We can't believe this kid is THREE years old! He is growing like a weed and blossoming like a sweet (wild) flower. At three, Cole has a great, dynamic personality and a crazy imagination. One of Mommy's favorite activities of late is simply to sit back and watch him play. He can seemingly go forever narrating his own little scenes. His characters are usually cars, trucks or stuffed animals, and they go on all sorts of adventures (but most often to baseball games). Sometimes his scenes "read" like books: "And then Nico [one of his cars] said, 'Let's race!' ... And then Lightning McQueen said, 'Okay! I'm going to win the race! Better hurry!'" And so on, and so on. (Incidentally, racing is a big thing with Cole of late, and challenging him to a race is a solid way for Mommy or Daddy to get the kid rushing upstairs and heading to bath time!)
Cole is still in school at Family Flex in downtown Denver. He's in the "Mountain" room, but will soon be transitioning to "Desert," which is a preschool room. We can't believe our little man is almost a real preschooler! He will continue to have Ms. Katie S. and Ms. Katie W. as his teachers, as they both have taught and enjoyed teaching preschool in the past and will begin teaching it again with Cole's class. This was great news to Mommy and Daddy, as they know Cole (with all his cute-but-sometimes-trying personality traits) very well, and are just fantastic people and teachers.
Cole's birthday party was super low-key this year -- mainly just family. Cole had requested a Lightning McQueen-themed party, and Mommy obliged by taking him to Party City to stock up on McQueen-themed gear (with high hopes that this current obsession, and any possible correlating obsession with race cars, NASCAR, what-have-you, ends sometime before the kid is anywhere near driving age). Mommy found it a nice departure from the typical 40-kid, Pinterest-inspired shin-dig (which of course is always lovely, just ... all-consuming), and certainly less stressful than a big affair with ponies and magicians and such.
Anyhow, the plan was for Daddy to take Cole to soccer practice (you can see, he's still wearing his uniform in the picture above), and for family to arrive during practice. We were all going to surprise Cole when he and Daddy got home. (Cole typically loves surprising and being surprised by Mommy and/or Daddy. For example, sometimes if Mommy and Cole are already home and Daddy is coming home from work, Cole and Mommy will hide and "surprise" Daddy when he walks in from the garage. Daddy is always very surprised!) Well, we did surprise Cole, but this time he was a little overwhelmed by all the people and didn't have the greatest reaction to the loud "Surprise!" he received. (He mostly just buried his head in Daddy's shirt.) Ah, well. Best laid plans....
After he came around (which thankfully didn't take more than a minute or so), we enjoyed yummy breakfast treats, lots and lots and lots of presents (mostly McQueen-themed, and including a skateboard(!) from Auntie Chelsey, who wisely also threw in a set of knee, elbow and wrist pads, and a disclaimer of liability), and McQueen birthday cupcakes.
It was a lovely day, full of happy times in celebration of our sweet buddy. And the cupcakes were delicious. 4/19/2014.
