Cole Family

We took our annual pilgrimage to the local mall to visit Santa last night.  As the photographer readied the camera, she said:  “Ok everyone! Say cookies on three. 1, 2, 3!”

Garrett, Megan, Lindsay: “Cookies!”
Ryan: “Cookies on three!”

That finally got a smile out of Garrett who had begged not to be in the picture. At almost 14 years old, he was feeling too old to be in a Santa picture. We told him it was his gift to his mom.

We have been taking pictures of our kids with Santa since we became parents. I have them all in a binder that we get out each December and we love to look through the years as our kids and family have grown. I will spare you 13 years worth of Santa pictures, but here are a few highlights.

Garrett, 9  months old. He cried for the next few years of Santa pictures. 

I don’t blame Garrett for crying with this Santa in 2004. You can see the candy in Santa’s mouth.

Megan took over the crying role after she was born. 

We had to hold Lindsay down on this little rocking horse and then run out of the picture. Megan’s and Garrett’s enthusiasm made up for her lack of a smile.

Ryan never cried for a Santa picture, but he was very confused here. This is because as the 4th child, he was always whisked from one event to another. As a baby he would often fall asleep in one place and wake up somewhere else. Such is the plight of the baby of the family.

When will the kids be too old for a Santa picture? Perhaps when they have kids of their own.

I am not a morning person. Unfortunately for me, I live with 5 morning people who seem to cheerfully bounce out of bed at the crack of dawn. There are also these little things called “breakfast” and “packing school lunches” that I am a part of, so I lie in bed until the last possible minute, and then begrudgingly get up. As I was grumpily shuffling around the kitchen this morning I was telling my kids about a t-shirt I had seen that had written on it: “I don’t like morning people. Or mornings. Or people.”  My kids were quick to give their opinions. 

One of them: “You are basically saying you hate yourself because you’re a person.”

Another kid:  “We are people, so you are saying you hate us!”

Ryan:  “She does hate us. But only in the mornings!”

If you know Ryan, you know he is a Daddy’s boy, through and through. He has preferred his Daddy since day one….possibly minute one. Jon was the first one to hold him and see him after he was born.  Maybe they bonded in that crazy time surrounding his birth in a way that I didn’t. Or maybe Jon’s just a lot cooler than I am.  Whatever the reason, if Jon is around, I do not exist in Ryan’s eyes. He has even mentioned this to me. “Mom…not to be rude, but I like Dad more than you.” I assure him it’s okay and that I know he loves me and I love him.

However, every morning Ryan comes into our room and climbs into bed with us. He always comes to my side first and snuggles with me. I am encouraged that deep down in his subconscious, Ryan chooses me first for comfort.  A few mornings ago I mentioned this to Ryan.

Me: “I like how you always come to my side first and snuggle with me before Dad.”

Ryan: “I do it to get it over with.”

Ouch.

Pardon me while I brag for a moment about my daughters.  They are are constantly begging me to sew with them and though I am not an expert seamstress, I do know how to sew (thanks, Mom!). In the past I have reluctantly gotten out the machine, set it up on our kitchen table, and allowed them to make beanbags while hovering over them impatiently. Thanks to our remodel we now have a guest room/office/craft room/sewing room/messy room and the sewing machine is always set up on a table.  They have taken a few sewing classes at school and got the creativity bug. So far they have made quilts, stuffed animals, Barbie clothes, and most recently purses.

Barbie nightgown by Lindsay

Megan’s quilt

Lindsay’s quilt

Stuffed animals

Megan and Lindsay designed the patterns for the purses on their own. Lindsay chose an owl and Megan a fox. I helped Lindsay a bit with the correct pattern sizing, but Megan did hers all by herself. They picked out the fabric combinations and buttons for the eyes. I helped Lindsay with the sewing and I had to ask my niece to help me figure out the purse liner, and then later Jon had to help me figure out the purse liner when I forgot what she showed me (I was tired. I’m always tired). Megan did almost all of the sewing on her fox bag herself.

Megan then decided she wanted a bigger bag,  so she researched how to make a messenger bag. She used a pair of my jeans and an old sheet. Megan did most of this bag herself but needed help when there were several layers of denim to sew through.  We broke 2 heavy duty needles on this project…one flew into Megan’s chin and cut it!

