New Year's Eve 2014

  Grandma and Grandpa Cannon's house is truly a fun place for grandkids. 

Grandma Cannon is always saying that she wants the kids to have fun and have great memories of their home, and I think she has gone above and beyond.

This year they set up lots of different carnival type games throughout the house. First the kids went, and then the adults. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of that part of the evening, but it was really fun.

After all the games were done we tallied up the scores and the highest scorers for different games got prizes.

These laser guns were some of the prizes the kids got.

  At "midnight" (8:30 or so) we did a countdown and celebrated the New Year with horns, noisemakers and balloons.

When it was the New Year Grandpa Cannon and Russell dumped a bunch of balloons from the loft on top of all the boys. The funny part is that they boys were concentrating so hard on their horns and noisemakers that they didn't even notice the balloons! It was pretty hilarious.

Chase also started mastering the stairs. He fell once, but he looked like he was having fun and was so proud of himself.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2014

  Christmas this year was such a fun day.

Christmas morning before the two little tornadoes hit.

  We had a nice Christmas morning at home opening presents and had breakfast with Grandma Stark.

These boys totally scored. I mostly got videos of the kids opening their presents, so unfortunately there's not much to put on here.

Tanner's favorite gifts were his Paw Patrol action figures and his bike.

Chase seems like he is really liking his elephant and train.

We then went to Grandma and Grandpa Richens' house for more presents and dinner.

I couldn't help myself! He was playing with a bunch of ribbons and paper from the presents, so I just had to stick one on his head. So cute!

Tanner received another bike from Great Grandma and Grandpa! This one is a glider bike and will be the perfect transition to his bigger bike (since it's a little too big for him, oops)

Of course his favorite each year is Great Grandpa's train.

IN n OUT 2.0

9 Months Old!

My crazy kid!

This month has been a fun one. 

A little bit of you being a mama's boy came back, but not terribly. As long as whoever is able to distract you with something you do well. You also look for Daddy and me as we hand you over to someone to see if it is ok. I can't remember what Grandma Cannon called it, but she says it is a very good thing to look for us to approve and that it is ok to go to someone else.

You are talking up a storm finally! You are saying "mama," "dada," and tons of other consonants and sounds. One of our favorites that you do right now is this little Chewbacca noise. I call you a baby Chewy, or baby wookie. It is so funny and you do it all the time.

You are getting even faster with your crawling and cruising. Lately you like to come up behind Daddy or me and pulling yourself up on our legs. That makes it a little difficult to move or to even pick you up since it's hard to turn around without moving our legs and cause you to fall. You seem to have figured that out that it will immobilize us for a moment because you laugh so much when you do it.

We have tried stage 3 baby foods with you but you are still gagging on any that have chunks of veggies or noodles in them. I gave you some small pieces of bread last night and you did really well, so hopefully we're making progress.

You are very interested in your tongue right now. You are constantly sticking it out, moving it around and licking almost anything you can get to. You don't really put things in your mouth very much. Which is nice, but also makes it hard for you to start eating more solid things and feeding yourself. We'll get there though, I'm sure.

Still 2 bottom teeth. But you can see 4 top teeth working their way down. Nothing has popped through yet. You sure are drooling and chewing on your fingers a lot. So we'll see when that will happen.

Yesterday at your well child visit you are in the 25% for height and have dropped down to the 10% for weight. That alarmed me a little, but I'm also not very surprised with how active you are. I asked if that is something to be worried about and your Dr said no, but he's going to check you again at a year old and see if we need to look into power packing. I'm sure you're fine though since Daddy and I are not very big people and your big brother Tanner is a shrimp. Looks like you're just tall and skinny! 

You are out of 3-6 month clothes now. There are a couple of onesies that still fit you. I have also gotten out more 6-9 clothes. I'm also probably going to get out some 9 month clothes soon. You legs are so long that your footie pajamas and pants always seem too short.

Weight: 18 pounds

Height: 29 inches

We love you!

xoxo

mamamamama and dadadadadadada

Silver Rush

  This year Riverton High School chose Intermountain Healing Hearts for their charity to donate to for their annual Silver Rush.

These teenagers were so amazing with all of our Heart kids! It was so touching to watch them play and interact with these little kids. It really gives you hope for humanity.

