Somersaults and Eyes

This post is just to highlight a quick video I took of Ella and Anthon doing somersaults. More fun on our flooring. Not as much fun as "kicking the kids" but fun nevertheless.

As I was taking the video, however, I was struck by how blue Ella's eyes are...and how nice and green Anthon's eyes are. Maybe it was the sun.

Kicking the Kids

Ever feel like punting your kids across the room? I happened upon a game with my kids as one of them was lying on the floor crying. Don't ask me how I thought of it, but I flung her across the floor with my foot and she stopped crying and started to laugh and wanted me to continue to fling her around the floor. That lasted about 15 minutes.

Now both my kids love to be "kicked" across the floor. Oddly enough, I feel much more relaxed and composed.

Fun with Fall Foliage

I took Anthon and Ella to the park for a few hours on Saturday and they promptly began to bombard me with leaves. Anthon led and Ella followed. Fall is such a wonderful time of year.

It would have been perfect had Shelley and Quinn joined us. Shelley was fighting with the roll dough she had made, but had turned into "the blob" in our refrigerator. The yeast was acting so powerfully, that it had expanded far beyond the mixing bowl it was placed in. It had spilled out and had enveloped the salsa, the container of leftover peas and was moving towards the condiments. It had to be stopped.

Like Father, Like Son

Anthon and I shared our own "like father, like son" moment at church one Sunday when he donned his new gray suit.

Anthon wore it for the yearly program where the youth of the congregation get up and sing and give talks. Shelley had been working with Anthon for months to memorize the songs, etc. Right before he and the other kids went up to the stand, we gave him some gum to chew. Anthon has about a two minute tolerance for gum before he swallws it up. But on that day, almost sensing the imminent horror by his parents, Anthon proudly chewed his gum like a cow chewing its cud...all the while singing songs about Christ, families, etc. Our best pantomiming efforts to tell him to swallow his gum were conveniently not understood and he kept on his brazen display of gum chewing. We can laugh about it now.

The singing and the suit made it worth it.

The Annual Utah / BYU Football Game

My Utes lost in overtime to BYU and this morning I received these two pictures of my children in my email inbox from our BYU-loving former neighbor here in Tokyo - truly a great gotcha.

I'm not quite sure if Ella is sad because Utah lost or because BYU Quarterback Max Hall called her classless. Ella is a sensitive sort.

All in all, I'm not too upset at the loss. Only braggging rights were on the line and I can swallow my pride for a year. Besides, our freshmen quarterback barely lost in OT to the winningest quarterback in BYU history. Bodes well for the Utes future.

If any of you in AZ are looking for a good photographer for family portraits or whatever, check out Ryan Young's website. Just make sure that if you're a Utah fan, you keep that to yourself...because it might come back to haunt you.

Halloween, 2009

Halloween has come and gone. This year it got lost in all the preparation for Quinn's birth.

This was Ella's first true Halloween experience. And she got into it. We traveled with a larger group of older kids and Ella loved following along. She ran as fast as her little legs would take her and you could hear her just yelling as she ran down the street. She was happy. If it involves candy, she's in...even if it means dressing up in a silly lion outfit. It's a means to an end.

Anthon was finally looking forward to Halloween. After last year's debacle, Anthon dressed up as Spiderman - one of four Spiderman costumes in his class. Spiderman has been a bit of an obsession for Anthon of late. His Grandma Daetwyler only feed the fire by buying his this costume for his birthday. And yes, Anthon goes around shooting webs from his wrists at us.

My only complaint about Halloween in Japan is that some people don't quite grasp that you hand out sweets. I understand when, say, a dentist would hand out tooth brush kits to kids on Halloween. It's in their nature. Kids don't like it, but we understand it. In Japan some people were handing out these curry flavored puffed rice sticks. Trust me when I say that it creates an unnecessarily difficult smell to eliminate from your kids' skin.

Anthon and Ella on the Train

The day before Quinn was born, Shelley, the kids, Shelley's parents and I spent the day in and around Shinjuku - going to parks, lunch and what not. We took the train. On the train, Anthon decided he would have a little vocabulary lesson with Ella. This is the result. Hang in there till the end:





While I'm not the biggest fan of Anthon using some terms so liberally...I do have to laugh that Ella seems to know the difference in placement between the bum bum and the penis.

More importantly, I love the kindness that he's showing to his sister. I'm glad that I caught this on tape, so it can remind me that my kids do love each other...even when it doesn't seem like it at times!

Anthon as a budding photographer

When I was younger I remember distinctly lining up my stuffed animals and sticker books outside on the brick wall of the front yard and taking pictures of them. I even wanted to dress up my dogs in hats and baseball jerseys and take pictures of them to use as "baseball cards"...for dogs. I guess at an early age I really liked photography.

