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!"