Nothing But Cuteness!

Aaahhhh...the weather is finally warming up. All the snow -yes ALL the snow - has finally melted. Spring is in the air. We still didn't do much this past month, so this post is mostly filled with cute pictures of my little brother.

I have broadened my interests a little from just cars, cars, and more cars. I really like to practice my letters, and I'm pretty good at it if you can tell. I must know how to spell everything and I'm starting to read little words. We finally made a school decision for me next year. I will be attending Mount Alvernia Academy PreK program. http://www.mountalverniaacademy.com It's a Catholic school in a suburb near the house that goes all the way to 6th grade. I start there in September.

I had two birthday parties this month - for my friends that Midura twins and for my buddy LuLu but I didn't take any pictures.

I'm also very, very into March Madness. I love playing basketball in my room and getting lots of scores. I pretend that I'm Rondo or Shaq. I score lots of points. I even filled out my own bracket this year. I chose teams based on what I knew - for example, I picked Georgia to win because I knew Mimi had been there, I picked Connecticut and Florida because Kaya has relatives from there etc. My final two is UK versus UofL with the Cats winning it all. I even got to go to see Boston University in their conference championship. Since I knew that team, I of course chose BU to beat Kansas. We shall see.

Reid and I are good little playmates. He likes to eat all my toys.

We play in the tent sometimes.

Finally, it warmed up enough that we could go to the playground - Reid's first time!

Mommy took the camera to take lots of pictures of Reid in the swing for the first time, but of course the battery was dead. He loved it though and squealed in delight.

Here is Reid on his 7 month birthday. He's sitting up well by himself. He is getting on his hands and knees and I just know he'll be crawling soon. He can stand by himself while holding onto a few things for a few seconds. He says lots of mama, dada, and other consonant sounds. He shakes his head no - no and blows rasberries.

He really is a happy guy!

Everything goes in his mouth!

Reid standing up unassisted.

He loves his bathtime. We promise more exciting adventures next month as soccer season and Easter are quickly approaching!

House Bound!

Welcome back to the winter extravaganza! This blog is short and not so sweet.

I'm sure you all saw the snow from last month's blog post and thought, "Wow, that's a lot of snow!" Well, that was only just the beginning. Starting right after Christmas, all the way through January, we had a MAJOR snow storm just about every 2-3 days. I'm not sure what the totals ended up being, but it was something like 71 inches in about 5 weeks. Unreal! The sidewalks were clear, thanks to Daddy's nearly daily shoveling endeavors, the cars could get out, and one lane of our street was clear. It was no longer any fun to play on. Reid got his first taste out in the giant snow piles.

He didn't mind.

Mighty Coopy and the Mighty Icicles! Crazy snow. Only in Massachusetts is it acceptable to have your Christmas decorations out all the way until March - you can't take them down!

I had my four year old check up this month. I weigh 40lbs and am 43 inches tall. I got 5 shots! I did pretty good though, although bribing me with a new Lego set always does the trick.

Reid had his six month check up too! Can you believe he's been here for half a year! He weighed 17 lbs 3 oz and is 27.5 inches tall. We're both really tall boys! He got three shots plus the oral rotavirus vaccine. Reid is now sitting up on his own. He tries to scoot on his hands and knees but ends up pushing himself to roll over. Everything goes in his mouth! He makes all sorts of sounds like dada, mama, bababa, gagaga. We joke that he is a pirate because his favorite sound is "Aarrrrgh!"

Another reason this blog is so short... The day after our check ups, Mommy came down with a fever, chills, cough, and body aches. She felt really crummy and stayed home from work for one day then went back for the rest of the week. Two days later, it was Daddy's turn for the same thing, and poor little Reid got it too! Mommy had been seeing a lot of flu at work and had a pretty good hunch that that was what it was. A trip to the pediatrician later and little Reid was diagnosed with the flu. He and Daddy started straight away on some tamiflu (it was too late for Mommy). Little Reid was pretty sick and later that evening, still had a fever to 103 and was breathing really quickly, so Mommy took him on his first trip to the Children's ER. After two hours of waiting, his fever finally broke and he perked up, so by the time we got triaged, he actually looked great. It's been over two weeks now since they had the flu and everyone now is just starting to feel better. I escaped all of it! And just for the record, yes everyone did have their flu shots but got it anyways!

Sweet Reid is feeling better but still has some wicked boogies and cough.

He's very interested in everything that I want to play with. Now that he can sit, he's kinda fun to play with sometimes.

Although everything still goes right in his mouth...

Including me!!! "Aaarrrgh!"

I got to see my first Broadway show this month. Mommy and I went to see Mary Poppins the Musical. I loved it! My favorite parts were the Spoonful of Sugar song, the clean up part, when the statues came to life, when Bert walked on the ceiling, when Mary Poppins flew, Supercalifragilisticxpealidocous (um, or something like that)...pretty much all of it.

