Two Months Rolled Into One

Life's been a little crazy around here - crazy how things creep up on you. Not only is this month's blog post two months rolled into one, I (mom) am also writing it three months later. You'll have to forgive me since I've forgotten a lot (hence it's a good thing I keep a blog), but I'll hit the highlights. Halloween was the highlight of the end of October. I was scheduled to be on call as the second back up person and Dad was scheduled to work late, so we weren't too sure how much Trick or Treating was going to happen. Cooper had asked to be a police man. Reid, who was 14 months old at the time, didn't care what he was going to be. I tried to pick something to go with a policeman that was still a little babyish. Reid also loves dogs and barks (ruff ruff) at them as they go by, so it was an easy decision to have a policeman and his K9 pal.

Cooper got to wear his costume to school that morning for a Halloween party. They had a little parade and got to show all the big kids their costumes. Needless to say, it was easy for him to get ready that morning.

Luckily, I wasn't needed for back up call, so I got to the boys and got them home by 6pm. Neither boy wanted anything to do with dinner, so we put on our costumes and by that time, Dad got home. Because Reid gets sick on all major holidays, he also had a fever on this one too. A little motrin, and we were out the door. I forgot to mention that we had our first snowstorm of the year a few days before Halloween. There was still some lingering snow on the ground - I'd never done trick or treating with snow on the ground! Reid (complete with pacifier in tow) was just learning to walk, so he lagged behind as Cooper led the way through the neighborhood.

Here we are trick or treating. I even decorated my baby bump.

Reid didn't participate much in trick or treating, but Cooper hit up about 10 houses before he slipped on some ice on someone's front steps. It was cold outside so it was easy to talk him into coming home to pass out (and eat) some candy. Luckily Cooper didn't notice how quickly his candy disappeared this year (aka Mom ate it).

They boys really do love each other and this is a spontaneous hug I caught on camera.

With a new school comes new friends, and with new friends comes birthday parties. Cooper's friend Bridget M (remember Pugipt?) had a paint your own pottery birthday party. It was really fun to see him interact with his classmates. He truly is a ladies' man.

Fall soccer was winding down as well. This season's team was pretty pathetic - meaning the three of us pictured above were the only consistent people who showed up week to week. They had a professional photographer there a few weeks to take team photos, but they never called our team for a picture. I think they kept waiting for more kids to come, but they never did. Jack, Imogen, and I were the main force of the team, so the parents took their own photo. This particular week, the three of us battled another team that had 9 players. They rotated groups of three so that we could play 3-on-3. Despite no subs or rest, our white team killed theirs! Cooper was still quite the soccer superstar, improving this year with scoring and defense. Oh, this game our coach didn't show up either!

Fall weather means jumping in the leaves that Dad rakes.

Reid @ 15 months.

Cheesy Reid.

I found out that Kentucky basketball team was going to be playing in a tournament in Connecticut. I bought two tickets and Cooper was my main man. We headed out early one morning to Uncasville, CT to Mohegan sun to watch Kentucky battle (or blow out) Penn State. Cooper and I had made signs before that we were excited to hold up.

The arena was pretty small and pretty empty. Our seats were three rows behind the Kentucky bench. Not too bad for a four year old's first Kentucky game! He cheered his little heart out and was eager to hold his sign up during the timeouts.

The game was broadcast locally in Kentucky delayed and live on ESPN 3. I caught us up on the jumbo-tron coming back from a time out, so our families were able to see our big blue spirit.

Our biggest event of November was our surprise trip to Kentucky. The McGuire family (Mimi's family) had been planning a surprise birthday party for Nanny (my grandmother who lives in Georgia) for her 85th birthday which was actually in January. She was planning to come to Kentucky for Thanksgiving with Aunt Debbie. Most of the other members of the McGuire family live in Kentucky. So we schemed for months to plan a Thanksgiving trip to Kentucky without Nanny finding out. We packed up the kids plus the 33 week pregnant Mom and drove through the night to Kentucky to stay in Louisville. The kids were great during the trip! We stayed with Jeff's grandparents before they headed out to Florida for a Louisville football game. The day before Thanksgiving, Mimi, Papaw, and Taylor came up to Louisville to have an early Thanksgiving dinner with us plus Nana and Papa. On Thursday, we headed over to Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving. We posed for some cute pictures in Grandmother's back yard.

