Family Updates..."So it's been a while."

Well, it's been a while since I've posted on my blog. I've been a bit busy as of late; I've been attending AIU online for my BFA in Visual Communications-digital design (which is graphic design, web design, and illustration). With that has come loads of writing 1-2 page papers (or 800 word papers), plus a main discussion board post and a number of response post (which also vary in length and requirements depending on the class. So far I've had a business class and two graphic design classes, a business law class which has to do with a lot of website, Internet, and other cyber laws (not my favorite class, but tons of good info)and now a computer design class. With that said you may understand why I've been lacking in the blogging world. (Writing/typing is one of the last things I really want to do.) Anyhow, I've read Amber's blog about her recent Photoshop experiences, and she's inspired me to post a few of my Photoshop CS (and ImageReady)creations, but I think I'll start slowly. (Notice my new little penguin animation. I so created that a couple of weeks ago...I'm so proud of my first animation! I made the penguin and rope in Adobe Photoshop CS before taking it in to Abode Image Ready to create my animation.)
I'm not the only one in my family that is in school; yep, both Royce and Giovonnie are back in school. Summer's gone and the school year is here. Royce is now a 5th Grader, and he turned 10 yesterday! This is a major big deal to him (Thank you to all of you who called to wish him a happy birthday.) In his words, "I feel taller, today.":)
Giovonnie is now in 2nd grade, and say that he likes it better because his "teacher is nice and pretty." When I asked, "Wasn't your teacher nice last year?" he replied, "Well, actually she was a bit crabby every day, and she just wasn't as pretty."
Gannon is now almost 2 years old (ok, I'm shy by 3 months, but whatever.), and has started working on the potty training thing. We got him this cute frog potty chair from one of the local thrift stores, and he likes to sit on it sometimes. I've started this 'cause a few months ago he started tell me when he pooped, literally he would say "poop on my butt." Now he say, "I pooped, even when he pee-pees." And he has pee-peed in his potty a few times. I've never had a baby train so early.
Joe is also keeping busy, taking on a new shared leadership role with the Legion Hall, as well as continuing to lead the Webelos boyscout troop.

Little Funnies

Oh, the CaR KeYs!!!
If you remember my key story from a year ago (yep, the toilet one) well I just have key issues, today I lost the key. Yep, Me (as Tanya S. could attest to, I was on the phone with her as I was searching the house for it... swore I put them on the end table in the living room, only to believe that Gannon (14mo old) must have taken it, so I call Joe to get the spare key, which he has hidden from me for this sort of reason, in order to move the car from the street back into the driveway so that I wouldn’t get a ticket for parking in the street. When Joe came home in the evening I still hadn’t found that key. We get the boys off to bed, and begin searching. Joe says,” You do have 'blond' moments, are you sure." "I'm pretty sure," I state out loud, and under my breath say, "but I don't know. Awe, Crap!” Then Joe digs all the stuff out of my coat pocket, which happens to be stuffed full, and "Ugh," I did it. I put them in a coat I didn't even wear when I went outside, "CRAP!" Ok so it's in writing...Joe was right… "CRAP!"

When do Girls have Cooties?
On one of those days that school was called off last week I took the boys with me to the store. As we're driving in the car the boys and I were talking and Royce asked some questions that I answered, which these kind a questions get the parents mind turning - questions about girls - Yikes! I then tease a bit saying to Royce, "I thought you told dad you didn't like girls?" I look in the rearview mirror to see Royce with a crooked grin, "Well, I do. It's just that Dad makes fun to much." I say, "So, who do you like?" He replies, "None of your business!" I say with a gasp,” What?! I'm your mother!" He says, "You'll just tell dad, and he'll tease on me." I say, "Oh, I already know." Royce nudges the back of my car seat with his foot, and states, "You better not tell Dad either." I smile, "Yes, I'll tell dad...Oh you know I'm so telling Dad."

