It's hard to believe... She's turning 8

Isn't she so beautiful! Yeah, I know, my head is getting bigger! My perfect angel! In 1 week from today, my lil girl turns 8! It is so hard to believe. I thought I would start this blog out with some pics of her since I haven't shared in a while. These pics are all significant to me. Like for example, this first pic you see above, she is wearing the hat that Yaya got her for christmas. To many of you this may seem regular, but to me it isn't. See, that hat was made by hand, by a very special woman and then given to my mother in law to give to her angels. I had a hard time getting Kenzie (and Maddie) to pose in their hats! See, my girls DESPISE wearing hats. Therefore I had to share this picture with you.

And in the next few pics, you will notice, we are on our back patio and Kenzie is being the cute little model we all know she is! Many of you will ask why these are so significant. Well, I decided to take it in my own hands to do the girls' yearly pics. I have never gotten Maddie into a studio and I have found that by learning the basics of digital photography, I can too take beautiful pics of my children. There is one more significant thing about these pics, the top she is modeling for me, I made. It is the top she will wear on her birthday party day. fun times are coming!

This pose just screams her personality! Love it! She is so photogenic and shows it in this picture! Such fun times we have in our little apartment. We may not have much but we have FUN and that is what life is all about! See, Kenzie shows the amount of fun she has through the camera!

In this pic, I did do quite a bit of editing to, but the pose said it all! She blew me a kiss and held it as the camera caught the pose! I was sooo happy to get this shot. Then I thought of one of my role models. Cynda is a very special woman to all of us! She is the pianist at church. Not too long ago, Kenzie went to a "concert" if you will. We had a night of music called, "This is love" they even made a cd. The lights flashing on the band gave me inspiration for this photo! As if she is blowing a kiss from on stage! I chose green and purple for the lights because I wanted to pull tinkerbell from her top.

And finally, we come to my favorite photo. This one will be made into the largest possible print I can make from it. I love how serious she looks here. And then the aging of the photo on my editing software did amazing tricks.

Now Kenzie is growing so much. She's not a baby anymore that is for sure, but she will always be MY baby. She is getting more and more independent. She's in 2nd grade now. She loves playing wii with Maddie. (More like teaching her sister how to play). She has a bird named Skye now. He used to be Riley's but Kenzie loves him like you wouldn't believe and asks me everyday, "Mom did Skye fly today?" today I was finally able to tell her "YES" I had his cage open again like every day and as I was doing other things, I felt a whoosh go by my hair. It was Skye spreading his wings. He had a grand ole time! He loves the top of our cabinets in the kitchen. And when he was done, he flew back to his cage for a few minutes, then manuvered his way back into the cage. Such a good pet!

So in about 1.5 weeks we will be having a birthday party. So next week I will be very busy with getting all of the final preparations going. We have tons to do on Friday night and Saturday morning before the Jumper arrives. I can't wait for the kids to have a blast. I will be sure to have the camera charged and upload pics as soon as they are edited from the party.

So far we have 13 kids coming. Kenzie will be excited because her best friend from kindergarten is joining us for the grand occasion. From what I hear, Zoey's grandpa is giving me and the girls a lift to Zoey's birthday party on this saturday as well. Kenzie and Zoey will be sooo excited!!! Can't wait for that one either.

And now that you are updated, time for me to go. I'll try to post more pics tomorrow as I am editing tons from this past year for the blog.

time to plan a party

while we have been away, we have been busy! we are planning kenzie's 8th birthday... how can it be? it seems as just yesterday she was born. and now we have to plan an 8th birthday party. so far the details are this:

she wants:
a tinkerbell jumper (reserved)
party at yaya and pappy's (check)
tinkerbell party supplies
tinkerbell topsy turvy cake
pinata (check)
invitations (reets has done them and they are on the way now)

i am making as many of the tinkerbell decorations as i can. so one of the tings i am doing is that i am making a banner for her party. it will probably say happy 8th birthday Kenziebell (taken from Tinkerbell)

and i am making the cake. fun times!!!!

on to other things: i have a cake this month. it's a 1st birthday topsy turvy cake. will be loads of fun. i just have to hope it comes together the way i want it to.

ryan has been working like a crazy man.... maddie is just a growing and is starting to look forward to starting school next fall. she keeps asking if it is time to go to school yet. and i have been busy trying to get things organized in my scrappy area so that i can start really taking off and selling more stuff for my business.

speaking of which, if you want to see that blog, go here. It is my business blog. I have started uploading some of the projects I have been putting together on there and will continue doing this if I can find extra time. I do have to finish a few projects and then send out. I am currently trying to get a mailing schedule down. Once this is done, i will be able to get a faster turnover rate going.

