Buying a house

We have been looking at buying a house for a little while and we finally found one that we both like that was in our price range. We have settled on the price but we are waiting to hear back whether they agreed to make the repairs that we requested. The above picture is of the back of the house and the picture below is of the front of the house.
The house has 3 bedrooms on the top floor along with a full bath. The main floor has the kitchen, living room, dining room and a half bath. Our laundry will be in the basement. When we went to look at the house Alan and Conner were with us and in one of the bedrooms they have this funny little nook. Alan ran in there and said "Look mom, a little house for little people". Below is a picture of them in the "little house".
The house is OLD. Anyone think they can guess exactly how old? I bet you can't! If you already know then you can't guess. I will post the answer after I see some guesses.

Last visit of the Summer

At the end of August I traveled with the boys over to Billings to visit family. My sister in laws, Shelly and Jackie were their with their kids. Here are some pictures of what we did.

We went to the zoo. It was kind of small but still fun. The boys were very interested in feeding the animals.

One of the mornings we went to ride horses. I loved that. The boys were kind of nervous though, especially Alan. He didn't want anything to do with the horses. I finally convinced him to sit on one while I kept a hand on him and Shelly held the reins. He wanted off as soon as he was on. Conner did a little better - he sat in front of me while I rode around for awhile. Below is a picture of Shelly with her son Caden.

Alan was much more interested in all of the equipment that they had around.

One of the evenings Mom and Dad Bassett watched all of the kids while Shelly, Jackie and I went out to eat at the Olive Garden. It was so nice to go out to eat without the kids and get caught up with them. I wish we all lived closer so that we could do that more often. We stayed up late most nights talking as well. Reed came out to join us Friday night. We set up the tents Saturday night and the older kids slept out there. Alan was in heaven but poor Conner was sick with a fever so he didn't get to camp out.

On Sunday we had a big group over for dinner. There was Mom and Dad Bassett, our family, Shelly with her 4 kids, Jackie with her 2 kids, Austin and Mindy, Russ with 2 of his kids, Grandma and Grandpa Walker and Great Grandma Walker. After dinner we took some pictures.
A five generation shot with: Conner (16 months), Reed (his dad), Grandma Bassett, Great Grandma Walker, and Great-Great Grandma Walker.

On the Bassett side of the family there were 8 boys born within about 3 1/2 years (no girls were born during that time) Below are all of them except Breven.

Bottom row: Reed, Austin (Reed's brother), Russ (Reed's brother) and Dad Bassett
Top Row: Conner, Alan, James, Baer, Boyce, Caden and Chase

Here is a cute pic of all the grandkids that were present (we are missing 5 in the picture).
Back row l-r: James, Boyce, Jordan
Front row l-r: Baer, Kailyn, Kelcie, Chase, Caden, Alan, Conner
It was so nice to visit with family and let our kids get acquainted. As we were leaving Alan said: "Mom, Caden is my best friend". He was sad to leave all of his friends behind. Thanks to Shelly and Jackie for travelling such long distances to visit.

Whoop Up Days

Towards the end of August I took the boys up to Canada to visit my parents. After some hassle at the border I made it up there in time to see my two best friends from high school (and before) and their kids. We took our kids to the park and let them play while we got kind of caught up and then our parents offered to watch the kids while we went out to a restaurant for dessert. Then we finished getting caught up. It was so nice to talk with them.

While we were up north we also got to visit with my cousin Janae and her kids. Her triplet girls and Alan are close in age but they took a little while to warm up before they would play together. My mom and I also took the boys to pick strawberries at a U-pick farm. The sun was hot and the berries were few but we got enough to make some freezer jam and then of course to eat some. One of the evenings I got to go to my cousin's wife's baby shower. Renae had a cute little boy and I got to visit with some of my cousins and aunts.

On Friday my Dad and I took the boys to Whoop-up Days. That is the local fair in Lethbridge. It was a hot afternoon but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. Both of the boys liked the rides although Conner was too young to ride on most of them.