Manly Boys
The other day I'm rocking Gannon in our blue rocking/recliner chair watching the tube when the boys get home from school. Royce comes in and says, "Hey, I don't have any homework can I play Wii." I say, "After the Cars movie is over that Gan is watching. Royce is like, "K." and leaves the living room. A short time later he returns and kneels next to the side of the rocking chair. He says, "Hey, mom..." I reply, "Hey, what?" Royce says, "Look at me." I look over at him and he continues as he rubs his upper lip under his nose, “I’m getting a mustache. Feel it, right here, little hairs...maybe next year you'll see it better." I say, "do I havta feel it." He grins, "Yep." I honor him and touch his upper lip, nod my head and say, "Op, yep, sure enough."

Holidays 2009

Ok, well I guess I'm always late, but here are some pics of the family over Christmas break.

Christmas Break Begins:

Gannon is Mama's big helper when unloading the dishwasher.

Hooray we rolled the dice playing Yatzee on family night.

Time out is no fun! (Actually Gannon put himself there)

Gannon's favorite place to sit.

Christmas Eve Morning:

Christmas Eve Morning Royce and Giovonnie opening their Christmas stockings.

Gannon gives his moose in his stocking a hug.

Daddy comes home from work and it's Gift Time:

Giovonnie hate his first gift of cloths, and tosses them in tears. (No more gifts for him...)

Gannon's getting this wraping paper ripping thing.

Gannon likes his maracas; shake, shake, shake.

Royce doesn't mind that he got cloths, but they were on his Christmas list.

Giovonnie changes his mind; cloths aren't so bad. "I'm sorry. Can I get more gifts now."

(Giving the Gift of Understanding..."Sure.")

Giovonnie likes his other gifts better.

Pokemon cards for Royce. Later when putting them into his book he said,

"This make's me feel much older mom."

Gannon and Daddy work on unwrapping another gift after Gannon put on his new christmas pjs.

"Whoa, it's just what I wanted!" Giovonnie gasps.

Royce: "What for real a DS Lite!"

Mom: Well it's coming soon."

Royce: "Awesome!"

Gannon shakeing is maracas again.

Gannon putting the puzzles he got together.

Royce helping Giovonnie put together his Dino castle.

Who needs toys when you got a big box to crawl and play in?

Royce and Giovonnie playing with the Dino castle after Mom put it together.

Christmas Day - At the Other Cox's house:

Joe and Andrew sledding down the hill at Scott and Melissa's house.

(Yep, a little hill right in the yard of Uncle Scotts house. Royce is back to begging for a sled.)

Royce and Spencer digging in the snow.

Andrew sledding down the hill with his dad, Scott.

Giovonnie burring Lexi in the snow bank.

Scott and Joe play a board game.

Nama Cathy and Papa Royce playing with Gannon.

Opps, I posted the wrong video clip...

I posted the wrong video clip on the last blog, so here is the right one...the one with Royce actually singing. Enjoy!

Royce singing in the Christmas program.

Family Times

September – Just backing up some months… I really don’t know where else to start but back in September, when time and events started to blur together and slip out of focus much like my own eyes when taking off my glasses. Anyway, the being of the month brought Joe and me our 10 yr anniversary, and although we talked about what we were going to do to celebrate nothing ever was settled on (probably because our minds were really on Gannon’s upcoming surgery the following weekend) until a day or two before. Then last minute calls were made and arrangements for us to stay with Joe’s bother and family in Minnesota, and that we would join them in going to the state fair. Unfortunate Randy ended working all night, but we still enjoyed going to the State Fair with Kelly and Cameron. I have to say with all the walking we did the boys were excellent!

Butterflies landed on Royce in the butterfly house.

Aunt Kelly shows Gannon the butterflies.

