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.

Realities of Ex-Pat Life in Tokyo

You know how you have friends that move - perhaps within driving distance - but are just far enough away that you make promises that you'll get together all the time but never do? Maybe some of you reading this are victims of my over promising. And for that I'm sorry! (Sam, I swear, we'll play golf next time we're in town. I promise. I really mean it this time.) It's funny, though, when we moved we didn't get many "we'll come see you in...uh...Tokyo." And rightfully, so.

Despite a desire to show people around our new home, Shelley and I have to face the sober fact that we won't be getting many visitors while we're in Tokyo. But that's Ok. Shelley and I have been really blessed nevertheless. We are starting our second month of a six month period where we get to see a lot of family and friends. In May, Shelley's Mom came for two weeks, followed by two weeks with my parents. We're picking up Shelley's sister Rachel at the airport on Friday and she'll be with us for a whole month. Then we head home to LA and Indiana and probably Utah for a month before coming back to Tokyo. And to top it off, in October my parents are coming back again for a week.

Just as an aside, I consider myself TREMENDOUSLY lucky that I get to visit LA for a month. Tokyo in the summer time becomes a three-month male pity party. All the women and children flee for their mother lands the very minute school lets out. The men are left behind to endure Tokyo summers alone. But I digress.

These visits have been special to us not because we're out seeing things, but simply because we're spending time with each other. The pictures in the gallery I've linked to are simply that - pictures of us spending time at the pony park, the aquarium, at restaurants, on the train and at home, etc.

Anthon, Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny and Jesus

So Anthon and I are watching the movie Cars while sitting on the couch. Well, we're not actually watching Cars. We're pretending to watch Cars on Shelley's pocket sized electronic Japanese - English dictionary. It's pretty useful, not just for looking up words. Anthon also uses it to 'check his email.' Anyway, it flips open kind of like a portable DVD player. I typed in "car" into the search field and the resulting Japanese translation served as our movie. Anthon kept shushing me if I would talk. And it wasn't over until he said it was over. And so we just stared at the screen for about ten minutes...not talking for fear of being shushed again by my son.

The movie "ends" and it's at this time that Anthon sees a framed needle-point picture of Christ in our room and we have the following exchange:

Anthon: "Dad, I got so many presents from the Easter Bunny. I got so many more presents from Santa Claus. What does Jesus give me?"

Me: "Well, you can get Eternal Life."

Anthon: "I like Eternal Life."

Me: "Me, too."

Golden Week

I always felt that in the U.S. I got ripped off for not having enough national holidays...real national holidays...not like Columbus Day. We don't even get one a month there. It seems as if everyone else in the developed world gets far more days off. And it's true. In Japan, on top of getting about one national holiday a month, there are two times a year when there is basically a week's worth of holidays right in a row. One happens over the new year and one happens in the last week of April / first week of May. It's called Golden Week. This isn't to imply I don't like working. But I just like having time off more.

Our Golden Week was a bit early and a bit short, since our baby girl is hopefully due any day now. Shelley's Mom is en route and we have a backstop date to induce Shelley in case it gets to that point. So the end is near. Stay tuned, we'll post pictures and let everyone know when Ella arrives.

Anyway, we spent the time off doing things locally - zoo's and parks. In retrospect, a very animal-centric long weekend. You can see pictures by clicking here. My favorite of these pictures is of Anthon trying to feed the goat and the goat getting too hungry and nipping at Anthon's fingers. The look on Anthon's face is priceless.



In other updates...
I've uploaded a few more videos from recent outings - mostly of Anthon during cherry blossom season.

Sleeping Very Well, Thank You Very Much

I am not what you call a great sleeper. By about 4:00 AM, I'm pretty much tossing and turning, falling in and out of sleep until the alarm goes off. I miss not being able to sleep like I did when I was younger. I envy my son, sometimes.

I walked into Anthon's room to check up on him before heading to work one day and I found him dangling off the side of his bed, totally asleep. How in the world could you ever stay asleep lying like this, I don't know.

In the checked luggage

I am in San Francisco and LA this week on business. Anthon wanted to come, so I thought one way around having to pay for a two-year old's ticket is to have him stow away in my bag. He almost fits. He just needs to curl up a little and tuck his head in.

Anthon the Musician

There are some things you just know your kids were born. In Anthon's case, his love for music was manifest in the womb. Shelley said he would go crazy whenever we went to the Hollywood Bowl or listened to good music. We went to a Ben Folds concert within the last trimester and I think the bass stunned him - he didn't move the entire concert.

