48" to 4 feet

I finally found my memory card reader - so hopefully this is the first of many more posts. We have some exciting news to share - this picture was taken at 4:00 a.m. on Friday, July 17th. I had just arrived at the hospital to be induced. I know the numbers are hard to read - but I really measured 48" around the biggest part of my stomach (yes 48" is as long as Ethan is tall - SCARY).
I traded that 48" for 4 feet a couple hours later. Everything went great with the delivery - I will tell about that and post pictures on the next post.

And he said he didn't like backstroke

Miles did the Utah Summer Games this year - in swimming. He had a great time - the medals didn't hurt either. He earned 2 silvers in the 8 and under category - one in the 100 backstroke (the best race there is) and one in the 200 free (which he lost the gold to the other little boy by less than 1 second). Anyway - they hold the meet in the new college pool - ok, it might not be so new, but it is new to me. It is an olympic size pool (50 meters), so it was a bit intimidating but I was so proud of how well he did. He still tells me that he doen't like backstroke - he likes the breaststroke, which was my absolute worst stroke. Well - we will keep working on it though and maybe next meet we won't be disqualified (he does a scissor kick).
I feel really bad that I don't have a good picture of him swimming - I have a great excuse though. It is very hard to take pictures of him swimming when I am holding a wiggling child in my other arm. The only time that Abby would hold still was when I was taking a picture of her - so here she is - she was not the angel she looks like here during the meet. It was exhausting to have her there, but I love her anyway. I am sure we will have more meets soon and I will get some swimming pictures then.

Entrepreneur's?

Grandma and Grandpa live across the street from the High School Soccer Fields which has been a lot of fun for the boys - it is a lot better than the back yard for a soccer game, the sprinklers are awesome - but one of the best things is that it was a perfect location for a lemonade stand during the Summer Games. The first day they made almost $15 dollars just one hour! Miles decided that since it was his idea that he was the boss and instead of splitting the money, he got Ethan to agree to just $2.50 for his help (even though they did the same amount of work).
Anyway, we had to have a bit of a talk about the fairness issue - the hard part was that Ethan was just fine with his $2.50 - so Miles arguement was that Ethan only wanted $2.50. After all was said and done though - Miles used his money to buy some new golf clubs. He was in a junior golf program this summer and really enjoyed it - we got his new clubs just in time for his first golf tournament.

Here are the new clubs!

And here he is in the tournament!

Baptism

Miles was baptised June 6th. It is hard for me to believe that he is already 8 - but he is growing so fast right now. I am proud of his decision and of the great little guy he is becoming! Here are some pictures of the big day.
Uncle Michael baptised him and Grandpa Duncan confirmed him. Thank You to both of them!

Miles was so glad that his dad could come - here we are together. Thanks Frank for understanding how important it was to Miles that you were there and then driving all day to get here.

We were grateful for all the family that supported Miles - here he is with my parents (and Uncle Michael)

Here is Miles with Frank's parents (Grandma and Grandpa Gilmore). We also had many aunts and uncles, cousins, primary teachers and even a great-grandpa there to support Miles. Thanks to all - it was a special day for us!

Birthday Boy!

Today is Miles's Birthday - we have had a whole weekend of celebrations for Miles. It started Friday when he took cupcakes to the Father's and Son's Campout, Saturday he had his friend party, Sunday we had a family dinner/party and Monday was really his birthday. Here are some of the highlights!
We didn't have a big turnout for the friend party - it was a busy day - lots of wards had fathers and sons campouts and baseball started, but Miles had so much fun with the friends there and they were so goofy with just four of them, that I was secretly glad there wasn't more.

If you can't tell - the theme of the party was sports. Miles can't decide what his favorite sport is, so we played them all (in fact - it is quite funny to ask Miles what sports he wants to do in High School, he names nine for sure and a couple other maybe's - good thing we have a few more years to make up our minds)

They played 500! In fact, I tried to get a soccer obsticle course going and they didn't want to do anything else but 500 with the football (oh and have a water fight with the balloons I filled up for water games).

Bakugan is the new favorite at our house - so of course, that is what Ethan gave him, turns out his friends brought the same thing too - overall a great birthday for presents.

The pinata - Miles was actually the one to break it - he has a great baseball swing!

This is the Lego set he got on his bedroom floor on his birthday morning - for some reason he thinks that Lego's need to be finished the day he gets them - it was almost done before school, but we did get it finished before the baseball game that night. He is wearing a Oregon Duck Football Jersey that his dad gave him and a hat that Courtnie gave him - like I said, it was a great birthday for presents! I will post a picture later of his new bike that he bought with the money he got from both sides of grandparents and Opa.