Conner

Here is a post all about Conner:
- When people first see Conner their first comment is almost always about his hair: "Wow, now that is a tow-head!", or "Holy cow, his hair is so blonde!" or "He has white hair!" or "Is it naturally that color?" His hair is a white blonde color and it is very thin and fine. When his hair is wet it looks like he doesn't have any hair, you can just see his scalp. Reed and I were wondering what would happen if we took him to a place with black lights - I wonder if his hair would glow?
- Conner went through a phase where he hated to have his picture taken. In the photo below he is telling me "NO" because he can see the camera. I would try to sneak up on him to take a picture and he would hear the camera turning on or see me and he would get so mad and run over to me yelling "no, no, no" and shaking his finger at me. We tried to have his pictures taken professionally at Sears but Conner wasn't cooperative. We took him and he cried and cried, even though the person offered to let him play with what ever toys he wanted. We tried again a week later and he started screaming when he saw the entry way to the picture studio. After that we gave up.
- Conner loves to play with Alan. In the picture below they are both saying "Na-na, na-na" trying to get Reed to chase them. Lately Conner has really liked wrestling with Alan. He will tackle him and end up sitting or laying on top of Alan (Alan is really good about letting Conner do this). They also love to chase each other around the main floor of our house. They often play really well together but they can also really push each other's buttons. Some days it feels like all I hear is one or the other crying because the other one hit/pushed/threw a toy at/took a toy away from ect.

Conner has pinned Alan down

- Conner is somewhat aggressive towards other kids his age or younger. He especially doesn't like other little kids standing right next to him. I watched this scene in nursery after I dropped him off: Conner and a little girl the same age were standing side by side next to the toy cabinet. I saw them look at each other, and then the little girl reached over and pushed his shoulder so that he had to step over. He turned and hit her and she started to cry. This is something we are working on.
- He is becoming more independent. In the picture below he is learning how to do a somersault. For the most part I really enjoy watching him learn to do things for him self.

Conner put his own swim suit on (too bad he forgot to take off his shorts first)

- Conner has a very expressive face. I think part of that is because he doesn't talk well but he still expresses his feelings with his facial expressions. He squeals and gives a huge smile when he is happy or excited, he sticks his lower jaw out and pulls a funny face when he is worried about something, and when he is sad he looks down, pouts, and his lower lip starts to quiver (it is quite a sad look)
- So about the whole talking thing - I took him in for another check up on his hearing. About 2 months ago I took him in and he was happy and cheerful and they told me he had a double ear infection and a 20-30% hearing loss due to fluid in his ears. So this time two days before I took him in he had a cold and he was rubbing and tugging on his right ear and he was super cranky so I figured he probably had an ear infection and was still going to have fluid in his ear. We went in and they said his ears look healthy (no infection) and there was no hearing loss. Which was good but very confusing. I explained how confused I was and all they could say was "Well, if you ever have any questions come in and we will check him again". I felt like pointing out that the one time that I was sure he had an infection he was just fine and the time that he had a double ear infection I thought he was acting completely normal so how would I know when to bring him in to get checked?
- There is good news on the talking front - he is talking more! Yea! He has added several new words to his vocabulary. Today he even said "Me, please" when he wanted a treat. He still doesn't really put any words together. If you say two words together he will just look at you or repeat one of the words: For example today at dinner he pointed at the whip cream (we had waffles with strawberries and whip cream) and grunted.
Reed: more cream
Conner: pees (please)
Reed: more cream
Conner silently nods
Reed: more cream
Conner: mo (more)
Reed: more cream
Conner: mo (and does the sign for more too)
Reed: cream
Conner: (says something that doesn't sound remotely like cream)
Reed: cream
Conner: cum
Reed: That counts.

Conner is holding a big rhubarb leaf and stalk

Conner and his Dad

- Conner is fascinated by bugs. He points them out every where we go and yells "buh" at the top of his lungs. He loves to go for walks and then point out the bugs on the side walk. Then he usually tries to squash them with his hand or foot.
- He loves to grab your foot and then try to pinch your toe nail on your big toe and pull it. It tickles soooo much and he thinks it is so funny to watch our reactions.
- Conner loves animals and doesn't have much fear of them. We went to a family reunion this weekend and it was held on my Aunt and Uncle's farm. They have a big black lab. Conner walked right up to it and started patting it. When she went to lay down he followed and soon he was rubbing her nose, lifting her hind leg, examining her paws and finally he just laid down on top of her (luckily she is a very nice dog). I kept dragging him away and he just kept going back. They also had a cat and kitten that Conner really liked. The poor things - he kept chasing them all over and when he would catch one he would pick it up (sometimes by the neck) and try to hold it. It can be kind of scary sometimes, like on Sunday there were 4 or 5 labs there and 3 of them started rough housing with each other (snapping and jumping). I looked over there in time to see Conner walk right into the middle of them. One dog was laying on its back while it snapped at another dog that was standing over it and Conner walked right over and flopped down on top of the dog that was on the ground. Luckily the dogs just ignored him.

Conner holding the kitten

- Conner is starting to enjoy books more. Right now his favorite book is "We're going on a Bear Hunt".