Day by day, we're amazed at the most recent manifestation of this love for music that Anthon was seemingly born with. The other day as we were getting ready for church Anthon blasted his CD of The Three Tenors (his favorite CD, no less), strapped his little-drummer-boy drum around his neck and was walking around beating the drum in time with the rhythm as if he were in "The Music Man." But it doesn't stop with classical music.

Last night I came home from work and he was singing, "Hey Hey You You I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne. I can assure you that wasn't on my iPod. And he customized Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" by saying, "Big Boys Don't Cry."

There's plenty else...his favorite song is a Broadway show tune - "Popular" from Wicked. After dinner every night, he "plays" the piano by banging on the keys. He sings himself to sleep most nights. Shelley's begun teaching him how to play the piano via the Suzuki method. Anthon's Nana and Papa gave him cymbals and a harmonica which he loves. (The harmonica we love...the cymabls, not so much.) He likes to pretend to lead the music at church. It goes on and on.

Anyway, click on the link below for a video of Anthon trying out to be in Avril Lavigne's back up band.

Our Male Model

We spent last Saturday at Shinjuku Gyoen Park and spent the late morning underneath a small grove of cherry blossom trees. We brought a lunch, and a bat & ball to keep Anthon entertained. We didn't on, however, Anthon being the subject of no less than 6 photographers.

For those of you who know Anthon, he's a very outgoing and verbal kid. He's fun loving and because of both his parents incessant picture taking, he is used to hamming it up for the camera. He knows when he's on and can be quite boisterous and entertaining...at least to his parents. We were playing around and I noticed in the periphery one lady who was ducking behind a tree snapping pictures of us. This went on for about five minutes before I made eye contact and she approached us asked if it was OK to take more pictures of our son. Literally 15 minutes later and she's snapping both film and digital pictures, directing on how to position him and how to make him laugh, etc. A bit odd. Then as I'm playing tee ball with Anthon (I hold the ball, Anthon swings the bat, and more often than not hits me in the process), another man comes up and starts taking pictures of Anthon playing ball...another 10 minutes following us around. We had two more groups of people ask to take pictures with Anthon and then two other, more shy photographers, that were more intent on either taking video of Anthon running around or taking pictures of the photographers taking pictures of Anthon. All in the space of two hours.

I certainly hope this doesn't turn Anthon into a Zoolander clone. I would hate to have him ask me, "Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?"

Here's a picture Shelley took of one of the photographers taking pictures of Anthon.

My Son the Photographer...and Painful Lessons in Parenting

Anthon is my mini-me. I feel flattered that he likes things that I like. He likes tacos, yakitori, sports, and a lot of other things that I like. He's a morning person like me, which I think is unfortunate for Shelley.

Shortly before we left for Japan, Shelley gave him her old 35mm point-and-shoot film camera. It's funny to see him act out how he perceives me and Shelley's incessant picture taking of him. Anthon puts the camera up to his eye, backwards no less, and says, "Dad, look at me, say cheese." He pretends to take the picture and without fail says in a matter of fact voice, "cute." When he's feeling like a true photographer, he hunts for my tripod, pulls it out and pretends that's his camera.

I thought that this would be the end of my post, but unfortunately, I learned a really interesting lesson about parenthood from Anthon, his camera and my lack of seeing the forest for the trees.

We had a family outing one night and I brought my camera along to take some pictures. Anthon ran to get his camera, but I told him that he couldn't bring it along for a variety of reasons, namely he would drop it and because I said so. He freaked out of course and resisted any attempts by me to put it back in his room. I kept getting mad because he wasn't obeying his Dad and it never occured to until we were making our way to the train station that the only reason he wanted to bring his camera was because I brought my camera. It killed me to think that I was being so focused on Anthon obeying me that I totally missed the intent of his actions.


I'd like to think that I've learned my lesson. I wore a french cuff shirt to church on Sunday and I wore the cuff links that Anthon gave me for Father's Day last year. Anthon of course wanted to wear cuff links like his Dad to church. Well, I've never seen a french cuff shirt for a two year old...have you? Shelley helped Anthon put on one of my cuff links into his shirt and he was happy and showed it off that day to others.

Anthon has a mind like a steel trap

Shelley likes to say that she has a mind like a steel trap and while I'd like to contend with her on that assertion, I myself rarely remember any time that I could prove her wrong. Not that there aren't any, but my mind is definitely more porous...which is a shame because I can't blame it on drugs or hitting my head somewhere. I guess I am just that way.

