July

Now that August is almost over I think I'll post about July! Ha ha! I'm a bit behind again, but life is just the way it is and I'll eventually get caught up again someday.

Our renter had mentioned that her plan was to be out of the townhouse by the end of June so she could spend her month off at home. She is a professor and is from Texas. That gave us the opportunity to get some cleaning done before we moved all of our stuff in. So, for the 4th of July we decided to take a trip to Provo. We scheduled the carpet to be cleaned while there and did some touch-up painting, cleaning, etc. While in town we did do a few fun things as well.

One day while Dave was painting and Oliver was napping, Miles and I decided to go exploring. I took him to a park that is close to our townhouse. We spent a lot of time there when he was little. He, of course, doesn't remember any of that, but he had a blast anyway.

He was too afraid of these ducks sneaking up behind him to pose for a picture for mom!

Some nice people shared their bread with Miles so he could feed the ducks

He found friends who would chase the ducks with him

And other friends who would play in the stream with him

We didn't do a whole lot on the 4th of July. Our new/old church always has a pancake feed early in the morning on the 4th. We decided it would be a good opportunity to see a lot of our old friends and to tell them in person of our decision to move back. Most of them already knew we were moving back though. It was good to see several of our old friends again and have some yummy breakfast as well! Afterwards we had our neighbors take our annual 4th of July family picture in our Old Navy t-shirts!

Then, while Oliver was napping and Dave was working on the house, Miles and I took off for more adventures. This time we ended up at a new splash pad in Provo. Miles LOVES splash pads and I'm excited that we now have one super close to our house! The parade in Provo was still going on, but once it was over the splash pad filled with people quickly. That is about when we decided to leave!

We told Miles that if he took a nap we could do some small fireworks at home after it got dark, but he didn't take a nap so we didn't get to do any fireworks. The rest of our 4th of July was pretty uneventful. The next day we headed back to Fruita to meet my mom there. She agreed to come out for a couple of weeks to help us out.

On July 9th we picked up the moving truck. Jake, Dave's brother, came from Bountiful, Utah to help as well. We really couldn't have done it without my mom and Jake's help! We are very blessed to have such wonderful family! We got the truck mostly loaded on the 9th and left for Utah on the 10th. We got a smaller truck thinking we had gotten rid of enough stuff, but we ended up filling every inch of the truck and every inch of everyone's vehicles. We even left a few things behind that we knew we could pick up when we came back to clean.

Dave's traveling companion in the moving truck

We made it to Provo!

We had one day at the townhouse to unload the truck before heading off to Vegas on the 12th. It was a whirlwind of a week for sure!

We had originally planned to move to Utah later in the month of July, but because of my new job at the United Way we had to move everything up. They wanted me to start on July 14th. We were crazy to think that we could accomplish a move to another state and a trip to another state and start a new job all in a matter of six days! Needless to say we were all exhausted, but we surprisingly survived it all.

Our trip to Las Vegas was to see the New Kids on the Block perform at Planet Hollywood on the strip. My mom agreed to go with us and watch the boys in the hotel room while Dave and I attended the concert. It was nice that they could all go with us but not have to attend the concert. Dave and I got to spend a nice evening together. While there we also got to do some swimming in the hotel pool and then stopped by the Hoover Dam on our way back to Provo. I've always wanted to see the Hoover Dam and have been close many times before. We almost didn't go this trip either, but I just couldn't let us pass up the opportunity again.

The strip in the distance - we made it!

The backseat drivers!

The strip

Yea!

Our pre-show selfie!

My phone camera takes horrible inside pictures, but that's them on stage

Swimming!

Dave, he's a silly one!

The Hoover Dam - It was a HOT one!

The view from above

Panorama view

State line (Miles was not a fan of the heat!)

The water level looks so low

We made it back to Provo the night before my big day; my first day at United Way. I was really nervous about starting a new job especially since we hadn't secured childcare for the boys, but with Dave still on summer break we still had time. My mom was also around for another week to help watch the boys. My new job is only part-time so at least I'm not away from the boys too much, but it proved to be hard to find part-time daycare that didn't take my entire salary. I'll talk more about my job in my August post.

