99 Days To Go

Ryan has noticed that pregnant women seem to always take pictures where they're gazing away into the distance or with their eyes closed. Whenever he sees a picture like that he says something along the lines of "That's amazing she can sleep standing up!" So here I am with my eyes open - looking right at the camera.

...and here's Ryan...asleep standing up.

My Listy

I love Google.
I love Gmail.
I especially love my iGoogle homepage!

It has a glorious Summer Ocean theme with beachy banner images that make me feel warm and sunny up here in Michigan. Its full of interesting gadgets like "E! News" National Geographic's "Places to See" gallery, the weather, and my dad's blog.

I just added the "My Listy" gadget a couple of days ago after seeing it on my friend Michelle's iGoogle homepage. I've always been a bit of a list maker (I used to fill entire notebooks with lists of all the words I could think of that ended in the letters "ed" or "ly"...and I did this for fun, as a child...in my room...by myself.)

Pregnancy brain has accellarated my love of list making, and now, thanks to "My Listy" I've got it right here on my iGoogle homepage! Yippee!

I highly recommend it if you have the means.

"Everything is Amazing and Nobody's Happy"

I agree with this on so many levels. Hilarious!

View the video at Sangent

For Love and Flour

Today I'm 25 weeks pregnant. That means my baby is 8.5 - 9 inches long, weighs almost 2 lbs and is approximately the size of a 5 pound bag of flour.

I've been feeling lots of kicks and punches and swirgly-wirgly movements in there - so it seems like things are going well! Typically when my head hits the pillow and I begin drifting off to sleep is the exact time each night when the baby starts having a dance party. It's hilarious!

I've also been feeling some major softening of my heart for parenting types of issues. I have a heightened sense of awareness for things that typically would not really bother me when I think about my child being exposed to them. Certain TV shows, music, attitudes, behaviors, language and topics of conversation. Maybe I'm just sensitive...but I know that God is working on me as He prepares my heart to love and care for this precious baby.

"Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that."
Ephesians 5:1-2 (The Message)

Do you deserve it?

I love what Seth Godin posted on his blog a couple of days ago:

Do you deserve the luck you've been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you've got? Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand?

Not at all. “Deserve” is such a loaded word. Most of us don’t deserve the great opportunities we have, or the lucky breaks that got us here.

The question shouldn’t be, “do you deserve it.” I think it should be, “what are you going to do with it now that you've got it?"

Bad James - Back Again

Mastering Affluence 2 - Bad James Returns from Summit Church on Vimeo.

Aaron and Tracy in love

I love this engagement photo of my little brother and his gorgeous bride-to-be! Want to hear more of their story? Check out http://aaronandtracy.weddingwindow.com/

Valentines Day Hike

This morning Ryan and I went for (what we thought would be) a 4 mile hike through Highland Forest. Usually when we're here, we cross country ski the trails at Highland, but since it's been so warm and rainy the last few days we decided it might be better to put on our boots and hike it.

It was an absolutely GORGEOUS and sunny day. There was lots more snow than we had anticipated, so every 10 steps or so we would break through the packed trail and sink down to our knee - which was pretty funny.

We got about 3 miles into our 4 mile trail and no longer had any footprints to follow. This was a bit of a problem, because the snow covering everything didn't give us much of a guide for where the trail actually was - so Ryan decided not to get his pregnant wife lost in the woods, but instead, to hike back the 3 miles way we came in. He is really smart and I'm glad we didn't go trekking off without knowing where the trail was.

I think the baby likes to hike....but boy oh boy was I tired by the time we got back to the car! Its amazing how much energy it takes to grow a baby! I'm going to take a nap now. 

Happy Valentines Day!!

Dinosaur BBQ

We had dinner at Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse on Thursday night. Ryan LOVES wings...especially when they're grilled to perfection. As you can see, they bring out quite a feast! We highly recommend it if you have the means.

Green Lakes State Park

This morning we took a hike around Green Lakes State Park...another one of our favorite places to visit when we're here. It wasn't sunny...and the lake was pretty much frozen over, but we found some cool trees and had some great conversation along the path.

Gore Mountain and Baby Decor

In typical Cox family tradition, Ryan and Dad left this morning at 4:45am to drive to Gore and be the first on the slopes. This "first on the slopes and last off the slopes" phenomenon has always baffled me, but it's tradition and they love it! 

The sun was shining and it was beautiful - as you can see from this picture. Ryan had one crash on an icy patch - which ended with him tangled up in some trees about 30 feet down the slope from his crash site. They had a great day and were home in time for a delicious grilled cheese and tomato soup dinner.

Since I am with child, Mom and I stayed here in town - got pedicures, had lunch at Panera and did some shopping for gender neutral baby nursery decor. On days like this I second guess my decision to wait to find out if we're having a boy or a girl. 

I saw some precious stuff for girls with little birds and some cute stuff for boys with lions and giraffes...but everything we found that would work for both is yellow and green. I guess yellow and green is okay. Turtles are yellow and green. Vegetables are yellow and green. The walls in the baby's room are yellow... maybe I should just plant some grass in there and call it good.

...Or, maybe I'll do what my friend Breanne did and wait until the baby is born to pick out crib/nursery decor.

...Or I could just go crazy and buy both! 

New York, New York

Ryan and I made the drive out to upstate New York yesterday to spend a week with Mom and Dad Cox at their house before they move back to Michigan in April! Of course, Ryan has a whole list of his "favorite" places that we will be visiting while we're out here. We went to three of those places today. 

1. Chittenango Falls...which was pretty much completely frozen over today - but still cool to look at.
   
2. The LL Bean Outlet Store - where I purchased a pair of furry mittens.
3. Freedom of Espresso - a sweet little coffee house with neat wooden chairs to sit in.

We're having fun being on vacation! Hooray!

DID YOU KNOW?

Brain? Where did you go?

I was talking on my cell phone the other day and was looking EVERYWHERE for my cell phone!

...digging in my pockets
...checking my purse

"Did I leave it at the office?"
"Did I leave it in the car?"