Mae and Nate’s place, and had the blessed opportunity to see Big Mama and family again. We also enjoyed dinner with Reggie and Michelle. What a blast!

As we look back at our year and make plans for the next one, we realize that we wouldn’t be where we are without our friends and family. And so we send our love to you this beautiful Christmas season.

Love,
The family!

Halloween Joys

The day before Halloween doing some last minute decorations:



At school Munchkin in her "fairy princess ballerina" costume:




In her Jasmine costume:


Buddy Boy didn't enjoy us trying to dress him, so we let him off the hook this year. He was much happier to go as a cute little boy for Halloween and to be comfortable:

Happy Earth Week

This week of course, we celebrated Earth Day. As most of our friends and family know, our family is kinda into "green" living, and environmentally friendly activity. We've taken small (but significant) steps to reduce our negative environmental impact...you know, we've been using CFLs for over 6 years, our love of LED Christmas lights, recycling when it's convenient, using natural cleaners (except dishwasher detergent), etc etc.

Well, in honor of Earth Day, I thought I'd copy NBC and make it an Earth Week. We've had a good time as a family learning about the earth and the things we can do to help it. So here's what we did this week:

-Bought 5 reusable mesh bags from Reams. We already had some, but they were teeny and didn't hold much. I can now easily do all my shopping for the week and fit it into 3 or 4 bags, so I'm using them more.

-We already had our computer stuff on a power strip, but not the TV stuff. This week we put it all on and of course, turn the strip off when not in use.

-I used to keep our home heated to 68 degrees during the day and at 66 at night. For the last few weeks we've kept it at 66 during the day and 62 at night (frankly, the heater shouldn't be being used AT ALL this late into spring, but that's a whole 'nother story)

-We've set up recycle bins (really they're garbage cans) in all rooms of the house, so it's very convenient to recycle no matter what room we're cleaning. Our poor recycle bin is always stuffed to the max come trash day, and there's always more waiting in our smaller bins to put it as soon as it's empty. Our garbage can, on the other hand, is almost empty most weeks.

-We've composted our scraps. We've been doing this off and on for years, but decided to do a better job of it, again by finding a way to make it more convenient. (yep, I'm lazy, and I'm proud)

-We donated $$$ to the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 6 trees. Four are in "honor" of each family member, and the other two are to offset the emissions from our upcoming trip. Those planes are terrible!!! (there are really cool calculators online to help you figure out how you can offset vacation emissions!!)

-We bought earth friendly dish washer detergent. It works better than the other stuff anyway! We bought ours from Shaklee, but you can also buy natural household cleaners from Seventh Generation.

-And of course, we've been talking to the kids about the earth. I got the Planet Earth DVDs from the library and Munchkin and I watched them as often as we could. It was a great chance to show her and teach her of the beauty of this earth, and why it's so important we treat it well.

Anywho, that's been our week. It's been a fun and educational one for us.

New Year Goals

For Family Home Evening each of us (except Buddy Boy) came up with a few fun goals that we would like to do for 2008. One of Munchkin's was to make a snowman. So With today's new snowfall we made a snowman, afterward we played on her sled. If was a fun 20 minutes until she was frozen, and had enough. One of my goals is to capture more moments on camera, and organize all of our photos (I realize this will be a never ending project). Here are a few of our moments together. ~Dad

Christmas Fun

We had a great Christmas that extended for almost 2 weeks. It all started 12 days before Christmas. Someone was dropping off pieces of a nativity set one day at a time with the messages about the 1st, 2nd, etc days of Christmas, our Savior gave to us... It ended the day before Christmas Eve when the family revealed themselves and gave us the rest of the set. What a way to get us in the holiday spirit! It was so exciting to rush to the door to see if we could catch them. We never did!

Also on the Sunday before Christmas, our Bishop told us he needed to come over to our house. All day I was trying to think what we did that was so bad that he had to pay us a visit in our home! Turned out that a very kind person or people wanted to help us have a good Christmas. The kids each received an outfit (see the pictures of them dressed up) and a toy. Mom and Dad got a beautiful plaque which is displayed proudly in our living room. We don't know who it was from, so THANK YOU, secret Santas!! (In case you see this)

Then came Christmas day. Presents galore! Munchkin got a singing Care Bear, an "Alphabus", a Baby Alive (she eats and poops and everything!), a nightgown (you can see her jumping for joy in it lol), a flower shaped nightlight, and other things. Buddy Boy was overjoyed to play with the wrapping paper, but he also got some toys: his first ever remote control car, a ball blowing thingy (like Asher's), an Elmo giggle and go driver, a "stretch me" Elmo doll, and more.

THEN, on the Saturday after Christmas, Dad suprised everyone with a PUPPY! Mom was in shock. The kids were thrilled. He's a cute little guy. Munchkin decided he's a girl, not a boy, and "her" name is Nisha.

Anywho, that was our holiday in a nutshell. We are so blessed to have wonderful family and friends who spread joy into our lives. We look forward to the chance to pay it forward when the opportunity arises as well!

Next, the our family year in review....

Lights

Mom and Munchkin love Christmas lights. We usually put out some Christmas lights of our own, but not a lot. This year I was a lot more excited to put up some of our newly invested LED lights. One strand is only 3.2 watts!! Hopefully every year our collection gets larger. Right now the lights are pretty expensive compared to the regular lights, but should be well worth the investment on our electric bill. We found some on sale at Kmart for only $5.00 a strand. Our family is all about energy efficiency.

All I Want For Christmas...

Well, I took this cute picture of Buddy Boy and planned on posting a cute little blurb with a silly little list of things I want for Christmas this year (like a blender that I can't break...seriously, I've gone through like 5 of them...I just can't seem to use them right).


















This week, however, made me rethink my "list". Dad and Munchkin went to Disneyland and from the looks and sounds of it, had a great time!

 


















In the meantime, Buddy Boy was missing his dad and sister something fierce, as was I. We were lonely and bored, and I was pretty pathetic, honestly. On Wednesday, Buddy Boy had an appointment at Primary Children's hospital for an MRI. It was much more traumatic than it should have been. Buddy had to be sedated, so they were going to give him an IV. The nurses had to stick him FIVE (yes, 5) times to get a vein, and I had to be the one forcing him to lay still. I felt so bad. Afterwards in the recovery room, he was completely zonked, and I just held him, stroked his hands, hairs, and face and sang Primary and other church songs to him. It was one of those precious moments that I will never forget. He laid in my arms so peaceful and still for about 2 hours. I didn't take any pictures; I was a tad bit distracted:-)

That evening, Dad decided to leave California a day early and to start home right away. They planned on being home around 5:30 in the morning. At 3:00 in the morning in Fillmore, a deer decided to jump onto the freeway in front of the car and see what would happen. Dad and Munchkin were not hurt at all, thank goodness, but the car wasn't so lucky. I drove down to pick them up and they slept peacefully for some of the day. Home safe at last.

So...with all that's happened this week, I have to say that my perspective has changed a bit. I decided I only want 3 things for Christmas this year:



-Dad,


-Munchkin, and


-Buddy Boy