Labor Day

Even though I'm a month behind on blogging, for September I'm going to break my posts up by the event versus trying to do the entire month in one big post. There was just too much in September and it's a tad bit overwhelming! 

We kicked off the month of September celebrating Labor Day. Not only did Dave get the day off from teaching, he also wasn't scheduled to work at Target so we took full advantage of it. We wanted to take the boys on a hike so we did a little internet research and decided to go up Provo Canyon and hike to Stewart Falls. We had read that if you were hiking with young kids that it was easiest to take the ski lift at Sundance up and then hike over to the falls. We love riding the lift and figured that Miles was probably old enough now to understand the importance of sitting still on the lift, etc. and that Oliver was young enough to sit in one of our laps. So...off we went.

The ski lift part of the adventure was perfect. Miles was a little scared to be so high, but he did really well and really enjoyed it. He kept saying he liked hang gliding! I was nervous the entire time because Oliver was a little wiggle worm on Dave's lap, but Dave was able to keep a good hold of him.

My boys

Family selfie

The leaves were starting to turn & it was absolutely beautiful!

Once at the top we started our trek over to the falls. We were under the impression that round trip the hike was about two hours (especially with young children). It seemed MUCH longer than a two hour hike to us. We stopped several people along the way and asked them how much further we had to go, etc. People were either completely delirious or my definition of "it's not that much further" is way different than their definition!

The beginning of our hiking journey

A nice elderly couple offered to take a family pic for us

I had lost hope that we'd ever find the falls until we hit this valley and my hope was renewed a bit - only to be destroyed again soon!

Shortly after we took the above picture we passed a family that was stopped along side the trail. They had two young children with them and one of them had a bandage on her head and looked like she wasn't doing very well. That should've been the only sign we needed that we should stop and turn back around, but we ignored the sign and started our descent. It was a pretty steep and never-ending descent down to see the waterfall. Again, we stopped a guy along the way and asked him how much further and he said we were almost there (not quite!). By then the three of us hikers were completely exhausted and were so ready to see the dang waterfall! Dave ended up slipping on some rocks and landed pretty hard. He immediately complained of ankle pain but was determined to continue on. He thought it probably was better to keep moving for his ankle's sake. Oliver was on his back and was pretty shook up by the fall as well. It took some work to get him calmed down. After everyone was calm again, we continued on our adventure.

When we finally made it to the waterfall, Dave was in so much pain and I was so tired that we had little to no interest in hanging out. Poor Miles loves playing in water and he wanted to stay for several hours. We let him play a little bit, but then forced the issue and made him leave. There were even paramedics up there taking care of a lady.

Another family selfie

Stewart Falls

He's never very excited about mom taking pictures of him

His happy place!

I knew there was no way physically that I could go back the way we came with that huge climb so we decided to go back another popular way that would take us to the base of Sundance (so no ski lift down). I figured since it was all downhill that it shouldn't be too bad. Little did I know what was ahead! By this point Oliver was crying again and was pretty much done with being in the backpack. We just plugged ahead. Miles also was starting to complain, but overall he was a huge trooper and hiked the whole thing.

The trail down was pretty steep and seemed never-ending. We were all super cranky and kept saying that we felt deceived and lied to! It was the most difficult hike I've ever done (granted I'm not much of a hiker though) and definitely not a hike I would recommend with young children. It's probably a hike that I'll never do again as well...unless the boys are much older and I'm in much better shape. We were almost to Sundance (although at the time we didn't know it) when I lost my footing and slipped and fell landing hard on my tailbone. The impact knocked my breath away for a second or two. The first thought I had was that Dave was going to have to leave me there and go find help. I wasn't sure that I'd be able to walk any further. Then adrenaline kicked in and I was back on my feet again. Thankfully we didn't have much further. I have never been so happy in my life to see my car and be heading home. What an adventure!

That evening Dave and I were limping around the house. We both were in pain for a couple of weeks following as well. I almost made a doctor's appointment because of a shooting pain I kept getting down my sciatica (thankfully it eventually went away). Dave spoke to the athletic trainer at Provo High to get some advice on his foot. It was definitely a rough few weeks for us!

Dave's foot a couple of days after

10 months

Our little big man is 10 months old. In two short months we'll be celebrating his 1st birthday! Insane! With the seasons changing, I often find myself thinking about last fall and Oliver joining our family, etc. It seems like a million years ago but also like it was just yesterday. Weird, I know. Last fall was rough with Miles and I traveling back and forth from Colorado to Kansas for Oliver's prenatal appointments, but it also was really fun! I really enjoyed getting to spend time with Oliver's birth mom at her prenatal appointments and am so thankful she allowed me that opportunity. I miss that time with her each week!

If you pay attention to details, you might notice that Oliver is in a different outfit than Miles was at 10 months. Oliver has outgrown that outfit. In fact, we've even given it away because he outgrew it back in July! Oliver is wearing what Miles wore in his 11 month picture. And we thought Miles was a big boy!

Oliver is pulling up on everything these days. He's very comfortable pulling up on to his knees, but will sometimes pull up to his feet as well. He's just not very steady on his feet yet so he has lots of falls. He loves to stand on his tippy toes and doesn't flatten out his feet very often so I think that leads to some of his unsteadiness. His favorite thing to pull up on is his rocking chair. As you can imagine, it doesn't always end well. I try to encourage him to pull up on more steady objects like the couch, but he has his own ideas!

He recently figured out how to climb the stairs. Again, he isn't very steady so unless I'm able to be right there with him, we put up the baby gate so he doesn't fall down the stairs.

He still does the army crawl, but he's pretty fast at it and can get where he wants to go. He has tried the traditional way of crawling a few times and will move forward a little bit, but he eventually gives up and drops to his belly and off he goes.

