Christmas Stuff

Cox Early Christmas ~Dec 1. 10 Coxes on a couch, it's a Christmas miracle!

Uncle Tommy helping Paige open presents at Cox Christmas. Paige ever so suspicious. Love their matching pink outfits!

Claire at the Nutcracker ~ Dec 22

Claire and the Snow Princess

Christmas Eve. Putting out reindeer food! Dressed for the AZ cold! BRRR! She LOVES her boots.

Christmas morning playing with her 1000 piece art kit!

Paige got a "scoo" as she calls it. Now she needs to learn to ride it so we don't have to push her!

 

She just will not look at me for pics. Toddlers!

Paige cracking up at Tia. Sitting at the table like a big girl. Love her.

Loving their new puppy sleeping bags.

December was full of celebrating for The Cox Family. We kicked off Dec 1st with Cox early Christmas. We usually do this in Gold Canyon but it was at our house this year which was super fun. We love having the extra space now in our new home and having everyone over! Claire is out on winter break for 2.5 weeks and we started her holiday off with her first Nutcracker ballet. It was awesome despite the back issues I am having. It is getting frustrating to keep talking about it but the fact is I have some sort of disc problem in my lower back and it's causing me lots of problems. Sadly, my marathon training has come to a halt and that has made me so sad because I was really doing good and was so consistent with my training. Now I question if I can even do it all even if I walked because walking hurts too right now. I have an orthopedic appt in Jan and a MRI soon. Back to Christmas though! Christmas Eve was our usual church and homemade chicken pot pies dinner at our house. Christmas morning Santa came and the kids tore into their gifts. Claire got her giant 1000 pieces of crap of art supplies and stickers. Paige got a scooter which she loves. She cracks us up because she just stands there and expects to be pushed. What do you expect from a 22 month old I guess! Christmas Day was at Tom and Carla's like always and we had our usual prime rib dinner. It was wonderful and the girls got more goodies.  They love their new sleeping bags that Uncle Tom and Tia got them.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas too!

Family photo flubs

Yes, we are kind of lame. We set up our tripod in front of our Christmas tree and take our own family photo. We skipped last year so I wasn't about to skip another year without our awesome family picture. Haha! So, here is how it goes. We all get dressed, I put on more makeup than normal, I yell at Claire for being a drama queen while trying to do her hair, Eric sets up the tripod and groans about how hard taking this picture is going to be because the kids are already antsy. Eric then hits the camera timer button and runs around to get in the picture. It's an bloody mess behind the scenes and evidenced by our blooper pics!

Silly Paigey

 

Say Cheese (or stop talking MOM!)

Crazy Claire smile.

Switch kids. Awkward. Paige totally not amused. Eric looking "natural".

I forgot to suck it in and. Switched kids but forget to switch sides.

Finally, we get a couple we can live with even though Paige never smiles. Next year....there is always next year! 2013 I am hoping for some professional pictures!

Haley Sock Hop

Claire's school had a sock hop last week and she had a BLAST! Wow! I am not sure I have seen Claire have that much fun honestly! We got there early so these pics were taken before it got super busy. My camera died right after we arrived....ain't it always the way....but it got cranking in that gymnasium. Such a blast. They had Cold Stone Creamery ice cream and Uncle Bears burgers. YUMMO! By the end of the night Claire and her friends were on stage singing "Call me Maybe" and dancing their hearts out. Claire really loves her school and this just made her year! Go Tiger spirit!

Play by Play

This was Claire's first season playing soccer and she ended up really liking it. I started to wonder though if she really loved it after the first 2 games. She got goals during game 1 and 2 then she didn't get her foot on the ball for about 6 games. She runs like mad and has the energy to play but she wasn't really getting in there and scoring. She said she still was liking it and her spirit wasn't down. The very last game was the same day as our Cox Early Christmas party (Dec 1st) so I stayed home to get the house ready and prep while her dad took her to the game with the family. All of Claire's aunt and uncles who were in town went to see her last game. She was PUMPED! Uncle E took these amazing pics of Claire getting the last goal of the game!! It was a great way to end the season. She also ran into her buddy, Scarlett. They hadn't run into each all season so it was a great way to cap off her game day!