So it comes at great relief to me, and no surprise to Shelley, that our son has a really good memory. He'll bring back obscure details of things that happened months ago...things that seemed really insignificant like who played tennis and who swam at the Tri-State Athletic Club in Evansville, Indiana during Christmas; or that he got upset when one of his babysitters took off his favorite pair of jeans to put his PJs on. This sort of thing comes up daily.

So what does this have to do with anything? Thankfully, Anthon has his mother's steel-trap for a mind and this allows him to memorize his favorite stories. He'll obsess over one or two stories for a month-long period and usually by about two weeks into it he'll have most of the words or phrases memorized such that if you were you to stop reading, he could tell you the next word or phrase.

He'll even pick up one of his favorite books and "read" it from cover to cover to you, knowing what to say only by what pictures are on the page. He'll skip a page and his story telling will skip with it. He's two, so it's not like he's James Earl Jones reading an audio book to you. So don't get too excited. But it is cute to see that a)he loves books; and b)he has a good mind.

Here's a video of Anthon reading his current favorite book supplied to him by my Mom. It's about a mouse, a bear and a red, ripe strawberry.



By the way, speaking as a father, I can honestly say that there isn't anything more fun that sitting on my son's bed and reading with him. He's not much a snuggler, but Shelley and I can usually bribe him to rest his head against us if we're going to read him a few books. We'll ride that pony as long as we can.

Family Night

One of my goals for 2008 has been to have family night (or just some family time) - something where we can have fun, even if it's just for a short period of time before Anthon has to go to bed. I think it's having the desired effect, certainly on me. I think I naturally fall into the mode of parenting Anthon, which means limiting what he does because I'm tired or annoyed or whatever. Certainly that doesn't make for a fun Dad. But in the context of family time I find myself being more patient, tolerant of Anthon being a little boy and the result is we all just have a lot of fun.

Our family outings have consisted of trips to the zoo, trips to cultural spots within Tokyo, dinners out and letting Anthon run around. We have a Mac and we decided to have fun with the Photo Booth application.

Anthon is kawaiiiiiiiii

Since moving here to Tokyo, Anthon has received his fair share of attention from people we randomly meet on the street. Invariably, they'll all the same thing about Anthon, that he's "kawaii," or cute. I've found that the level of cuteness that Anthon has at that moment is directly proportional to the length of the last sylable "ii" that's spoken. There was the dignified grandmother who was biking towards us - almost running into us by the way - and made a polite gesture towards Anthon, keeping her "kawaii" comment the way it was meant to be said.

That was topped a few days later when Anthon and I went to Mister Donuts, a donut chain in Japan. While we were eating our donuts the teenage girl next to us let out an elongated "kawaiiiiii" adding, "He's so cute, it makes me want to cry."

But that was topped yet again as Anthon was playing with an interactive movie that would sense his body movements and let him kick balls and grab fish. a small crowd of about 10 lunch-goers stopped to watch Anthon and many in unison let out multiple kawaiiiiii's.

I don't know where it goes from here. But Anthon certainly has been able to charm a lot of people. Now I'm not saying that my son is any cuter than other kids. It's just that, naturally, he doesn't look like most of the kids running around Tokyo. So he gets a lot of attention based on that. And because is a ham, he eats it up and likes to perform.

On a side note
I'm finally getting around to updating the video archive. I've added three new videos, please do check them out if you have the time.

Potty Training...

I'm writing this in hopes of coaxing Shelley into sharing her experiences so far with potty training Anthon. We're well into our second week and I am regailed daily with stories of not just soiled pants but also slow and steady progress towards potty training. Here are a few thoughts and stories:

1. I came home one night and noticed Anthon didn't have any pants on - only his Little Einstein underpants. I came to find out that he had blown through all of his pants. He had no more pants to wear. One word comes to mind: prolific.

2. Anthon likes to cry wolf. He thinks it's funny. Well, one of these days we will all be sorry.

3. As a reward he gets 1 M&M for a #1 and 2 M&Ms for a #2. Those double if we're away from home. I'm thinking, why hasn't the maker of M&Ms come out with M&Ms for potty training kids? You know, yellow and brown M&Ms???

< sarcasm >
4. We're not without support. Thank goodness for Japanese educational videos that are helping our son become a "pants man" in our new home.


< /sarcasm >

Shelley deserves all the credit for this. This I'm sure has to take a lot of patience and a dulled sense of smell. And what I know of pregnant-Shelley - she doesn't have a dulled sense of smell. And I guess I should be grateful to Anthon for not enjoying living in his own...well...you know.

