Welcome to the Cox Girls' Website!

3/5/10 - After many attempts to get a urine sample from Sabrina, mailing it to our clinic and them passing it along to the lab...we finally have great results. Sabrina's VMA went from 10.2 to 10.8...just fine. Her HVA went from 21.9 all the way down to 10.4. She hasn't had a jump like that since her surgery. We can't help but think that we did something while taking the sample that may have led to this new, lower number...but both are great!!! We will have her urine and blood checked in April and her scans will also be at that time. Sabrina and Kadence have been enjoying their car seats, as they are now facing the front of the vehicle. Sabrina grins the entire time she is in her seat...that should wear off soon. Aubrie got hit with a little stomach bug the other night, but seems fine now. She was a little dehydrated the next day, but we saved on diapers...she used only the 1 she had on all day. Ashlyn had a great time celebrating Dr. Suess' birthday and was able to watch a movie at school today. She read a book to her class the other day and received a sticker...it is amazing what kind of motivation a sticker is to a kindergartner. Jim has been at a music conference since Wednesday and will be done tomorrow afternoon. The kids have missed having him around, especially Ashlyn. The weather is finally getting nice so we have been able to play outside a little and hopefully go on some walks soon...Mommy needs to get out of the house. Aubrie has been experimenting with painting snow green. We give her a water bottle with green colored water in it and she sprays away...it is quite cute until she starts spraying us. This weekend is busy for Ashlyn. She sings in church on Sunday and then we have to drive her straight to her dance photos...in her costume. Her sisters will be carried along for the fun!!

2/27/10 - This month has flown by that it is hard to remember everything that is going on. I will try to update one child at a time... First Ashlyn, she is continuing to enjoy school and is reading more and more every day. She loves to sit with Mommy and Daddy and read a book. She even reads to her younger sisters. She is counting higher and higher every day as well. She has learned to count backwards from 30. Ashlyn has had a few birthday parties, I guess that comes with the friend territory. Ashlyn continues to dance, both tap and ballet. We had parent night last week and were able to sit in on her class. She did great in ballet and then in tap she wasn't feeling well because she was hungry. The teacher thought she was being shy in front of the parents, but we were like..this kid shy?? No Way!! She is really good in tap so it was sad not to her happy and dancing, but rather sad and hunched over like she was going to die. Ashlyn continues with churh choir and has a musical coming up in April. We have been practicing songs with her and she seems ready. Ashlyn has another birthday party coming up tomorrow and lots of school ahead. Now for Aubrie. Aubrie has been practicing her somersaults, but fell on a toy yesterday so that may be it for a while. She loves to have "dance parties" at home and tries to sing along with any song she hears. During the Olympic opening ceremonies she even tried to sing along with "O, Canada"...we took a small video of it because it was too funny. She has been battling dry lips and a cough. She loves night gowns at night to be just like her big sister. Sometimes she will fight with Ashlyn while playing, but it is hard to play with a 5 year old when you are only 2. Hopefully in a couple years she will have more playmates closer to her age (the twins). Aubrie went to her first birthday party, with Ashlyn to lead the way. She had a lot of fun dressing up as a princess and eating cake. Aubrie has been working on spelling her name and counting to 10, both of which are getting good. Overall, Aubrie is a typical 2 year old learning to communicate and become an independent person. Sabrina is crawling all over and loves to play with loud toys. She has a high squeal that comes when she is happy. It can hurt our ears, but it is really cute. She is still working on standing alone, but she has done it for a few seconds at a time. She loves to turn the TV on and off and drag sheets out of our linen closet. She has an amazing talent of finding the smallest speck of trash on the floor and eating it. She loves to have books read to her, especially touch and feel books. She is learning to give love (hugging) and can crawl into very small spaces. She gets frustrated easily, but finds her way out. She is eating more real food and is done with formula...yippie!! We still have a bottle at night with milk in it, to help get to sleep. She is a neater eater than her sister, that is for sure...clean up is nearly as bad. This is our first month with out an oncology appointment which is strange. We were to mail in a urine sample for them to still test, but they lost the first one we mailed...no one has seen it. We mailed a second one, but so far no phone call saying it has been received, even though it was mailed 4 days ago...really frustrating. Kadence is a toddler!!! She is walking all over and it won't be long before she is running. She climbs on everything, but so far no falls. We try to watch her, but one of these times she will tumble off the couch. Her favorite place to crawl is our toy bin/ottoman. She loves to eat and drink, but makes a mess. we have no idea how much is actually making it into her mouth. She has also had some diaper issues recently, so her food that is making it in soon finds its way out. She is talking more, which we love, but having one more child talking back won't be fun. She can say Ma-Ma, Da-Da, More ("mo"), milk ("mih") and she can sign milk and more as well. She loves to kiss, hug and read. She loves books with animals...as long as we do animal sounds too. She loves to do actions with songs like, If You Are Happy and You Know It, Itsy Bitsy Spider and Pat-a-Cake. Overall we are all good, just busy. Sorry if there are any misprints in this entry, but my kids are killing each other and I don't have time to re-read...sorry.