I will also be posting soon Kenzie's 8 year pics. I am taking her out for a mommy and me day closer to her birthday and we are going to enjoy some time together and I will work in a photo shoot into it. I am hoping to take her somewhere that has some really nice backgrounds. If I could sneak busch gardens for this I would! Keep your eyes peeled for this one as she doesn't know what we are doing yet.

Well that is all I have for you for now... time to run!

See ya round the mulberry bush!!!

Dawnie

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!!!

April 2010

you may be bigger than me shelby, but i am sneakier!!! we had so much fun at sunset beach with you on spring break!!!

running in for the splash! kenzie's gonna get it if maddie has anything to say about it!

gi gi and mi mi posed with maddie for a pic!

i love you mi mi! Mi mi is gi gi's friend mary. she came down to drive gi gi home from florida and we spent the day with her at the beach.

kenzie and shelby had so much fun! they are the best of buds when we get a chance to be around them.

check out the shirts shelby found for her and kenzie! yeppers their arrows pointed at each other! they were so proud of them!

easter bunny was so very nice to us this year!

so this is what mommy was talking about when she said that we were going to the easter egg hunt at church.

look ma, it's sand!

howard park with my bathing beauties on spring break. had to take a minute to pose with my girls!

March 2010

Kenzie had tons of fun working word searches with GiGi! And I took advantage of the moment!!!

Kenzie, Shelby, and Maddie went for a walk with me to the Playground. A fun bonding moment for the three of them.

Gizmo decided he wanted to play dress up. he was tired of being a dog and wanted to be a fairy princess!!!

Maddie went with Denise, Gene, Shawn, Seth, and Kenzie to the Chasco Fiesta!

Time for a snack before the boat Parade.

Febuary 2010

looking super cool in her shades and winter coat! she decided to play like i couldn't get a good pic of her!!!!

Maddie enjoyed our time with little shane. he loved holding him. and of course, mommy had to make sure she got a good pic of the two of them.

"I love you little shane" says maddie! this was just too cute not to post!

Pappy took Kenzie to the Sweetheart Dance. They had a blast. Complete with a pink corsage because she was wearing a pink dress! From what I hear, she was the dancing machine!!!

January Pics

Mandi gave birth to Natalia Rose! Isn't she a cutie!!! I can't believe it has been almost a year already!!!

My friend Jessica and I had a habit of staying out til about 3 am scrapping!!! We have since scaled back our time as we are both busy mom's but we still enjoy playing in our scrappy stuff!!!

Just a quickie

Just checking in quick! i'll be uploading pics from the whole year in 10 different posts at some time today. why am i doing this? to make sure you get the best of the best of the moments here in the cox world! before i head to big lots, i do want to share something with you though,

as you know, we LOVE CHRIST in this house! and we try to show it. last night, i came home from my mil's with her Explorer for the week. Since fil is out of town, she is driving his car and is letting me use hers. feels really good to have a second car so that we don't have to worry about getting ryan to work and us to CCWC. Anyway, after the neighbors thinking we had bought a new car and declining that, I was outside talking to them. They stated they were trying to get their lives straightened out, so I invited them to Church. One of the ladies looked at me like I was crazy. So, what do I do? How can I show the love that Christ has given me? It took a split second to lighten the mood. And that was done like this, "HOLY ROLLER IS IN DA HOUSE!!!" it came out of my mouth quicker than I could think it! everyone laughed and I think that Bella is going to either ride with one of us or she will meet me there. I did commit to giving Denise and the man across the street a ride to church. Denise is my friend who lives next door and the young man doesn't have a car. Angelena joins me there on thursdays, so with bella and her son, we will have this street saved in no time!!! love it!! can't wait for service tomorrow!!!

