A New Christmas Tradition

Blaine and I talked about starting the "Elf on the Shelf" Christmas tradition before we had kids. We thought we would start this year since Cannon is old enough to understand that the elf is watching his every move and will tell Santa if he has been good or bad. So far, Hermy (the name we have chosen for the elf), has become very helpful in ending Cannon's terrible two tantrums! Cannon has also enjoyed looking for the elf each day, as he moves to a different location every night. If you have never heard of the Elf on the Shelf, google it! It really is the cutest tradition to start with a family of young kids.

Chuck E Cheese?...Yes Please!

Whenever my parents are in town, they like to take Cannon to Chuck E Cheese. Since I had not been there in years, I thought it would be fun to take Cannon there this weekend. We met up with Cannon and Riley's Aunt Haley, who brought Blaine's Aunt Mo's kids with her since she was watching them for the weekend. I think Cannon and his second cousins had a lot of fun! Even though Cannon was much too short to play most of the games there, he sure did love the basketball hoop game and got creative in getting the ball into the hoop...


When not playing the basketball hoop game, Cannon had fun riding the rides by himself and with his cousins, Jack and Cory.





Cannon, after his fun-filled afternoon at Chuck E Cheese's, watching his favorite movie, Mulan (he has been singing the lyrics from the song, "Be a Man", for the passed few weeks now from watching the movie so much). He had a great day!


I also wanted to add a couple pictures of my little three month old. She is growing too fast!

Halloween Costumes and Pumpkins

I was scheduled to work on Halloween but was called off last minute. It was great to be able to be home and go trick or treating with Cannon, while Blaine and Riley stayed home to pass out candy. When we first started trick or treating, Cannon kept telling me, "I'm going to get more candy, more candy!",after walking away from each house. He was so excited! However, after a little over an hour of walking up and down stairs of houses and streets in our neighborhood, Cannon pooped out...he made that point clear the moment he walked up to a house, handed me his pumpkin bucket filled with candy, and sat on the steps instead of walking up them to get more candy. :) Once home, Cannon went straight to his candy, like every kid does, and had fun opening the door to the last of the trick or treaters for the night. I think he enjoyed his first trick or treating experience! Here are some pictures of our little dragon and lady bug:







Blaine wanted to put his old Halloween wig on for fun before I took Cannon out. The funniest part was how scared Cannon was of the wig. He didn't even want to touch it! Cannon kept saying, "I don't like that wig"! I don't think Blaine helped the situation much by talking like Larry the Cable guy while wearing it. :)





Earlier last week we carved the two pumpkins we grew in our backyard. I still can't believe we actually grew them! Here are some pictures (the two middle pumpkins are the ones we grew):

Halloween is Here, Baby!

Since I have to work on Halloween this year and will not be able to watch Cannon go trick or treating for the first time (sad!), I thought it would be fun to dress the kids up in their Halloween costumes for some early Halloween fun. Cannon is going to be a dragon and Riley a ladybug this year. Blaine's aunt Mo was very nice in giving us one of her son's old Halloween costumes, which just happened to be a dragon, and fits Cannon perfectly! Cannon LOVES the dragon costume and wants to wear it all the time. I bought him a Halloween book about a week ago that has a line in it that says, "the fiercest dino in the land"! So, when wearing the dragon costume, Cannon likes to stand up on the ottoman and shout, "I'm the fiercest dino in the land"!...it's pretty cute. And really, dinosaurs are pretty much the same thing as dragons, right?

So anyway, last Friday we took our little dragon and lady bug to Gardner Village to see the witch display. When we told Cannon on Thursday night what we were planning on doing the next day, he could not stop talking about "seeing the witches". This made me really excited to take him and see his reaction to the witches this year, since last year he was afraid of them. Even though this second time around was a little better, it was easy to tell Cannon was still a little scared of the green faced gals and wouldn't stand alone next to one. :)

This week will be filled with more fall fun carving pumpkins, making caramel apples, and getting some pre-Halloween candy at our ward's "trunk or treat" at church. Also, this weekend we are planning on dressing up the kids for the Halloween Spooktacular event at the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. If anyone wants to meet us at the museum this weekend, let me know! It looks like it will be fun!

