Apple picking, football games, and Kentucky visits

Welcome back to my blog. This might win the prize as the longest post ever, but I had a great month. I'm 33 months old now and talking up a storm. Forget sentences...it's more like paragraphs now. I'm still really in to learning my letters, and I've started tracing some letters and can trace my name pretty well.

We went apple picking this year, the same place where I posed in the pumpkins last year. Though I didn't bring home any pumpkins during this visit, I had to take my picture there. Can you find me?

Just for some comparison - my first fall pumpkin time in Philadelphia.

And last year's picture in Boston.

Our apple picking trip was so much fun. There were tons and tons of orchards and we got to ride a little train to the different areas. At first I was upset about getting off the train, but then I discovered all the apples.

On the train with daddy.

I ate three apples and one peach before we even left the place. We left with so many apples! I ate them all in no time after we got home, so we didn't get to bake anything fun with them.

I've been doing yoga at the Children's Museum on Friday with Kaya. Johanna says I'm really good at it. One Friday Mommy and Daddy both had off, so they took me to the museum to meet with Kaya and Johanna and watch me do my yoga. I was a little to excited to participate like I normally do, but it was still fun. This Red Sox cut out is at the museum. Aren't I cute?

There's also this area of green screen that I stood on, and look! I was on TV. I'm right in the middle of Arthur!!!

Gigi and Bubba came up later that day. Louisville was playing football in Connecticut, so they all came up for the game. I used to want to be Tinkerbelle for Halloween, but now I either want to be a cowboy or a dinosaur, so I was giving them a little Halloween preview.

Go Cards!

While I may sometimes support Cardinal gear, I was a little too small to support them in the cold Connecticut weather. While Daddy, Bubba, Cousin Nick, and Uncle Dennis braved the elements at the game, Mommy, Gigi, and I did some shopping. Bubba and Dennis looked like they were having a good time.

Cousin Nick and Daddy had a good time too.

Here's Cousin Paul (Number 47), our very own Louisville football player.

Here's the game too, though it wasn't much of one.

The day after the game, in the middle of October, we got our first taste of snow. We are so not ready for this. It didn't stick, but those were definitely big white fluffy flakes.

Mommy and Daddy had a week of vacation, so we headed aboard a plane to Louisville. I popped right up at 4am to leave to go to the airport. I love airplanes. You can see the sun rising as we're getting ready to take off.

We spent our first full day in Louisville at the zoo. Mommy and I had never been there before. It's a really good zoo- actually much better than the Boston zoos. I like the pretend animals that I could climb on almost as much as the real ones.

Pretend rhinos

Real rhinos

My favorite animals are still the gorillas. I could hang out with them all day. They were so fun!

They seemed to be enjoying themselves too. (Daddy took this picture)

Me with some lemurs

In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

Can you tell what Daddy and I are? We're flamingos.

A family portrait in front of the tiger

Followed by a trip on a pretend bus

That afternoon, we headed over to Nana and Papa Bolton's house and met Uncle Taylor

I skipped my nap for the day and ran around like a crazy man in the back yard. It was so fun. I loved playing in the tire swing.

Taylor pushed me in the swing

Daddy had a turn

Then I pushed Daddy

And Mommy

The next day, Bubba and Gigi came in town and we enjoyed a morning at Seneca park.

And I finally got to go to my very first football game - Saint X Tigers versus PRP. I loved watching the cheerleaders, dancing to the band in the bleachers, and yelling Go Tigers! I only stayed for half, but I had a blast. Here are all the Bolton men enjoying the game.

The next day, Nana and Papaw invited all the Bolton family over for breakfast. Mimi and Papaw came too, but funny how I didn't get any pictures of them. Here are my three Bolton cousins: I'm the oldest, Samantha is 22 months old, and Brody Bolton is 15 months old.

I love Samantha. They called us Spaz and Taz.

That evening we all went to dinner to celebrate Grandmother's 85th birthday. We spent all week at her house, but funny how we didn't get any pictures of her either. Here I am coloring with Bubba.

Grandmother got a new fancy tv for her birthday. Samantha and I played with the styrofoam that it came in and ripped it up into tiny pieces, then danced all around.

The next day, we headed out to Lexington to meet Mimi and Papaw at Aunt Nancy and Uncle Drew's house. Memaw was there too.

Fancy Nancy lives right downtown and we could see lots of firetrucks, police cars, and ambulances from her window.

She had this really soft rug that I got to lay on too.

We came back to Louisville and made a quick stop by Cousin Jenny Godthaab's house to visit baby Grace. She is just two months old and super cute.

Then we headed out to David, Megan, and Taylor Schulte's new house for dinner. David made us this cool tunnel.

And I scooted all around their big house on Taylor's little car.

Whew! Did you make it through this long blog? I'm sure it makes you tired just to read it. It makes me tired just to type it, but less to have done all this in less than a month. Stay tuned for more adventures of Super Duper Cooper Saves the Day (Yes this is something that I say).

Fall is here!

Fall is here! As soon as September rolled around, temperatures dropped. Aside from the 2 weeks or so of hotness earlier in the past month, I'm not sure where the summer was, but this weather is nice. I'll now tell you that I am "two and three porters" which means two and three-quarters years old. I'm growing like a weed, and solidly already in size 3 clothes and 9.5 shoes. Part of my height is my hair, which has yet to meet its first official hair cutter. My vocabulary amazes mom and dad, who laugh out loud when I say a word they had no idea I knew. I can recognize about half of my letters. I always say "Let's do letters" when reading my books, which means tell me every letter. My favorite letter is still O, and I still spell Cooper "O - o - o -p - u -r" most of the time. I know all my colors.

