All About Conner

The last 6 six weeks or so I've been working nearly everyday while my work filled a full time position so there hasn't been much excitement around here, and if there had been I wouldn't have had time to write about it. But our little guy has been growing so much lately so I thought I'd write about him. At his 18 month well visit Conner weighed 21.13 pounds falling into the 18th percentile and was 31 inches tall, growing into the 9th percentile for height. He has lost the little baby fat that he had and is just a skinny little guy now. When I see him in just his diaper he seems so tall and skinny to me, but clearly he's still pretty short.

 This is probably the last time I will get to see him squeeze into his little bucket :(

Working hard like his parents

Cade and I were eating dinner and I looked over and could only see the top of his head and wondered how he was so tall. He just sat there watching tv with only one wheel actually on the box. 

He has started talking a lot more. There's probably only 10-15 words that he really says but he imitates new words everyday. Since we only tend to hear those words once or twice I don't count them in his vocabulary. His first and still one of his favorite words was "uh-oh". He also frequently says "ease" (for please), daddy, mama, "ba" (ball), book, bubbles, truck, and doggy (which sounds just like daddy and you just have to know which one he is talking about). For a long time he said "eye" (hi) but then he started saying "hewo" (hello) instead. It drove me crazy when he was always saying hi and bubbles but NEVER bye bye when he had all the sounds, but he finally got that word down too. Months ago he defiantly said "no" to me twice but then dropped that and hasn't said it again. Now he always says uh-uh (or however you spell the negative of that) and we have to interpret when he really means yes or uh-huh. The other day he put his first two words together "daddy bye bye". And the most impressive speech thing he has done was at dinner the other night when I told him to fold his arms to pray he said "dear heavenly father":) Of course it wasn't very clear, I'm mean none of those words are even in his vocabulary but he used completely the correct intonation and syllables at just the right moment and we didn't even say it first. Can you tell what my profession is by my high interest in his speech? And I have to give a shout out to Richelle and her wise words to Cade and getting him on board with getting rid of the bottle. Conner is now bottle free. However we are still struggling to get liquids into this kid who has very little interest in drinking. If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears, he only drinks about one sippy cup an entire day.

 Enjoying a little shaving cream fun

And now enjoying a little whipped cream. I must think he is extra cute in this shirt since I seem to only take pictures of him when he wears it.

Conner's molluscum contagiosum is almost gone. He just has a few papules left on his arms but his back is finally all clear. As it was going away though it turned into molluscum dermatitis, basically really bad excema. He scratches at it alot and after finding his back all bloody after a nap one day we got some prescription creams to get rid of it. Weeks later it is looking much better but he is still having flare ups and scratching at times.

He still loves climbing, but thankfully he has also gotten more obedient and usually only climbs on things he can handle. He can climb up and flop into a playpen but thankfully he hasn't figured out how to get into or out of his crib yet. He loves playing with other kids and the other day after I told him his friend was coming over he stood at the window whining until she arrived. He also LOVES dogs and being outside. He also is getting assertive about what he wears. He has this one pair of striped socks and whenever he sees them he MUST wear them. He won't let anything else go on his feet. So we have to hide them in the dirty clothes so that he doesn't notice them until they're clean again. Sometimes he also insists on putting on a certain pair of pajama pants, even if its on top of the pants he's already wearing.

Enjoying his time at the Fathers and Sons campout

Loving on Elsa, the Van Dyks dog. We stayed the weekend at their house and every time Conner woke up in the morning or from a nap he looked all over for her and gave her hugs. 

Nursery is going well. He never has any problems and we even went to a different ward one Sunday and they said he was great. We usually have to sit with him for about 3 minutes and then sneak out. I don't think he would need us to stay at all except that his nursery starts with all the kids doing puzzles quietly in the beginning and Conner is not interested in puzzles so its a little hard to get him excited to be in there right away. We started using Love and Logic with Conner, its a certain parenting/disciplining style. Its been working really well and everyone who babysits him tells me how great he is. I had to smile tonight when my friend told me this story: Some young women were watching our kids, plus some others, while we were in a class and she heard her kid screaming. So she left to go get him and the young women started telling her how great Conner was being! She said she didn't know why they had to rub it in. I thought it was pretty funny. But I probably just cursed myself and now he'll be a rotten monster.  

 We took some family pictures but Conner was a beast and would not cooperate at all. It really sucked, so we didn't get too many pictures. I really like this one for some reason, but it isn't too flattering to Cade.

Conner has become such a snuggler. I LOVE it. He gives hugs and kisses all the time.

This is the ONLY real family picture we got and it isn't great. You can see the frustration all over my face.

We just love our little guy and all the new things he is doing, but we're both sad that he is growing so fast.

Softball Injury

Cade has joined a softball team in our town with a bunch of guys from our ward. He's lucky he was allowed on the team because they are a bit hardcore and essentially hold try outs. In my opinion the whole thing was dumb because its all the guys who have been on the team for years plus Cade and one other person who tried out. But they needed two more people anyway so why bother with try outs? Anyway, he was excited to make the cut.

