Cannon got a message from Santa

Merry Christmas from Beijing

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Mom taught me fun new game... It's called "The Potty Game" and I like it a lot, because, like my mom, I get a kick out of potty humor. So here's how it goes. One of us lies on the ground knees up (the potty) and the other sits on that persons knees (the flusher). The potty person picks a finger that flushes the toilet, but does not reveal it to the flusher. The flusher pushes down fingers until he guesses the correct finger, at which time he is dropped to the ground (flushed) much to his delight! It is a fantastic game.... you should try it!

Bad Accident

This morning Cannon and I were playing trains and one of them crashed coming around a sharp turn.

"Oh no!" I said, "A bad accident! I'll call the police!"

"Yeah!" Cannon replied, "And I'll clean up the pee pee!"

Cannon is three!

Cannon turns three today. It's hard to imagine we ever lived without him.

Lately as motivation to get him to go down for nap time and bed time, I've been telling him "Dinosaur Train" stories. Inspiration for them comes from a TV show of the same name, but the stories aren't anything similar. In fact, with his recent interest in pirates, our stories typically begin with the dinosaur train picking him up at our house and going straight to the Pirate Island restaurant in Orem, which we went to last Monday for FHE. There, the pirate skeletons are found to be in some type of distress that often requires going back in time to the dinosaur age and rescuing Jack Sparrow. I ask him as we lay down where he wants the dinosaur train to go. At first he didn't have much to say, but now he goes off for a while giving me a detailed description of what he expects in the story: Jack Sparrow, triceratops, T-rex, the Black Pearl, skeletons at the pirate restaurant, etc.

It's great telling stories to three-year-olds. They don't care that you have horrible story telling skills as long as your story involves the things they're interested in and you tell it with lots of enthusiasm. Yesterday when we told Cannon it was nap time he was not at all interested. Without saying a word, I walked over to the front door and put my ear against it, trying to determine whether I was really hearing what I thought I was. Cannon became silent and watched me, quizzically. "I think I hear something!" I said in a whisper. "Do you hear it?" He didn't know what to say. "Oh my goodness. I think I hear something coming!"

"What is it?"

"I think it's... it's... the DINOSAUR TRAIN!"

"Oh, YEAH! I hear it too!" He is all smiles now and terribly excited.

"Quick! Hurry! We need to get in bed before the dinosaur train gets here!"

"Oh no! Hurry! We have to do it!"

"We have to go potty first! Hurry, let's go!" I tell him, realizing I may be pressing my luck a bit.

"Okay!" He runs into the bathroom and goes potty, then runs around and hops into bed. Yes! I am a genius! It has never been so easy to get him down for nap time. I don't know how much longer the interest will last, though. It's getting harder to think up new plot lines that involve a T-rex, a triceratops, Jack Sparrow, the black pearl, the dinosaur train, and the Pirate Island restaurant.

On Saturday we had a family birthday party for Cannon. Vard and Becky and family, Lincoln and Dorothee and family, Ardian and his girls, Evan, Uncle Bob, Mary, Grandma Wiscomb, and Matt and Carol and family all came over. We held it in the Gables clubhouse. Molly of course did a fabulous job organizing and decorating. I really didn't do much at all to help except pick up the pizzas. Molly had helium balloons, homemade root beer (which, unfortunately, didn't turn out very well--we'll have to practice!), brownies frosted as jack-o-lanterns and Jack Skellington, a pumkin pinata, and a pin-the-head on Jack Skellington game. She invited everyone to wear costumes, so Cannon got to wear his triceratops costume, which we think is adorable and he thinks is totally awesome and intimidating. Noah had a little triceratops costume to match. I'll try to post some pictures soon.

I have the coolest dad EVER!

Cannon vs. The Wasps

Cannon vs. Wasps!

Cannon had a mighty battle at his great uncle Rob's house! He was
greatly outnumbered but victory was his in the end! He managed to
find a wasps nest hidden in the playhouse tunnel. Cannon escaped with
six or seven stings (Ouch!!!) but the wasps had to face the wrath of
Uncle Rob with the pesticide. Needless to say, though he was in
rough shape, he had it better than the wasps!

Hello from Wallace, WA

My latest and greatest accomplishment is using the potty!  It took me a while, and a lot of kicking and screaming, but eventually I figured out that going potty isn't too bad!  The first day I went potty, my mom had some cool things for me... as you can see here: T-Rex P.J.'s and Dinosaur Boots!  

I also get to wear big-boy underwear, but I don't have it quite figured out yet.  

But the coolest thing about going to the potty is that I THINK I get "snack treats" (a.k.a. fruit snacks) every time I go now!  I also think that I get lots of toys as rewards, cuz my mom used them to bribe me to go in my "camping potty" and to go on a big potty without my potty seat.  See, I got Fillmore and "Famone" from the Cars movie!

Not on the walls!

Cannon loves to play with his cars, and Lightning McQueen cars have been a convenient motivation with potty training. He takes good care of them, and if one is missing we have to search the house until we find it.

We've been struggling to help him understand that he shouldn't drive them along the walls and furniture, however. Just a moment ago, he was driving a car on the wall again--but before Molly could correct him, he said to himself, "Not on the walls, sweetie!"

Hadfield Industries is pleased to announce this limited time offer:

CHILDREN FOR RENT!!!

Two models available.  Each are genuine factory originals, and come in original packaging.