In a similar vein my son has been bitten with the photography bug. And as parents we've found an incredibly HUGE carrot to dangle in front of my son to behave. And thankfully, with digital technology we don't have to develop anything...all we have to worry about is Anthon not breaking the camera and deleting most (all?) of them.

I won't lie, he's making progress with his photo-taking skills. At first he struggled with getting the subject in the picture. Hence you'll see pictures of my stomach. Then he struggled with putting his finger over the flash. So we had a bout of really dark shots. Now we're working on keeping the camera still when shooting. I think you'll find he's pretty good at the self portraits.

Nothing is more lame, I know, than looking at someone's else's pictures. And I'm sure it's worse to look through some 4 year old's pictures. I include these pictures for the humor. If you know my son then you might be able to channel the joy he takes in shooting for fun of it.

Click on the picture to see the gallery.

Anthon turns 4

Anthon turned four years old last week. I know everybody says it, but it's hard to believe that he's getting to be such a big kiddo. And despite it being only four years, I can't remember my life without him in it.

We had a family celebration where Anthon got to choose his birthday dinner - shabu shabu. For any of you who know Anthon this shouldn't be a big surprise. More than burgers, more than pizza, more than any thing you'd think a kid would love, Anthon's favorite food is shabu shabu. If you don't know what it is, google it. He got tons of presents - including a Spiderman costume for Halloween...with built in muscles and everything.

We also had a birthday party for Anthon and some of his friends from school and church. This is the first party we've thrown for our kids. Anthon had a very specific theme to his birthday party - Spiderman...of course. Everything was Spiderman: cups, napkins, party favors everything. He even requested a Spiderman cake. Now, they don't do kids cakes in Japan like they do in the US. So any special request cake had to be made by hand. And if you can see in one of the pictures posted, Shelley made from scratch a Spiderman cake. Talk about love! And it was really cute to see how much she doted and worried about the shape of the face, the eyes, the color of the frosting, etc.

We had the party at a park locally and rented bicycles with training wheels and ordered pizza and let the kids run around how they wanted. We strung up the pinata and gave kids a go at hitting it. They were far too kind in their first go-around. But once they saw candy fall out of the burro, the hits became more and more fierce. He didn't last too much longer.

Now being four years old comes with some new responsibilities. Anthon now has a list of chores that he has to complete everyday in order to get his full allowance - 200 yen per week (about $2). This includes things like making his bed, practicing his reading, setting the dinner table, and picking up his toys at night. He no longer gets to ride in a stroller - something we instituted when we learned that #3 was coming soon. He did get a scooter for his birthday, however, which has lessened the pain somewhat. He's scootering everywhere now and in a matter of days Shelley is having to run to keep up with his quick pace to school on the scooter. On his birthday Anthon told us that he didn't feel like he was four years old...which is kind of a grown up response, and probably the first step in realizing that birthdays aren't that big a deal! But after all of the new rights and responsibilities of being four years old in the Cannon family kicked, he admitted that he felt four and liked it better than being three.

I See God!

While looking out over the Nagasaki bay from Glover Garden, Anthon looked through the binoculars and proclaimed, "I see God!"

Gotta love the kids.

The next Michael Phelps?

A year ago, Anthon was afraid of setting foot in a pool, even with his life jacket on. Fast forward one year and Anthon is jumping into the pool from the diving board and swimming on his own (without a life jacket) across the length of the pool. At this rate of progress, he'll be breaking world records in a few years.

I give all the credit to Shelley and her Mom. I've learned that Anthon responds very strongly to rewards. Each day if he did a variety of swimming exercises in the pool he would get a toy (from the 99 cent store). If he swam the width of the pool 10 times he got a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese. Swimming the length of the pool got him an ice cream cake.

We've also found that peer pressure has been a great motivator. We're happy that this works now. We may regret it when he gets to be a teenager, so hopefully we can also instill in him a sense of right and wrong beforehand! Seeing his older cousins swimming and diving has fueled Anthon to learn to swim on his own - I'm sure out of pride. Praise works well, too. He'll do anything for praise.

Anyway, here's a video of Anthon swimming the length of the pool.

7th Inning Stretch

We went to the Dodgers game the other night and brought the kids. Shelley and I are big fans of taking our kids to sporting events. We brought Anthon to a USC / Nebraska football game when he was 10 months old and while he freaked out at the enormity of the crowd, he got used to it.