Family Vacation Part 3 - Canada

We got home on Thursday night. We all slept in our own beds and then the next morning we unloaded all of our camping gear since we wouldn't be needing it. After the van was cleaned out we hit the road again. I have to say that our children are wonderful travelers. They never complained during this vacation about all the driving we did (I figured we did about 24 hours worth of driving total). The wait at the border was long. They actually had 2 lanes open and I of course picked the wrong line - our line moved about half as slow as the other one. Anyway we made it up to my parents house and then we just relaxed. My grandparents from California were there so it was nice to see and visit with them. Then on Saturday we all went to the Calgary Stampede (a big rodeo and fair). We looked at some of the different exhibits and Reed took the boys to a dog show and then we all went to watch the cattle penning. Unfortunately it started raining by mid afternoon and it got worse until it kind of cleared in the late evening. We had promised to take Alan on some of the rides but it was pouring rain. We asked if he still wanted to go and he said no. At least they had a lot of things to do indoors.

They had a fun kid area indoors with lots of different activities. Here is Alan riding on a little scooter.

Conner thought it was so funny to just walk off through the crowd - he is still better than Alan at the same age though. Conner at least looks back frequently to see if we are still there.

Reed decided to buy a cowboy hat so that he would fit in at the rodeo.

The hat was a little big for Conner

What a cute little cowboy!

Alan in the cockpit of a jet

That night my parents took our boys home with them and Reed and I stayed with my grandparents and watched the grandstand show. We met Reed and Jodie there as well. Our favorite part was the chuck wagon races. The rest of the show was so-so.

The next day we got to hear Drew speak in church, now that he is home from his mission. He did a nice job. After church we had a big dinner at my parents house with a lot of my extended family there. That evening we packed up and headed home - this time to stay for a while. It was a nice vacation and we enjoyed seeing so much of both of our families.

Family Vacation Part 2 - Bassett Family Reunion

The next part of our vacation was the Bassett Family Reunion. We traveled from Billings to the Bighorn mountains in Wyoming. We were able to see all of Reed's siblings and their spouses and kids except for Russ and his family. Also some of Reed's aunts and uncles and cousins were there. We arrived at the campsite on Monday evening just in time for dinner and games. It was quite cool that night and only our family and Ken's family decided to stay and camp. Since it was just the two of us we set our tents up in the pavilion area. I am really glad we did because this is what the campsite looked like in the morning:

In case you can't tell, the white stuff on the ground is snow. It alternated between raining and snowing while we made breakfast. Thankfully we slept pretty well and didn't get cold or wet.
The next morning we started a fire in the pavilion fireplace and got warmed up:
Then we all had hot chocolate and breakfast. In the picture below you can see our two tents set up in the pavilion with us.
After some discussion we all decided to end the camping trip early. I had only brought one pair of pants and a jacket for each of us so we weren't really prepared for the weather. Granted we were up at 8300 feet but it is July! We thought we would have a hard time keeping the kids entertained in the pavilion by the fireplace so we packed up and headed back to Billings. We set up our tents on Mom and Dad Bassett's lawn and had fun sleeping out there. It was much warmer there and we had fun doing various outdoor activities over the next couple of days.

Alan playing tee ball

We went shooting one afternoon. We set up clay pigeons, pop cans, and shoe boxes and people took turns using the handgun and the 2 rifles. I think most of the older kids even had a try with the .22 (with adult help of course). Alan really enjoyed doing that.

back row l-r: Carissa, Reed, Ken, Brenda, Andrew (holding Becky), Dad Bassett, Mom Bassett
front row l-r: Conner, Alan, Caden, Jordan, Breven, Kyla, Kailyn

All of the kids played croquet with an adult helper. Reed set up an obstacle course and the kids had to hit their ball around the house to the end of the course.
One evening we took turns riding on the motorcycles. Alan didn't want to ride with Reed but Conner was happy to:
And of course we had fun just hanging out. Starting with Alan and going to the left: Alan, Kyla, Kailyn, Conner, Jordan, Baer, Breven, James
We did a dutch oven pot luck one night that was really tasty. We also played games one night. Brenda and Andrew brought fun games from the show "A minute to win it". That was fun to watch and participate in. On Thursday we helped out with some projects. Reed and Andrew helped Dad get the pump running again so that they could water their lawn. Then in the afternoon Mom and Dad took the little kids to town and the adults cleaned out their garage while the older kids played around the house. Reed and I really enjoyed working and playing with everyone else and it was fun to watch Alan and Conner interact with their cousins. That night we packed up and headed back home to spend the night and unload some of our gear.

Family Vacation Part 1 - 4th of July

Before we left on our vacation I took the boys to a symphony. I know most of you who know my boys are probably thinking "You did what?!?!" but it was an informal symphony where families were encouraged to attend and it was casual dress and they left the doors open so that people could come and go so I decided it was a good opportunity to expose them to a symphony. The actually did pretty well. Alan sat through most of it although he got kind of antsy during the last song before the intermission and the last song before the end. Conner did good for the first 20 minutes or so and then he had a hard time sitting still. Luckily the symphony was playing very upbeat music. They played several patriotic songs and encouraged the audience to sing along (I am happy to report that I recognized all but 3 of the songs). My favorite was when they played music from Pirates of the Caribbean. When I told Alan it was a song about pirates he sat still and listened really well. All in all it was a good experience.