2006 Model, EUC.  Must See!
This fine specimen is about 3 feet tall and sports copper colored hair and brown eyes!  Features excellent sound and clarity (as long as it is not sobbing and does not have a pacifier in its mouth).  Fast forward, Rewind, Slow and Fast motion.  Excellent bowel control (Is able to sit on toilet for an hour without any leaks!!! Will only release content when it is safely contained in diapering unit).  New features include kicking and hitting. Gently used, A few bumps and scratches. Comes complete with dictionary of dinosaur terminology!

Brand New 2009 Model!   Adorable!
This model has just arrived on our showroom floor.  This model is about 2 feet long and also features copper locks and deep blue eyes.  Settings include Random Sleep Mode (Will wake up one, two, three, four, five, six, or even seven times in one night!) and Eject (Able to project bodily fluids intermittently from alternating sides of the body).

Warning:
Both models are able to break hearts with a single smile!

Terms and Conditions:
Limited time offer.  Subject to change depending on the mood of mother.  All models must be relinquished to parents upon request, or as soon as sleep quota has been filled, whichever comes first.

The T-Rex comes back to his wife!!

Cannon's new favorite movie is Night at the Museum. He particularly loves when the T-Rex skeleton comes to life. Here's an audio recording of him explaining what happens. (Earlier, he was also explaining that the Dum Dum comes back to his wife, but we couldn't get him to repeat it for the recorder.)

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

West Provo Story

Molly and I were asked to supervise our ward's entry for the Stake Video Night (a road show replacement). The video was supposed to involve people from all the auxiliaries, include a dance scene, a stunt, and bloopers, be 7-15 minutes long, G-rated, and geared to an LDS audience. It was a big time commitment at a time we don't have much time to spare, but it was fun. Kinda feels like it did at the end of a semester back when I was in school--the adrenaline rush mixed with exhaustion from completing something that you couldn't figure out how in the world you'd be able to finish by the deadline. :-)

(Update: If you have fast Internet, you can watch it with higher resolution here here.)

T-Rex Boat

This morning I woke up at 6:30 and wanted to do draw on the computer with Dad. We made a boat with an alligator and lots of T-Rexes.

Yooster Eggs!

Cannon loves Easter. Well, he loves finding Easter eggs, especially when they have candy in them. On Saturday he called them "Yooster Eggs." Today he started saying the word correctly, so I quickly re-trained him to call them Yooster Eggs.

For Family Home Evening tonight we went to Nana's house, where Grandma and Grandpa Plumb are visiting, and we brought a little basket of mostly empty plastic eggs for him to find. Cannon was absolutely thrilled to find the eggs and didn't seem to mind that almost all of them were empty. After he had found all the eggs and brought them back to show mom and Nana, I would sneak them away and hide them again. Once he caught me taking them out of his basket and was upset about it, so I put them back in the basket and waited for him to go look for some more before taking them out again. As long as he didn't see me taking the eggs out, he didn't seem to think anything of the fact that he kept putting more and more eggs into the basket, yet it never filled up.

On the Saturday before Easter, a family in our neighborhood invites everyone over to their cul-de-sac for an Easter egg hunt. All the children are supposed to bring a dozen eggs, and the parents bring a breakfast dish. Cannon brought his twelve eggs but had no interest in giving them up to be hidden. He was pretty content with what he already had, but he did find a few more eggs and added them to his collection.

(This is the same cul-de-sac that turns into Cul-de-sac of Fire on July 4th, which you have to experience to believe. It seriously becomes a battle scene from a WWII movie, with fireworks going off everywhere all at once in every direction, kids running around crazy with matches, fireworks, and sparklers. You have to be constantly on the lookout for fireworks coming toward you.)

We have an awesome neighborhood.

"It's a baby brother...It's Noah!"

Befriending the serpent

Dad says I should be careful about the friends I hang out with. Not like this hamster.

The baby brother is here!

Noah Layne Hadfield

2:25pm March 17, 2009
21" 8 lbs 8 oz

Another red head! He and mom are doing great.

Now we can go camping!!!

This morning I had breakfast with my dinosaurs.

I wore my new dinosaur P.J.s that mom bought me, because I'm a sad guy whenever my T-rex P.J.s that Aunt Trisa bought me are dirty (which is most the time,  because every time they are clean I wear them as soon as possible).

My dinosaurs like to eat sausage... and horse.

"Smile for the orange!"

Recently Cannon has started adding his own contributions when we pray. Typically our prayers begin, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for ... " and we help him list the things we're about to eat, or experiences we had during the day, or people we got to be with. We love when he ignores our promptings and comes up with his own material instead.

Tonight, after getting together with several family members to celebrate my birthday, he did not feel ready to go to sleep even though it was 9:00pm, 30 minutes past his usual bedtime. He threw a little fit and tried to climb out of his bed, but I laid him down on his pillow and gently but firmly held him from leaving. He protested and cried but eventually calmed down. I said cheerfully, "Okay, Cannon, it's prayer time! It's Daddy's turn to help. Dear Heavenly Father..."

There was a pause, and I figured I'd be praying alone tonight. But then he sadly muttered back, "Father," still sniffling.

"Thank you for cousins," I suggested.

Almost in tears: "Thank you for Cannon could be a sad guy."

Molly and I tried to hold back our impulse to laugh, but at the same time it broke our hearts.

"Heavenly Father, please help Cannon not to be a sad guy," I said, as I gently rubbed his back.

Still hurting, he sadly replied: "Please bless we could go to dinosaur museum tomorrow."

I continued prompting him through the remainder of it, thanking Heavenly Father for nursery day, our yummy dinner, etc., but he was done and didn't speak another word. 

Baseball in the living room!

The only thing better than playing baseball in the living room is playing baseball in the living room naked. Unfortunately I don't think this passes Google's decency policy, so you'll have to come to our house if want to see the rest of the movie.