Thankfully my new boss is a mom herself and is very understanding of family needs and the need to have a flexible schedule. She also was only working a few hours a week during the summer so she allowed me time off to do things we needed to do like go back to Fruita to clean the duplex before our lease ended at the end of July, etc.

We spent the weekend of July 18th thru the 20th in Fruita tying up loose ends and cleaning up the duplex. My mom also followed us to Fruita so she could leave for home from there making it a two day more manageable trip. Miles was glad to be back in Fruita. Not too long before we moved to Utah Miles made some friends in the Fruita neighborhood. He was really missing them and was glad he could see them again. He still says he misses Fruita and wants to go back and I know it is because of his friends. I had to get a picture of them together so he could remember them.

So cute!

Miles started swimming lessons in Provo on July 21st. I knew after the big move that he'd want/need something to do so I thought swimming lessons would be perfect. His lessons lasted two weeks. Because of work I only got to see the first and last day of class and I was really impressed with how much he had learned over the two weeks! He's turning in to a good little swimmer.

First day

So excited to be in the water

Swimming under water!

This post is getting super long so I'm going to do a part 2. Stayed tuned...

Eight months

On July 25th, Oliver turned 8 months old. Below is a list of what he is up to these days.

•  Oliver now has a grand total of SEVEN teeth! They were just popping up right and left this past month! He handled it pretty well. We did have to give him Tylenol a couple of times, but overall it didn't affect him too much. We do swear by those teething tablets and give those to him often as well.
• He has been doing well with baby food and seems to like green beans the most. He is still taking soy formula, but we've thought about trying a milk-based formula again. We'll see if we ever get brave enough. His spitting up has drastically decreased so we'd hate for that to start up again if he truly is lactose intolerant.
• He is officially sleeping through the night. We can pretty much count on him sleeping from about 7 p.m. until about 6:30 or 7 a.m. Some mornings he just wants a bottle and then will go back to sleep for another hour or so, other mornings he is ready to start his day. He still takes two or three naps a day depending on their length. He isn't really on a set schedule yet, but is usually awake for about 2-3 hours in between naps.
• He's doing much better at sitting on his own. He still isn't very interested, but he will sit unassisted for longer periods of time now. He usually ends up lowering himself down on his side and then rolling over on to his tummy.
• He is getting closer to crawling. When on his hands and knees he will try to move his knees forward, but his hands haven't figured out what to do yet. Sometimes it causes him to face-plant on the floor, which doesn't make him very happy. He loves to just rock back and forth on his hands and knees.
• He loves to reach and grab for things. It definitely is hard to eat or drink anything while holding him. Even reading a book with him in your lap is hard because he just wants to grab it. Of course, everything he reaches goes directly to his mouth.
• He loves to pat things. Often through the baby monitor we can hear him patting his bed. While reading books to him he loves to pat the books. Dave even mentioned one day while carrying Oliver, he was patting his back. It's cute! 
• He still loves to jump! He is a wiggle worm and is hard to hold because he just wants to move! He can pretty much get anywhere he wants just by rolling around on the floor. He finally figured out a more efficient way to roll from his tummy to his back. Miles has been good about picking up his smaller toys that might be a choking hazard for Oliver.
• He is a big boy! He is wearing a size 5 diaper and recently moved up to size 18 month clothes!
• There is no doctor appointment this month so we'll get his stats next month (although it will be late because our new insurance starts Sept. 1st and we want to wait for that).
• Oliver loves his big brother and often laughs at his silliness. He seems to enjoy sharing a room with Miles as well. Oliver is also a huge daddy's boy! He's started saying "dadadadadada" a lot more and Dave is hopeful he knows what it means but he doesn't!

He's our happy, easy-going, sweet baby boy! We all love him SO much!

Click here to see Miles at 8 months!