Conner and I on the Merry-Go-Round. Conner was so excited when I sat him up there - he kept patting the horse and smiling ear-to-ear. Then the ride actually started. His smile disappeared and was replaced by a very worried look. I stood beside him the whole time but as the ride went around and he saw Grandpa he held his arms out like "get me off here". He didn't cry at all, for which I am grateful. When the ride stopped his smile came back and he patted the horse again.

Alan riding one of the rides. He really enjoyed most of the rides, even the crazy boat ride that he went on with Grandpa. The only ones that he wouldn't do were the big slides. He walked all the way to the top of a big slide with a rug to sit on but when he got to the top he sent the rug down the slide and then started walking back down the stairs. Grandpa went up to try to get him to slide down but he wouldn't.

At the end of the afternoon we went to visit the petting zoo. Alan and Conner were both a little intimidated by all those animals - they didn't want to get too close.

Then we found the bunny cage. They both thought the rabbits were great - probably because the rabbits were so much smaller than them.

Reed rode up with some friends on Friday night and then next day we went to the temple. Then we came home and helped put the finishing touches on the underground sprinkler system. That night we played seven-up with Reed (my brother) and Jodie. Ah, good times!!!

Sunday was my parents anniversary and we got to hear my mom give a talk in church about maintaining a strong marriage. It was a fun and productive trip.

Conner's 15 month check up

In the picture below I let Conner eat spaghetti by himself and then he fed himself yogurt and then he fed himself icecream, and then he had a bath! I took Conner in for his 15 month well child check up in August. He is a healthy little boy. My favorite part of the check up was when the doctor handed Conner a book. Conner grabbed it, snuggled back on my lap, opened it and started pointing at the pictures and jabbering. The doctor said "Looks like he's familiar with books" and then she turned the page on her clipboard. It was like, Oh I don't need to talk about that with them. Conner did pretty good although he was not pleased when the doc tried to look in his mouth - he screamed bloody murder when she finally pried his jaws open.
Here are his stats:
Weight: 22lbs 6 oz. (20th percentile)
Height: 32 1/2 inches (85th percentile)

So his percentiles are getting a little closer together, which is good.

Trip to Canada

After our trip to Billings we headed up to Lethbridge to visit my parents. As you can tell we are really enjoying living closer to family. We got up there on Thursday night.

Friday - On Friday morning we all got packed up and we went to Waterton National Park. I remember spending many happy days in that park growing up and I wanted to visit it again. As we drove the weather was cloudy and rainy but luckily it cleared up by the time we got into the park. We went and sat by Waterton lake and ate lunch. When we finished with our lunch we decided to let the boys throw rocks in the lake. Apparently they weren't satisfied with that and they both ended up wading and swimming in the lake. I thought they were pretty brave, since the water was chilly.

Alan wading in the lake and showing us a rock he is going to throw.

Conner went swimming. As he started to wade out farther and farther, we just took all of his clothes off and let him go. He waded out to his waist once, but then he fell face first into the water and Reed and to go pull him out. That didn't stop him from wanting to go out again though.

Such a cute little boy

After that we all went over to Cameron falls and took pictures (for some reason I can't find those pictures) and enjoyed the scenery. Then we all went up to Cameron Lake. We rented a row boat and we all had fun taking turns trying to row. I know it looks easy, but it isn't. We did more than one unintentional circle in the middle of the lake. After that we went back to the town site and everyone got ice cream. It was a very fun day.

Saturday - On Saturday morning Reed and I went to the temple while my parents watched the boys. When we came back we went to the air show. The theme of the show was "The Russians are coming". Some of the highlights were watching a pretend dog fight between 2 Russian planes and 1 Canadian plane, watching a lady stand on top of the plane while it was flying and the finale was watching the Snowbirds. It was neat to watch the Snowbirds fly in formation - it was almost scary how close they got to each other.

The announcer said that in some formations the planes were less than 3 feet from each other.

Below is a picture of 4 of the snowbirds flying at each other from different directions. At the last second they would flip onto their sides and skim by the other planes. It looked like they were going to crash until they rotated at the last second.

Alan standing by one of the planes that was on display.

Alan had fun going down some big inflatable slides that they had there.

It was a hot afternoon but my brother Reed got us seats in the VIP section so we had some shade which was really nice.

The result of spending an exciting afternoon watching the airshow and being out in the sun - both boys fell asleep on the way home.