The game becomes that much more fun for me because we're sitting there as a family eating our hot dogs, nachos and cotton candy while we're talking about the game, the players and what is going on. All they see is the game. They hit, they run, we cheer. They don't see the money or the steroids or anything that detracts. And it's cute when he internalizes that into his own play at home. When we're home playing in the back yard Anthon will want to be his favorite Dodger - Hiroki Kuroda - the lone Dodger from Japan. So cute. We also get really awkward questions, like "Why aren't there any women on the Dodgers?" The answer I came up with on the spot was, 'Well, most women prefer to play softball." and left it at that. I was tempted to be a bit more sarcastic with my response, but I was afraid Anthon would repeat it.

But for all of the reasons to take your kids to a game, this has to be THE main reason - to see them singing "take me out to the ball game."

Father's day...a bit early

It is the expat tradition in Tokyo for many wives and children to flee Tokyo soon after school gets out for the summer. What remains is a lonely fraternity of bachelors who loosely assemble during the week to keep from missing their families too much. I've joined that fraternity for the first time as Shelley and the kids flew home to LA, and then to Evansville last week. I am nearing the end of week 1 (5 weeks total) of being "home alone."

Consequently, we celebrated Father's Day a week and a day early. Anthon has been preparing to celebrate Father's Day for weeks, and has been really excited about it. One time, upon overhearing Shelley and I talk about one of my gifts that I stumbled across (a case of Dad's root beer) Anthon thought it was important that he gets himself out of bed, walk into the kitchen, climb up on my lap and say that he had something very important to tell me. He proceeded to whisper in my ear what my present was - a laminated necktie he made in school with his picture on it. Anthon really has owned this year's Father's Day - overruling Shelley on the style of umbrella they were giving me and insisting that he hide the gift himself. His reasoning is that it's Father's Day and I'm HIS father...not Shelley's. You can't help but be flattered.

And to top it all off, I got two songs sung to me...the best presents of all.

The photo shoot

We have a neighbor, I guess an ex-neighbor as of today, who might as well be a professional photographer. Basically he's my idol. He agreed to take a few shots of Ella and Anthon - this in the middle of all their packing up and moving, mind you. Impeccable timing, once again, by the Cannons!

Anyway, Ella fared pretty well, readily flashing her cute smile. The flash took its toll on her eyes, however. She kept rubbing and covering her eyes, even folding herself in half to get away from the flashing light.

The photos I'm posting here are just the raw, scaled down photo without any cropping or photoshopping. There are some real possibilities here that show Ella's little personality. Look at the gallery and let us know if there's one that you particularly like. While the photo shoot focused on Ella, Anthon wanted in on the action. You can see his enthusiastic, boyish personality in almost every shot.

If anyone is interested in the photographer, Ryan Young, or his work, please visit his website Ryfoto.com. They'll be relocating to the Arizona area in case you want to hire him to do some work for you or your family.

Anthon has a good memory

One thing we know about Anthon is that he has a really, really good memory. Almost too good. After reading him a story a few times he can pretty much recite the whole story for memory. If you purposefully mess up on a word, 7 times out of 10 he'll be able to correct you.

So harnessing that, Shelley has been helping Anthon memorize scripture verses. And Anthon has really taken to it. Here's the first one he memorized, Doctrine & Covenants 109:8. He has these cute little hand motions too that go along with it to help him remember.





We may try to do a series of these memorized scriptures. As many of you know, I teach seminary (early morning, daily Bible study for LDS high school kids). Our course for the year just ended...but it looks like I'll be teaching it again in the Fall. Every year there is a set of scriptures that the students are asked to memorize. Maybe if we can get Anthon to memorize the set of 25 scriptures this year, that will motivate the kids to memorize theirs. Nothing like a little competition from a 3 year old.

Kill the Wabbit

Shelley has brought many things into our marriage, and I think one of the funniest things is the traditional Easter bunny cake that she makes. It's a carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting and coconut shavings that shaped into a bunny. Chocolate chips for the eyes and a red gummy bear for the nose. She also dyes coconut shavings green to make the grass and to top it all off, even lays out raisins to represent the bunny poop.

Anthon helped Shelley make the traditional Easter bunny cake and evidently developed a close bond with the bunny because when it came time to eat the cake, Anthon got very protective of his friend. He wouldn't even eat the Peeps, no doubt part of the bunny-cake's entourage. Being the loving,sensitive and caring parents that we are, we broke out into Elmer Fudd's "Kill the Wabbit," which only got Anthon more riled up...of course we thought it was funny.


This was a nice Easter. Anthon has caught the vision of the Easter egg hunt and cleaned house. Ella, sensing the presence of food and candy seemed to have a knack for crawling after the occasional forgotten egg. Though I think she was more interested in eating the plastic egg than she was with finding the goodies inside. Click on any of the pictures to see a small gallery of Easter-season shots.

