Happy 7th Birthday Spencer!

We've been celebrating Spencer for a week, literally! It started on Monday when he took his spotlight poster to school along with a bunch of show-n-tell items. (His school teacher likes to make each student feel extra special)

On his actual birthday, Wednesday, he got to be the "King for the Day", a job I believe he took very seriously! He picked out his favorite breakfast, lunch and dinner. He opened presents with breakfast from us and Grandma and Grandpa Merrill. After dinner, Grandma and Grandpa Cox came over and brought Spencer his present.

Part of Spencer's birthday fun included showing off his family to his 1st grade class! We got to talk all about what Spencer likes to do and things he enjoys. After singing Happy Birthday, Spencer passed out his birthday treats to his class!

For lunch, Spencer chose Chicken Cordon Bleu and he wanted to eat it with mom. I cooked up some food and was able to come to the school lunchroom and eat with him!

Anna Olsen, the neighbor girl, made Spencer a special birthday cake with the leftover fondant frosting from Tuesday Night's Relief Society activity. It is actually a rice krispy treat but boy was it cute!!

On Friday we had our family party at the bowling alley. We had a little dinner before we went to the alley then we enjoyed a long game and some cake and ice cream! It turns out that Ashley is pretty good. Her ball rolls VERY slowly but surely; she tied for 1st place among the kids with a score of 76!

Today Grandma Valeen is bringing Gracie, Londyn, Olivia, Maddie and Taylor to Manti to spend the day celebrating his birthday!

Spencer has been worried about not having a party with his school friends but I think he is over it now.....he's had a well celebrated week! On the way home last night, I asked Rich if I could have a week or two long celebration for my birthday too! He said I already get 52 weeks!! Ha, ha.

Viva Las Vegas!

I was able to time warp for a few days this week. We left the cold winter weather to enjoy of few days of spring weather while escaping to Las Vegas! As you know, this weekend is the Miss America Pageant. Rich and I went to see one of the preliminary competitions to support our good friend, Kayla Barclay- Miss Utah!

Kayla plays the piano for her talent. That night she blew our socks off! She was in my top three for talent which included Miss Georgia and Miss Arizona. I was surprised to find that not all the contestants at that level had a great deal of talent. There were some lovely dresses and some not so lovely dresses. At one point, Rich leaned over to me and said he understood why they had the preliminaries!!



The kids stayed behind in Manti with several different friends while spending the night at Grandma Cox's. (I secretly think that they had just as much fun being with her as I did being alone with Rich!!) Just getting away together was worth any trouble we had in negotiating time off for Rich and making arrangements for the kids. We knew that going to Miss America to watch somebody that we actually knew was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Plus we knew that with the baby coming soon, our chances of getting away together would disappear, at least for awhile!



We had a great time. We thoroughly enjoyed our new found freedom. The kids were pretty happy to see some of our souveniors....especially the few from the M&M factory!

We enjoyed Sunday by celebrating Grandma Cox's 61st birthday! After we ate dinner we got to eat some yummy cake and ice cream.

(David, Ashley, Spencer, Grandma, Grandpa)

The kids were excited about the portable vaccuum we got as her present. Ashley loved the wrapping paper because it was covered in glitter!

(Cameron, Grandma, Ashley, Spencer and Ashton)

We took the opportunity to get a 4 generation "all girls picture!"

(Grandma Cox-61, Great Grandma Cox-90, Ashley-3, and 7 mo. pregnant Mom-30)

Just a funny note....this morning as I was talking with Rich in the kitchen, Cameron asked if I had gone to opening exercises yet because he wanted to come with me. I was a little confused until I realized what he was asking. I asked, "Do you mean Aerobics?" He said "Yes!" A few minutes later as I was putting on my coat he asked where I was going and I told him "opening exercises!" to which he replied, "it's called aerobics, Mom!!" He quickly got his coat on and came with me!!!