The more sewing they do, the more creative they get and the less help they need from me….which I consider a win for all of us!

My kids love to play the game “trust fall.”  The game where you stand in front of someone and fall backwards without looking, trusting them completely to catch you. My kids are good at the trusting part. Too good. They trust you to catch them when you don’t even know you are participating in the game. 

Garrett was trust falling (their phrase) all the kids over and over at breakfast one morning when Jon walked into the kitchen.  Garrett enthusiastically yelled out to Jon: “Hey Dad! Trust fall!” Jon positioned himself behind Garrett, who proceeded to do several fake outs. Tired of standing there not catching anyone, Jon walked away, apparently unbeknownst to Garrett. “Ok, Dad. This one’s it!” Garrett fell backwards into a beautiful trust fall—with no one to catch him. He fell with a completely straight body and a deafening thud onto the hardwood floor. 

Jon hasn’t been the only one to not be trusted with a trust fall. I was getting something out of the fridge when Garrett ran into the kitchen and shouted “Trust fall!” without any warning. He fell backwards onto me and we both crashed to the floor.  There have been other unsuccessful kid trust falls…usually involving Ryan being the one trusted to catch an older child.  I’m thinking of banning the game before someone gets a concussion.

I was eating lunch with a friend and she reminded me of a funny family story that I had forgotten about (or maybe I suppressed the memory?). Those of you who know Jon know he is not what this story implies. However, a certain cheerleader might think otherwise….

About 3 years ago we took our kids to a local high school football game. Our team was getting creamed and we were sitting at the opposite end zone from where all the action was taking place. The kids quickly got bored and restless so we started talking up the virtues of halftime. “There’s a band, they play music and march around, and the cheerleaders do a little dance!” Megan and Lindsay got excited about the cheerleaders and couldn’t wait to see the dance.  At halftime we headed down closer to the field so we could get a better view. We waited and waited, but there was no marching band, no dancing. There were cheerleaders out on the field, but they were participating in a veteran’s day recognition ceremony and passing out awards to local veterans.  Jon and I wanted to leave but Megan and Lindsay were begging to stay.  Jon finally flagged down one of the cheerleaders and the conversation went something like this:

Jon:   “Hey…are you girls going to be dancing?”

Cheerleader: “Not tonight.”

Jon: “Ugh! We’re leaving then!”

Cheerleader: Grossed out look on her face.

It wasn’t until we were halfway out of the stadium that Jon realized the implication of the exchange. He didn’t want to watch the cheerleaders, his 2 young daughters did, but the cheerleader didn’t know that. We haven’t returned to a football game since.

Ryan is constantly being manhandled by his siblings. He will be quietly sitting there, coloring or playing, when suddenly one of them will run by, grab him, and swing him around. He gets picked up, knocked down, hugged, tripped, and wrestled against his will. He used to just cry (and get ignored) but now he lets out an unearthly wail that aggravates me and jumpstarts me into action. “Stop manhandling Ryan!” is my common phrase.

This morning Megan was getting ordered around by everyone. “Feed the bunny!” “Don’t sit by me!” “Clear your place!” She was feeling understandably put upon and said, “Everyone is telling me what to do and being mean!” Ryan quickly chimed in, “Yeah! Quit manhandling her!”

Oh yeah….my blog! I told my kids I had a New Year’s resolution to write more on the blog and they have been giving me lots of ideas.

1. That time when Ryan came into our bed and woke me up by saying “Mom…sorry about this, but—” and then thrust his sharp, pointy, weapon-like elbows into my upper thighs. Yes, it woke me right up.
   
   Who, me?

2. Lindsay turned eight years old. In our family, we only have friend birthday parties every other year and this year was an non-party year for Lindsay. She didn’t seem to mind too much since she was able to get her ears pierced, something she has been planning for about 2 years now. She knew exactly which earrings she wanted (amethyst…her birthstone) and she only cried for a few minutes afterward.
   

