12 months old - Nov. 25th

During Oliver's 12th month of life,  he continued to grow and develop. While he still isn't walking without holding on to stuff, he has become more confident on his toes and is taking more and more risks that will one day pay off to fulfilling his bipedal nature. Being on all fours is still his favorite mode of transportation and he is very fast at it. When given the opportunity to pull up on something, he loves to cruise around while holding on. 

He loves his daddy more than mommy but still refuses to say da da. His word choice is still limited, but he is making more and more sounds. When he hears things, he sometimes tries to mimic it. Whilst his vocabulary is still very limited, he has become more and more clear about indicating what he wants. 

Soy is still his formula of choice, but soon soy will be his drink of choice. It is exciting to see him reach milestones in his life. Not having to buy so much formula is one of those exciting milestones. He eats a lot of baby food and he doesn't mind variety. He definitely is not a picky eater. He will even eat the organic stuff when offered. Finger foods and big chunks in his foods still give him struggles, but he is getting better at figuring that out. 

He is close to having 2 more of his pre-molars come in, but still just has the 9 teeth that came in his earlier childhood. Don't put your finger in his mouth to feel for new teeth though as he will chomp hard on whatever goes in his little mouth (unless it is his own finger... he is smart about that) and adjust his angle to make sure what teeth he does have makes contact with that object.

Oliver wears 18-24 month clothes still (depends on the brand... why can't there be an industry standard?) but the 18 month stuff is appearing to shrink on him every passing day. His diaper size is maxed out unless we spend lots of money at a certain store that carries a size 7 in a very expensive brand not to be named. He does have plenty of room to grow for now though, so we are not really worried about it. 

He is interested in playing with toys more and more and will even roll a ball around and chase after it only to roll it somewhere else. His older brother likes to compete for the ball when Oliver is playing with it, so Oliver has a battle on his hands. We believe competition will only help his survival later in life, so it is good that he learns it now.

It is a blessing to watch him grow and progress. We love having him in our home and as a part of our family. Hard to believe it has been a year since he joined our family. What a joy he is!

(Author: Dave - I should've made him write all of these, huh? He's much more entertaining than I!)

One thing Dave forgot to mention...Oliver loves to clap his hands! He'll clap when he's happy or when a song ends or when Dad says, "Everybody clap your hands!" It's cute!

Click here to see Miles at 12 months!

The beginning of November

The beginning of November brought some fun times. Oliver is fearless and loves to explore! He definitely keeps us on our toes. He is a climber and gets himself in some interesting predicaments. He also has decided that the items in our bottom kitchen cupboards are much more fun to play with than toys!

"What's back there?"

Sitting in his toy box

Standing on a rocking chair

On November 13th we saw our first snowflakes. It didn't amount to much and didn't last long, but Oliver sure enjoyed watching it fall. Since then it has been unseasonably warm. I'm ready for some more snow...especially since it's December!

In the process of trying to get Oliver's 1 year pictures and family pictures done for Christmas cards, we ran in to Santa at the mall! Since it was only the middle of November, there was absolutely no line to see Santa. We thought we'd take advantage of that and let Miles sit on Santa's lap. They told us that it was free to sit on his lap. The only cost would be if we wanted a picture. I figured a picture with my phone would be good enough.

We realized very quickly that Miles wasn't going to go sit on Santa's lap without some coaxing. He wanted to talk to him so badly, but it took him a little bit to overcome his fear. We stood there for a while and then finally had to tell him that if he didn't go talk to Santa that we'd have to go home. That helped him build up the courage he needed.

Hiding from Santa!

Chatting with Santa

For like the third year in a row he asked Santa for a trash truck. At least he's consistent! Miles and Santa also made it snow in the mall. Miles thought that was pretty cool!

