down at the patch...

these pictures are actually from last week, but we have been soooo busy... we visited the pumpkin patch at grammy & pappy's church & selected several pumpkins to bring home. i especially loved the bumpy pumpkins & gourds. whenever i touched a bumpy fellow, i would sing "everything is beautiful, in its own special way..."

hanging out at the park...

sorry i have not posted in a while... things have been hectic around the bolton household lately. but here are some pics from a recent trip to the neighborhood park. i have begun to enjoy hanging from these parallel bars.

stringing beads & calming down...

today one of my teachers worked with me on taking turns & completing a task that i was not interested in. this sounds pretty harsh, but i know it is good for me because life is not all about just what i want to do.


to practice sharing, we threw a beach ball back & forth. i LOVE to throw & catch the ball all by myself, but i learned to enjoy it with my teacher too. then we worked on stringing beads, which has been a difficult task for me in the past. she'd ask me to string a bead, then we would play with the ball as a reward. i had a minor meltdown because i did not like the beads, but my teacher really encouraged & pushed me. we were able to put 3 beads on the string. so when mommy & i got home this evening, she decided we'd practice the beads again. i got frustrated at first, so mommy went to get my body-brush *this calms me down* and when she returned to my room, i had strung a bead ALL by MYSELF!! we were SO excited! so i finished stringing the other half of the beads & we made this necklace. then we played victory music on my xylophone. i was SO proud of myself!! sorry these pics are not the best quality, but you can get the idea...

another fiddlers' convention...

WOW!! we had a wonderful time at the tennessee valley old time fiddlers' convention on saturday. it is in athens, alabama every year & this was my second time to go. last year, the music did not really hold my attention. but i have been working on recognizing the different sounds of different instruments & i talk about instruments a lot to my family. so i was very excited to see a real banjo, bass & "bandolin" (i mean that's a mandolin!!) my pappy never meets a stranger, so he asked his group of new jamming friends if they'd play a song just for me! they played "you are my sunshine" and even asked mommy & me to stand in the middle of the jamming circle! we had the BeST view of all the instruments (there was also a fiddler, 2 guitar players, 2 harmonicas & a doboro!!) so we sang *LouDLY* and turned around the circle looking at the different players & their instruments. i really enjoyed watching the bass player & counting along 1,2,3,4 with him. what an experience!! i had the best seat in the 'house.' i can't wait to do it again!!

going to church...

this sunday was the first time in a LONG time that we were able to go to church. this created a fair amount of anxiety for me, especially since i have not been to my new class since we "moved up" to the next level. mommy caught this picture before i realized what was happening this morning. when i learned that we were on our way to church, i began crying. and i continued to cry in the car & after we arrived. my teachers let me stay for 15 minutes before they paged mommy to come & get me. oh well, maybe next week i will last 20 minutes! after church we went out to lunch with grammy & pappy and some other friends... then i was just fine!

a new zoo...

well, it was a new zoo to ME... on saturday, we went to the montgomery zoo with my friend cadence & her family. cadence is 5 years old & we get along pretty well. she pushed me in the stroller a lot & we sat beside each other at lunch. i even held hands with her as we toured the zoo! we saw so many lively animals & i really had fun!!