The next day just our family went to the Renaissance Fair, I don’t know how our children handled that, but they did really well keeping up. Also, being our 2nd time there we were able to manage the time and see some really neat, kid appropriate shows. At one of the magic show, done by a father and son, my older two boys decide that they would participate and actively voiced their opinion at the point in the show of the disappearing bunny trick. At the being of the trick the magician said that once the bunny disappeared he would not bring him back out, or make him reappear due to the limited time they had on stage. The magician set up a box in which the son place the bunny and shut the lid after waving his wand over the box the magician said some magic words and then stated, “there the bunny has disappeared.” Royce at this time yelled out, “Yeah, right! Prove it!”, so the magician called another boy from the audience up on stage to assist with the trick. Opening the box and having the boy look at the audience and hold the lid of the box with the top of the lid facing the crowd, then proceeding to take the box completely apart to show that the bunny was no longer in the box. Royce watching the boy with the lid then yells, “Hey, the bunny is in the lid, show us the top of the lid.” The magician then flipped the lid over where a cloth that bubbled out and moved gently as if the bunny was under it. With that Royce yells out, “Lame!”, so the magician takes a long pin and pokes the cloth, making a ‘POP’ sound. Giovonnie then wails dramatically at the top of his lungs, “You killed it! You killed that poor poor bunny!” Then tragically continuing to cry very loudly, as I tried to reassure Giovonnie that the bunny really wasn’t dead, that it was their pet, and they wouldn’t really kill it. The magician finally told his son to get the bunny out of the shed behind them, so that on one would be mentally scared from the experience. After two full days of walking around in the hot sun Joe and I were way too exhausted to go on our fancy dinner date; instead we had a very tasty meal prepare by Randy and Kelly. The rest of our time was enjoyed hanging out with the MN Cox families before slowing getting ready to go home on that Monday. (I’m thankful that Joe and I picked Sept. 4th for our wedding date… it’s always nice to celebrate over a long Labor Day weekend.)

Royce, Giovonnie, and Gannon get their picture taken with a the Knight we cheered for at the Renaissance Fair.

The following weekend we were right back in MN for Gannon’s surgery, which I’ve already blogged about, and The Cox Brother’s trip to the Boundary Waters. That was along week for my boys and me with Gannon’s recovery, but we made it through, and Joe had a great time doing that manly guy thing with his brothers.

Since then one person or another in our family has became sick with the flu, colds, and such, which leads me into October.

October – Just as I was getting over one of my little colds, we had a make-up parent-teacher conference with Royce’s teacher. Surprisingly, the overall report was good. Maybe it’s the male teacher thing, or maybe Royce is just finally getting it, but this is the first year where “age” or “ADD” hasn’t been a concern, and Royce talks about the things they do in class instead of telling me how much he “H-A-T-E-S” school.

We also had our fist snowfall were the snow actually stuck for a whole day. Giovonnie loves the snow and was so happy he went and played in it for about 1 hour before I made him come in. He made the cutes family of snow angels.

Giovonnie making a snow angel on our first snowfall of the year.

Our family of snow angels that Giovonnie made, Dad and Mom on top and Royce, Giovonnie, and Gannon on bottom.

I took Gannon to MN for his follow-up visit after his cleft surgery. Dr. Sidman stated that both layers (one layer on top of the other) of stitches were dissolved except for two little stitches of the top, or inside layer. He was also glad to see that Gannon didn’t lose any weight during his recovery. All looked good, and after a 10-minute visit we were told that we would only have to be seen twice a year at his office for the next 3-5 years, and once a year by the cleft specialist team for hearing, and speech. By three years old if he can clearly say, “I want some cookies.” Then he will not need a speech therapist to work with him regularly, but if not then he will be setup with someone around our area to work with him. If his speech doesn’t get better with the therapist by age 5 they will redo the cleft surgery at that time. A few differences that I’ve noticed with Gannon since his cleft surgery is that there is no longer drink, nor food coming out of his nose, when he sneezes he wrinkles his nose, he also likes to blow is nose (but hates when I wipe it), he can now suck out of a spill proof sippy cup and he snores very loudly when he sleeps.

Gannon blowing his nose.