Halloween fun

I had a hard time coming up with costumes for the boys this year. I wanted them to coordinate and really tried hard to get Miles to agree to be the Man in the Yellow Hat so that Oliver could be Curious George, but couldn't convince Miles! I also found a really cute lobster costume for Oliver and thought it would be funny to have Miles be a chef. Again, Miles wasn't on board. I then tried to convince Miles to be a police officer so that Oliver could be a jailbird. When he saw a Hiccup costume at Target (the main character in How to Train Your Dragon) it was all over for him. That is what he wanted to be! I could've had Oliver be a dragon, but Target was running a really good deal on costumes and they didn't have any dragon costumes. So, Oliver ended up being a lion since that costume was essentially free. It worked out in the end and Oliver was a very cute lion and Miles was a very handsome Hiccup.

We definitely got some good use out of the boys' costumes this year! Miles got to wear his costume four times and Oliver wore his twice. I'd say that is pretty good.

Their first Halloween event was a party/carnival at our church on Wednesday. Every year the youth put on this event for the younger children and every year they do such a great job! Miles had a blast!

We added the viking helmet because you can't wear masks to the church party

He was so busy and just wanted to crawl around!

They had this cute area set up for pictures

Amazed we got a non-blurry pic of him!

The next event was Miles' Halloween party at one of his preschools on Thursday. For the last 15 minutes of class the parents were invited to watch their Halloween program. They had learned fun Halloween songs and sang those for us. It was fun to see all of his friends dressed up cute for Halloween and to watch them perform songs they had worked so hard on! Miles had been singing the songs to us at home, but the day of he wasn't really interested in participating. He sat off to the side and just did his own thing.

A picture with his mask

Posing for a class picture - Miles was eating a carrot

Ready for their performance

On Halloween (Friday), Miles' second preschool had their party. Parents weren't invited to this one so I didn't get any pictures. They did do a parade through Provo High so Dave got to see him in the parade. Dave said Miles looked like he was having fun!

After I picked him up from preschool, we went to one of his friends' birthday parties. It was a busy day full of lots of fun and sugar!

Lining up

Miles' turn at the pinata

Oliver had a cute shirt to wear on Halloween

Before it got dark that evening we took the boys out trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. Since we live in a townhouse, it's easy to get lots of candy fairly quickly because there are several townhouses all in one location. I thought Miles would want to go trick-or-treating much longer than Oliver would stay happy, but when Oliver started fussing a little bit Miles was more than willing to head home and help hand out candy at our house. I actually think Miles enjoyed handing out candy more than he liked trick-or-treating! He would wish everyone a Happy Halloween before they moved to the next house. It was cute.

Ready to go!

Our cute little lion

Our neighbors are SO creative! I couldn't stop laughing. So stinkin' cute!

Primary Program

On Sunday, October 26th Miles participated in his first Primary Program at our church. The children get to present to the congregation what they've learned that year in Primary (Sunday School). He technically should've had his first program last year (when children turn 3 they enter Primary), but with our move from Kansas to Colorado and our trips back and forth for baby Oliver, he wasn't in either place enough to be involved in the preparations for the program.

When they gave me his part this year, I was a little concerned at the length of it. I wasn't entirely confident that Miles would be able or willing to memorize it, but I thought I'd give it a try. We started out just by repeating parts of it over and over and he was very resistant to it for about a week. After about a week he decided that he wanted to learn it and it didn't take much longer. I tried to get him to say his part slower after he had it memorized, but I never accomplished that. On the big day he said it so fast that I don't think anyone could understand what he was saying! I think that is to be expected at his age though. His mom and dad were VERY proud of him. He stayed up front with his class the entire time as well. He is growing up!

"One of the greatest priesthood ordinances is going to the temple and being sealed as a family forever!"

Miles was also asked that same day to give his first talk in Primary. They ask children each week to either say the prayer, read a scripture, or give a talk. He, obviously, isn't old enough yet to be hugely involved in preparing for the talk, but I think starting this young is great so that he doesn't have fear of getting up in front of people and speaking! I basically prepared what he was going to say based on what the theme was for the day and we practiced him repeating after me ahead of time. He did a great job on his talk and spoke loud enough so that everyone could hear.