We have several "baby toys" for him to play with, but he prefers Miles' toys over his any day! We've been trying to refer to the toys as "their toys" to lessen Miles' possessiveness, but I'm not sure it's working. We do encourage Miles to obviously pick up the toys that Oliver could choke on and Miles is pretty good about helping with that.

He still is our little jumper boy although now he'd much rather we hold him in the standing position while he jumps instead of being put in his jumper to jump. He's been protesting the jumper a lot lately!

Like all mobile babies, Oliver loves cords! We are trying to teach him that he can't play with the TV or lamp cords instead of trying to figure out how to baby-proof them and so far it's going pretty well. He seems to understand that we don't approve and he doesn't push the limits that often. He's pretty easy going.

Oliver is definitely a daddy's boy! He gets SO excited when Dave comes home from work and cries if Dave doesn't pick him up immediately. We have some jealousy going on between the two boys and they often "fight" over Dad and his attention. I think it's adorable, but I don't think Dave agrees.

Oliver still wakes up between 6 and 6:30 a.m., takes two naps a day, and goes to bed at 7 p.m. He still only has 7 teeth. We increased his formula intake to 8 ounces at each feeding. It tides him over for a bit longer so he can go about 4 hours between bottles now instead of 3. He has about 4 bottles a day. We give him baby food for lunch and sometimes breakfast. We've stayed away from giving him baby food in the evenings because it tends to keep him awake longer in the evening. Not sure why that is. He is moving in to wearing more of the 24M/2T size (the 18M size is starting to get too tight). I may have to start hemming his pants because the length is way too long, but the waist fits just fine. He still wears size 5 diapers (good thing because my mom stocked us up on Sam's Club diapers last time she was here).

We love him a bunch and love his cute personality that is developing! He is a hoot!

Click here to see Miles at 10 months.

9 months old

On August 25th Oliver turned 9 months old. That makes him 10 months old today! We've tried our best to remember what he was doing last month versus this month. Hopefully we didn't forget anything!

• He's our big boy! We thought Miles was a big boy, but Oliver is proving to grow bigger and faster than Miles did at the same age. At his 9-month well-child check, Oliver weighed 25.29 pounds and was 30.75 inches long. Those measurements put him in the 98th percentile for weight and 99th percentile for height!
• Two of his biggest gross motor accomplishments this month included learning how to sit unassisted and learning how to army crawl. He can get where he wants to go pretty darn fast now that he is army crawling. It's fun to watch him move around. His belly and knees show me when it is time to clean the floor. Lol!
• To help develop his pincer grasp, Dave thought it would be good to get him some Cheerios to munch on. He did okay with that at first, but then he started choking on them almost every time we gave him some so I put an end to that for a while. Choking babies are scary! He loves to use his pointer finger to touch things and then will also use his thumb to help him pick up smaller objects. We have to make sure the floor is clean these days!
• He still has 7 teeth. His 8th tooth to balance his mouth out (4 on top & 4 on bottom) looks like it is close to making its arrival.
• He is wearing sizes 18-24M clothing and size 5 diapers. He is drinking 6 oz of soy formula about four times a day and eats baby food about once or twice a day. He eats pretty much anything we give him.
• He wakes up between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m., takes his first nap around 8:30 or 9:00 a.m., takes his second nap around 1:00 p.m. and goes to bed at 7:00 p.m. His naps still vary in length anywhere from about 45 minutes to 1-1/2 hours. He is a very light sleeper so it's always a challenge trying to keep the house quiet enough so he can sleep.
• In honor of him turning 9 months old, we had professional pictures taken by our dear friend, Aynn Thurman (she also did Miles' 5-year pics). She has such an amazing talent! We got a sneak peak at some of the photos today. Click here to see them. I'm so excited to see the rest!

Click here to see Miles at 9 months.

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!

The rest of July

After having a rough couple of years financially, Dave decided that once we got moved to Provo that he would try and find a part-time job. He was first hired by Wal-Mart, but Target wasn't too far behind in their job offer so he decided to go back to Target. He enjoyed working there before and was excited to return. His first day was July 22nd. I think he enjoyed having something to do while he waited for the school year to start back up. The boys got a lot of time with Dad during the day while Mom worked and a lot of time with Mom in the evening while Dad worked. Not ideal, but hopefully we'll be able to get our finances back in order again quickly.

Fun with Dad:

Practicing his name

Splash pad fun

Bike rides to the river to throw rocks

Fun with Mom:

Time at the park

Playing with the ducks

The 24th of July is a big deal in Utah. The day is known as Pioneer Day and every year a big celebration occurs to celebrate the anniversary of when the first group of LDS pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley back in 1847. July 24th also happens to be my mom's birthday so I always tease her that she should move to Utah so her birthday will be celebrated BIG time! In honor of Pioneer Day, we bought a new rug for our living room. Ha ha! We had been looking for something to match the crazy pattern on our chair. It took us a while to find something we liked, but we finally found it. It was a floor model and had a couple of dirty spots, but we got a good deal on it and it cleaned right up.

We convinced Miles to take a nap so that he could stay up late and shoot off the fireworks we had purchased for the 4th of July but didn't shoot off because he hadn't napped. We put Oliver to bed and took the monitor outside with us while we did our own little firework show. I was amazed Oliver slept through all of the noise. There were several fireworks going off all around us for several hours.

Sparkler fun

A little nervous about the sparkler

 

Dave turned 36 on July 26th! He had to work at Target on his birthday so we had a small party for him that day that included cake, but he got to eat at his favorite restaurant, Tucanos, later in the week on 7/31 to officially celebrate! As adults our birthdays are always low-key, but we do manage to eat at our favorite restaurant and eat cake! Any birthday is complete with at least those two elements, right?

The birthday boy!

Tucanos

And that completes our month of July!

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...