2/10/10 - Wow, what a birthday, too bad the girls won't remember it, but we took plenty of pictures. The older girls sang "Happy Birthday" every chance they got from the moment the babies woke up. Our whole family met at Red Robin for dinner. We have gone there for every 1st birthday of our children. It happened to be a Tuesday so the mascot bird was there to meet and greet the kids. The babies weren't sure about him, but Kadence did wave to him...Sabrina chose to stare. The girls all ate their share of food and all the birthday girls (Sabrina, Kadence and GJ) received birthday sundaes, although Ashlyn ate most of Kadence's. We went home to open presents and eat cake. Sabrina was always near us while opening gifts. She loved the wrapping as well as the presents themselves. She wanted to play and touch with everything. Kadence wanted to walk around and play with her old toys and visit people. She also found some tissue paper to play with :) We ordered cakes from a local bakery and they have a deal where a child can get a free "smash cake" for their first birthday. So we had a large cake for family to eat and then each baby had their own 7 inch cake. Kadence's cake had a close up of Elmo on it and Sabrina's cake had a yellow/purple ribbon in honor of her overcoming her challenges this year. You can look at the pictures to see how the cakes went over...messy!! Sabrina grabbed for the cake when it was time to blow her candle out, she had no hesitation. Kadence cried when it was time to eat her cake. She was very tired and maybe a little freaked out by the large Elmo staring at her. Once Kadence tasted the cake there was no stopping her. Elmo didn't have a chance. There was red frosting everywhere!! Sabrina kept smearing frosting all over her face and her head, thanks to Uncle Scott who finds it funny to ask where their heads are. It wasn't anything a bath couldn't fix. This morning we had the girls' 1 year doctor appointment. They look beautiful and are healthy...yay for a new month!! Kadence weighs 22 lbs 13 oz and is at the 77%. She is 30.3 inches long which places her in the 86% for her age. She seems so big to us, but is still smaller than Ashlyn was at this age. Sabrina, our little peanut, weighs 19 lbs 10 oz, which places her in the 25%. She is 29.5 inches long and that places her in the 64% for her age. One thing we look forward to doing when our kdis turn one is turning the car seat around to face the front. Kadence will be upgraded here any day, but Sabrina needs to wait because she has to be 20 lbs...not quite there, but soon. Safety is one thing we don't want to compromise for our children. We are happy to have 4 beautiful girls!!

