Dear Cole - I can't believe it has been 14 years since we welcomed you into the world. You were such a tiny little thing. Oh how you have grown!
You are not one for big crowded parties so in true Cole-fashion, we celebrated your 14th birthday with three intimate gatherings. On October 1st, Nana Bev and Popi Jerry happened to be passing through town so it was the perfect time to start the celebrations.
You had your pick of restaurants for your special occasion dinner, and you ventured outside of your norm selecting Bricks Pub. They are located up in Blaine, but thanks to DoorDash, it was delivered right to our front door. You love their huge cheese pizza that you order off the kids menu. You like getting the whole pizza all to yourself without having to share.
After dinner, it was time to open your present from Nana and Popi. You were gifted a pitching machine and wasted no time getting it setup to play. There was a bit of a learning curve and some frustrations in the beginning, but you eventually got the hang of it. We all enjoyed watching you smash the balls out of the yard.
For dessert, we had a variety of cookies from Kowalskis. Cookies are one of your favorite treats! We wished you an early "Happy Birthday" as you blew out the candles.
Celebration #2 was on October 8th. This time, we celebrated with Nana Judy, Popi Dave and Uncle Jason. You had been begging for Uncle Jason to come over to play Spiderman on the Xbox with you and that was the very first thing you requested when he arrived. You two sure make quite the team!
For your birthday party lunch, we of course had to have your all-time favorite - Red Robin! You had your usual, a burger and fries.
Then it was time to open your gifts. You enjoyed ripping open all the cards and fun presents.
Next it was piñata time. I didn't know if you'd want to do the piñata, but after asking you your preference, you said "yes"! The piñata was filled with all your favorite sweets. After going through several rounds of you and your siblings taking turns, you finally pulled out the magic key and out came the candy!
Instead of a cake this year, you decided you wanted a GIGANTIC cookie. You don't like cake anyways, so this seemed like a great idea. But where can one find a huge cookie? Thankfully Google came to the rescue and led us to T-Rex Cookie in Eagan. They did not disappoint! You had a 5 lb football-shaped sea salt caramel chocolate chip cookie big enough to feed 30 people! It was so delicious it was gone by the end of the week.
Afterwards, you opened a gift of suckers, a huge container of jelly beans (Oh man! Did you sure love these! You ended up carrying the big container of jelly beans everywhere you went!), and an I.O.U. for a retro WWE Xbox game that you just had to have. In fact, you had had the game previously, but too many scratches on it left it unplayable. Thus, your request for a new one. I had to track down a used copy as the 2011 version of 'WWE Smackdown vs Raw' is no longer available for purchase new. And of course, I ordered it last minute so it had not yet arrived on your big day. Thankfully it came just 3 days later as you would ask multiple times each day when it was finally going to arrive. You are not one for patience!
Cole, you are my best helper. You are always eager to pitch in a hand. You never grumble when asked to fetch me this or that. In fact, you are offended when I ask someone else to help instead of you. That's how much you love to help!
You are quite the clown. Making people laugh is what you do best. With your silly dance moves, jumping off the couch or tossing toys in the air, you are always looking for a giggle from your audience. Getting us to laugh is your daily mission.
You can't help but be a silly big brother around Aria. You'll lay down next to her on the floor, tickling her and wiggling her this way and that while she giggles away. You definitely have a way with her. Don't tell your other siblings, but I'm pretty sure you are her favorite.
While you can be loud and crazy, you also love your quiet time where you can relax and unwind. Most days you will be found in "Mom's room" doing exactly that. The master bedroom has become a sanctuary of sorts for you where you can have quiet and full access to watch all your favorite YouTube videos on the big screen.
Another favorite of yours is sleepovers at Nana Judy's and Popi Dave's. Most weekends that is your number one request. You sure do love your time there, playing with Nana and Popi and getting to do whatever your heart desires without having to appease your very vocal and demanding siblings.
You are a bottomless pit! You can eat and eat with no end in sight. Your number one requested food is chicken nuggets. You are a chicken nugget fiend! You can eat them morning, noon and night and never tire.
While chicken nuggets are you favorite food, cranberry juice is most definitely your drink of choice. When I say you like it, I mean it! You can easily go through two gallons a week. You're typically the only one in the household who drinks it so sometimes you even skip the cup and just drink right out of the jug!
You just may be addicted to the Xbox. You have loved playing Xbox games for many, many years. Your favorites have been and still remain the WWE games. You own every available version. You know all the keys to push in order to make the players do all their crazy moves. For the life of me, I can not figure out how to play. It's very complicated, but you are the guru and the undefeated champ in our household.
This summer you decided that you most definitely needed to add a Spiderman game to your long list of Xbox gaming options. Of course, you always pick the games that are no longer being made so I had to track a used one down at Game Stop, which turned out to be a bit of a disaster as their website was being finicky and didn't appear to be processing my order. Wouldn't you know it, FIVE Spiderman Xbox games showed up on our door step! Spiderman is now one of your favorites, but being that it's new to you, there has been quite the learning curve. Luckily Uncle Jason has come to the rescue. The two of you have been playing as a team to learn and conquer the levels.
No comments:
Post a Comment