what have we been up to?

Well, it's simple. Christmas. I waited til last minute to get gifts taken care of this year. That is totally out of character for me. I will say that christmas was a fun time. We went to Orlando and spent it with Derrick, Amanda, Riley, Shelby, Maggie, Sam, Dan, Carolyn, Taylor, Jesse, Mia, Bella, Maggie(yes there were two dogs named Maggie), Shirl, GiGi, Yaya, and Pappy. Such fun times. When I can get the pics from Amanda, I'll upload a few so you can see the fun times we had.

Christmas Morning, Shelby and Kenzie had me up at 447 am. Oh my gooness did I wanna Kill them!!! I was up til after 1 and up before 5! So they had to wait til 6 to wake the house. When they did, My girls got their santa sacks while Riley and Shelby got to see what they got from Santa. My girls got a variety of toys and games from him. Maddie got a Bike and Scooter from him. Riley and shelby got pogo sticks and a trampoline. So much fun!!!

Then we did stockings... status quo... lots of goodies in there!!! My favorite was the Keychain that had the pic of the kids with the grandparents! Love shrinky dinks!

For gifts, I will try to summarize our favorites:

Dawn: Jewelry Armoire and Cross necklace. Fiesa bowls. Scrappy supplies and shirts. One was pink saying Scrap Queen and the black one said, "Scrappers are acid free"!

Ryan: Mario Galaxy 2 for wii, bucs jersey, racecar game from our girls, etc.

Maddie: Game boy and games. perfection, princess hide and seek, ALPHIE

Kenzie: Metallic Rose DS (she named it Rosie) with Toy Story3 to go with it. MP3 player loaded with songs, games, dvd's, outfit from yaya, erasers (they are really coooool ones called CRAZERASERS) etc.

It was a really great christmas. I guess I have lost my train of thought. If it comes back I will edit the post. LOL

Cox Family Christmas Card 2010

This year, I decided that I didn't care for the typical photo greeting card and I wanted to be able to make my own, so I fired up my paintshop and went to work. Here's what i came up with. I love it!!!!! I even may have an order for me to design a card for a friend in Texas!!!

Cox Christmas Photos

While in Deltona, My friend Mandi gave Maddie the outfit she wore in these photos. I was going to do the black turtleneck and jean thing since we were all wearing black/charcoal and jeans, but then Mandi gave her this outfit and she loved it!!! Amanda posed us in front of her fireplace. IT WAS SOOOO HOT! yes the fireplace was on while the pics were being taken...

This is one of my favorite pics of Kenzie. She looks so angellic with the lights reflecting in the perfect way off of the tree and her.

Our Family photo in front of the tree.

And Maddie took a turn playing with the ornaments so that we could get this photo. Again, Amanda did a great job!!! Thank you so much!

Grandparents Photo Shoot....

As you can see, Amanda took photo's of the girls with their grandparents. In this first pic, we have Maddie with GiGi. Maddie was quite the little sassy monster during pics. She totally didn't want to take the pics partially because she has such a short attention span and partly because she saw the slide over to the side and she wanted to play. She does love her GiGi though, so we were able to get her attention diverted again to the task at hand. And I do think it turned out nice in the end.

Pappy, Grammy, GiGi, Gizmo, Shelby, Riley, Kenzie, and Maddie all ready for a wonderful picture!

GiGi with Gizmo and her great grand daughters!!! love it!!!

YaYa and Pappy (Aka: Grammy) taking time out for a photo of just the two of them. Nicely done Amanda!

Here we have Riley and Shelby with Grammy and Pappy. We attempted to grab Maddie and Kenzie in for this one but Maddie was not having it. Hmmm that girlie!!!

What a weekend....

This past weekend was quite the weekend.... Let me break it down for you:

Friday, I got Ryan up for work at 530 am. He was off to work and I got Kenzie off to school. I did laundry and packed all day for our weekend. When he got home, he picked Kenzie up from the bus so I could do what I needed to do so we would be ready to go. We then loaded the kids into the van and were off to Trinity. We switched cars and visited with GiGi for a bit. We headed to deltona. Got to Lakeland and needed to feed the girls, so McDonalds got graced with our money. We leave and get 2 exits down the road only to pull in to another McDonalds to trade out the toy. Not fun. Finally, we arrive at our destination at 9:17 pm. Exhausted!!! Albert helped unpack our car. The kids did their thing while Mandi, Albert, Ryan and I goofed off. The boys settled into a movie while the ladies settled in to the scrap room... At around 4 am, we went to bed. I woke up around 730 and on the way to the bathroom I find:

THE HOUSE IS FLOODED!!!!

I wake Albert and Mandi up and we go to cleaning up the mess. We ended up having to spend most of the day at his mom's doing laundry, but all in all we had fun. When we got home, Mandi and I started making mini albums and the boys come in. Ryan said we were leaving to go to Longwood. Although we were bummed that we were leaving so soon, we hadn't been to his brother's house in over a year, so we left and traveled 24 minutes to his brother's house.

It was a fun visit and in the next post, you will see some of the pics from our weekend... Shelby was a hoooooot! as always! Riley a sweetheart! Amanda (Cox) was a wonderful Photographer. Amanda (Valentin) such a pleasure to be around as always, and the list goes on!!!