i'll be back to start uploading pics when we get back from the store!!!

how do i do it?

do what you might ask... well i get myself so busy that i sit back and wonder why i do it... like all of the projects i have going on right now and i keep adding to the list. there is the normal mommy duties, wifey duties, household duties, then there are the volunteer duties and i did something i normally don't do. i started volunteering at two schools not just one. i may have to drop the second school it is a bit much. then there is the scrapping for memories thing and the making bookmarks for fun thing..... then i am entering challenges for some of my layouts... and then there are the swaps and to top it all off, i am throwing a halloween party in a week! woah. thats a full plate... i must slow down before it overtakes me i think. so this week, is clean clean clean, shop shop shop, cook cook cook, cake cake cake, decorate decorate decorate, party party party, and pics pics pics. and in the middle of all of this we are looking at some houses when we can and ryan is going to busch gardens with deb and kevin on friday night while angelena, cici, isabel, giovanni, kenzie, maddie and i make our townhome SPOOKTACULAR for the party on sunday. it will be a fun time i know, i just get myself into so many things that it isn't funny. and i keep forgetting to come update here, so i am trying to be better about that.... right now it's time for the mommy to kick in gear and get the girls to bed. will try to be back daily as the party looms closer... i also have pics to upload here as we did take some pics last week at the park.. and i think i am done editing them...

the happenings...

since i have been mia, loads has happened... i will start from today and work my way back....

today, wednesday, was a status quo day... nothing major going on...

yesterday, we picked up roy's car for him from the shop and dropped it off at his house.. hung out a bit with yaya and then rushed to beat the bus home... to get kenzie from school...

monday, not a lot to report.

sunday, anyone close to the family knows what happened there... so i am not putting it in here. too tragic right now.... and we spent the day at the park with yaya, riley, shelby, and the gator... yes, we saw a gator in the water!!! the girls thought it was pretty cool.

saturday, maddie wasn't feeling well, so i kept her home with me and kenzie went to the new childrens museum in tampa with yaya and riley and shelby. they had a blast. pics to come for that post...

friday nothing really new went on there...

thursday i went and volunteered and on my way home found a horse on the side of the road. i called the sheriff and reported that i was putting the horse back in a pen it was outside of and if they needed to talk to me call me... it was pretty funny actually!

and there you have it... hope to be better in the coming days about blogging

been a busy woman

hi all. it's been a busy few days. and today will continue. i'll try and post a full detailed update after things start to calm down. just wanted to pop in and say hello!!!

Friends Forever by Debbie Smith

Verse for the Day

Colossians 1:9
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Passage for the day: Colossians 1: 3-14

TIME has a way of defining true friends. I have discovered that passing years and growing distance are ineffective obstacles to the mutual love between my friends and me. Perhaps it is because of our common walk with the Lord that we can just pick up where we left off whenever we are together. And these are the dear ones I will spend eternity loving.

Of course, prayer is an important part of continuing that bond. Colossians 1:3-14 is and eloquent description of a Christian's prayer for her friends. Even though Paul had not even visited the Christians at Colosse, his love for them through Christ was strong and arent.

One Sunday afternoon soon after our wedding, Michael and I were getting ready for the weekly Bible study that would meet in our living room that night. It would be the final study led by Bill Jackson before he moved away. On a sudden whim, we decided to write a song for Bill. Michael went to take a shower; I sat down with the Bible and a pen. In less than an hour Michael had found a melody on the piano for the lyrics to "friends." We were happy to have something special for Bill, though it never occurred to us that anyone else would find this simple song meaningful.

God had different plans! He has used "Friends" for graduations, funerals, weddings and gatherings of all kinds. Michael and I continue to be blessed by letters from people who identify with this song and find comfort in its message. Both the Colossians passage and the song are a call to prayer for those we love-- and a reminder that God's love unites people as friends forever!

Additional Scripture Readings:
Ephesians 3:14-19; Philemon 4-7