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