Anthon versus the monkeys

While visiting the historical mountain village of Nikko, we got up close and personal with wild monkeys that were hanging out by the lake. There were three of them, two parents and a baby, and they were getting harassed by onlookers who were jokingly trying to pick fights with the monkeys. Naturally, when the monkeys tried to fight back, the onlookers ran away like sissies.

I was of course filming some of this, hoping to catch something funny - like some dude getting pelted by monkey feces. After a few minutes, Anthon and I retreated back to where the rest of our family was, and we took out some bread and sembei (rice crackers) to eat. One monkey, about 40 yards away, charged towards us, resulting in our quick retreat. He ate our bread and then made a deliberate march towards Anthon, who was holding a sembei. Shelley screamed for Anthon to get rid of the sembei, so being the closest to him, I grabbed it out of Anthon's hands and threw it at the monkey who happily backed off to eat the loot. Anthon wasn't too happy - his sembei was stolen by the monkey. Later, Anthon offered tough words about the next time he came across the monkey - he was going to "kill him by slicing him with his sword"...my little samurai.

Here's a quick little video of the monkeys and the aftermath of their taking Anthon's sembei.



It's interesting to note that the two people that the monkeys proactively stalked and went after were little kids. They vigorously defended themselves (and their young) when adults came too closely, but they made two unprovoked advances on children their own size. I guess the primates take to heart the belief that you should only "pick on someone your own size."

Quick update

It's been almost a month since my last post and it's actually been a nice little break. I've added a few pictures taken recently in a few settings. Here's a quick update.

Ella - She's crawling everywhere and starting to pull herself up. With the help of a walker, she'll walk like Igor from Young Frankenstein - taking a step with one leg and dragging the other leg behind her. She has two prominent bottom teeth and three more popping out on the top. She can hold her own bottle. She definitely has preferences, screaming when something that she wants is taken away from her.

Anthon - He's loving English school, but not sold on the idea of doing Japanese school. Anthon's become our potty-mouth monitor. As with most families, stupid and shut-up are on the banned list. When the bad word is uttered, Anthon usually gasps and then reminds me that I need to wash my mouth out. We have identified one exception - when one steps in dog poop (as I did recently), you're exempt from the no bad words rule. Anthon has made it a priority to step in dog poop ever since.

Anthon has wings

Allow me to toot my own horn here for a minute at how great a choice I made to marry Shelley five plus years ago. Here's the latest reason why.

Anthon has been obsessed with Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear for the past few months. His favorite part of the movie is when Buzz pushes a button and his wings snap out and he "flies" across the room. Anthon wanted his own wings. So Shelley took her belt and fashioned a wooden plank to his back and fastened it with a red bandana to give Anthon wings. Anthon naturally loved it. He had wings. It's totally a little thing, but only Moms would take time to do that. Here's Anthon with his "wings".


As a side note - evidently, the Buzz that Santa brought him doesn't have wings...though the Japanese-language "Buzz" does. Anthon has said many times that he hopes Santa brings him the Japanese Buzz next year. Yes, we've had many talks with Anthon about being grateful for what we have. That discussion hasn't sunk in yet, evidently.

Anthon's Christmas Concert

Anthon has been in school for a few months and to top off his very first semester at school, they had a brief Christmas concert. It was very cute. The kids had practiced "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" for the better part of a month.

I'm toying with the idea of hosting these videos on Youtube. Let me know what you think.

A Special Visit from Santa Claus

Anthon had a big Christmas Eve - receiving not only a phone call from Santa en route to Japan from the North Pole, but also getting a chance to see Santa deliver his gifts.

My Dad tried out his best "Santa" voice and waited up till midnight, his time, to call Anthon on our Christmas Eve. Anthon was surprised to hear Santa on the phone, but didn't hesitate to tell Santa that he wanted a Buzz Lightyear. He was so concerned that Santa might forget what he wanted, that he took the opportunity to tell Santa about three more times in the short conversation. So cute.

Then, our upstairs neighbor, Walt Ames, offered to dress up as Santa and deliver Anthon's presents. After Anthon went to bed, Santa snuck into our front room and began to lay down the gifts. Shelley ran to get Anthon, who was still awake and looking out the window for Santa's sleigh. Though Anthon was told to be so quiet and not make any noise, he couldn't keep his excitement in and said, "hi Santa!" Walt played it cool and pretended not to hear him. He laid out all of the gifts while Anthon watched and whispered his hopes for a Buzz Lightyear. Santa then took the cookies and carrots Anthon left for him and his reindeer.