It's fun to see him growing up and becoming a confident little man!

Pumpkins

On Monday, October 20th we took the boys to our favorite pumpkin patch to play and to pick out our pumpkins for the year. Since Miles joined our family, we've made it an annual family tradition to visit a pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins for each of us. I look forward to it every year!

He wanted me to take this picture of him by the chickens for his Grandma Carr

The corn maze

We're lost!

Posing for pictures

Our cute little pumpkin!

Silly goats

Miles loved climbing up...

and sliding down head first!

Posing by the BIG pumpkin

Miles' turn!

The boys with our pumpkins!

A week later, on October 28th, Miles finally convinced me to help him carve his pumpkin. I had almost decided that we wouldn't do any carving this year, but after thinking about it and what it meant to Miles, I decided to do it. Dave absolutely HATES the pumpkin carving process so I was afraid I'd get stuck with carving my pumpkin, Miles' pumpkin, AND Oliver's pumpkin so I was very hesitant. Since Oliver is still too young to get involved, I decided we could carve just one pumpkin. I was surprised at how easy it actually was. Last year we carved fake pumpkins at Grandma's and I think I had that process stuck in my head. Real pumpkins are definitely much easier to carve! 

Miles is a sensory guy so he had lots of fun playing with the pumpkin "guts" while I carved out the face he had picked out. Afterwards he kept asking when we were going to carve the other pumpkins. I think we succeeded just by getting one done this year!

Fall Break

Dave happened to get an entire day off of work from both jobs while he was on Fall Break. We had been talking about riding the commuter train for quite some time so we finally took advantage of Dave's day off and went for it. So, on Friday, October 17th we took the train from Provo to Salt Lake City and back.

Knowing Oliver wouldn't sleep while on our adventure, we gave him his morning nap and then left late morning after he woke up. Miles was SO excited to ride the "fast train."

He sat like this for most of the ride

Once we got to SLC we hopped on the Trax system and went downtown. We hadn't been to the City Creek Center shopping center since we moved away shortly after it was completed and I was interested in checking it out. I love the concept of an open-air shopping experience. It was so pretty, but what an experience! It was so busy because the whole state was on Fall Break. We got lunch in the food court (along with the rest of the world...lol!) and then decided to head across the street to Temple Square.

After I took this photo I noticed a sign that said, "No climbing on the rocks." Oops!

Before taking the boys to see the temple up close and personal, we thought it would be fun to take them to the Church Office Building so we could ride the elevator to the top. I figured Miles would love being that high up and having a view of the entire valley. Things have changed since I was there last. You used to be able to take the elevator up yourself and wander around. Now you have to take a guided tour. We had to wait a little bit before the next tour started, but it wasn't too bad of a wait. Miles had reached the end of his interest level before the tour was over, but they kindly let us go back down the elevator alone and we were on to the next stop.

Seeing the temple from up above

After the Church Office Building we walked over to Temple Square. Miles thought the reflection pool was the coolest thing! We played in the water a bit before heading to one of the visitor centers. One of the centers has a Christus statue that I wanted the boys to see. Miles has been there before, but I knew he wouldn't remember it.

Pic with mom by the reflection pool

Checking out Dad's ears

The Christus statute

We then began our journey home. Man I wish Oliver would sleep in his stroller or somewhere other than his crib at times like this!

Overall it was a nice day spending time together as a family and doing new things. But, in true Holly fashion, I packed way too much in one day for the boys and on the way home we had two VERY cranky boys! I felt so bad for the other passengers on the train on their way home from work at the end of what could've been a long day/week for them. At least we're not regulars!

Next time we're thinking about just riding the train from one end to the other and back again with no getting off. I think that would've made Miles just as happy. I'm slowly figuring out this mom thing!