1/23/10 - What a January. Our little girls are sick once more. We are hoping they get healthy for their first birthday. Sabrina and Kadence have recovered from their diarrhea...thank goodness!!! That was a lot of diaper changing in two in a half weeks. They were both healthy for a day before fevers and coughs erupted. After three days the cough has gotten into their chests. The pediatrician's office gave them both some albuterol through a nebulizer and both seemed to respond well...which is great. So now we have a nebulizer at home and medicine to give at least three times a day. The girls fight it, but the last session with Kadence went better...we had to stick in an Elmo video. As long as they keep getting better we are in the clear of anything worse, such as RSV. Sabrina also got her urine results back. Her HVA number went up a little, which is fine, it seems to be her pattern. Her VMA went down by .5...both numbers are great. Ashlyn and Aubrie have remained healthy through all this stuff with the babies. We are grateful for that! The older girls went to the dentist on Thursday. Ashlyn did wonderfully as always, but Aubrie was another story. This was Aubrie's first visit and she was very excited when we first arrived. She jumped into the chair and was so happy. Then she was shown the tooth brush, water sprayer, the suction thing and the chair that can go up and down. The face changed from excitement to a little fear. She had x-rays done and did great. then it came time to brush her teeth and the second the brush tickled her teeth, she jumped and refused to open again. I finally had to sit with her and hold her down, but no good. In the end they brushed almost all her teeth and the dentist was able to see her smile, but nothing else. I am not sure if she will be looking forward to her next visit, but maybe she will be a little more ready for it. I am hoping to add some photos tonight...we will see what time allows.

1/19/10 - Sabrina had a CT Scan today and her oncology appointment. Her scan was clear, besides scar tissue left over from her surgery...it continues to shrink. We are so proud of our little girl. Ashlyn has now lost 2 teeth and looks even older. She is beginning to read and loves it. It is fun to watch her sit down with a book and read it. If she doesn't know a word she tries to sound it out before asking. We love getting little notes from her that say "I love you mom/dad"...super cute. Aubrie went poopy on the potty the other day...which is huge. She was so excited!! We were hoping that would be the beginning to success, but it was just an experience. She is showing more interest and is finding diapers uncomfortable, so hopefully next month she will get serious about "growing up". Kadence is cruising all around and seems to be turning into a toddler. She is beginning to throw quite good tantrums...kicking, screaming and all. Sabrina was fighting with diarrhea for about 9 days and when she got better...Kadence got it. We have been through our share of diapers this month. This Thursday Aubrie will experience the dentist for the first time. Ashlyn will go first to show her how to do it like a big girl and then Aubrie will take her turn. We will see how it goes. Next week Ashlyn is coming with the adults to pack food for "Feed My Starving Children" at church. We are excited for her to start giving and understanding there is more to the world than our little corner.

1/7/10 - How weird to write 2010 for the first time. BIG NEWS!!! Ashlyn lost her 1st tooth!! It was the first tooth in and the first one out. She was eating a banana before lunch and she said "Mom, my tooth fell out"...she was so calm, I thought she was joking. Sure enough there it was sitting on the table in front of her. Se said it just fell out on to the table. Once the reality set in, she put her arms into the air and said, "I finally lost my first tooth...yay!" She wasn't even phased by the blood that soon dribble from the vacant spot in her mouth. She ate her lunch with ease now that 1 of her 2 very loose teeth had fallen out. Now for the first visit from the tooth fairy...I wonder what the going rate for a tooth is. I was excited to get a quarter back in the day. Other than that, our house has been pretty uneventful. The kids have all been sick with different things. Kadence started it all with a cold. She had an extremely runny nose and seemed miserable for a few days. Ashlyn began a runny nose and started complaining of an earache and her ear being plugged...sure enough she had a mighty ear infection. She is on meds and beginning to improve. Sabrina came down with Kadence's cold, but it continued into a fever joined by diarrhea. I know too many disgusting details in this post. Sabrina has less of a runny nose now and the fever has been gone for 20 hours...she is beginning to get some substance to her stools, but still not "normal". Aubrie was the healthy on until a couple days ago, she has a horrible cough. No other symptoms, just the cough. She was in our bed early this morning (4 am) and we couldn't sleep with her coughing next to us. She finally slept for 45 extra minutes and is down for her afternoon nap now. We are going to give her some cough medicine when she wakes up. Happy New Year to our family. We are beginning 2010 with a bang.