On the Friday before the 4th of July we started our family vacation by driving to Billings. We went to the temple and then did some shopping. The next day we went to church and on the way home we decided to stop in the trees below Mom and Dad Bassett's place and take pictures. We had a hard time getting all 3 boys to hold still and look at the camera:

We did a little better with kids by themselves.

Conner hates getting his picture taken so this is all we got of him

Best buddies

That night we lit our package of fireworks. The were mostly small showers of sparks or bright flashing lights. Alan was really excited.

At first Conner just wanted to light them himself but that wasn't working

After he watched a couple of fireworks he got really nervous and didn't want to get too close.
After that we watched all of the fireworks that were being lit off around us. It made quite the show - I wonder how much money some of the neighbors spent on fireworks. Anyway it made it nice that we didn't have to go anywhere to see some nice fireworks.

A job well done

When we first looked at buying our house there were many things we liked and there were some things we didn't like that we added to our "We'll fix that" list. One of those items was our fence. We had 3 different types of fence in our back yard - a different one for each side of the yard. The side bordering our neighbor is a wire fence, our back fence is a nice, 6 foot wooden fence and the side that borders the street had an old, 3 foot high, dilapidated, paint peeling, wooden fence. This fence was very crooked and I think that if Alan had put his mind to it he could have knocked the entire thing down with some hard pushes. Here is a picture of it:
So we decided it had to go. We took hammers and crow bars to it and it came down quite easily. The only hard part was getting all the nails/screws/bolts out of the wood before we tossed the wood in a scrap pile. The boys were thrilled when we handed them hammers and told them they could hit the fence as hard as they wanted. The wood was so rotten that when we came to the support posts all we had to do was lift them out - the wood was completely rotted through less than 6 inches below the ground.
My parents came to help with the next step (they have built a fence before and we hadn't, so we appreciated their expertise and manual labor). We rented a power auger for a couple of hours and my dad and Reed dug all the fence post holes to a depth of 2 1/2 feet.
This hole was difficult because it was so close to a mature tree. They hit big roots less than a foot down and a lot of the digging had to be done by hand.
All of the holes are dug and ready to put in the posts.
My dad and Reed got all the posts cemented in before my parents had to leave.
The boys had a lot of fun helping us with this project. Many times I would turn my back on Conner only to turn around again and find him gone. Every time I would find him holding our power drill and "drilling" different things like our new fence, the ground and our trees. It looked so funny to see this little 2 year old holding this big power drill with a look of concentration on his face. He absolutely loved the tools!
Alan's helping was much more helpful. Alan brought us screws and tools when we forgot them and he became our official picket hauler. He would go into our carport, pick out a piece of wood and carry it back to us. Then he would turn around a do it again. He must have hauled dozens of boards this way.
Even though this picture didn't turn out great I still love it. Alan was so happy to be helping his dad and we really appreciated it.
After the cement dried and the weather finally cleared up (it rained a lot during this project) we screwed in the brackets and the cross posts. This took a while because we wanted it to be level.
Next came the easy, though time consuming, part. Reed would hold the picket and spacer wood in place while I screwed the pickets to the posts. This ended up taking us a couple of weeks because we could only work on it in small chunks of time.
Finally we just had a few pickets left on the edges because they needed to be cut before they could be put up and the gate.
We finally got the gate built and hung. It was so funny when we put it up. Alan tried to reach the latch and he couldn't so he turned to us and said "Hey, I can't reach it". We just smiled and said "I know".
The finished product:
It looks so much better now and I don't have to worry about the kids escaping from the yard. Another benefit of building it was that we got to meet quite a few of our neighbors. They would come over to introduce themselves and see how we were doing. One neighbor even lent us some tools, which was nice. We are pleased with the way it looks. The only thing I would change is the spacing between the boards. We didn't know the wood would shrink once it was up and we started with kind of a big space anyway so now the boards are a little further apart than I like. Oh well, live and learn. All total it took a month to knock down the old fence and put up the new one (we weren't working on it every day) but it was completely worth the time and effort.

Welcome Home Elder Pitcher!

My brother, Drew, came home from his mission on June 29th. He flew into Great Falls which was nice for us. He has been serving the Lord and the people in the Land Down Under, in the Sydney South Australia mission. The boys and I made up signs to welcome him home and then we went to the airport to wait:

Here is Alan with his sign

Conner wasn't very interested in holding a sign. We propped one up in front of him and he promptly pushed it over and walked off. So here is a picture of Grandpa Pitcher holding Conner and the sign and Alan and his sign:
I didn't get any pictures of Drew as he came off the plane because I was too excited to see him. It was SO good to see him. He looks the same except that he has a nice tan. He can talk with an impressive Australian accent now too. I am glad he served a mission, it has been a good opportunity for us to talk to our boys about missionary work and he has set a good example for all of us. Welcome home Elder Pitcher!