Turkey Day 2012

David, Me, Bill & Paige, and Uncle Gordon (who surprised us and joined us for a quick beer!)

Ginnie and Torben. Caught ya!! =)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Neel Family. They DROVE here from San Antonio, TX to spend the holiday with us. Of course, Ginnie and Torben flew in from Seattle like every year. I love our little adopted family Thanksgivings. We had a wonderful day and the weather was beautiful even if it was a little warm! We got very few pictures but fun was had! It was a sad day when the Neels had to return home so we quickly started getting the house ready for Christmas and decorated our tree so we didn't think about the quiet in the house.

Halloween 2012

We didn't get many good pics last night. It's almost impossible to get Paige to even look at the camera! We had our pumpkin carving party with the family last weekend (sadly all pics were lost on Tom's camera). We had a great time eating white chili and carving some cool pumpkins. We made a spider and Minnie Mouse (who looked more like Daisy by Halloween night. AZ temps of 88 make it hard for a pumpkin). The girls had a great night trick or treating. Our new neighborhood was full of action and lots of kids walking around. It was nice to meet neighbors and find out lots of kids go to school where Claire goes. Claire took a bad fall during our outing and it pretty much ended our trick or treating but it was fun while it lasted! Claire was Minnie and Paige wore Claire's old lady bug costume. Paige is 20 months now and Claire wore hers right after she turned 2.

Flashback pic. Claire 2yrs, 1month:

APEX Super Hero Run

Claire had her ONE and ONLY school fundraiser for the year. I gotta say I really loved this kind of fundraiser. No cookie dough or candy bars (sorry friends who are stuck with this one! ha!). Just pledging money per laps. The kids could run up to 36 laps. Claire made it to 35!!! She did awesome especially considering she woke up in pain due to another bladder infection. She refused to miss her run so we scheduled her doctor appt until after her run. She was a very brave girl. Tough as nails...as usual...and FAST! Paige came to watch with me (like she had a choice). We left the run and picnic and headed to the doc then back for her school party. What a trooper!! Congrats on all the money you earned Miss Claire! I really hope this fundraiser was a success for the school and we can always do this one fundraiser each year! It really was a fun morning!

Fall Break Blowout

We didn't do much for 2.5 weeks while on fall break except hang out with some friends at home and stay in our 5 mile radius bubble BUT the last day we got a wild hair and we had ourselves an adventure. It was a blast. I have never gone to Tortilla Flats, AZ (which consist of a restaurant in the mountains. population 6.). So I told Claire we were going to the mountains. We packed up the car and headed out. Claire even drew us a map!! Here is our journey on the Apache Trail:

Claire's map to the Superstition Mountains

Gearing up to head out! We even packed the cooler. Big time!

We weren't but 5 minutes off on Hwy 88 (the apache trail) and we spotted this little gem. Goldfield Station. They have shops, food, and some other cool stuff but we just did the train ride. What luck...it was leaving 5 minutes after we arrived. So we hopped on for a 20 minute train ride!

Getting ready to ride the train. Yep, we all looked in to the wrong hole on the camera. haha!

The train conductor gave us all the history of the mining area and the mountains.

Paige loved the train and was pointing at everything she saw.

Claire loved the train ride too!

Off to Tortilla Flats for lunch! I told Claire we were going to the Wild West so she brought her boots to wear while we were in TF.

Who doesn't love a wall of money!!!

Claire on the saddle barstools for a photo op.

Paige isn't so sure about sitting on the saddle.

Tried to feed some ducks at Canyon Lake but some jet skis scared them off. So, we ate the fries ourselves.

Last stop...back at the Goldfield Mining place...for some ice cones (as Paige calls them)