12/31/09 - What a year to look back on. We started with the birth of twins, our big girls turned 2 and 5, Sabrina was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery to remove her tumor, Ashlyn started kindergarten and so many more memorable events. Our Christmas was fantastic, even with a snow storm. The girls were all angels in this year's interactive Christmas Eve service at church. They looked beautiful in the matching dresses. Grandpa read his Christmas poem on Christmas Eve to the girls in their matching pajamas. Ashlyn was the only girl that sat through the whole story. Christmas morning came and we did the Cox family Christmas at our home and the girls were thrilled with their gifts. Ashlyn and Aubrie must have been good girls this year because Santa brought them exactly what they wanted, a Littlest Pet Playset for Ashlyn and an Elmo and Barbie book for Aubrie. The babies also got great gifts, but they were more interested in the paper, boxes and bows...who needs gifts? We then headed over to Nana and Grandpa's house for the Mattingly Christmas. We opened presents and had a hard time teaching Aubrie to take turns opening. She was so excited, she just wanted to rip all her gifts open. We were blessed to receive so many wonderful and generous gifts from various family members...thank you to all! We ate our famous baked eggs and caramel roll for breakfast. The babies ate fruity cheerios for the first time...what a treat for them. For dinner that evening, everyone ate curried chicken...Mommy's favorite meal. Ashlyn liked the meal, Aubrie ate a couple bites before leaving the table, the babies ate more peas and bananas than we can count. They also picked at the rice...we were careful not to give them too much curry sauce for fear of what their diapers may look like, as well as the stains that would come from spilling it. We all got to bed and slept the night away. Ashlyn and Nana went to see Beauty and the Beast downtown and Ahslyn loved it. She sat in the front row and loved "Be Our Guest" the best. She was so excited when the prince and Belle kissed at the end that she shot her arms up the air at the end as if saying "way to go". We had a visit from the Ouimette family as well as our friend Mollie Busta. The kids were quite hyper, but enjoyed seeing their friends. Kadence showed off her walking skills and Ashlyn and Aubrie enjoyed playing with Olivia and Soren. Ashlyn wanted to get her ears pierced so Nana and Mommy took her to the store where she got as far as having the purple dots drawn on her ears before breaking into tears. Needless to say, we left with Ashlyn in tears and no earrings in the ears...maybe later in life would be better :) We are looking forward to the new year, not knowing what will come our way. We know it will begin with a new garage door opener and new brakes for the care, but after that, who knows. May you all have a blessed 2010!!

12/08/09 - We thought the snowflake background would be fitting since it is the first official snow storm of the season. The last update mentioned that all 3 younger girls were ill...well now they all have left ear infections, but getting healthy. Sabrina's test results came back and they are terrific. Her HVA is down to 20 from 22 and her VMA is 10...it was 15.8. With both numbers, the lower the better. Her VMA is pretty much the same as kids who never had anything wrong with them...how great is that. It is hard to believe those numbers were so high to begin with...one was over 120 and the other was around 76. She is doing great!! Kadence went to the doctor today and they said she is having holding breath spells...man it is always something in this family. She had one episode at the beginning of November and just had a second on Sunday. yesterday, Jim was home and was able to witness another minor episode. When she gets hurt and cries hard...you know the famous silent cry, she will pass out. She turns limp and her eyes will roll back in her head and they will close. It is super scary to witness because you don't know whether to call 911 or wait it out. According to our pediatrician, her body isn't getting enough oxygen to the brain so it shuts down, to allow blood to flow again...it knows to shut down because it will cause her crying to stop, pretty smart if you think about it. It takes about 30 seconds for her to start waking up and another 15-20 second for her to start acting normal. The doctor said to just be cautious and tell people around her that it could happen. She should grow out of it, hopefully sooner than later...please!! On a better note, the babies turn 10 months old tomorrow. It is hard to believe that they are that old. Kadence is still working on that first step and Sabrina is getting the hang of moving her feet while holding on to furniture or toys. By Christmas we will have two very mobile babies. Ashlyn is so close to losing her first tooth. We can see the new tooth coming through and soon it will just push the baby tooth out of the way. I think she is excited...we are nervous. Aubrie is getting over her cold still. She has a lingering cough and red cheeks and still holds a slight temp in the low 99's. She is working on her last molar, which may be why her temp isn't totally disappearing and her cheeks are still red. We still have a lot to do to get ready for the holiday season. Our Christmas letter is in its first draft, but will hopefully be done this weekend...give us some time to get them out...we are slow!!