Here she comes....Miss America!

The Ms. Utah organization is preparing to send their Ms. Utah to the Ms. America pageant. This years Ms. Utah is none less than Manti's own, Ms. Kayla Barclay! I have had so much fun with her for the past couple of years since I worked with her with Miss Manti. She is a wonderful person and she has loads of character. She is ready and she'll blow their socks off. Last Saturday, Rich and I were able to go to her send off party. She showcased all of her wardrobe including her swimwear and evening gowns, her talent, her modeling and did a mock interview for the audience. I am very proud of decisions to stand up for her standards too. What a woman she has become.....a complete package! We wish her well in Las Vegas!

Double the pleasure, double the fun!!

For Christmas the neighbor, Bridget Olsen, made Ashley the cutest apron so that she could cook like mommy. This past week when Anna stopped by to visit, they found that they had matching aprons! I had to get a picture of them together.

Ashley is wearing her pretty red heart shirt, with her yellow Snow White dress up skirt and pink "princess shoes" under that adorable new apron. She is wearing a little of everything! Plus, her hair hasn't been combed and her face isn't clean! What a life!!!

"Don't you wish your apron was cute like me?!?!?"

CHEESE!!!!

Last December the Cox's got together for the family christmas party. While we were together we tried to take an updated family picture. That was an interesting experience.

With a group this size, it's hard to get everyone to smile at the same time!

But we had fun!

Can you say.....BRRRRR!

It has been really cold here. I am talking sub-zero kind of cold. On Sunday morning, Grandpa Cox reported that the farm has a low of -19 degrees. The pipes to the bathtub in the kids bathroom have frozen so we can't get much water in or out. We've had troubles with the garage door getting stuck too. This kind of weather is tough on everything.

On Sunday, we were able to help out a stranger. A woman by the name of Diane Goodwin from Royal Tyrell, Alberta, Canada was passing through Manti. She was having battery problems with her giant motor home and needed a place to stay and plug it in to get recharged. We offered our driveway. We had her in for dinner and again that night for dessert. It was a really interesting dinner conversation. We learned all about her adventures as she drove all over the western USA visiting various LDS temples. She had run into several problems even before reaching us. She was neat lady and the kids loved getting to know her better. She was an older widow that was traveling alone. I couldn't believe she was driving such a large vehicle all by herself!! It turned out that her batteries got so cold that they froze and she couldn't stay with us as long as she had planned because she said "it's like defrosting a turkey in the refrigerator!" She ended up leaving the next morning to go to St. George, or even Las Vegas, in search of warmer temperatures. She left behind her copy of Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian because she wanted the family to remember her. I don't think you forget somebody like her very easily!!

Ring out the old, ring in the new!

We had a fun couple of days saying goodbye to 2008 and hello to 2009! On New Year's Eve we went swimming at Snow College with the neighbor girls, Anna and Abby. Everyone had a lot of fun, especially mom since she didn't have to put on a swim suit over her pregnant tummy! She got to enjoy the fun from the sidelines this time! That night after getting cleaned up we made some chocolate chip cookies to take for dessert to the family New Year's Eve party. We enjoyed dinner and games at grandma's house. Only Dad had enough stamina to stay up till midnight this year! The next morning we all slept in dreadfully late! We started the first day of the year with an extra special outting, we went out to breakfast in Ephraim. First, we tried to eat at McDonalds but they weren't serving breakfast so we ended up with an even better meal at the bowling alley. The pancakes were as big as my plate! We spent the day relaxing and doing whatever projects we felt a desire to work on. That afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa Sudweeks drove down from South Weber to spend the evening with us. They brought some yummy pizza and were an attentive audience as the kids showed off they've been doing over the Christmas break!

Cameron showing G'pa his new tools and the family enjoying our pizza dinner together!!

We look forward to the upcoming year and all the excitement it brings with it! We send a great big....Happy New Year.....to all of you too!