Naturally, Anthon had to see what Santa left him. Luckily, the local toy store had one more English Buzz Lightyear or else I would have been the Christmas goat. Anthon played with Buzz for a few minutes before taking him to bed and eventually falling asleep. Of course, I have video.


Shelley and I felt so happy seeing the sheer joy and excitement coming from Anthon's face talking to and peeking in on Santa. Naturally, we feel so grateful that Anthon has a grandfather and a surrogate grandfather who sacrificed sleep and time with their own family to create a memory that I think Anthon will remember for the rest of his life. I still remember when I got to talk to Santa on the phone. So, thanks Dad and Walt. You guys are the best!

Santa Claus

The Santa Claus in the picture to the left is one lucky guy...kissing my wife like that.

I've dressed in a Santa suit one other time in my life, also in Japan. I was a missionary and as "service" to a local school, the missionaries had agreed to dress one of us up as Santa to address the children. It was very surreal coming out onto the stage with a dry ice fog, spot light, techno music and screaming children. I felt like I was at a rock concert.

I bring this up because this is the first year Anthon has really been able to grasp the concept of Santa Claus. Despite this, he seems to have developed an incredible ability to spot a fake. As skinny as I am, I'm sure it wasn't hard for those Japanese school children to spot me as a fake. But twice in the last week Anthon has seen "Santa" - once at a church function and once at his school Christmas concert - and he's outed them both as 1)his upstairs neighbor; and 2)a female teacher from school.

Nevertheless he's bought into the whole Santa thing, and he's excited about making him cookies and leaving carrots behind for his reindeer. He's even honed down his list of "wants" to a singular, easy to remember item: a Buzz Lightyear toy.

Click on any of the pictures to see a few more pictures with various Santas. Even Ella seemed to think Santa was a pretty interesting guy.

A hodge podge of updates

Yokohama Triennial 2008

The family spent the day in Yokohama a while back, and I reaffirmed my belief that me and modern art aren't really that good friends. Every three years the city hosts the Yokohama Triennial, where modern artists from around the world show off their creations. My personal "favorites" include a wall of print outs of emails and newspaper articles talking about "NoMo phobia" or the fear of having no mobile phone. Another had a saddle ridden by a Vietnamese Catholic bishop just lying in the corner with the rental agreement tacked to the wall. Are these artists really trying? Where's the art in all of that? I really don't get it, and at this point don't care if I do. And don't get me started on the short videos. What happened to the whimsical and fantastical side of modern art? Why does everything have to be so dark and cynical? Well, at least I took a cute shot of Ella.

Fall Colors at Shinjuku Gyoen Park

Growing up in Southern California, it's well understood that there are really only two seasons, spring and summer. Winter is really two weeks of Autumn, and anything cold or wet would be treated as massive newsworthy events, not seasons - like when it rains the news is always on "Weather Watch!" for hours. So while I'm not complaining, I am stating as fact that I never knew the simple joy of making a pile of fall leaves and jumping into them. We had a large liquid amber that dropped a lot of pretty leaves, but twice as many of those really prickly balls. If you jumped into a pile of that, you'd come out looking like you'd been a victim of really poorly done acupuncture. So, at a local park Anthon and I gathered up as many leaves as we could, and he had fun jumping into them, as well as picking up arm fulls and throwing them at me.

Setting up the Christmas Tree

And finally, here is the video of our setting up the Christmas tree in mid November. It's a bit long and the video size is a bit big. So have some patience with it while it downloads.

Grading a three year old

I came home last night and Shelley showed me Anthon's first report card. Really? In Preschool? At age three? He was being "graded" on things like being able to count to 10 for memory, understanding and following the class routine, listening to others, and participating in Japanese class. The grading scale is as follows: C for consistently meeting the learning objective, S for sometimes meeting the learning objective, and P for progressing, but not quite there yet. Or in other words it's a nice way of saying FAIL!

I am sad to report that our son got a P on the ever important learning objective of "enjoys dressing up."


I remember being reminded consistently in my elementary school report cards that I "needed to avoid unnecessary talking." Clearly I thought all talking was necessary as a child. Conversely, Anthon must think that most forms of dressing up is UNnecessary. As his parents we sadly have to agree. We couldn't even get Anthon to dress up as a pirate for a pirate-themed birthday party this weekend.

Harajuku Halloween, 2008

I can't think of two things that go better together than Harajuku and Halloween. They're the perfect complement to one another, soul mates, peanut butter and jelly if you will...extremely goth peanut butter and lolita jelly...if you can imagine such a thing. And we weren't disappointed as many were out in force late showing off their costumes. While most wore the usual shocking garb, I thought it was a nice touch to gore it up a bit with more blood, scars and open wounds.