On my way to work...

As I was walking to the train station, on my way to work, I looked up at our apartment and saw this little face peeking out at me from his window.

ichi, ni, san, yon, go...

Anthon's been picking up Japanese here and there. He's quite a verbal kid and will passively mimic things that are said around him. One of his new "tricks" is to count to five. Not a bad start.

The yakitori truck...the new taco truck?

Our family was taking a walk around our neighborhood when we happened upon a guy selling yakitori. What's yakitori? Well, if you ask Shelley, she'd say that it is simply burnt meat on a stick. More on her disdain later. Yakitori is literally translated to mean "grilled chicken". Think of them as small Japanese shish-kabobs with chicken (all sorts of parts of the chicken!) and vegetables.

By the way, if you're reading this and you live in LA, then you should run, not walk, to Little Tokyo and go to a place called Kokekokko which quite possibly could serve the best yakitori in all the world. I'm dead serious about this. Of course, it is because of Kokekokko that Shelley, and my Mom for that matter, don't like yakitori. You have to sit on these hard stools and the food comes out stick by stick, you have a minimum order and it takes a long while to get your food. The owner is a bit of a Soup Nazi to his staff, but it's worth the wait. The yakitori is wonderful. No reservations, get there early, and order right away. My Dad and I go there when our wives are out of town or otherwise indisposed. So maybe this a guy thing.

So, yes,I love yakitori, I see this small truck and I have to stop and get one. Anthon sees a chicken meatball stick and starts screaming, "meatball...MEATBALL!" So we get him one and this kid who really is ambivalent about eating in general eats, no devours like the most voracious carnivore, the four meatballs in about 30 seconds. And he's screaming for more while his mouth if full of meatball. So we hurry back to the truck for one more. I have only seen this level of crazed passion towards a food a few times before. Tacos comes to mind!

If you know me, you know that I also love the taco truck, a small catering truck in Pasadena that our family has been going to for years...more than 15 to be exact. And seeing Anthon go ga-ga for not only the taco truck as well as the yakitori truck is more solid than, I think, DNA evidence that Anthon is my child. So, being in Japan I know that I am not going to be able to visit the taco truck but a few times a year. I will have to have a substitute go-to place for my late night food cravings. Maybe this yakitori truck will be it.

To my friends in LA and Pasadena, please do think of me when you go to the taco truck. And for those who haven't been to the taco truck, it's on Fair Oaks, just above California in Pasadena. Don't be fooled by the one just above it. The real taco truck is in the Nishikawa Auto Parts parking lot.

The First of Our Lasts...

Today was our last home football game before graduation and before our move to Japan. In a way, this marks the beginning of a lot of "lasts" for us. These games have been fun because we've been able to do it as a family and I think Anthon loves it more than Shelley and I do. This morning, as Anthon was waking up, he called out from his crib, "Hey guys, I'm reeeady!" When we went in there to ask what he was ready for, he replied, "SC Game...eat nachos." Yes, he was ready...and yes we did eat nachos. He was giving bones to the kids around us and showing off his two finger "fight on" skills.

Anthon also has impressive skills at listening and repeating - much to our dismay sometimes. Upset at a certain call that went against USC, the student section began to yell in unison, "b***s***" - many times over. Anthon, ever the student of things that come out of my mouth that I say in haste, starts saying, "ullshi, ullshi, ullshi!" Though he doesn't know what those words mean, for the most part people are actually pretty respectful when Anthon's around. He's pretty interactive and animated at the games so people tend to watch what they say a bit more...so that has made the environment around us a bit better.

Poor UCLA, they couldn't even put up enough of a showing to keep my son awake, however. UCLA's 12 yards of total rushing offense lulled my boy into a good 45 minute nap from the second quarter into half time. The USC win means another Rose Bowl game and maybe one last game before we hit the road. Shelley and I thought that maybe our second child would be a bit disadvantaged because he/she wouldn't be in on all the fun we had at USC's football games. Maybe we have to become Tokyo Giants fans.

Calling from Tokyo

I thought I'd share a little video that was taken last month while I was away to Tokyo on business.

Let me preface this by saying that for the longest time whenever Anthon would pick up a toy phone he would pretend to be talking to his Dad. Even if I'm working late, going to school late or on the road for work - I try to call home and get some interaction with Shelley and Anthon. But for a while it seemed like that was the only source of interaction we had. When we first used to talk on the phone, Anthon could really only repeat things that Shelley would whisper in his ear. Now he can go off on all sorts of random things - the zoo, a song, food he's eaten, friends he's seen, his stuffed animals...aynthing.

