My Birthday

Since my birthday was almost three weeks ago, I figured it was about time that I blog about it. I just haven't been in the mood to blog lately...and truly have not had time.

Anyways...

this is what I saw when I arrived at work on Thursday (two days before my actual birthday). My co-workers were so sweet to decorate my office and put balloons EVERYWHERE! That night I celebrated with my fam at Firebirds...one of my fav places!!

We all shared the creme brulee cheesecake...

I think this empty plate speaks for itself! It was wonderful!!

Friday, Steven's parents came for a visit and we went to lunch at Sumo...I hadn't been there in a while, and it was so good! (sorry no pictures from our lunch together :( )

Friday afternoon, Christie arrived! She and I hung out together on Friday night and just caught up on all that was going on...

until Saturday morning, when Mere and Ellie joined us! It was so good to finally meet Ellie! She is the sweetest baby!

Christie teaching Ellie all about facebook :)

Getting ready to head out for some lunch and shopping...being with these two girls makes me so happy...reminds me of such great memories when the three of us lived together...fun times for sure!!

me and my cake pop from Starbuck's...if you haven't had one of these, you must!!

TSaturday evening we met up with some friends at Beef O'Brady's... the Cox Family, Julie, Amy, Matt, Julie, Christie, Mere...and Steven, of course.

and my wonderful husband got me a much needed new laptop that I am typing on right now! I LOVE it and I love him for getting it for me!!

Thanks to everyone that made my birthday so special!!

St. Patty's Day at the beach

We took decided to take a last minute trip to the beach weekend before last...well Thursday before last really. I called Steven on Wednesday at work and was like, hey, you want to go to the beach tomorrow?

We rolled into town, dropped our stuff at the condo and headed down to the Hangout to celebrate St Patrick's Day with the Beasley's. The had a great band playing and we all enjoyed "hanging out" with each other. We love having this fun place so close to the condo.

Sorry, not very many pictures...but you didn't really want to see me by Saturday afternoon, I was little red. My snow white skin had not seen the light of day in quite some time...hope I did not scare anyone off the beach.

Also...it's been quite a while since I've been to the beach for Spring Break, so that was interesting to see all these "kids" running around down there that looked way too young to be without their parents. I know, I am getting old (stayed tuned for the next post).

It's almost time...

...time for the annual walk for Tuberous Sclerosis

The 4th annual is just a few weeks away! In the past 3 three years, we've been able to raise almost $200,000 for TS research! This is all because of wonderful people, like you who have donated to this worthy cause.

Michael has progressed SO much...even since this time last year! His vocabulary is getting better everyday and he is adjusting to life with a little sister.

My fundraising page has been set up and if you would like to donate, please visit my page...

http://www.firstgiving.com/step-forward-to-cure-tsc-mountain-brook-al-18c9ae

Or if you are in the Birmingham area, come walk with us on Saturday, April 16th in Crestline.

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a picture of Michael and his friend Tyson (from just a few weeks ago)...notice the stickers that Tyson is sporting.

Happy Heart Day

Kristen and Matt had us over for dinner last Sunday night...we hadn't all seen each other in several weeks and hadn't seen their new countertops. I had found some heart shaped cake pans and wanted to bring dessert, but Kristen was very insistent on making a cheesecake...so I was like, ok whatever...that's fine...

Little did we know that they had a little something up their sleeves when it came time for dessert. Kristen kept telling us that she didn't know how the cheesecake was going to taste, and then wouldn't take the lid off the darn thing forever! Finally she did, and I immediately started screaming when I saw it!! But, I did have a slight advantage, because where I was sitting at the table, I had the best view of the cake and everyone else was reading it upside down and sideways.

Needless, I am a very proud Aunt!! Uncle Pete is pretty excited too!!


Steven and I both took off on Valentine's Day and spent the day together. We did something a little different, and went to DeSoto Caverns. We pretty much had the place to ourselves, other than one other couple that was there. It had been over 20 years since we both had been there, so it was fun re-living our childhood. Steven was a little bummed that he could not pan for gold, but he got over it. The tour of the caverns was pretty interesting and the pictures I took just don't do it justice to what the inside looks like. One thing I had forgotten about the caverns since my trip in the fifth grade (I think) was the 100% humidity inside. Needless to say, there are no pictures after we came out of the caverns since I resembled a poodle :) I told Steven there were no more stops and we had to go straight home.

We came home and cooked dinner and Steven enjoyed using his VDay present (from me) while while he prepared dinner :)

Steven gave me these cute bottles! I just love them! Haven't decided exactly where I will use them yet.

Hope everyone spent their Valentine's Day with the one you love!

The past few weeks...

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I've blogged. We've been busy the past few weeks, so here are some pictures...

Steven and I helped Michael celebrate his 4th birthday a few Saturdays ago. The weather was absolutely perfect for a bouncer. Some of the adults might have even gotten in there after most of the children were gone.

Michael loved everyone singing to him and had a good time blowing out the candles on his jello cake. Margaret's family brought a king cake to share and it was delicious! Those cakes are the best!

Michael got some really cute stuff...don't miss the adorable set of scrubs with Dr. M Cox on it...which Michael will be able to pass down to his little sister one day

Is Marie not precious?? She will give you some "serious" looks, but such a sweet girl! She even let me feed her some yummy peas...although she made it a challenge for me as she had her thumb in her mouth most of the time.