Anthon clearly is getting used to this place. As we walked out of the elevator onto the bridge where the Harajuku Girls congregate, Anthon says, "Oh, here are the weird girls!" Clearly blinded by the fact that these girls are wearing scary makeup and odd outfits, Anthon cheerily accepted their candy and stood by a group of them for pictures. I think Anthon charmed them.

As usual I spent time shooting as many of the girls as I could. Click on any of the pictures to see the gallery.

Our sad little dinosaur

Here is Anthon in this year's halloween costume: a dinosaur. This costume was given to him by Shelley's Mom over the summer. Anthon practiced his part by going around and roaring like a dinosaur to random people he met on the street.

Unfortunately, this is the happiest picture of Anthon I took this Halloween. You can see the red eyes, cheeks moistened (I hate that word, moist) with fresh tears, and the overly manufactured fake smile. We're not quite sure what set this in motion, but he was sad for the better part of the day despite the fact that he could snatch and grab a lot of free candy.

Halloween in our area is a big deal. Hundreds (thousands?) of kids descend upon our neighborhood and jam the streets looking to score a lot of candy. It is not uncommon for folks to buy up to 1,000 pieces of candy to hand out...and usually that isn't enough. Our particular street is COMPLETELY empty, however. So I have a large stash of candy at my office that I'm hitting every afternoon when I get tired and need a sugar pick-me-up!

Evidently dressing up and being social was a bit more than our sad little dinosaur could handle. Unfortunately, he ended up looking a bit more like the photo below.

Good Day

Last Saturday was one of those days where you just are grateful to be alive - and for no other reason than you spent fun time with family doing really nothing at all. Fall is here and the leaves are starting to change colors. The air is crisp. There was a slight breeze which caused the fountains to spray us - leaving a beautiful rainbow...as you can see from the picture below. Anthon and I ran around playing hide and seek, hitting plastic golf balls and throwing rocks into the pond.



We met up with Shelley and Ella at our favorite burger joint, Arms. It's here that we realized that Ella loves strawberry milk shakes. Click on the video below for a quick video.



For those of you in the Tokyo area that know, and love, Arms...we hear they're opening a new takeout and delivery only restaurant near Yoyogi Hachiman - good news indeed.

And it wouldn't be fall without gathering up leaves and throwing them at each other. If you click on the picture below, you'll see a short video of Anthon trying to throw leaves on everyone.



It's easy to appreciate these great days...especially now that I'm typing this in bed, sick.

Anthon turns 3!

Our big little guy turns three years old today. While on the one hand Shelley and I find it hard to believe that he's been in our lives for just three years, we can't really remember life without him.

Anthon has a good sense of humor, which he first exhibited minutes after his birth. Shelley and I read a baby book that suggested we introduce our child to its name. So I held Anthon and said, "Your name is Anthon Steffensen Cannon IV...what do you think about that?" Upon which time Anthon proceeded to cry. Apparently he didn't like it very much. But he quickly identified himself as Anthon and despite it being an oft mispronounced name, I can't see him being anything but Anthon.

Anthon has been blessed with a sharp mind, good memory and an extensive vocabulary. I taught a family home evening about the different roles of Christ. I listed that he was our Savior, and our brother, etc. I didn't do a very good job of teaching to the level of audience because I then launch into this thing about Christ being our advocate. Rightfully, so I get made fun of by Shelley. Fast forward a few days and we're in the car talking to our neighbors, the Ames, on the way to church and Anthon says this to Evelyn, "Grammy Ames, Jesus is our advocate." Sweet redemption.

But mostly Anthon is my little guy and I can't imagine loving him any more than I do. I've felt this way at each stage in his life and I'm finding my capacity to love grow bigger as they grow older. I like that. I truly am so lucky to be Anthon's Dad. He brings me so much joy and happiness. He's getting so big and doing so many thing that I'm proud of - going to school, saying his prayers, being a loving big brother to Ella. Though I have very limited interaction during the week with Anthon because of my work and his sleep schedules. But weekends are our time to throw the ball around, wrestle, watch family videos and just be together.

After I type this, I'm off to have a McDonalds lunch in the park with Anthon and the family. They are coming down to see me during my work day so we can celebrate as a family. I'm tasked with buying McDonalds cheeseburgers, shakes and fries - the birthday boy's lunch of choice.

Anthon sings karaoke

Being a classically trained karaoke artist, it was important for me to get Anthon off on the right foot as a kid. Armed with his kiddie karaoke microphone, Anthon showed off his impressive repertoire of songs. If there are any unintelligible words it's because Anthon is 'speaking Japanese;' which in reality is nothing like Japanese, but Anthon thinks it is. It's cute, so we go with it. Anthon even sings a song all in this form of 'Japanese.'