During the last practice before their first game Cade was being an outfielder. He went to catch a low flying fly ball and as he went to "trap" the ball it came in and smashed his finger. (For those of you who are as unfamiliar with sports vernacular as I am, "trapping" is apparently when you catch a ball with both your glove and free hand, to trap it in the glove.) So he jammed his finger really good and his his nail got ripped back. Its kind of funny that he purposely clipped his fingernails before the practice just so something like that wouldn't happen, but it did anyway. Luckily, he was smart and took his ring off immediatly because it soon swelled up really bad.

Somebody on the team was prepared with some bandages. They wrapped up his finger and he continued playing for another half hour or so. He said it just immediately went numb and didn't start hurting until after he came home. As you can see blood was squirting everywhere and he had it all over his arm, his clothes and even some on the outside of the car. Funny story about that: I was at the paint store later that day and notice a painter parked next to me and then leave later. When I got to my car I saw this red paint on the car and was so annoyed at this painter. I scraped it off with my finger and licked my finger a few times to really "wash" it off. Then I get home and tell Cade about it and he informs me that was his blood I was licking. Yummy.

Its just starting to swell up at this time.

Here you can see how his nail if halfway off and his finger is more swollen. We didn't get any really good pictures of the swelling but it was about twice its normal size. And it kept bleeding and oozing for about 4 days.

Mr. and Mrs. Entrekin

Ashley and Blake got married over Easter weekend in the Mt. Timpanogos temple. Its a shame they picked that weekend because then Cade and I missed the annual Lake Mead trip, but such is life and we were all able to carry on :)

 
Its getting more difficult to fly with Conner. He no longer falls asleep on the plane even if he is very tired and of course he hates sitting there and wants to climb all over everything. It wasn't too bad on the flight there because we intentionally booked seats behind the Jensens and Conner got to climb back and forth, but the way home was a bit of a challenge.  The Jensens and R.J. and Jen flew home together Saturday night, but we flew home Sunday morning so there wasn't anyone for Conner to climb to.

We arrived Friday, the day before the wedding, and it was super cold. And I was so mad at myself for not even thinking about bringing my nice coat for the wedding. I hardly ever have a reason to wear it and here was the most perfect reason and I didn't even bring it. But thankfully the next day was great weather and I didn't even need a jacket so I was no longer mad at myself. We had a nice dinner with family and close friends on Friday night. Thankfully for Cade and I, grandpa and grandma sat with us and they helped take turns entertaining Conner and that was no easy task. He had no desire to sit and eat peacefully with us. Sarah pointed out to me later that every time she looked over at our table someone was missing because they were off with Conner.

Saturday morning a few of us went and got the clubhouse decorated for the reception. Luckily Ashley kept things fairly low key so there wasn't a ton of set up involved. As we were all loading up in the cars to head over to the temple Cade informed me that he left his recommend at the hotel. Typical. I wasn't going to risk missing the wedding so I went with Carol Ann. Luckily Conner fell asleep on his drive over and Emma was so kind and sat in the car with him and just waited for us  to come out. I was beginning to think Cade wouldn't make it in time, but he did, with about 5 minutes to spare. And surprisingly he wasn't the last to arrive.

After the ceremony we decided to take advantage of the beautiful scenery and take a few pictures. Is it just me or does anyone else feel like Utah gets some of the prettiest temples?

At the reception they had a crepe bar with lots of delicious toppings. It was really good, I was bummed I only had time to eat 2. I really wanted more, but its difficult to eat such things while dealing with a 16 month old in a crowded place. Luckily, I got a stash of goods from the candy table for later. I had a good time visiting with family that live in Utah, and California, and Oregon that I don't get to see very often.

I've always known Conner had my lips, but I didn't realize we had the same goofy smile until I saw this picture.

A few weeks later the newlyweds had an open house in Mesa. This one was more fun because I knew almost everyone and got to visit with old friends from the ward and catch up with my prettiest cousins (who in fact are the inspiration for this post and the next 3 that I promised them :) We're also still enjoying our cheese cakes.

Conner had such a great time hanging out with his cousins after the festivities. He happily stayed up until 10:30, but he was not so happy during church the next morning.

The Zoo!

Some friends of mine decided that we needed to take a trip down to the Phoenix Zoo with our kids. So on February 15th (I know, I'm slow in getting to this) we loaded into 2 minivans and headed down there. Conner and I rode with Mackenzie's crew and Jenny and Whitley followed in the other van. A couple of interesting things happened when we first got there. Makenzie and I were getting our kids and strollers out of the van and waiting for the other girls to do the same. We were standing in 2 parking spots and some other car stopped and wanted to get in one of the spots. Even though there were seriously tons of other spaces available we gathered all of our stuff and kids into one spot. We assumed the incoming vehicle would take the spot we just emptied out of, but no. It just sat there waiting and we just stood there staring until they pulled into the spot we were still standing in! We couldn't believe it, we cleared out a spot just for them and it wasn't good enough, they HAD to have the spot we were in which was of course right next to the other one. We, being sane people, gathered everyone up again and moved to the other spot while we waited. But its one of those moments when you really want to go back in time and change things. I would really like that moment back and keep standing there so the crazy lady wouldn't get to park there, although she may have just run us over instead. Clearly, I'm still amazed by her stupidity and rudeness. The other interesting thing though was when we were walking into the zoo we saw a nice little polygamist family. One husband, FOUR wives, and two children. I'm just so surprised that there were more wives than kids. I'm sure plenty of kids were still at home or something, but if you are going to drive all the way to Phoenix you would think you would bring more kids.

