'Tis The Season

OF BIRTHDAYS!!!

It always gets busy this time of year in our family with all of the birthdays. My mom starts off the festivities on July 24th with her birthday, Dave follows shortly after with a birthday on July 26th, my Grandma's birthday is the very next day on July 27th, and then my birthday happens a few days later on August 1st. Whew! I think it is also fun that Miles' birthday is not too far behind on September 14th. How fun and exciting! Below are pictures of the two birthday "kids."

Miles helped us sing "Happy Birthday" to Grandma on Saturday. I caught her right as she turned to look at Mr. Miles. (Don't look too closely at my horribly decorated cake! It is the thought that counts, right?) For mom's birthday Dave was kind enough to watch Miles while mom and I went and saw Inception. I wasn't all that excited to go see it (not my typical type of movie), but I have to say it was good. I think I need to see it again too to maybe understand it better??? We then all went out to eat at Red Lobster, one of her favorite places to eat. It was a nice day.

Here is the 32-year-old birthday boy at Cold Stone today. His birthday wasn't quite as exciting as mom's was because it fell on a work day unfortunately. I had to work today and he had to work this evening. We are going to go camping this weekend though and will celebrate it in style then!

I am so grateful for these two birthday "kids!" I can't imagine my life without either of them. I'm enjoying having my mom in Utah and LOVE watching her interact with Miles. They both adore each other. Dave is an amazing man and such a wonderful husband and father! He is always giving and wants only the best for his family. Happy birthday! I hope this year brings you both much joy and happiness.

The Upright Man

10 months

I'm having a hard time believing my baby will be a year old in two months!!! We waited so long for this precious little guy to join our family and now it seems as if time is just flying by. He is going to be going off to college before we know it! It amazes me too at how much he is learning on a daily basis. We really have a lot to figure out in our first year of life.

• He now has three teeth and is figuring out what they are used for. He likes to bite off portions of the flavored puffs we give him as a snack. He also likes to nibble on mom and dad, not quite so cute!
• He is sooooo close to walking. He will take about two steps and then falls forward and starts crawling instead.
• We've been giving him more and more table food and discovered this week that he LOVES mac & cheese, just like his mommy!
• Whenever we sing "Pat-A-Cake" he starts clapping. He is also trying to figure out the rolling part. He also likes to clap along to a few other songs and continues to love to sing whenever he hears someone singing.
• He isn't quite sure how he feels about swim lessons. I think he enjoys most of it except for the submersion part. He doesn't quite understand that you have to hold your breath or blow bubbles so you don't drink the pool. He ends up coughing and crying afterward. Poor guy.
• He is having a great summer hangin' out with dad during the day while mom works. I think he'll be so sad when dad goes back to work in about a month.
  

Swim lessons

Today was Miles' first swim lesson. I have to admit that I signed us up for swim lessons more for myself than for him because I love to be in the water, but I also think he enjoys being in the water too and will have a blast getting to spend at least 30 minutes a day in the pool for the next two weeks. Today we (the parents) learned how to safely get in and out of the water with a baby, how to hold our babies three different ways while in the water, how to dunk them, and how to teach them how to jump off the side of the pool (a little bit over Miles' head for sure). The babies learned how to blow bubbles in the water and how to kick their feet while lying on their backs (these concepts are also above Miles' head for now). Miles wasn't a fan of lying on his back or being dunked, but he really enjoyed playing with the rubber ducky the instructor gave him to play with!

Half of his class

Not a fan of being on his back (in or out of the water for that matter)

All done with class #1

In this video you can hear his squeal.
He does this every time he is excited about something!

Getting close

Antelope Island/Bridal Veil Falls

We had another eventful weekend! My mom has a friend in town so we decided to do a few things that we don't do very often or haven't ever even done before. One of those things was to visit Antelope Island so we could put our feet in the Great Salt Lake. I've never been to the Great Salt Lake and my mom hasn't been since she was a young girl so we thought it would be worth the drive. Not sure we'll be doing that again any time soon! We weren't prepared for the LONG hike it took just to get to the water and we weren't prepared for how many yucky bugs would be bothering us! It was definitely an experience.

The Great Salt Lake

The bugs were swarming my head!!!

The only brave ones

The other fun thing we did was visit the Bridal Veil Falls up Provo Canyon and then took a leisurely drive through the Alpine Loop (one of my favorite drives!). It was nice to be up in the mountains because it was about 10 degrees cooler up there than down here in the valley.

Bridal Veil Falls

Dipping our feet in the VERY cold water

He was too interested in the rocks to focus on a picture with grandma

New experiences

My mom has been a little home sick lately so she went to Kansas for a visit a couple of weeks ago. She thought it would be fun for us to meet her on her way back to Utah in Grand Junction, Colorado for the 4th of July weekend and we jumped on the offer. As most of you know, we used to live in the Grand Junction area and miss it a ton so we were excited to go back for a visit and to introduce Miles to the area! We decided to do a little camping. I figured it would be a tad bit difficult with a 9 1/2 month old, but I don't think I thoroughly thought through all of the "details" and how it would all work out. Now that we've camped with him once, we will be better prepared for next time! Don't get me wrong, we had a GREAT time! We just didn't get much sleep. Poor little Miles...he slept for 13 straight hours our first night back home and then took a really long morning nap. He was exhausted too! Here are a few pictures from our weekend away.

Miles awake at 5 a.m. the first morning, but happy as a lark!!!
(I love that you can see all THREE of his teeth in this picture)

Grandma and Miles

Exploring the tent
(Happy 4th of July!)

Colorado National Monument


Grandma, Miles, & Dale

Picture taken right before that pine cone went in his mouth!

I just love the Monument, such a gorgeous place!

Dad & Miles throwing rocks in the Colorado River

Zach, Dave had me take this picture just for you!!!

Enjoying the campfire