It's fun to see Anthon get so excited about these videos. I know there will come a day when he doesn't think it's cute or cool to ham it up for Dad, let alone make it available for public consumption. All I have to say is thank goodness I didn't grow up in this digital age.

Click on the picture below to see the video.

Anthon and his Japanese

This post may only really be funny to those who speak some Japanese. Nevertheless, I want to share this story about Anthon, who is learning Japanese at his pre-school. The teacher gives the kids a set of words to work on and they practice talking to their teddy bears, which is kind of a cute visual. It's helping him be more proactive in using his Japanese around town. The other day with Shelley, Anthon approached a mother/daughter two-some and said, "Konnichiwa, guys." Then turning back to Shelley said, "I said Konnichiwa to them."

Anyway, One of the words they've been learning is the word "itadakimasu!" (pronounced ee-ta-da-kee-mahs) or basically what you say right before you eat a meal...it literally means "I humbly partake." It's like saying "bon apetit." The teachers explained how you pronounce the word to the kids by saying, "remember before you eat, you say 'eat'-adakimasu."

On Friday night we were eating dinner and had already said, "itadakimasu" when Anthon grabs his drink and said, "I'm not going to say eat-adakimasu again, I'm going to say drink-adakimasu." It reduced Shelley and I to tears of laughter. The kid continues to surprise me with his grasp of language and unique sense of humor.

Anthon's First Day of School

Monday was a bittersweet day in our household. It was Anthon's first day of pre-school. While on the one hand we know that Anthon will have a lot of fun and learn a lot, meet new kids and make friends, on the other hand we can't believe our boy is big enough to go to school. He's still my little guy and part of me isn't ready to accept the fact that he's growing up. Shelley was excited to have some free time!

We've thought about this decision for a while. Anthon, though not quite three, is a smart, social and very talkative. We thought that perhaps the challenge would be good for him. We had initially thought about putting him into an immersion program with other Japanese kids, and we still may do that at some point. But for now we have him in an international school not far from our house.

While Anthon is a social kid he does have bouts of separation anxiety. Dropping him off at our church nursery can be hit or miss. Last week he unlocked the door and came screaming down the hallway looking for me. But, we've built up Anhton's going to school for months. He got to pick out his own Thomas the Train lunch box and has his Elmo backpack and Diego backpack and for a while he would pretend to go to school. He was mentally well prepared. Shelley made Anthon's lunch and he got to pick out his own juice box at the convenience store on the way to school and you could tell he was just happy and excited.

The walk to school was hilarious. Because he was going to school, everyone else must have been going to school too. Shelley was going to "Mommy school" and I was going to "Daddy school." He had a spring in his step and was singing the entire way.

He walked into his classroom, sat right down and didn't seem to be flustered or worried by a few other children who were crying. Our little man. He played with toys and gave us each a big hug and kiss and we were off. As Shelley put it, FREEDOM!

As far as we can tell his first day was a success. The teachers said he didn't cry. But the only thing that Anthon can really recall from the day was that he fought with his friend Noah. In talking with Shelley over the phone I could hear Anthon in the background repeating, "Fight, fight, fight!" We're not really sure what that's all about. Anthon does have a vivid imagination. Maybe school will bring out his aggressive tendencies. He did say he had a good time and wanted to go back. So that's good.

The Toe Game

So you know how there are things that you didn't know about your spouse, or your spouse's family that pop up years later? Well, Shelley learned that our humble family are the originators of 'the toe game.' Thankfully not a deal breaker in our marriage.

What is the toe game, you ask? Think keep-away meets gym socks. Each player lies on the bed, while one holds a sock between their toes and tries to keep everyone else from grabbing it with, you guessed it, their toes. Here's a picture of me totally dominating in the toe game.

I remember playing the toe game with my Dad when he would come home from work. We'd be watching TV together on his bed, usually a sporting event, and it would devolve into the toe game. Really fun memories. We taught Anthon the game and he seemed to get into it. He still has a ways to go before he has strong sock grabbing and protecting abilities.

So all in all, not a bad family secret. Though I'm not so sure Shelley's ready to bust out the game when we have guests over. But who knows?

Outdoor Movie Night at the Cannons

You honestly can't beat summer time in Los Angeles. The days are hot, but the nights are cool and pleasant. As a treat for the grandkids, my Dad bought a video projector and decided to have outdoor movie nights. I guess it's all the rage. What started out as an impressive logistical feat - with my Dad lugging all of his AV gear outside running long extension cords - has become quite a fun and easy gig to set up. The retractable screen gives us an 85 inch wide screen picture. Throw in tons of blankets and chairs and popcorn and candy and drinks and it's movie night at the Cannon home. So far the theater has featured Indiana Jones, Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs and Empire Strikes back, among others.