This little video captures one such conversation. Anthon was in a really good mood and was singing "Old McDonald" and wanted me to kiss his ouchy finger through the phone.

Parenting, Anthon Style

It is rare that you get good honest insight into your parenting skills. On an almost daily basis, Anthon parents his stuffed animals with many striking similarities to how we parent Anthon. This poor little stuffed kitten, pictured on the left, has been given a time-out for apparently hitting Shelley. This isn't the first time it's happened and it's hardly the kitty's fault. Anthon normally takes the kitty and bumps him against either me or Shelley. After the offense, Anthon took the kitty and put him on the piano bench, giving him a timeout. Anthon normally gets a timeout by having to sit on small red chair underneath a picture of Jesus...not on purpose, mind you. Jesus was just there coincidentally!

When Anthon deemed the kitty ready to be done with his timeout, he went up to him, put his hand on the kitty's face and made the kitty look at Anthon. We do this to Anthon to make sure he looks us in the eye when we tell him what he did to deserve the timeout. Finally, Anthon says to the kitty, "no, no, kitty, flick cheek" and Anthon gave the kitty a tiny flick on the cheek - as seen in the picture to the right. While we hate doing it, we sometimes will give Anthon a light flick on the cheek as a means to punish him when timeouts don't work. To show the stuffed kitty that there were no hard feelings, he walked him into the kitchen and declared to Shelley that the kitty was going to have a cupcake now. I think this was Anthon's sly attempt at getting a cupcake for himself, however. The best part about the timeouts is the reconciliation afterwards. It's never fun to punish your kids and I feel much better when I get a chance to tell Anthon that I love him. And no, we don't give him a cupcake after every timeout. Anthon would be much heavier if there the case.

Anthon certainly revels in being the parent to his stuffed animals. And it doesn't stop at discipline. Anthon has wanted to put his animals in the tub, tuck them in at night, put a diaper on them, hush their cries, put a binky in their mouths and brush their teeth.

So, We're Parents of an Axe Murderer?

File this story under the "wait and see" category because we can't be sure what path Anthon will travel down in his life. He can be a doctor or lawyer, or anything he wants to be. A sword wielding limb dismemberer can't be ruled out quite yet, either. We didn't know Anthon had channeled King Arthur from Monty Python's Holy Grail, but he seems to take a keen liking to using his foam USC Trojan sword, donated by the man sitting next to us at the USC vs. Oregon State game, to hack at our friends Jono and Jill.

On our way to church the next day, after a fun weekend with Jill and Jono had come to an end, a visibly sad Anthon clutched to his foam sword in the car and kept saying in a very sad voice, "Jill, Jono, slice."

We'll have to keep an eye on Anthon to see if he displays any more of this child-like glee over de-limbing people. Just as a precaution, however, Shelley and I are making sure the Cutco knives aren't anywhere within grabbing distance!

Click on the picture below to see Anthon play Hack-a-Jono with a foam Trojan sword.

Stuck and not happy

This picture was taken of Anthon when he was about 3-4 months old in February of 2006. We were on our way home from visiting my grandma in Santa Rosa. Back then, Anthon could sleep for hours upon hours in his rear facing child seat. We didn't want to wake him, but we wanted to know if he was awake. So prior to the shot attached below, I reached back and snapped a random shot with Shelley's digital camera just to see if he was awake. We looked at the shot and the face peering back had eyes open and a concerned look, wondering what in the world was in his face. So funny.

Anyway, I moved to the back seat to calm Anthon down. I love this picture because it really does capture his mood. He was not happy being stuck in his car seat, but he wasn't so unhappy as to really cry about it. His pursed lips was just about all the disapproval he could muster.

Download the full photograph by clicking on the image below.

Anthon's pasport picture

Many of you know that our little family is moving to Tokyo, Japan in January. We're in the early stages of learning about the logistics of our move. One thing that we have to do is apply for Anthon's passport. I think it's funny that at 2 years old, he needs to get a passport. I don't think I got my passport until I was 13 or 14. Oh and when we move, we'll get to fly Business Class, something I didn't experience until I was 25...Anthon? The ripe old age of 2. Is it any wonder that as you get older you find yourself starting conversations with your kids with "In my day." I just didn't think it would happen at 32!

So, anyway back to the picture. I was typing away at the computer and I noticed his passport application with his mug shot attached to it. I thought I'd upload it for your viewing pleasure.

