The beginning of October

I love October! It is definitely among one of my favorite months of the year. I love all things fall and get excited when the weather starts to change and the leaves turn colors.

I was especially excited when some moms in our neighborhood invited us to join them at a pumpkin patch on Friday, October 3rd. It was a good way to kick off the fall season and it didn't cost a thing! Miles had a blast playing and looking at the animals. They had a kid friendly haunted house and Miles wanted to go through it over and over! Oliver didn't get out of the stroller while we were there, but he was content watching his big brother play and seeing the animals. It was a fun morning out!

A fun slide with corn to land in at the bottom

He wanted to pet the  horses so bad but they weren't interested

They had tomatoes that you could throw in to the pigs - He loved feeding them

Posing by the pigs

Later that day after nap time, I entered Oliver's room and found him like this.

He was SO proud of himself! He had been pulling up on everything else for a while now, but had never done it in his crib before. He's growing up so fast!

The beginning of October also brought the beginning of Miles' second preschool. We decided to enroll him in Provo High's preschool program along with his other preschool. They meet on opposite days so he now goes to preschool five days a week. Provo High's program is so affordable and he gets to go to school where Daddy works so he thinks that is pretty cool. It isn't as educational as his other school, but we feel the social interaction is very beneficial for him. It obviously starts later than most (his first day was Monday, October 6th) and ends much earlier. He only has two more weeks before he has a long winter break and will start back up again the beginning of February. Here he is on his first day.

Every fall I love to drive through the canyon and look at the changing leaves. I especially love to drive the Alpine Loop to see all the aspens turning yellow. There are also pops of red sporadically which make it such a beautiful drive! This year we fit our drive in one Thursday (October 9th) evening. It's hard to find time to go for such drives with Dave's two jobs and Oliver's nap schedule, etc. etc. I'm so glad we were able to find a time to go though because it was so pretty!

Ignore my finger!

The Alpine Loop

Fall weather also makes for good stay in your pajamas and watch movies kind of days!

 

The end of soccer

Miles' last soccer game of the season was on Saturday, Sept. 20th. Miles didn't enjoy soccer as much as I thought he would, but I do think he enjoyed being around other kids his age and getting out of the house and doing something different. I think he learned a lot about the game that he didn't know when the season started. He only scored two goals the whole season (and one was in their own goal), but I'm proud of how far he came during the process. It was hard to get him motivated to want to play, but we gave it a try. We might try again next year but we'll see. I'm starting to think that maybe he isn't as interested in sports as I thought he might be. He's so active and so physical though. We'll keep testing out different sports and maybe he'll find one he likes someday.

The weather forecast for the last game was rainy so the worrier that I am decided we needed to get a team picture at the game before the last game. I didn't want to risk their last game being canceled and never getting a team picture!

8 cute little soccer players and their 2 coaches

Team picture at the last game - a few are missing for some reason

He got a really cool medal for participating

No hill for a climber

September was a big month for Oliver. He went from only army crawling to pulling up on everything! He definitely kept me on my toes because he was very unsteady at first but had absolutely no fear! The poor little guy has bumps and bruises all over. He's curious and has to check everything out.

Started out with this - he's so proud of himself

Then moved to this

Next was this

Then the TV stand became interesting - we've added a bumper of sorts around the edge of the glass on the TV stand

Then he got brave and did this (that chair rocks too)

I sent this pic to both my mom & dad because it reminded me of a pic of me when I was little crawling in an end table - that pic of me was framed with the saying, "No Hill for a Climber" next to it

Notice the blinds - he LOVES playing with the blinds!

11 months old - Oct. 25th

We're three weeks away from the big day (Oliver turns 1) and I have no clue how we are going to celebrate it! It's two days before Thanksgiving. I probably won't get to see my family because traveling to Utah from Kansas this time of year is real iffy and Dave has to work at Target a lot during that time because of "Black Friday." We'll figure something out I'm sure.

Oliver has been one busy boy this past month! When I get the blog updated, you'll see how active he's been. He is our climber boy.