The Cox Family of Four


The next weekend was Wendi's "sprinkle" for Baby Nicholas that will be joining us in the next month or so...if not sooner :)

We had a great lunch and Nicholas got lots of cute stuff. Can't wait to meet him!

Then a few days later, we woke up to this white covering. I don't care too much for snow, so I wasn't too excited about this. Luckily, it did not mess up the roads too bad, so we didn't get stuck at home...but I did have to go to work :(

Then three days later, the weather was in the mid 60's! Gotta love the weather in Alabama!

Happy Birthday to my dear husband!

Steven's birthday was last Wednesday. We celebrated at Gian Marco's with a wonderful dinner.

I had great plans to celebrate a few days before his birthday when we were getting together to watch the championship game with friends...but the stupid weather just messed everything up. So Steven was stuck just me on his birthday :)

Happy Birthday Steven!

CHRISTmas

Our Christmas celebrations started a few weeks ago at Grandma's house.

We spent some time with her and then exchanged a few presents.

Last week we headed north to Gatlinburg to meet up with all of "the people"...that's what my Papa refers to us as.

On Thursday we celebrated Dad's 59th birthday with some Gluten free cake (made by yours truly) and birthday presents.

After the birthday party, we hit the road for Dollywood. It has been quite some time since I've been there...they've added quite a few more rides and attractions over the past few years. Although we didn't get to ride any of the roller coaster (due to the almost freezing temperatures), we had some good food and a fun time.



Christmas Eve we were finally able to meet our newest member of the family, Caleb. He was born on October 13th (his grandmother, my aunt's birthday). Such a great baby...absolutely precious...can't wait to see him again!

Now you may have noticed the electric blue shirts we are all sporting??

Well my aunt (and Mema) got these for everyone. Our family has a slight obsession with Christmas Vacation. The front of the shirt says, "Nobody's walking out on this Old Fashioned Family Christmas"...if you are familar with the movie, then you should recognize this line. The back has several favorite memories from past Christmases. We had our first Christmas in Gatlinburg in 1985...25 years ago! We've since add quite a few family members and mountain homes to the mix since then. I will see if I can dig up some old photos from our first Smoky Mountain Christmas!

Don't let the blue blind you :)

Glad we had at least one meal together on Christmas Eve, since we did not have a chance to eat together on Christmas Day, because of this....

WHITE CHRISTMAS!

this is what we woke up to on Christmas morning!

Yeah, yeah, everybody wants a White Chrismtas...but a White Christmas in Gatlinburg is a different story when you are on top of a big mountain with curvy roads that leads up to your house.

Click here for sister's blog for a little more commentary and details about the day...

Kristen's wonderful skills with the camera timer...

Time to check out out stockings

Now for presents...

We had a ton of fun riding the sled down the driveway and throwing snowballs at each other. We had planned to build a snowman, but those plans changed once we decided to pack up and attempt to get off the mountain.

Now here's where the fun starts....

ahhh, not really...I was just short of having a meltdown.

This was the view I had from my seat in the car. Do you see how thick the snow is on the windshield??

High, curvy mountain roads, just don't mix well with winter snowy weather...and they don't mix well with me either for that matter.

That's my cousin's car just ahead of us. We had a caravan of six cars coming down the mountain. Thankfully we made it down without any problems...other than when we would have to move to our side of the road when we met a few cars. I don't know why anyone would want to come up the mountatin! If you are at the bottom...stay there!

Let's just say that I am fine with staying away from Gatlinburg until spring

Yea! We made it to the bottom!

We wrapped up the last of our Christmas celebrations with visiting Steven's parents on Monday.

We had a fun day hanging out with each other and then had a wonderul dinner later that day.

Hope everyone had a wonderul Christmas!

Thanksgiving in Sunny Florida

Well I am finally getting around to posting pictures from our Thanksgiving trip to Ft Lauderdale. We had a great time as usual!

Aren't these puppies precious?

Steven's cousin's dog had puppies several weeks ago, and we had so much fun playing with them. I couldn't figure out how to get one home in my suitcase for my Mom...hope my Dad isn't reading this :)

Steven's other cousin (actually his cousin's husband...does that still make him Steven's cousin? aww, who cares) has a hotel on the beach in Ft Lauderdale. We had dinner there on Monday evening and then hung out by the pool while the kids swam. Very nice place if you are ever looking for somwhere to stay in the Ft Lauderdale area.

Tuesday we took the water taxi around the intercoastal waterway...the waterway that has been nicknamed, "The Venice of America". I totally understand why!! The homes were beautiful and quite expensive. One single story home on the waterway for sale, couldn't have been more than about 1400 square feet and it was listed for close to 4 million! Crazy!! The person that started Sunglass Hut has a house there...pretty sweet...as well as the guy that started Waste Managment! Who woulda known a garbage man could have so much money? :)

Sorry these pictures are so white. I had my camera on some crazy setting and could not figure out what was going on. FINALLY figured it out just a few days ago...stupid me!

Wednesday night we had our big Thanksgiving meal. It was wonderful and so nice to sit by the pool while we ate.

We have so much to be thankful for!