Kid Updates

It has been a little while since I wrote about each child.  I like doing this because sometimes life is so crazy with three little ones that I feel like I don't get to sit down and just enjoy learning about each child's likes/dislikes etc.  For this reason, when i'm alone with a child in the car, I always ask them 1,001 questions about their favorite things.

Cole is such a sweet and active little man.  One minute he is sitting down putting together 100 piece puzzles and the next he is running circles around the center part of the house while yelling "catch me if you can!".  Cole enjoys imaginative play and is constantly pretending to be a race car (he always has to be the fastest or the first to do things).  Cole can run, bike, play on the playground all.day.long and still have more energy at the end of the day then I have first thing in the morning.  I swear her wakes up in the morning and within an hour he is running around the house.  He is very interested in math and measurements. His newest and greatest love is Angry Birds with his Daddy introduced him to and is now stuck doing every other night.  Cole can be a cuddle bug and recently told me that I am allowed to give him "many smooches" at home but at school I am only allowed to give him one smooch.  When Cole and Mommy are in the car alone he always wants to play "The story game" which consists of us taking turns adding to a story.  When it is Cole's turn he always turns things to someone picking up sticks and then some monster/dragon/dino etc. attacking the person.  The cutest part is that he always ends the story with the little boy running home to snuggle with his Mommy.  Following is one of my favorite Cole quotes from the past month:

Gwen: "It's my turn to pick the show today. I pick Oso!"
Cole: <start of meltdown> "But I don't like Oso and Oso is not good for our brains. We need to watch things that are good for our brains like Team Umizoomi"

Here's another one:

"Mommy, I want to marry you"

And another good one from our grocery shopping trip: "Mommy, what are you going to buy me because you love me?"  (The previous week Gwen came home from shopping and said, "Daddy bought me raspberries because he loves me and they weren't even on sale!")


Gwen is quite a girly girl princess these days.  She also enjoys crafting and will sit for hours working on her original creations.  Yesterday she told me that she wanted to do a craft with her brothers and that they were going to make alligators out of clothespins.  First she had them paint the clothespins green and then they decorated them with markers before they added the perfect sized googly eyes.  She is a huge help around the house and does everything from lying out Cole's clothing so that he can dress himself to holding Reid's hands so that I can change his diaper.  I swear she says "Mommy" at least 1,000 times a day but I really can't get tired of it because she talks in such a sweet voice.  I can tell that she thinks through situations and recently had discovered how to push one of Cole's buttons.  Since Cole likes playing with her, if she says that she wants to be alone and doens't want to play with Cole, the poor guy freaks out.  Following is one of my favorite Gwen quotes from the past month:

Gwen: "No, Cole, Meg is Mommy's middle name!"
Me: "What's my first name?"
Gwen: " Your first name is Mommy. Mommy Meg Stamps"

Club Mom Firehouse Tour 2/22/13

Last week we met up with our Club Mom friends and toured the Lower Macungie Firehouse.  Gwen and Cole remembered touring a firehouse a few years ago when I was pregnant with Reid.  This time they were the big kids and were not shy.  They shouted out answers to the firefighters questions and even grabbed the firefighter's pocket when he was all dressed and crawling to show what he would look like if he came to save the kids in a fire.

 Club Mom crew!

Checking out the firetruck.

Wacky Wednesday 2013

Here are my two oh so wacky preschoolers all dressed and ready to go to school and celebrate Wacky Wednesday.  Cole's swimsuit was a big hit and I was glad that Gwen decided at the last minute to wear something semi-wacky.  I suppose she has been so trained to choose matching ensembles that this was a little too weird for her!

M & M's

There they are.  This is what was left of a full bag of M & M's when i found them under the kitchen table.  Who knows how many the kids inhaled after they ripped the bag open while i was putting Reid down for his nap.  Recently Cole and Gwen have been getting into food while I put Reid up so I always lock the pantry door when I go upstairs.  Well, i guess I shouldn't say "always" because on this day I forgot and this M & M mess and two sugared up preschoolers are what I saw when I came back downstairs.  I guess i'll take this over the few times that they have gotten into the baby carrots and spit them out in mounds all over the kitchen floor...

Just a normal day at our house...

Yes we are on the go quite often because quite honestly my kids behave much better when we are out and about and we all drive each other nuts if we are cooped up inside for too long...BUT we do manage to have lots of fun together at the house.

Each day the kids watch approximately 40 minutes of TV.  They love snuggling on the couch and always sit in the same spots.  Cole and Reid can often be found pulling Mommy's soft warm blanket back and forth.  Gwen always holds bunny and blankie.  (Side note:  for some reason a few months ago Gwen started saying "she" in place of "her").  Reid recently learned to climb over the couch into the window ledge behind it.  So...when he gets bored of watching "Oso" (yeah, he requests "Oso"), he usually dives behind the couch and starts jumping on the window ledge or throwing his body over the couch onto the big kids.

 Cole and Reid enjoy playing "Kitty" together.  They always surround themselves with a bunch of toys and sit in the corner pretending that they are kitties in their cage.  Sometimes Gwen joins in and pretends that she is their Mommy.  Other times they ask me to feed them and pet them.  I can honestly tell you that this is one of the only activities these days where Cole and Reid play well together.  Cole often takes Reid's toys and is rough with him which results in Reid running to me yelling "Dole, Dole" while fussing.  Apparently the tattling has begun.

 Even though we have a nice sized home, somehow we can often all be found within a few square feet of each other.

 Playing dress up and make believe is a favorite activity.  Reid refuses to be left out of any activity these days.  Here he is wearing his "fish" costume while the big kids put on a show.  While he has fun in his costume he struggles every time with figuring out how to climb the climber and go down the slide.

Princess Gwen puts on a show while Sharkman Cole prepares dinner in the background.

Happy Valentines Day 2013

I was determined to catch up on this blog tonight so that I could make a Valentines Day Post and now that I am finally at this point at 10:30 pm, I no longer remember what it was that I had wanted to say.  These are my three sweet little valentines and what I love about them is that they celebrate "I Love You Day" every day.  Gwen and Cole constantly tell me that today is "I Love You Day" and then give me lots of hugs and kisses.  Cole melted my heart earlier this week when we took a snow walk and he thanked me many times over for the fun walk (they loved walking in the snow mounds and pretending that they were making dinosaur footprints).  Gwen melts my heart by creating adorable pictures for me and helping to take care of her brothers.  Reid melts my heart when I'm getting ready to put him to bed at night and he says "Me" because he wants to be the one to turn out the light and then he tries to repeat "Love You" after I say it.

Book Lovers

All three kids love to read books.  They especially enjoy it when Mommy or Daddy read to them but often they are happy to flip through the pages and read on their own.  Right now Cole is into dinosaur, dragon, construction and race car books while Gwen is into princess books (or any book she can pull off of the library shelf that is pink!).  Reid enjoys his Llama Llama books and vehicle books, especially ones that are about construction vehicles.