Miles age 8 1/2

Miles is our most social kid so far. He loves to invite friends over, every Friday right when he comes home from school he already has planned out which friend he is going to call (Friday is the day he is able to have friends over). His buddies these days include Brett, Brady, Dallin, Jackson, Cassie, and Luke. He also loves to play with the neighbors Brielle, Sadie, and Ashton. He loves to play legos, and he is getting into sports a little more too. Right now he's interested in football. He and Joey went to a BYU football game recently, which he liked.

Reading to Clay September 2014

BYU Football with Dad October 2014

He is a whiz at school. He aces everything with little effort. I never have to help him with homework, he just comes home and does it. I am not saying this to brag, it's just the truth. He loves computers. He's fast at typing. He likes to practice his signature, he's enjoying cursive which he picked up and attempted to use before this year, just by reading cursive I assume. Math is a piece of cake for him, so is spelling and he wants to be in the spelling bee this year. He reads chapter books in one sitting! Piano is easy for him too; he is our most academic child so far too.

Miles enjoys being independent. He wants to be able to walk to cub scouts each week instead of me driving him to the church (which is a 5 minute drive away, probably a 15 minute walk though.) He doesn't like to be TOLD what to do either, so I have had to try to learn some new parenting approaches to try not to engage in power struggles!! I find that statements like, "When you practice piano then you can play outside" are the way to go with him. He complies best when I ask kindly and have a "when...then" statement.

A little to small to fill firefighter shoes at this point ;) Maybe in another decade that will fit! (September 2014)

Miles and I are STILL reading the Book of Mormon together, I know it has been a LONG time at this point and we should probably be done, but I'm not racing--I just want to share the gospel with him in the best way I can and if that means we go slowly through the BoM together and we at least feel the Holy Ghost as we do then that's what it means. My main goal is that when we sit down together we focus on what is being read, we understand it together, and most importantly we can be open to feeling the spirit while we read. We are finally in Helaman now, almost to page 400. We usually do this right before bedtime, after our family scriptures. He reads one column and I read one column. We just finished the story of Nephi and Lehi (the sons of Helaman) when the prison walls fell around them and they were in the midst of a fire but it did not burn them.

First time holding Paige August 2014

Miles is such a great brother. He's very sweet to all his siblings. He helps Clay make his bed. He will go wait by Hailey's classroom door after school. He loves to talk to Paige and wiggle her legs for her. He loves his siblings.

I am grateful for Miles and continue to learn how to be a better mom from being his mom. It is a process and hopefully I can look back someday and know that I did my absolute best with this stewardship. I'm a better person for having Miles in my family and life and I love this boy!