new name announcement

that's right, i'm making it official....we are expecting our 2nd baby at Christmas of this year (Dec. 24 to be exact)!! i went to the doctor today and we heard to heartbeat so i've decided to change the name of my blog to reflect the newest addition to our family.
eli is totally excited of course (his mommy & daddy are too) because he'll have someone to play with. please keep us in your prayers as we prepare to raise another baby for Christ. oh, and feel free to pass the word.

pool party

YEAH! IT'S SUMMER TIME!!

we totally need a lake house

Last Thursday and Friday we met my parents in Florence, AL for a family reunion. It was the Hatter siblings and their spouses and some of their kids/grandkids. I'm in this family thru my Granny, and since they live in Texas (really far away), but were only 3 hours away in AL, we went to see them and all our other relatives.
Granny and her sisters/sister-in-law rented a house right on the lake and although we stayed at the Super 8, we spent our days at the lake house. It was FUN, FUN, FUN!! So happy we were able to go and be a part of making special memories with family.

here's 'the gang'

papa is helping eli chase the geese
3 generations of Cox's

swinging on the dock

papa and gram and a ready for bed eli

granny spending time with her great-grandboy

aunt rachel's awesome!

yes, it's true....eli has the best aunt rachel there is. she came and visited us last weekend and everyone was so happy to see her, especially eli, who got lots of play time! we had an "eli first" while she was here- brushing his teeth. she helped me commemorate the moment by snapping a few pics (check out her facebook page for the whole set of pictures). we sure do love our aunt rachel and we're excited to be with the whole phillips' family in two weeks for cousin aaron's first birthday!

you can barely see two little (top) teeth peeping through!

on daddy's shoulders

it practically brings tears to my eyes to witness moments like these- eli's first ride on daddy's shoulders. they both loved it (okay all 3 of us did)! daddy even walked under several low lying branches so eli could pull leaves off. he had two fists full of leaves by the end of his ride.

teeth update

count 'em....yup....that 4 top teeth that are making an appearance. the top two middle teeth are really showing through a lot now, and eli's taken to grinding his top and bottom teeth together (shudder). my sweet little 8 1/2 month old just keeps growing up!! i'm not really sure when that happened!

simple pleasures

Here's the most fun eli's had all week- playing with the envelopes from 2 mother's day cards i got in the mail! Provided a good 20 minutes of joy....thanks Ami and Marcy!!

the boy, a book, and a bum lip

Here are some of our happenings from the past few days.
We've spent some time outside playing and reading while daddy works in the garden. Its beautiful in the shade, even on a very warm day. Eli loves to look around at everything he sees outside and has a strange fascination with pulling up pieces of grass and making a pile on the blanket. What can i say, i love it!
Last night at church eli got a bum lip. His hand slipped, and his mouth hit the edge of the table at dinner. This was the best picture i could get of it this morning because he kept curling his lip up, and then there's nothing to see at all! It's red and swollen right in the middle of his top lip. He cried for a few minutes when it happened, but the magic of mommy and the distraction of toys made everything okay!

Eli's also cutting a top eye tooth (which i could not get a picture of). It's already broken the skin some b/c he likes to clang his bottom two teeth against it. The boy has also started to "throw" toys and fling himself over in an attempt to retrieve them. Unfortunately that's as far as he gets before fussing for mommy.

There you have it- our life right now! Blessed beyond measure!!

he's 8 months old!

What a cutie!