Holly and her children came out for a visit, which has become a bit of a tradition, that will hopefully continue thru the years that we live here (we are always talking of moving back home to Wisconsin, but that’s all it’s really been over the last 6 years that we’ve been here). Every year we take the kids to Pumpkin Land to go through the corn maze, and then we do some sort of crafty thing, and carve pumpkins. This year it was surprisingly enjoyable as we trekked through the corn maze in the rain, and mud.

Bk to Ft, Lt to Rt: Ella, Giovonnie, Royce, Gannon, Ony (Navatine), and Jonah at Pumpkin Land.

Mapping out our route to find all 6 mail boxes.

Ella, Jonah, and Giovonnie show they mastered the muddy corn maze.

Holly helps carve Ella and Giovonnie's pumpkins.

All the Pumpkins are carved looking spooky for Halloween.

Joe accidentally got this spooky shot of the lit pumpkins faces jumping out of their shells.

By the end of Holly’s visit I was back to being sick again, and the following Monday I went to the clinic to be told that I didn’t have the flu or strep, and to go home and get some rest; by Wednesday I felt even worse and went back to the clinic, after having x-rays taken the Dr. told me there was a bit of fluid on my lungs and prescribed me an antibiotic along with some cough syrup with codeine. I was finally feeling better again, and so I started sewing. The boys wanted to be Ninjas for Halloween, and after piecing together a few patterns from different websites I whipped together a couple of costumes which got me on a crafty sewing binge. I’d been spending my time making some cute crayon roll-ups for my younger nieces and nephews and one for Giovonnie, a few pincushions, and a small blanket for Joe instead of being on my computer (to explain some of my nonexistence on facebook, emails, and my blog).

Giovonnie's mans kimono shirt. (Royce's was black.)

Giovonnie doing his rooster Khufu moves.

A few of the things that I made, pincushions, color roll, and the blanket the boys and I made for Joe for Veteran's Day.

On Halloween day we went and had family portraits taken, they were so over due the last family photo we had taken was when Giovonnie was 2 weeks old (over 6 years ago). Then we met up with Joe’s brother Scott’s family for dinner and trick-or-treating. Of course the last day on October brings us into November.

November – Wow, with November here I remembered that I hadn’t been writing in Gannon’s baby book between him turning 1 year old on November 5, and with him beginning to walk I really wanted to document these moments, so I made sure to have my camera on me, but it seemed that I was always just missing the shot of him taking those first steps during that week, and with in a few days he was toddling around the house! My baby is not longer that little infant I can cuddle up to whenever I want, but a little toddler who is on the go. Unlike the other two boys we just did a quick one-year party at home for Gannon with just us. Gannon really didn’t get the concept of present opening, and got quite frustrated when we would snatch the gift away after he tore the paper off and hand him another, just as he would tare the paper off the next one we’d do it again. Finally he after getting the paper off the last gift, he hugged it to his chest with a screech as Giovonnie tried to reach for it. Joe peeled all the other toy cars and trucks out of their boxes then we put Gannon on the floor to play with them before Joe, Giovonnie, and Royce rushed out the door for an evening of boy scouts.

Gannon's car birthday cake I made for his 1st birthday,and his gifts.

Gannon reaching for his cake, as I try to get a picture of him with it.

Gannon trys to get the cake as Joe is putting it back on the table.

Gannon's happy birthday dinner, he love pizza too.

Gannon opening one of his birthday gifts.

Gannon playing with two of the cars he got for his birthday, as Joe takes others out of the packages.

Gannon walking!

On the 10th Gannon had his one-year check-up, he is a big boy weighing 25 lbs 9 oz, he is 32in. tall and has a head circumference of 19in. All went very well until he had to get 5 shots! They gave him 4 at once, then the nurse that gave him the final shot got the brunt of his anger with a mean scowl, a loud long growl, and then wailing tears. I know that seems like a lot, but the first 3 were just the regular vaccines that most children get, but the other two were important to add on being they were the flu vaccine and H1N1 vaccine which both have been present in our area and schools. He did have a fever of 102.1degrees on day 9 after the shots were given, but I was unsure if it was from the shots (the papers I was giving said side effects could last up to 10-12 days), or from him teething, or both.