But after all that excitement it was on to the animals. We took about 12 pictures to try and get all the kids looking and this was the only one that Conner was even looking forward in. The rest he was either turned around or had just walked right out of the picture.

This was one of the few times Conner actually looked at an animal, here he is checking out the tiger.

He looks so inquisitive, doesn't he?

The second group picture went a little better. There's everyone starting with Sara Grace, Emiline, James, Conner, Sophi, Morgan, and Jackson

Here's a good example of Conner at the zoo. Look closely and right next to his face is the rhino resting. For the life of me I couldn't get Conner to look over at the rhino, he just did his own thing like look at birds that we could see anyday. Here there is some little deer like animal, but I don't remember what it actually was.

At least he was aware enough of this animal to let the guy know where it was. I was actually really proud of Conner pointing because I had recently read an article on the importance of pointing at his age and although he occasionally pointed to things he didn't do it near often enough. So for a couple of weeks I had been working on teaching him to point and he caught on really fast. Apparently the problem was simply us being bad examples and not pointing to things ourselves, but he's got it down now.

Gotta love those colorful butts.

Here's the kids admiring the monkey butts, or in Conner's case, enjoying climbing on something.

Mackenzie has this awesome stroller that can also be used as a bike trailer and its big enough for 3 kids.

Makenzie and her kids

Turtles in love

Sophi got a little too excited at lunch and somehow took a nose dive into the dirt and got quite a mouthful.

 The zoo has a Little People play area that is super cute and was Conner's favorite part.

He's been around animals plenty of times and has never been afraid, but for some reason when the kids got to go pet the cows he just stayed behind his stroller 20 feet away. It was very uncharacteric of him, but cute.

This was one of the few times Jackson got out of his stroller. I couldn't believe how content that kid was to sit in his stroller for hours, I was jealous.

Another favorite part for Conner was climbing on the tractor. Everyone else went off to the petting zoo but we had to stick with the tractor for an extra 20 minutes or so.

Eventually we made it to the petting zoo. Conner didn't act frightened at all but this was as close as he got to anything. He just kept going from one animal to look at it and then quickly move on to another. It might have helped if I had shown him how to pet them or something, but if he didn't care then I certainly saw no need to do it either.

Sara Grace, on the other hand, loved the goats.

Just hanging out in the strollers.

At this moment all the kids are enjoying the zebra but Conners making a beeline to some stairs. And that is a statue of a zebra you see, the real ones are behind him.

Gotta love naptime after a fun day. This nap didn't actually last very long, Conner can't get comfortable in his forward facing car seat since it doesn't recline enough to sleep. But the next day was great because he slept in an extra hour and then took a four hour nap to make up for it.

The zoo turned out to be pretty fun and the kids were very well behaved for not getting naps until much later than usual. Conner was a little young to enjoy the animals but he still had fun being there and getting to run around outside for hours.



Quad Ride

We have been storing Cade's parents' quad in our garage for months and finally decided to take advantage of it a couple of weeks ago. I told Cade to make sure it would be short because I figured Conner would get bored of it and then be really cranky when we were miles from our car. We went up to Mingus Mountain. We put Conner in between us so it wasn't so windy on his face and I figured it would be too hard to drive and hold a baby safely. Even though he couldn't see or move much, Conner just LOVED it.

Here he is getting all ready to go.

We came to a dead end after about 20 minutes and I figured we should let Conner walk around a little before we kept going but as soon as I tried to take him off he just had a fit. So we kept going. By the time we got to our destination he was at least willing to get off for a few pictures.

But then he was happy to get right back on. I think he could have ridden that thing for hours. But Cade and I had already arranged to take him to a sitter while we went to a Sundogs game so we only had about an hour and a half. On our way back to the car, that crazy kid just fell asleep! I don't get babies, if you have a quiet phone conversation on the other side of the house they wake up screaming from their naps, but yet they can fall asleep while riding such a loud quad on a bumpy road! Conner already loved climbing on the quad when we were in the garage, but now everytime he sees it he freaks out to get on it and I'm starting to have to put him in the car from the other side so that we can avoid the meltdown.

Here is Cade with the treats we bought at the game.

And here is as picture of Conner sporting the bruise (minus the goose egg) he got at the sitter's that night. He loves doing the abslide after Cade does.