That night my brother Reed and his girlfriend Jodie came over for a bar-be-que. They recently got a little beagle puppy named Ace. Ace is very cute and friendly - maybe a little over friendly sometimes. Both of the boys were a little afraid of him.

Conner meeting Ace

Alan meeting Ace

Conner helping Grandpa Pitcher mow the grass

Sunday - We went out to Hillspring to see my cousin Nick speak in church before he goes on his mission. It was so fun to see my aunts, uncles and cousins. That afternoon we headed back home. It was a great trip.

Trip to Billings

Just so you know I posted the pictures in backwards order, starting at the end of our trip and going on to the beginning. Also this is a LONG post. A couple of weekends ago we went to Billings to visit Reed's parents and see Ken (Reed's brother) and his 4 kids. It was really good to see them and let the kids get acquainted with their cousins (Ken and Shelly live in Ohio and we hadn't seen their kids for 2 1/2 years).

Monday: Bishop Hansen kindly invited us to go boating with his family on Monday afternoon. We had a blast!! Reed and Alan were the first ones out on the lake. Reed took Alan tubing for his first time. I wish I could say Alan enjoyed it but that would be a lie. The whole time they were being pulled behind the tube Alan was telling Reed he didn't want to get wet and he wanted to get back on the boat. When the boat stopped both Alan and Reed got dumped into the water. Alan came back up screaming and crying but he settled down once we got him in the boat. Bishop Hansen saved the day by letting Alan help steer the boat - Alan was thrilled and he talked about that the most. On the way home he told us how he helped "steer the ship".

Before we started going.

After that Reed went for a tube ride and I went skiing. It felt great to get up on skis again, although I could tell I was out of practice.

Caden, Kailyn, Alan and Jordan throwing rocks into the water.

Sunday: We went to church in the afternoon. That evening we took the kids to feed some chickens. While we were there the kids enjoyed playing on the farm equipment.

l to r: Conner, Caden, Alan, Jordan, Kailyn. Everyone sitting in the shovel of a backhoe.

Conner petting the chicken.

This picture was taken right after church, and unfortunately Kailyn was tired. We had noticed that none of the kids were the same age and we wanted to take a picture oldest to youngest.

l to r: Kailyn (5), Jordan (4), Alan (3), Caden (2), Conner (1), Chase (0, actually about 6 months).

Saturday: On Saturday morning we all headed down to the lake and went canoeing. That was a lot of fun. Then it started to get hot so we all went back home for lunch and a rest and then Grandma and Grandpa Bassett brought out their own slip and slide. Their back yard is sloped so we just laid the plastic down and put the hose at the top. They also had a wading pool and they turned some of the sprinklers on. It was a great way to keep everyone cool.

I had fun chasing the kids around. It was so nice to get to know my nieces and nephews. Below I am chasing Kailyn and Jordan.

Alan on the slip and slide

Everyone enjoying the slip and slide.

At first Alan was pretty nervous about sliding down. In the picture below I think he accidently slipped while walking down it. After watching his cousins slide down he eventually started to have fun on it.

Jordan, Kailyn, Alan and Caden, having a splash party in the pool.

Conner enjoying some spray.

Conner wasn't as excited about the slide as the big kids. He did enjoy going down on Mom and Dad's laps though.

Below is a cute picture of Kailyn reading the kids a story. She is an excellent reader and the other kids (and parents) really enjoyed having her read to them.

When the kids weren't canoeing they played a bean bag game.

Ken, Caden, Kailyn, Jordan, and Reed canoeing on the lake.

Grandpa Bassett has a dirt box on his back porch that the kids (especially the boys) loved. It has little construction trucks in it and Alan and Caden spent a lot of time out there making tracks and moving the dirt around.

As you can tell it was a fun weekend. We saw Shelly on Monday evening while we were boating and we will hopefully see more of her and the kids later in August before they have to go home.

Conner walking

Conner is officially walking! He started walking in the 2nd week of July, so he was a little more than 14 months old. It was fun to watch him learn to push himself to a standing position. The first few times he tried he ended up almost doing a somersault - he bent in half at the waist with his head on the ground looking back between his legs.