They had many activities going on for 3 weeks to raise money and have fun with these kids.

On night they had a tailgate party before a basketball game. We had pizza, did activities and Santa came!

 

They were both looking at the camera and not crying! Although as soon as Chase turned his head and noticed who was holding him he started to lose it until Kollin rushed forward and picked him back up. It was pretty funny.

These girls were Tanner's "buddies" for the night. They were so fun and he just fell in love with them.

 

The last day of Silver Rush many of us went to the closing assembly.

They had a few videos that just made you cry, and at the very end they pulled up this banner with the total amount that they raised for IHH! 

Needless to say there was not a dry eye in the entire gym. Even the tough looking teenage boys were crying and hugging everyone. 

It was such a breath of fresh air to see how much these high school students care and truly cared for our children.

(yes, that is a 1 at the top!)

George I Cannon Christmas Party 2014

 

This year was the first year my family did a George I Cannon Christmas Party. Since we are no longer doing George J Cannon Christmas Parties, and they have been moved to the summer, this was a perfect thing to take that place.

Spending time with all of my aunts, uncles and cousins is getting fewer and further between, so this was perfect and so fun. 

Festival of Trees 2014

 

  We went to the Festival of Trees again this year.

It was so fun to see all of our Heart friends' trees and spend time together as a family!

Christmas Crafts

  I got my craft on again this year! It took a little motivation, but I finally did it.

 

Chase's sillohette ornament.

Tanner and Chase's first year ornaments. I don't think I'm going to do this every year like I was planning. We'll see.

Finally got Chase's stocking done! I've since changed the Christmas lights to bells with holly leaves and berries though.

Chase's first Christmas hand print ornament.

Happy Thanksgiving!

8 Months Old!

This boy!

You are starting to get really really fun. And busy. And a little accident prone.

You are getting really quick with your crawling and cruising on furniture. We're predicting you'll be walking pretty early. You are getting so adventurous that you are getting some pretty good bonks on your head. You have fallen off our bed a couple more times (I feel terrible!) and have pulled chairs and garbage cans over on yourself. You don't ever cry for long though. I think it is more of a scare than you getting hurt. We also can't put you in socks or footie pajamas very often right now even with it being so cold. You will pull yourself up on something in the kitchen and slip on the tile and do a face plant. You are definitely our crazy active boy.

You have a second bottom tooth now and you love to use it! You love to chomp down on your spoons, people's fingers, clothes and blankets, and me while I'm nursing you. We need to figure out a way to stop that ok? No sign of top teeth yet.

I'm knocking on wood, but it seems like you are improving with your mama's boy-ness. You got worse for a little while and then all of the sudden about a week or so ago it seems you are over it. I really hope that sticks since I feel so bad when you freak out if Grandma or Grandpa Cannon try to hold you! The last time you saw them you did much much better, so we're hoping!

Just a couple days before Halloween while we were carving pumpkins you said "dada!" Daddy and I barely caught it and realized that's what you said. But you haven't done it since. Still no other consonants that I've noticed, but that's probably not saying much. "Mama" would be nice though. *wink wink*

Apparently from my measurements last month you haven't grown in height a whole lot, so you are still in some 3-6 month clothes. Although I have put most of them away. 6 month and 6-9 month clothes fit you great right now. Still in size 3 diaper, and I just noticed the other day that those look ginormous on you. So we may have jumped the gun a little, but size 2's seemed pretty small. So I'll just call you an inbetweener right now.

You are doing so well at eating solid baby foods. I can't remember if I've ever really mentioned this before. Although you are not that big of a fan of anything really solid in your mouth. I have tried giving you a teeny tiny piece of bread as well as a tiny piece of a baby puff. As soon as either of those touch your tongue you do this gag reflex. You'll eventually gum it and swallow, but you're not too happy during the process. So we'll wait a little longer on that.

Weight: 18.4 pounds (home scale)

Height: 27.5 inches

This is the baby stage I have been waiting for and it is so much fun! Thank you for letting us join you in this adventure. We love you!

xoxo

mommy and daddy

Football Family ~ Halloween 2014

  Halloween was a success this year!

Grandpa Stark sent us jerseys from the Dallas Cowboys stadium a few years ago and Tanner is just about to grow out of his. So we figured we'd have him wear it as his Halloween costume one last time. 