12/5/09 - Still no results for Sabrina, but we called the clinic and they said they should have them on Monday, so we wait. The three younger girls all came down with fevers on Wednesday and have been sick ever since. Aubrie and Sabrina have a cough and all have watery eyes and runny noses. we took a trip to the pediatrician on this fine Saturday morning and sure enough they all have ear infections, funny enough their left ears are all infected, what are the chances of that. This explains why no one is eating or sleeping well. Hopefully with medicine, sleep will become a well known habit again :) On the down side, one of the side effects of the medicine is intestinal issues...so we are dealing with that with Aubrie and Kadence...hopefully Sabrina won't join in. Ashlyn remains healthy (fingers crossed). She had her Christmas Program at church tonight and did very well. She always puts on her own show with added actions and cute facial expressions...all caught on video of course...she needs to see it when she gets older. So far, Mommy and Daddy are also healthy. We just would like some sleep, at least a couple of hours in a row would be appreciated. Hopefully Monday we will update with Sabrina's results.

11/30/09 - We can't believe tomorrow is December. It doesn't seem like it since there is no snow on the ground...which is fine with Mommy and Daddy. We think the big girls would like some snow to play in, but there will be plenty in the future, we are sure of that. Ashlyn has been home for 6 days from school and we can tell she needs to get back. She needs to be social with other people besides her sisters. The structure of school is very good for Ashlyn. Ashlyn still has her loose teeth, but her lower teeth are getting looser every day. Aubrie still is not progressing with potty training. It is frustrating, but we know it is normal and we are trying not to push it. Aubrie finally got her third molar so we are only waiting for one more and then she can be done with teething until 6 or so!! Aubrie has her first dentist appointment (with Ashlyn) on Jan. 21. We will see how that goes. Ashlyn has always done well with the dentist, but Aubrie is a little less friendly to strangers. Sabrina is officially crawling as of last Saturday. Just like that she pushed herself up and crawled across the room. We now have two very mobile babies. We did put the Christmas tree up, with no ornaments yet, to see how they do with it. So far the babies like to swat at it, but they mainly let it be. In a couple days we will start placing the ornaments on and see what happens. Kadence wants to walk, but she will just stand and rock back and forth before she just leans forward and hopes someone catches her. She should have her 2nd tooth coming through any moment. We can see it and feel it under her gums...she is best friends with orajel. We had a great Thanksgiving and the babies enjoyed their "real" food. Sabrina out ate Kadence, which was a miracle. We are anticipating the celebration of Jesus' birth and the arrival of Santa, of course. We are attempting to take pictures of the girls in their dresses, but with Ashlyn and Aubrie fighting and the babies crawling away, we have had no luck so far...but a lot of funny out takes :) Sabrina has her monthly oncology visit tomorrow and we hope it will be uneventful with just her urine tests and physical therapy.

11/25/09 - Today Ashlyn officially turns 5 1/2 and boy she is telling everyone. We made cupcakes and celebrated in Ashlyn style..all about her today. She sings in church tonight for the Thanksgiving service...should be cute. We are thankful for so much this Thanksgiving...our 4 girls, our families and friends, and of course Aubrie keeping her underwear dry today...granted she has a bladder of steel and just holds it all in, no need to sit on the potty. Tomorrow we plan on watching the parade...seeing Santa at the end is the main event for our girls. They will color the turkey in the newspaper and we will have a large dinner. The babies will eat everything with us...they will eat turkey for the 1st time and enjoy sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn (not it on the diapers), bread, stuffing, and of course pie. We hope their little tummies are ready for "real" food. Happy Thanksgiving!!