With Nana.

The day before Thanksgiving - playing a silly game where Papa would put stuff on the ceiling fan and I'd try to guess where it would fall off when he turned off the fan.

Playing basketball with Taylor.

We managed to keep the secret! Saturday, we headed out to Mt Sterling to surprise Nanny. All four of her children were there, plus the majority of her grand and great-grandchildren. There was a professional photographer there to take pictures. Here's the Evans family.

And the McGuire family - Mimi, Nanny, Steve, Debbie, and Dana. We left that afternoon and drove through the night again back to Boston. Again, the kids were great!

December rolled around, and it was time to celebrate my best friend Kaya's birthday. Her mom picked me up and took us to an indoor water park. It was a really fun day!

Time to put up the Christmas decorations! With each passing month, Cooper really gets into each holiday. Our house was spooky for Halloween, covered in Turkey's for Thanksgiving, and he could hardly wait to put up the Christmas decorations. Reid could hardly wait to take them down! Most of the ornaments were placed on the upper half of the tree - otherwise Reid would yell "ball!" as he took them down and threw them.

The early December highlight was definitely Cooper's school Christmas play. Jeff and I both took off the morning portion of work so that we could go. The link to the whole 20 minute play is below. Cooper was assigned the role of "friendly beast" or more specifically, the donkey. As Cooper said, not the donkey that Mary rides on, but the "other one." He even had an important line about giving baby Jesus hay for his bed. He had practice the songs, both a mixture of religious and Santa songs at home for weeks, so it was fun to see all his hard work in action. All the kids were pretty well behaved too!

And a few videos:

http://youtu.be/vmCLG3rrABM -

Reid and Cooper decorate the Christmas tree

http://youtu.be/YFM1KBEf5qg

Cooper's Christmas Play

Just Dance

Feeling Festive This Fall

Fall is a lovely time of year here in New England as we gear up for some nice weather and beautiful leaves. Since I've started school, I've been very into the calendar, seasons, and holidays.

Reid and I sitting by the mums on the front porch one day after school.

Me by myself.

Getting some bike riding in while the weather is nice.

Reid @14 months

Using his push toy up and down the sidewalk

School is definitely my new favorite thing. I love all my teachers - Mrs. Kelley, Mrs. Shock, Mrs. Levolsi, and Mrs. Noonan. I have tons of friends and know almost every kids' name. I come home everyday with a folder full of projects I made for the day and singing all sorts of little songs that I learned along the way. Each week, one kid is selected to be "on the wall." That means they are they special kid of the week. The weekend before they are sent home with a packet of things to fill out and color, and then starting the next week, it is placed on a big bulletin board in Mrs Kelley's room. In addition to being put on the wall, the special person gets to be the line leader and pick up the mail from the big school. The first few weeks, I spent wondering when it was going to be my turn, but the week of Columbus Day, I finally had my wish. It was my turn to be the person of the week! At the end of the week, the teachers made me this little booklet with the pictures I had turned in, papers I had colored, and special interviews with me and some of my friends.

This book will be special for a long time! I love this page - what my friends think about me!

Mount Alvernia never is lacking for fun things to do. One Friday we had a Harvest Festival during the day - kind of like a fall festival. Dad took off work to take me. It was awesome - they had games and crafts and face painting. I chose to have an ice cream cone painted on my face.

Dad had fun seeing me in action with some of my new buddies. Here I am with Bridget, Tyler, Lacey, Finn, and Joe. We were cheering on the bigger kids and they tried to do some Putt Putt.

Finn, Joe, and me

I don't just do fun stuff at school. I had been looking forward to our annual trip apple picking at Lookout Farms in Natick all year. Dad's work schedule has been busy, so it was actually October before we were able to go this year, but that's okay. Of course, the day we went, it was also 80+ degrees outside, so not very fall-like, but Mommy made us dress in fall clothes so we could get cute fall pictures. Silly Mommy. Reid enjoyed the trip a little more this year than last year. He really liked the choo-choo train that took us out to the orchards.

Then the hunt was on for the perfect apples. As Reid walked up and down the aisles, he kept yelling "ball!" Turns out he thought all the apples were balls! As soon as we picked one for him, he was happy. Then he figured out he could eat it and he was even happier. Note Reid will have a "ball" in his hand for the majority of the remaining pictures.