To Potty Train, or Not to Potty Train?...that is the question these days

Blaine has been wanting to potty train Cannon since he began to walk...ridiculous, I know! Now that we are changing many more diapers each day, thanks to Riley, Blaine is determined to get Cannon potty trained more sooner than later. I must admit, with Cannon's five pound diapers these days, I would love to have him potty trained as well! However, I also know and have heard that a child will become potty trained when he or she is ready. With that said, I am not sure that Cannon is quite ready for this step.

A few months ago we bought Cannon a little potty at Walmart. He was very interested in the new potty for the first few days. However, after three or four days of sitting on the potty and "attempting" to use it, Cannon lost interest. It wasn't until yesterday that Blaine broke it out again and gave it another try with Cannon. And, like the few times before, Cannon sat and sat on the potty without any results. Today he has been using it as a step stool and secret storage place for his toys...not what we had in mind. :) So, even though Blaine is pushing for the potty training to be started ASAP, I want to wait...for now. Right now I just don't have the time or energy to sit with Cannon for 15+ minutes every 1-2 hours, while he tries to go to the bathroom throughout the day, or the time/energy to clean up his "accidents". Having a toddler and a newborn at the same time is hard work!

I think for now, we will just wait until Cannon shows more interest in the potty and is dry for longer than 2 hours at a time. Then, we will work on the potty training...hopefully!

For Grandma Debbie and Grandma Seana

Cannon said it best of his little sister when he spoke of her this morning...
"We have to be careful with baby Rye, she's precious"! Precious indeed.

Smiley Riley

What a dreary day outside! Even though I do love the rain, I was hoping it would be nice out so I could take my energetic toddler to the park. Some days, like today, are park days...days where I don't feel like entertaining Cannon and would much rather take a walk down to the park, where I can just sit and watch him play to his heart's content. Unfortunately, the rainy weather didn't allow for a park day today. Instead, I decided to be brave and take both kids to the mall for a couple of hours. I must admit, I felt pretty silly carrying one kid in a front carrier pack and pushing another in a stroller, but we made it! I enjoyed some retail therapy, Cannon enjoyed some candy and playing at the dino playground inside the mall, and Riley enjoyed a nice little nap on her mommy. It was the perfect day for a mall trip, soup for lunch, and baking cookies. We enjoyed all of these things this afternoon except for the cookies, because we are currently out of eggs and a trip to the grocery store in the rain did not, and still does not, seem worth it.

Along with our trip to the mall, I took some cute pictures of Riley. This post is pretty much just an excuse to show some pictures of her smiling today. Riley's smiles are getting bigger, cuter, and more frequent now. I love it! She is getting so big these days.





When I finally got Cannon to sit on the couch to take some pictures with Riley, she was done smiling, of course! Oh well, I still got a few pictures of Cannon giving loves to his little sister...he sure does love giving her kisses and hugs!

Cannon is Two!

We celebrated Cannon's 2nd birthday last night, on his birthday. Even though Cannon is probably still a little too young for a birthday party, I decided to have a small one anyway. A few of Cannon's cute little church friends came over to celebrate his birthday, as well as a few uncles and aunts and friends of ours. We had a dinosaur themed party, where the kids wore dinosaur party hats and went on a dinosaur egg hunt in our backyard. The weather was perfect and the kids played outside until it was dark and time to come inside for presents. All in all I think the party went well and Cannon had a lot of fun playing with his friends! Happy Birthday to my big two year old boy!

Because my mom was not able to celebrate Cannon's birthday, she asked me to post lots of pictures so she could feel a part of it too. That is the reason for the many pictures below.

Opening his dinosaur presents from mom and dad in the morning:




Party Decorations:







Party Time!:



















Blaine's brother, Phil, was also able to come to Cannon's birthday because he leaves for the MTC today, to prepare himself to serve a LDS mission to Brazil. We will miss you uncle Phil! See you in two years!