Last week it was Jaws. I was somewhat nervous to see my son's reaction to a shark that dismembers peoples limbs. But Anthon seemed to keep the movie in its proper perspective. In the end, Jaws is blown up by a bullet being fired at a scuba tank Jaws is munching on, sending shark bits everywhere. Anthon and four year old cousin Peter have the following conversation:

Anthon: Jaws blew up! His mouth exploded (making explosion movement with his hands)
Peter: And, before that they stabbed him in the head.
Anthon: Yeah...Jaws went to Heavenly Father!
Peter: Yeah, in pieces.

Over and over and over this conversation was repeated. Two days later, Anthon is still talking about the exploding Jaws. He is similarly obsessed with poison apples and wicked queens. We might need to cleanse his mind with a little Mary Poppins or Cars or something like that.

I am Tiger Woods

Last week Anthon's cousins gave him his first set of golf clubs, thus marking Anthon's first real step towards supporting his parents' lavish lifestyle through playing professional sports. They were Charlie Brown golf clubs (one wood, one iron and one putter), three plastic golf balls and a golf bag. Talk about setting up children for success.

Like the overly-annoying "little league Dad" I fully intend on becoming, I definitely am projecting my lack of sporting success onto my son. :) I see nothing but dollar signs (or yen signs, if we happen to still live in Japan when he turns pro!) in my his future. We went out back to practice. Anthon seemed quite fond of the one-handed stroke. A little unconventional, yes, but unconventional did work for Happy Gilmore.

But as any over-zealous father/manager will tell you, it's best to start the hype machine early for your kids. You know, create a little buzz and get the world ready for the golf phenom that will be Anthon Cannon. So, in that vein we created a little video that we hope will put Tiger Woods on notice that he better win all the golf titles he can in the next 18 years, because after that it will be Anthon's turn.



Here's the original "I am Tiger Woods" commercial hyping the future has-been.

Off 'Da Hook

It's always nice to get a little reinforcement from your kids so that you know you're doing the right things, and that they appreciate what you're doing for them.

In that vein, Anthon articulates his appreciation in his own, uh, special way.

If you chance to meet a frown...

For those of you who are hitting the dog days of summer and are feeling down or sad...my son has a pick-me-up song dedicated to you.



The second half of the video, with Anthon singing to Ella, is something that Anthon likes to do lately when Ella cries. He says to us, "We have to get Ella to stop crying!" and he'll quickly volunteer to sing "Child of God." After shooting this little video Ella started to cry and Anthon replied, "Ohhh, Ella didn't like my singing."

Daytrip to Odaiba

Before jumping into this post, first some background. a few months ago, Anthon choked on a chocolate covered ice cream bon bon. The babysitter knew the Heimlich maneuvre and got him to cough it up...thankfully. Anthon's love for this babysitter has reached saint-like status. Every Sunday at church Anthon, without fail, will go up to her and say something along the lines of, "I was chocking and you saved my life." It's really cute.

Anthon had another brush with danger this weekend at Odaiba - a beach and resort area in the Tokyo Bay. He was stripped down to his diaper, throwing rocks, shells and wet sand into the water, while walking among dead jellyfish and sand crabs. As he walked into the water to wash himself off, he went in a bit too far, lost his footing and tumbled into deeper water. Had he realized it, he could have stood up and been fine, but the water kept him off balance and he struggled to keep his head above water. We were right there and it took a second for both my and Shelley's brain to register that what we were seeing was our boy drowning. He was no more than a few feet from me so I walked into the water and pulled him out. So now at home Anthon will come up to me from time to time and say, "I couldn't get out of the water and Dad saved my life!"

So if Anthon were a cat, 2 of his 9 lives would be gone by the time he's 3 years old. Here's a video.





I've done this once before with my Dog, Lexie. She was hounding my little niece who was walking with a plate of french bread outside. One piece fell off and the dog choked on the french bread. One of you (not naming names or anything) mocked my dog for not knowing how to chew. But I did the doggie heimlich and out popped the french bread.

Anyway, Odaiba is kind of a cool place. It's built on reclaimed land, so you're pretty sure where it's going to end up when the big one hits Tokyo (read: underwater). But in the mean time, there's a replica Statue of Liberty, a giant Ferris Wheel, lots of restaurants, shopping and even a Toyota store where you can test drive cars around the showroom. We took the family there, including Shelley's sister, Rachel, and spent a nice afternoon. Click on the picture below for more pictures.