You can't really tell so well, but Mommy is 26 weeks pregnant in this picture.

Here's my pick - the most gigantic apple ever.

Then Reid and I settled down on some hay for a little snack.

And then on to pose with some pumpkins. The sun sure was bright!

We couldn't get Reid to put down the apple for anything!

But he was still pretty cute!

Fall also means soccer season is in full swing. We decided to advance me one league - so instead of playing with the four year olds, I'm playing in a combined four and five year old league. That doesn't really stop me from dominating too much like I have the previous seasons. Unfortunately, this year the rest of my team isn't too great and we pretty much loose a lot.

Reid now is a little more active at the games and is sometimes hard to chase down.

Practicing my dribbling. Even my buddy Kaya was able to come and watch me play one game.

Go Coopy!

My drawing and coloring skills have dramatically improved in the short 6 weeks since school started. I drew this picture in afterschool program - mommy pregnant and holding a broom. Lovely. Things are going well with my baby brother JoJo. We do have a name picked out - which I know by the way. Mom is now 28 weeks pregnant. Not too much longer, though I'm not sure I'm quite ready for another brother, I know Reid is not ready for another brother, and I'm not sure Mommy and Daddy are ready to be outnumbered. Mom's in no hurry as, so far, this pregnancy has been the smoothest of all.

Lots of other things happened this month that we didn't get pictures of. Daddy took his neurology boards. I told all my teachers that Daddy had a brain test - no telling what they thought I meant. We had lots of visitors from Kentucky to California to Pennsylvania to Maryland as the American Academy of Pediatrics had its national conference in Boston. It was fun to catch up with old friends!

And let's not forget about little Reid! He's 14 months old now. He's quite the talker! He says Mama, Dada, bye bye, uh oh, bite, ball, car, bottle, vroom, dog, roof-roof, book, yeah, more, all done, down (for up or down), this, that, and I'm sure a lot of others that I'm forgetting. He can identify his ear, head, belly, and toes. He's walking pretty well, though slowly, so if he has to get anywhere quickly, he'll still crawl. He has 5 teeth - three on top, two on bottom - but the other top and two bottoms are on their way in. They don't seem to bother him though. He's still a pretty happy guy and loves all my cars and loves books, especially Good Night Moon and Peek a Who? He loves food but throws it when he is all done. He loves loves loves his blankie. He's adjusting well to his new daycare, though he usually still whimpers at drop off. He's the youngest in his toddler class but everyone seems to love him and snuggle him a little extra. He has more hair than I had at his age, but it's still not enough to know if it'll be curly or straight. He gets some serious bedhead in the morning though. His eyes have live up to his McGuire name and have turned brown.

Since we have a calendar at school and talk about it frequently, including the upcoming holidays, I made it my personal mission to have a very spooky house this Halloween. Oooooh! Mom and I painted pumpkins - though it was 80+ degrees that day too and Mom got a sunburn. She did the vampire and I did the skeleton thingy.

We bought a skeleton for the door and put out our wreath. We also have tons of other motion activated loud mummies, skeletons, pumpkins, various blow up things, and scary spiders that make lots of noise and are super spooky.

Meet Frank. Frank has lived at Mimi and Papaw's house for probably 25 years. He's always been on their front porch and scared lots of trick or treaters as he moves back and forth and lights up. Mimi and Papaw thought it was time he move on to Boston, so now he resides at the Bolton home. He scares me just a little bit.

I've even made lots of my own Halloween decorations!

My school has a pumpkin decorating contest that I decided to enter. I made this alien pumpkin. The contest was today and I took the pumpkin in the car but then decided I didn't want to take it to school. It's at Mom's office instead.

Whew! Are you worn out from this lengthy blog? I'm pretty worn out these days. My school has rest time that is 40 minutes long where I lay down and am quiet, but it's not the same as the 2+ hour naps I was used to taking per day. I fall asleep in Mom and Dad's bed every night and they move me to my bed. I like to "read" books before bed and delay my earlier bed time as much as possible, but sometimes sleep is just too much to overcome.

Reid is worn out at his school too. He usually sleeps on his face and has all of his blankies around him. Two sweet boys. Stay tuned for our Halloween adventures!