We came home last night and went to bed early. I have even made our Christmas Card today!!! I am going to be uploading it very soon....

mall time

so today, we go to the mall looking for something for kenzie to wear this weekend. and i didn't find anything, but maddie caught sight of the piercing pagoda. she declared that she was goign to get her ears pierced. and although i have the 5 year old piercing rule, i caved after all she has been begging for 6 months to do this. so, the piercing pagoda wouldn't do it because they didn't have an extra person around who could do the other ear at the same time. claires told us the same story. walmart refuses also. so we go to merle norman thinking it would be the same story. the lady said she wanted to talk with maddie and see if she thought she would cooperate with the whole process. after a discussion with maddie, we decided to try it. ryan sat down in the chair and let maddie sit on his lap. the lady marks her ears and asks maddie if she wants to really have the earrings put in. maddie says yes. so she does the first one. a few tears later, maddie says that she wants me to hold her for the next ear so i do. i sort of cross her arms in front of her so that she can't grab her ear when the gun comes near and she didn't even flinch the second ear!!! i was in total shock! we come out of there with a smiling pretty BIG girl if you ask maddie she was carrying her "piercing certificate" and the cleaner for keeping her ears clean for the next 6 weeks or so. so she is happy as can be now!!! amazing isn't it!!! i'll do pics tomorrow today was just such a trying day that i didn't do it. still haven't really found what we want for kenzie, but that's ok... we will get there eventually...

we are heading to deltona for the weekend again this weekend, but things are looking up for us! more news to come soon i promise!!!

Stylish Blog Award

Wow! I am honored to have recieved this award!!! Now here is how you play, when you have been tagged, you tag 8 other bloggers and don't forget to tell us 8 things about yourself.

About Me:
1. I am a wife to ryan and mother of 2 beautiful little girls.
2. I am a stay at home mom who just opened her own business.
3. I love playing Kingdoms of Camelot.
4. My favorite search engine to use is swagbucks
5. I want a Scotch Pink ATG gun!
6. I went to the mall with maddie today and was in shock! See the next post for why.
7. I love making cakes and baking just about anything for that matter.
8. My best friend is more than a best friend, SHE IS THE SISTER THAT GOD NEVER GAVE ME! LOVE YOU ANGELENA!

Now the 8 I am tagging:

1. Maria
2. Jill
3. Megan
4. Mandi
5. Sulayne
6. Angel
7. Karen
8. Debi

Can't wait to see all of your responses!

The Christmas Rush Is Here

So, as you know in years past, I have been all over being ready for Christmas. NOT THIS YEAR! I haven't done hardly any shopping. And I really am feeling the rush, but no fear, I will have everyone satisfied come Christmas Morning. Kenzie has a list a mile long, Maddie, I am going to wing it. Ryan is 1/2 way done. Taylor is done, Amanda is done, Carolyn is done, Riley and Shelby will be done this week, Derrick i am winging it on him and Dan as well as Roy. Carol is done. Mom is part way done. My sister I have to mail out. Cards are 1/2 made. None have been sent. The tree is up needs to be shaped and decorated. And I am still sane... Oh, I almost forgot, I sort of adopted a family for christmas, so i have 2 beautiful little girls to buy for as well. So in all of the hustle and bustle, I am totally doing well with my stress levels. How you might ask? I can sum it up in one phrase: THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD I SHALL NOT WANT Psalm 23:1. I am standing on that phrase and He is delivering! I ordered one thing for Kenzie this past week. It came in and I have it all ready to go, but I need to put a call in to Santa for her and Maddie both. He will deliver I am sure.... Ryan's will be mailed out this week. It has just been preordered. I can't wait for him to get it. I still have one other thing to get for him. And as for me, I told him anything organizational for my scrappy desk. I really am hoping that he will spring for the PINK ATG GUN made by scotch. it is an amazing adhesive runner! I have been wanting one all year. Anyway, it'stime to get this talking little 4 year old to bed. I'll try and update more later...

Be watching for the santa letters... I am goign to be uploading them soon as I can get the kids to narrow down their lists a little... (for a 7 year old asking for an ipod, laptop, and ds, that's a little steep this year) so now you know why i have to have her narrow it down...

Flutterbye Designs

Hello all!! As of Today, I will be making a new blog. I will keep this one for family and personal type stuff, but I will be running one for my business. I am currently on facebook. Look me up if you like. I will be specializing in Gift Bag Mini Albums. I'll add pics to the new blog and link here for you so you can find and follow if you like. I just wanted to give a heads up so that you weren't surprised when my craftiness was moved from this blog and it turned back into what I wanted it to be when I created it. So, for now, I will go. I'll be seeing you all here and there and everywhere!

EDIT: THE BLOG SITE IS www.flutterbyedesigns.blogspot.com head on over to check out some of my work. See you there!!! There will be a follower contest to see who can win a free album on that page starting January 1. For this week, my facebook page, the link is on the business blog, is having a referral contest. See the rules in the first post on my business blog. See you over there when you can!!!