So hopefully we'll be a little more fun this upcoming month. Not much you can do with all that snow and when you're sick. It's funny because Papaw felt sorry for us and bought us a big ole snowblower, but of course, it hasn't snowed since it arrived at our house.

I'll leave you with some movies of me, Daddy, and Bubba sledding!

Cooper and Dad versus a Snowman

Bubba uses himself as a sled

Cooper, all by myself

Another New Year!

A new year, a new family member! This past year brought a lot of changes to the Bolton family. We welcomed Reid and Mommy started a new job. New Year's was mom's holiday to work and hold the work pager. I stayed up til 9 o'clock when we blew our noise makers and celebrated the new year (and Mommy's pager being taken over by the triage system and not going off so much). Reid didn't stay up til 9, so he was less than thrilled with our celebration.

Our crazy picture. Happy New Year! Poor Reid.

Don't feel sorry for Reid though. He's a big boy now. He's five months old in this picture and doing so much now. He sits very well supported and enjoys being upright.

He's found his toes and always grabs onto them or tries to stick them in his mouth.

We let him even try his first taste of food. He's started on some rice cereal at dinner time.

He was not a fan. He sputtered and gagged like we were killing him!

He started out like he was going to be a fan of peas.

But nope, those were yucky too. Oh well, we'll keep practicing.

Enough of Reid, time for me. January 9th was my fourth birthday. I'm such a big boy. We made a cake in the morning and I blew out my four candles.

I got Legos for my birthday.

And a new pair of shoes that make me run really fast.

Some silly pictures of me as Daddy learns how to play with his camera.

My year in review:

My favorite toys: I still love my cars and don't know if that'll ever change. Right now I also love my "real" Buzz LightYear and Woody, my rocketship, Legos, my Batmobile and Bat Helicopter

My favorite movie: Still Cars, but I love all the Toy Story movies and Monsters Inc

My favorite cartoon: Curious Geroge, Cat in the Hat, Phineus and Ferb, Mickey Mouse Club House

My favorite books: Llama Llama Red Pajama, Knuffle Bunny and Knuffle Bunny Too, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

My favorite song: The Whistle Song, The New Whistle Song, Single Ladies ;)

My favorite questions: What's that spell? What are we gonna do today?

My favorite foods: Pasta and chicken nuggets

My favorite places: My house, The Play Space, Children's Museum, Any playground

My best friend: Kaya

Things I know: My whole name, Mommy and Daddy's whole names, my address, my town. I can recognize most big and small letters and some numbers. I'm good at counting objects. I can write my own name. I can draw people.

I love: Dancing silly, playing soccer, playing basketball with Daddy upstairs, playing in the snow, playing with Reid and being a big brother, watching Wheel of Fortune at night, being right

We've had a few big snowstorms this month. This is our street.

Just for your reference, me standing next to a pile of snow and I'm 43 inches tall.

On top of snow mountain. I can play outside in the snow for hours, though I eat most of it. I also help Dad shovel.

Reid really is getting so big now. He puts all his toys, and everything really, right into his mouth. He can sit up my himself like this for a few seconds at a time. He seems to much happier in the upright position. He drools a lot but still no teeth. He talks lots of nonsense, but says stuff like dadadadada, blahblahblahblah, rararararara, lalalala. His favorite thing to say is dadadadada, but no mamamamama yet. He sleeps all night long, nearly 10-11 hours usually (except for the couple of times he was sick this month). He's also graduated to sleeping in his own room in his own crib. I still like to sleep in the twin bed in Reid's room even though I have my own perfectly good big room upstairs, so we're having lots of sleepovers. We don't seem to be waking each other up.

Happy Reid! He still doesn't have too much hair. What he has is a mixture of light and dark blonde. We don't know what color his eyes are. Depends on what he's wearing I guess. Sometimes they're gray, sometimes they are olive green, sometimes they are a deep blue, and most of the time it's a mixture of all three.

Birthday time! I had a big birthday party to celebrate my fourth birthday. The theme was Superhero. We had it a the local YMCA where they had a big jumpy house, lots of soft mats, lots of balls and baskets, tricycles, and other riding toys. Mom and I made some red velvet cupcakes for the party. They were just okay - don't think she'll be making that recipe again.

Me in the jumpy house. Mom and I also made my 4 shirt that I have on. I was so excited about it and it was easy to do.

We had 12 kids plus their parents at the party. Two kids under the age of one, five under the age of two, three three year olds, plus two of us four year olds. It was great. This picture is so blurry of me, Kaya, and Arlan because we were moving so fast.

Me and Kaya running around on the soft play space.

Me, Avram, and Kaya

Even the little kids had fun! Reid was awake and smiling the whole time.

Birthday boy! I was so excited about playing that I didn't even eat a single thing at my party. I just wanted to play.

All my buddies.

Me and Lulu

After the party was over - me with my balloons and superhero mask. Even though the party was during my regular nap time, I did great and had so much fun.