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!

First Steps!

A Change is Gonna Come

We had a lot of brother together time this month as we spent nearly two weeks home with mom - mostly times of fun and laughing, but also times of tormenting one another.

In August, we learned that baby JoJo is indeed a boy! Lots of boys at our house!

Everything looked healthy and mom is feeling well. Hope the second half goes as smoothly as the first.

Lots of changes were in store this month. August 31st marked our last day with Johanna and Kaya. Johanna had taken care of me since I was 18 months old and had taken care of Reid since he was 3 months old, so it was hard to say goodbye, but we needed to move on. Mom took off the first two weeks in September to stay home with us and help us transition to our new schools and daycares. Reid loves, loves, loves to eat! Each morning he greeted us with a big cheesy grin. More changes for him - he's now completely off all bottles and solely on cow's milk.

We spent mornings at the playgrounds. Reid is now climbing on everything.

I still love slides. Weee!

Reid loves to swing too!

Weee!

Cooper has learned to swing by himself, pumping his legs, going all the way to the moon!

We took a trip to the zoo.

Mom hadn't taken me to the zoo in a long time. I'd been going to zoo classes for a while, so I led Mom and Reid around the zoo and told them everything I knew. Here's me with an ostrich. Look how close he is!

Me and Reid under an ostrich's bum, hehe. It was a wonderful day! When we left the zoo, we were greeted with a flat tire. Despite all that, we still had a fantastic time.

We found time to do lots of shopping and new underwear was on the agenda. Who needs toys when there's lots of underwear to sort and organize?

There was lots of time for playing at home as well. Reid loves anything to do with cars or balls. He is 13 months old now. He's added a few words like car, choo-choo, bite, ba-ba (bottle) to his vocabulary.

We had one weekend where Mom and Dad were both home, so Mom requested that we pretend to be fancy and go spend one night in a hotel. She just requested a big bathtub and an indoor pool. So, we headed to Providence, RI for one day of swimming and hot tubbing, followed by the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox game. We were pretty tired from swimming in the morning, so we only made it to the fifth inning before heading home, but it was pretty cool, and there was even a grand slam in the first inning. I was a little bit upset about not catching a foul ball, but as we were leaving, they were throwing little soft baseballs into the crowd and Dad caught one for me. I was pumped! We went swimming again the next morning before heading out. It was a nice little vacation.

Aside from Hurricane Irene which caused some mild basement flooding and lots of downed limbs in the backyard, we had pretty nice weather and lots of time to play outside.

Then, on September 8th, I started my first day of pre-K at Mount Alvernia Academy. I was soooo excited about starting school. It was pouring down rain and cold that day, but I was excited to take my backpack and new lunch box, and head out on my adventure.

In my booster seat on the way there. Mom and Dad both were able to bring me on my first day. My class has 32 kids in it but we're divided up into small teams so that the class size seems smaller. I'm on the Red Team.

I was all grins as I came home from school! I loved it. I loved my teachers. I made lots of crafts. The first day it was raining so we didn't get to play on the playground but we did play in the gym. It was an awesome day. I even came home talking about my new friends Pujipt and Gracie. (More about Pujipt in a minute). If you know me, you know I can't remember anyone's names, so to remember to new friends' names was a big deal.

I was all grins to go back to school the next day.

Mom and Dad thought "Pujipt" was a very interesting name and were curious to see how exactly this name was spelled. As Mom walked me into school the next day, she scanned the classroom for signs of Pujipt. The only "P" name on the roster was Paula and that didn't sound right. Hmmmm. Turns out, "Pujipt" is really Bridget! Bridget and I have been best school buddies since school started. I love my teacher Mrs Kelly, as well as my other teachers. I even got to hold the flag one day. As much as I love my new friends and new school, I miss my best buddy Kaya, though I've gotten to talk to her on the phone several times about our new schools.

The two remaining days of stay cation left Mommy and Reid home alone with each other while I was at school. Reid started a new daycare on September 12 that only allows him to take one nap per day, so Mom has spent the last two weeks getting him used to that schedule. Sometimes the poor guy just gets tired though, so on this particular day, Reid had just played too hard. He grabbed his paci and his blankie, and crawled right up into Mommy's lap for a little cuddle and cat nap. He is a sweet brother.

Speaking of Mommy's lap and more sweet brothers, here's a picture of Mommy's belly at 22 weeks. Things are going well for everyone. Reid survived his first day of daycare, as it was likely more traumatic for Mommy than him, and I totally love my new school. Sometimes change is a good thing.