It was so fun and easy to put these 2 costumes together. Hopefully it will remain this easy for years to come, but I doubt it.

Our little Witten (Cowboys football player) and his little football

I am their biggest fan!

We went to Grandma Stark's work to go trick-or-treating like we do every year. This year Troy, Crystal and Cadence came with us. Her work really decked out different areas to make it so fun for the kids. 

Grandma and the kids in the Alice in Wonderland section.

We went trick-or-treating up in Grandma and Grandpa Cannon's neighborhood again this year. Grandpa came along with us and Grandma stayed at the house to divvy out the candy. Tanner had a blast and Chase did really well too.

I got all of our pumpkins set up on our front porch before we left.

Our football family. Kollin decided he wanted to dress up 20's style as well as a combo of the team owner. It worked out great!

Grandma Stark and her munchkins.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Party at Grandma and Grandpa Cannon's

  Grandma and Grandpa Cannon threw a fund Halloween party for the cousins the other night.

Grandma Cannon always has the coolest activities for these rambunctious boys!

They did a treasure hunt through the house that ended with a treasure chest with many prizes, carved pumpkins, had pumpkin pizza, decorated pumpkin shaped cookies and played shadow games.

All of the boys had so much fun I'm sure they all had a good night's sleep (at least Tanner and Chase did).

Cookie decorating. Tanner loves Ben and Cole so much! He loves following them around and looks up to them. They are both so sweet to him.

Case in point that Chase is quite the mama's boy right now. I felt so bad that he would constantly cry when my dad would try to hold him. He even tried to distract him with so many things but nothing worked.

The shadow games were really fun! Grandma had some ghost and bat shapes that they flew around in front of a flashlight. And then they each got a flashlight and every light in the house was turned out. They were running around having a grand time. 

Scott and Britta went out for Britta's birthday and they came home while this was going on. They thought everyone might have left since it was pitch black in the house. Until they heard the yells and screams of little boys running around with flashlights.

Pumpkin #6!

Tanner's pumpkin that he (I) carved. He got tired with trying to hammer those dots it because it was really pretty tough to do. So I took over and made a cute face. I've never seen these before and it's like Light Bright pumpkins!

Pumpkin Carving 2014

  We had some great pumpkin carving shenanigans going on in this house.

Tanner really got involved this year and loved helping us scoop out the pumpkin guts. 

Chase loved trying to grab any slimy thing he could see. We were mostly able to satisfy him with a spoon to throw around.

 

 

 

 Kollin gutted most of the pumpkins and I ended up carving all of them. It was pretty fun to get my creative juices going since we had 5 pumpkins to carve (4 from when we went to the pumpkin patch and 1 from Tanner's field trip to the pumpkin patch).

We couldn't find the lights we put in our pumpkins last year so I just stuck a flashlight in them just to see what they looked like lit up.

Big smilie face and Jack Skellington

CHD Awarness and little smile

All of them together and big toothy smile

Halloween Time at Pre-School

I volunteered for a day during the week of Halloween at Tanner's Pre-school. 

It was pretty fun and I got to see more of what they do and how Tanner behaves.

He was pretty good except for him occasionally wanting to ask me for things or tattling to me. I had to keep telling him that he had to talk to his teachers and that I wasn't there.

Overall it was a great experience for all of us.

The day I volunteered was the day they went trick-or-treating through the high school. It was so cute to watch these tiny kids walking through huge groups of high school kids that were on their lunch breaks. I was hearing constant comments of how cute they all were. And I even heard a few comments aimed at how cute Tanner was and his costume.

They also each had a "buddy" to hold their hand as they walked though the school. Their buddies are other high school students that in in the Early Child Development Class.

My little Dallas Cowboy

Lining up to go trick-or-treating. I didn't notice while I was there, but Kollin noticed that Tanner is the shortest kid in the class besides one little girl!

Circle time and learning some numbers with Miss Rhonda

Someone touched their face. Ha!

The next day at school they went on a field trip to a pumpkin patch in their costumes. They got to pick a pumpkin, rode a tractor, played in "pock-corn" and went in a corn maze. At least those are the things Tanner said they did.

Tanner getting of the bus with his buddy.