Thanksgiving weekend we headed to Wisconsin to see my family, and so that Joe could go hunting with his dad. The boys and I ate lunch with my dad on Thanksgiving Day while Joe and his dad went hunting, and then later met up with Joe and his dad to go to Thanksgiving dinner at Joe’s Uncle Bob and Aunt Marlene’s. Giovonnie kept asking if we were going to Uncle John’s bar (another one of Joe’s uncles), but we’d say, “No, we’re going to Uncle Bob’s house; where we went last year.” Finally when we pulled in the driveway, Giovonnie exclaimed, “Oh, this place. I love this place!” The following day Joe went back out hunting with his dad, and the boys and I went to Portage to hangout with my mom and Granny Case. I was so glad that Holly went to Green Bay to pick her up. It was the first time Great Granny Case saw Gannon. The boys were glad to see her too. Aaron and his family stopped by, and so did Holly and her family, we played so cards and the kids played outside. Later we went to the Holiday parade, which the kids kept getting cookies from every stand we walked by, and collected candy from the parade. (I still have candy lying in the back seat of the car.) After the parade we all headed back to my mom’s for dinner, the boys and I ate quickly then headed back out the Farm. We met up with Joe, Papa Royce, and Uncle Jamie (who was a good surprise for the boys) at Uncle John’s bar/dinner where I found out that Joe got two deer a doe and a 8 point buck. Then Saturday came and Papa Royce and Uncle Jamie went to Minnesota to see the other Cox family and have Turkey dinner with them, and Joe, the boys, and I went to our good friend Jody and Chong’s for a bit before heading to my mom’s for Turkey dinner. It was really nice hanging out and spending time with everyone. We spent the night at my mom’s and then met up with my friend Robyn for breakfast before going back home to Iowa.

December – has started off as fast paced as the following months with the boys’ school Christmas program last night (Thursday, the 3rd). I was so proud to find out that Royce was picked to sing in a double quartette, and I could even hear him. This was a boy who at one of his other Christmas programs walked right past a microphone skipping his 3-word part completely, now singing in front of a huge gym full of parents while standing among three girls. I really just can’t how much Royce’s character has grown in just a few months. I also have to give credit to Giovonnie of being very well behaved during the concert, singing and keeping his hand to himself a great improvement from last years, end of the year kindergarten graduation.

Royce singing in the Christmas program.

I’ve been enjoying spending some one on one time with Giovonnie as well, because he is very interested in some of the crafty things that I’ve been doing. A couple of days ago Giovonnie must have heard the story of the Ginger Bread Boy at school again, and was asking if we could make a Ginger Bread Boy. I asked like Ginger Bread Boy cookies that you can eat, or a Ginger Bread Boy Puppet, or stuffed animal (Giovonnie doesn’t care much for dolls, but loves stuffed animals)? Giovonnie replied a stuffed animal one, so last night before the Christmas program we worked together; I traced out the shape onto a piece of brown felt and he cut it out, then I sewed the pieces together and turned it inside right, and he stuffed him full of fiber fill, then we hot glued eyes, and buttons, and then made his guy some red pants out of red felt. Giovonnie now loves his new guy, Gingy then Ginger Bread Man.

Gannon will be 13 months tomorrow, and next week we are due to go to the Children’s hospital in MN again this time will be our first meeting with cleft team specialist, Dr. Sidman, hearing specialist, and a speech therapist. Gannon will also need to go get his second set of flu shots sometime that same week.

Funny little movie of Gannon playing and tickleing his own feet in the car.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed catching up with us now, and being that it is December I hope this counts as the family update because I won’t be sending any in the mail with the Christmas cards, but I will try to do better at blogging more regularly. I hope you all have Happy Holidays together, and many blessings befall you and yours this season.