This month Oliver has perfected the art of pulling up on everything. He does it with much more confidence this month than last month and knows how to get down without hurting himself (I'd say 95% of the time). He also started cruising. He still walks on his tippy toes when he's cruising most of the time. Surely he'll figure out the flatfooted thing soon. If you hold both of his hands, he'll take steps, but I think walking is still a ways off for him.

He also started crawling "normally" this month. At first if he wanted to get anywhere fast, he'd still drop to his belly and do the army crawl, but he's getting faster and faster with regular crawling and can be found crawling that way more often than army crawling these days.

He got two new teeth this month (that we are aware of). It's getting harder and harder to check out his teeth situation without getting bit. He got the fourth tooth on the bottom to make the top and the bottom front teeth even. He also got one of his premolars in on the bottom right side. Getting this molar in was a big deal for him. You could tell it was causing him pain.

His schedule, eating habits, clothing size, and diaper size are all the same as last month still. We did try to switch him over to a milk-based formula to see if he was still lactose intolerant. We started out by giving him 2 ounces of Gentlease with 6 ounces of soy. For the first few days we didn't notice any difference, but then he started spitting up again and started struggling with diarrhea. He also developed some pretty horrible gas. So, we gave up on that and put him back on strictly soy and all those symptoms went away. In a month we can switch him from formula to actual milk. We may just have to buy him soy milk for awhile. I guess we'll see what the doctor suggests at his 1 year  appointment.

We've tried giving Oliver finger-foods like Cheerios and yogurt melts and baby foods with noodles in them and he just gags or chokes on them. Dave thinks he's just a lazy eater and doesn't really chew yet. We have given him teeny tiny bites of mac & cheese and re-fried beans and he's done okay. He also did okay with the yogurt melts when I broke it up in to teeny tiny pieces.

I'm almost 100% confident that when Oliver says "ma ma" that he knows what he is saying. When he gets tired or hurt, he'll crawl in my direction and say "ma ma" in a slow drawn out manner. It's so cute.

He's growing and changing so fast these days! I'm excited to see what new developments he makes this next month.

Click here to see Miles at 11 months.

Miles turns 5

Miles' birthday was Sept. 14th. I really can't believe we have a 5-year-old in our house! One more year and he'll be going off to kindergarten. It's insane how quickly time flies.

Miles has been asking for a volcano cake for his birthday for a VERY long time. Every time I would show him a picture of a volcano cake that I had found online, he'd get excited and think that I was going to make it right now and that it was his birthday. He had a hard time waiting until Sept. for his cake. Thanks to Pinterest I found an "easy" recipe for a volcano cake on the Food Network. Miles seemed to approve (although I think he really wanted the cake to explode, not just smoke) so that is what he got for his birthday. It called for red velvet cake, but we went with strawberry cake at Miles' request. We also bought some small dragons to set around on the volcano since he is really into dragons these days as well.

It leaned so we had to prop up one side - getting it from our house to the park was a trick too

The birthday boy and his cake

We remembered the dragons eventually - all of the icing was melting off

We had his party at a local park on Saturday, Sept. 13th. He really wanted everyone to come to our house for the party, but our townhouse is just too small in my opinion. He was relentless though and kept inviting everyone over! He, of course, was only really interested in opening his presents. After his presents were open he really wanted to go home so he could play with his new toys.

Eating pizza

The gang

Opening presents

Dragons!

Those who came to celebrate with Miles

Cousins!

We do appreciate everyone who made the effort to drive down to Provo to celebrate with us! Miles loves seeing his family and often talks about how much he misses everyone!

Playing with his new toys at home

New bedding for his bed - monsters!

On Sunday (his actual birthday) we spent the day together as a family. At the end of the day, I thought it would be nice for Miles and I to have some mother/son time together up in the mountains. We drove up to a look out point where you can see our entire valley. It's such a pretty spot. We watched the sun set behind the mountains and then headed home. It was nice to have some time with Miles hiking around and enjoying the beauty of where we live! He seemed to enjoy some extra time with mom.

Selfie

King of the rock!

Our valley

We are so thankful for our big 5-year-old and can't wait to see what the next year has in store for him!