3. Garrett’s 13th birthday where he had a party with other 12-13 year olds and I realized it’s not just Garrett who makes random and weird loud noises. We took them out to a pizza place and sat and waited for about 45 minutes until they brought out one of our pizzas. We had ordered three. The teens descended upon it and it was gone within seconds. We were told the other pizzas would be out in 2 minutes. We waited 7 minutes before I sent Ryan to ask when the pizzas would be done. Turns out they forgot to make them. Forgot to make 3 extra large pizzas?! They ended up not charging us for any of the pizzas and after a full hour at the pizza parlor we were finally on our way back home. I don’t think Garrett or his friends realized how long it took for the pizzas to come out as they sat and laughed and told funny (to them) stories and Garrett poured hot sauce in his soda and drank it. He then later told me he was worried he had drank tobacco (Tabasco sauce, lol).
    
   One of the lovely photos I found on my phone from the new teenager in the house.

4. Jon had a birthday (today actually!). He got 2 coats that he picked out himself and I bought him and Garrett an indoor skydiving experience. I’ll have fun watching them from the safety of the ground.
   

   Megan and Lindsay’s chalkboard sign.
   

   Megan also wrote this referencing a funny family story from when Megan turned 4 years old and couldn’t believe she was 4. She kept saying “I can’t beweeve I’m foy!” This is an oft repeated phrase in our house.
   
   “I can’t believe I’m foy-d-one!”
   

5. We took a little day trip and ended up at this beach where it felt like arctic winds were piercing our very souls. The kids had fun anyway and walked up and down the beach helping me look for heart shaped rocks. Every time we go to the beach I try to find (and usually do) rocks in the shape of a heart. I have a little collection I keep in a bowl. I had an even bigger collection but Jon threw them away once. I try not to bring it up each time we go to the beach.

I’ve been thinking about my blog a lot and how much we love to read through the memories when the kids were younger. Now that some of the kids are getting bigger, the first thing they say to me after a humorous moment is, “Do not put that on the blog!”  Ryan, on the other hand, says to me, “You should put this on the blog!” whenever he does anything he considers funny.  The amount of posts with Ryan in them versus the other kids is roughly equivalent to the number of baby pictures (or any pictures for that matter) of Ryan compared to the other kids. Ryan is well loved, but not well documented. I am going to change that this year by blogging more. It won’t be all about Ryan, but he will at least be mentioned!

I’ll start with Ryan’s 5th birthday party. This was his first official friend birthday party and he decided he wanted a “Cars” party, even though he hasn’t really seen the movies or expressed any interest ever in “Cars” but whatever! He wanted it, he got it!  I recently joined a “Buy Nothing” group and was gifted some fabulous party décor (all for free! If you have a Buy Nothing group in your area, you should definitely look into joining.) I got so caught up in the cute Cars decorations that I neglected to plan any games for the party, but luckily my girls came through and together we planned a fun party with a piñata, pin the parts on Mater, prize walk (like a cake walk), and cupcake decorating. Ryan and his little friends were happy, so it was a success.

Photo prop. The person who gifted these to me hand painted all of these on cardboard.

Her son’s name was Jakson. I just taped a piece of paper over his name and wrote Ryan.

Prize walk with dollar store prizes. These numbers were left over from a banner and I just taped them to the floor.

That semi-truck character from Cars. Don’t know his name, but I taped him to the wall.

Here he is again.

Front porch with Mater and a big balloon that was also gifted to us! We just had to pay to get the balloons refilled with helium. Of course my kids managed to pop this one by sitting on it and fighting over it. It was gifted to us and the person had managed to save it for a long time…we had it for a few hours.

Cute gifted banner and hanging down ceiling things. Pin the parts on Mater game in the background.

Another awesome hand painted Lightning McQueen.

Happy 5th birthday Ryan! I don’t know how five years has flown by so fast, but it has.

I didn’t send out Christmas cards this year (or for the last 4 years) but if I would have it would have looked like this:

Although a more accurate portrayal of our family would be something like this:

Garrett. Just…Garrett.

Or this:

No one looking at the camera, Garrett being a loud, energetic (to say it kindly) 12 year old boy. Those who have traveled the path with a 12 year old boy…please tell me it will get easier. Please tell me he will calm down. Lie to me if you must. I need to know some semblance of sanity will return to our home.