August

We kicked off August with my 35th birthday! As I get older, my birthdays aren't as exciting as they used to be. Every year seems to bring me more aches and pains (bad backs run in my family and I didn't get to escape the gene unfortunately). I had a nice day watching Miles enjoy his last day of swimming lessons, hanging out with my three favorite guys, eating my favorite food, and ending the day with my favorite chocolate cake! A girl couldn't ask for more!

On the last day of class they get to go down this really big slide. I was two seconds too late in getting a good picture!

After they surfaced - I thought he'd have a blast, but he was a bit scared apparently

Not happy that swim lessons are over

Getting his certificate from his teacher

Happy birthday to me!

On August 7th, Oliver finally decided to sit unassisted! I think he just finally decided that he wanted to do it. Prior to that point he was completely satisfied with Mom or Dad helping him sit.

Dave started his new teaching gig at Provo High in August. His orientation was on 8/11 and his first official day was on 8/14. If he hadn't worked for this school district before, they would've had him work on the 12th and 13th as well. Instead, I got a couple of more days in the office trying to figure out what on earth I was going to do from that point forward with my job since we hadn't been successful in finding childcare yet. Dave is enjoying his job but is trying to adjust to having very big classes (like 40 kids in one class) and teaching Earth Science all day with no Biology (his favorite).

Finding childcare was a lot harder than I ever imagined! I even enlisted the help of coworkers whose job it is to find resources for families. We toured a few licensed home daycare facilities even, but they either didn't feel quite right or were just too far away considering we both work fairly close to home. We were also struggling with the cost of childcare considering I work for a nonprofit and don't get paid very much. I couldn't wrap my brain around the idea of working just to give it all to a childcare provider. I really enjoy my job though and hated the thought that I might have to quit so I desperately called my mom and asked if she would come back out to Utah and watch the boys for a couple of weeks while we continued to search for childcare. She came out on 8/16 and stayed until 8/29. She was a HUGE help and I'm so thankful she was willing and able to come to Utah again!

We enrolled Miles in soccer again to see if he would like it this time around. He took more of a soccer class while in Kansas and this was strictly just games so I wanted to try it out. On 8/12, his coach organized a little get-together at the soccer field so she could hand out their uniforms and sort of get an idea of what their skills were, etc. It was fun to learn that we knew his coach from our neighborhood and from church and that the assistant coach used to be in our neighborhood and church but had moved right before we moved back. They both have boys that are close to Miles' age that were on the team as well. It was fun to see familiar faces!

#27 having fun running around

Soccer stud!

One of Miles' #1 fans!

Among the many reasons to move back to Utah includes the fact that there is a transracial playgroup that meets weekly. When we lived here before we went as often as we could. I think it is a wonderful opportunity for Miles to be able to play with other children that look like him and see other families that look like his! This time around we've only made it to one event so far, but hopefully as we settle into a routine this year we'll be able to go more often. On 8/14, we went to Bridal Veil Falls. Miles had a blast running around with the other two children that were there. They climbed rocks, got their feet wet, and fed the fish.

Climbing

Smiling

Watching the fish

Hangin' out

Miles' first soccer game ever was on 8/21. The first game didn't go quite as well as I had hoped. Miles kept saying he was hungry and was acting very lethargic. I was getting pretty frustrated also because I hadn't heard that the first 20 minutes were set aside for warm-ups and also some soccer instruction (since they aren't allowed to "practice") and then the actual game would start leaving only about 30 minutes for the game. We ended up leaving to get Miles some dinner and then returned. He wasn't too interested in playing though so I was worried about how the season would go. The concepts of there being only one ball, staying within the white lines, and scoring goals and in the right goal was very foreign to him and it took a few games for him to figure it all out.

First game!

Miles continued to have soccer games pretty much every Thursday evening and Saturday morning through the end of September with only one bye week. The score was never kept, but Dave thinks that he was on one of the better teams in our "league." He had a couple of kids on his team that really figured out the game and became superstars. I think overall he enjoyed the experience and had fun running around and making new friends. We'll see if he wants to do it again next year.

I thought this was a cute video from his 3rd game - ignore the lady's butt!

 

While Grandma was here we had to have a little fun! One evening while Dave was at work at Target we decided to go to one of our favorite parks in the mountains. There is a little stream that runs through the park. Miles used to love playing in that stream and I was confident he'd love it now as well. He wasn't very happy when it was time to leave, but we'll definitely go back!

Two of his favorite things - sticks & water

Picture with Grandma

He could do this for hours!

Oliver got to eat some leaves!

We had to leave one of Miles' soccer games a bit early to attend a back to school night at his new preschool on 8/28. My mom was still in town so she put Oliver to bed for me and I took Miles to this event (Dad was at work at Target unfortunately). Miles had a blast playing with the other kids and getting his face painted. It was fun meeting his teacher and seeing his new classroom. This preschool was recommended to us by Miles' assistant soccer coach. So, he has a friend from soccer at his new school and also a friend from church (a cute little girl that lives in our neighborhood). I was hopeful that he'd feel more comfortable with preschool already knowing a couple of "friends."

He wanted a dragon

Such talent

A happy little boy with a dragon on his face!

As I mentioned earlier, my mom left Utah on 8/29. While she was here I approached my boss about all of our struggles with finding affordable and appropriate childcare. I sort of gave her an ultimatum. I told her that I either needed to be able to work from home or I'd have to quit. I did tell her that I had found a lady in our neighborhood that could watch the boys on Wednesdays and that I'd be willing to put in some hours in the office on those days, but that the rest of the work week would have to be done from home. She apparently likes me enough to keep me around. She came up with a plan of hiring the runner-up to me to cover my in-office hours for 15 hours a week and then allowing me to work from home for 10 hours a week. So, my hours got cut drastically (from 29 to 10), but I get to work mainly from home with a couple of hours in the office on Wednesdays. I get to keep my foot in the door and hopefully down the road when the boys are a bit older I'll be able to move back in to a more office based part-time position. We'll see. Right now we are doing a trial run to see if splitting this position works and makes sense and we'll reevaluate in December. I'm trying to make it so they feel like they can't live without me in the process!

And that is August! September has been crazy so that will be a FUN post!