11/18/09 - The girls have been very busy lately. Sabrina got 2 teeth, then Kadence got her first. Kadence has learned to pull up and is now cruising along the furniture. Sabrina is so close to crawling and is becoming an army crawling master. She can pull herself up to her knees, but not quite all the way yet. Aubrie is working on another molar and has a little cough right now. She has learned to jump on one foot, which she shows everyone. Ashlyn continues to do well in school and is learning how to read more words every week. She loves Math and Science...like her Mommy. Ashlyn is involved in tap and ballet as well as church choir...quite busy. She always sits down on Friday after school and finishes her homework for the weekend...not her parents' child...we are procrastinators. Sorry about the 20 new photos, but we take a lot of photos and don't download them a lot...time issues, imagine that. The November weather has been nice to us so we have spent a lot of time outside in the chilly, fresh air. It won't be long before we have inches and inches of snow to deal with. We hope everyone is doing well and we hope you have a great Thanksgiving. We are thankful for so many things this year!!

11/9/09 - Sabrina's oncology clinic called today and her HVA and VMA numbers are still normal. They both went up a little from last month, but not an extreme amount to the point of concern. Both babies had their 9 month check up today and both are very healthy. They ended up getting their H1N1 shot, which was not planned, but I had not problem with them receiving it. They had a problem with it though :) Sabrina weighs 18 lbs 3 oz (39 percentile...highest ever!!) She is 28" long (67%). Kadence was lighter than we expected, knowing that Ashlyn was 22 lbs at this point, we thought Kadence would be more...oops, we were wrong. She weighs 20 lbs 15 oz (83%...also her highest amount). She is 1 inch longer than Sabrina at 29" (91%). What a busy day for doctor information. Sabrina visits the oncologist again on Dec. 1 and hopefully neither girl will need to see the pediatrician prior to their 1 year appointment.

11/8/09 - Tomorrow will be a big medical day. We should hear back from the oncology clinic with Sabrina's results...hopefully sometime in the morning hours. At 1 pm, Sabrina and Kadence have their 9 month check up. It is hard to imagine that 9 months ago they were born. It feels like yesterday they were little infants and now Kadence is beginning to furniture walk and Sabrina is nearing the crawling stage. I can't believe they will be 1 in three months. I am not ready to have 2 more toddlers. We are hoping to get Aubrie potty trained in the next 3 months so at least there will only be 2 left in diapers..I guess that is a positive to having your kids grow up. For those of you with multiples who read this...does it ever get easier? People always told us it gets easier as they get older..I don't see that yet. Certain things improve, but there is always something new around the corner. Ashlyn is pretty good at taking care of herself. It is fun to watch her wash her dishes when she is done, wash her own hands, brush her own teeth, fill her cup with water and ice and dress herself. These things don't happen consistently, but at least they happen. In 5 years, all of our kids will be like this...what a nice thought. WE will update tomorrow when we get the news.

11/3/09 - Sabrina had her oncology appointment today. Her appointment went very well. You can read more in depth stuff on her caring bridge site. We will hear results from her urine tests in the next couple of days. We always hate waiting, but we are pretty sure the results will be fine. Her physical therapist is happy with her progress, but we have more exercises to do with her to help her strengthen her left ab muscles...don't we all need ab work. Today Sabrina was even beginning to army crawl. Sabrina has also started to dance to music...so funny to watch. Kadence is pulling herself up easier now and is getting into everything. You know it is bad when Aubrie has to start yelling, "No, No!" Tonight we celebrated Uncle Scott's birthday. Ashlyn and Aubrie were "helping" with gift opening and blowing candles out. Ashlyn started the birthday song and man, she chose a really high key...not good.

Quiz Results
Loading..........