Gigi and Bubba came up to visit us this month. While we forgot to take pictures of their visit, Bubba did snap this picture of the three of us with our matching Lacoste polos that they gave us. I was really excited about this present and wanted to put it on immediately. Gigi and Bubba took me back to the Rainforest Cafe which I love. Anytime we go to a restaurant now, I ask "Gorillas go be dere?"

Mostly gone are the days of shorts and t-shirts, quickly replaced by long sleeves and jackets. Check out my cool Red Sox hat!

This is more appropriate attire these days!

I LOVE to jump in puddles with my monster boots. Anytime it rains, I beg to go outside and splash.

Now, I am demonstrating my swimming technique...in a puddle...in the middle of the street.

No, Mommy, I don't want to go in. I DON'T WANT TO! (A sound frequently heard around our house!)

Cool weather is good snuggly weather. Good for football watching and movie watching.

And good for hiking on trails down by the water.

And playing at the playground...

Peek a boo!

Mommy has had some more free time with her new job, so she decided she needed some new hobbies. First up was painting some new artwork for the house. These are copies of paintings she saw in a magazine. Not too bad for a first try, plus it saved almost $500.

Next up, a picture for above the fireplace.

Mom's even tried her hand at cooking a little more and made these yummy cinnamon rolls from scratch.

We had a new mall and theater open up not too far from where we live, so we thought we'd check out a movie in 3D. Check out our glasses. Mommy hadn't seen a 3D movie since she was about 7ish, and I would only keep my glasses on for about half the movie, but it was really cool!

Hope you all are enjoying a break from the heat and are looking forward to Halloween. Not sure what I'll be this year - told mommy I wanted to be Tinkerbell, a dinosaur, a frog, a kitty cat.... so we'll see! Take care!

Building Vocabularies and Big Muscles

Hot Weather with Good Friends

What a weird month. If you ask me, I'll tell you that I'm "2 half" years old, which is right on. My vocabulary has infinitely expanded this month, and I'm talking in quite complex sentences of 5 or 6 words. I know a ton of songs that I can sing. I'm getting a little attitude and say smart things back to mommy and daddy sometimes. I've also decided to talk a lot of gibberish and use nonsense words sometimes, mixed in with real words. I told mommy that I was going to be a fireman when I grow up, which she said was an improvement from the garbage man I said I was going to be last week. Hey, this stuff is exciting to me!

This is the life! Mommy and daddy couldn't stand one more viewing of Cars, so I got to watch it on my own little tv while they watched other stuff.

I love spaghetti!

Our good buddies the Schultes from Louisville decided to come visit us for a weekend. It was, of course, the hottest weekend of the summer to date, so we were all miserable in the heat. As I've said before, I'm a lover, so right away I had to corrupt 14 month old Taylor Schulte with her first kiss. I think she dug it.

In this heat in a house with no airconditioning, you seek out the coolest place possible. We headed downtown with the Schultes to the Boston Common. Here we found the Frog Pond, an artificial chlorinated little wading lake. What a nice treat!

Come on in Taylor! The water is great!

David and daddy swing us in the water.

Even Megan, Taylor's mommy, takes a little dip.

After we cooled off, we took a little walk around downtown. I'm a ladies man, so any chance I got to hold on to Taylor I took.

More water to cool off.... We turned on the sprinklers and played while grilling out.

Putting my big car under the sprinkler is funny!

Sharing my big car is not.

After that weekend's heat, we went out and bought a window unit airconditioner for the downstairs. Our house is heaven now.

Mommy butting in now: While this month was filled with lots of fun times with friends, we also had some hard times. Jeff and I were thrilled to learn that we were expecting baby #2, due in March. After our first doctors appointment at 8 weeks, we had just started telling family and friends. On August 6th at 9.5 weeks, we suffered a natural miscarriage. We felt strongly from the beginning that this baby was a girl, so we named her Claire Bolton. Our family is healing and doing much better now. We had a week long visit from Mimi to come help us out while we got better, and we feel better knowing we have a little baby angel watching over us.

Okay, back to Cooper: This is what happens when I'm quiet. Mimi and I were playing playdough and I slipped away and was quiet for about 30 seconds. When Mimi found me, I had covered myself in blue marker. I was careful not to color on my clothes, but I did color on every square inch of visible skin. I was so proud.

We just tried to stay busy while Mimi was here, so another trip to the Frog Pond was in order.

Splashing Mommy and Mimi.

If you look closely, I have my hands pressed together like a shark fin. I am making the noise do do do do (imagine Jaws theme music). I am a scary shark. Daddy doesn't seem to sense the danger behind him!

I am so big. I can climb here "all my self." Mommy was taking this picture having a stroke watching me do this.

I also hide down low when its time to go home.

Going home is made all that much sweeter when you stop by the balloon man.

He made me a white doggie on a black leash. Can you tell? I loved it. I named it Bijoux (which is the name of Mimi and Bubba's dog).

It popped on the way home but I sure was proud of it. I thought the popping noise was pretty cool so I wasn't too upset. We hope you are doing well and enjoying the nice weather and the airconditioning as much as we are!