I Am A Child of God...

For first-time parents, there are a lot of easy examples of how you could be better parents. I've written about a few of them here and here.

But every once in a while Shelley and I will get a little confirmation from our son that let's us know that we're at least doing a few things right. Take this weekend, for example. We figured out that Anthon not only likes listening to the CD of Primary children singing songs, but he also knows all the words to "I Am a Child of God." And he loves singing it. We had Family Home Evening tonight and while Anthon was most excited for the 'family home evening treat' of rice krispy treats, we got him on camera singing for us. And to top it all off, Anthon points to the children animated Book of Mormon reader and says, "Nephi!"

So, we're obviously thrilled...and we think it's cute when he sings. We don't know where it all came from, though. But we're glad that he's doing it. At least in this respect we feel like we're doing something right. Though, those of you who attend our ward and hear how loud he can be in church meeting sometimes might beg to differ.

Please click on the picture to be see his video.

Giving "Bones" to the 12

So many of you know I'm a huge University of Utah fan. So, I went up to Salt Lake with Anthon and my Dad and brother-in-law Cam to catch Utah absolutely wreck UCLA 44-6. The week before, Cam taught Anthon about "giving bones" or doing a knuckle bump. It was at this Utah game that Anthon really caught the spirit of giving bones.

So, we were at the game, watching it from the President's box. Other fans included the former President of the U and his wife, donors, faculty and one distinguished alumni Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. Elder Wirthlin was a member of the Utah's football team when he was in college. He's 90 now.

So, I've set the stage. The Utes are doing well. Anthon has learned how to give bones and we're in a place where Anthon is the only child...youngest living thing around by aboutu 20 years. After the Utes score, Anthon decides it's time to start giving bones to people. He does this by clenching his fist and raising his arm in the air while joyfully declaring, "BONES!" He made his way down the aisle, giving bones to me, Cam and my Dad. The former President of Utah and his wife had to be educated on what "giving bones" was and they indulged my son.

Anthon crossed the aisle and found poor Elder Wirthlin watching the game. Anthon stuck his clenched fist near Elder Wirthlin and said, "Bones!" Elder Wirthlin looked puzzled, smiled and said, 'Hello young fella." He stuck his open hand out thinking Anthon wanted to shake hands. I had to sheepishly explain what Anthon was saying and Elder Wirthlin gave my two year old son bones. Elder Wirthlin sort of laughed after my son went off giving other people bones that kids are certainly a blessing.

As I think about it, I could have been witness to the first act of giving bones by a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles...ever! It's hard to imagine President Hinkley giving Elder Packer "bones" when Elder Packer says a really great prayer, or when Elder Oaks gives a "totally awesome" report of missionary work in Southeast Asia. You never know, though.

The two pictures are of Anthon giving bones, but unfortunately not to Elder Wirthlin. I didn't get my camera out in time to capture that. Too bad. You'll just have to believe me.

Cheetos! (and adventures in other junk food)

There are very few things in this world that Anthon can/will eat with reckless abandon. Despite Anthon being formerly of the "failure to thrive" ilk, I wouldn't say he's a picky eater - he's just more of a reluctant eater. We often have to cajole him into eating. One of the more effective techniques has been for me to take a spoonful of his food and "drop bombs" into his mouth. We do this by simulating a falling bomb noise (usually me whistling) whereupon I would make an exploding noise upon "impact" of said food in Anthon's mouth. That has since given rise to even greater explosions, with me blowing myself back into walls, over couches, etc. The latest trick is making the bombs travel around the kitchen before exploding into Anthon's mouth. Anthon seems to like making me jump through hoops. But it is working! We can usually extend lunch or dinner a few extra bites before Anthon catches on.

We're also in daily negotiations with Anthon to eat. We know what he loves eating - Cheetos being at the top of the list - and so we'll say, "Anthon, do you want Cheetos?" He inevitably answer "Yeah." To which we'll respond, "Ok, five bites of your dinner." He'll whine and refuse to eat, but he sees that the carrot on the stick is worth it if it means getting to his Promised Land that are those Cheetos. But I feel like Monty Hall on "Let's Make a Deal." Whenever we babysit we're constantly amazed at other kids who eat what's put in front of them without any thought.

Anyway, here's a quick video of Anthon showing how much he loves his Cheetos and cupcakes.

iPod redux: Low-Fidelity

So, I've talked about how Anthon loves Shelley's iPod. We snapped a shot of Anthon listening to the iPod as Shelley was listening with my cheapo low-fi speakers. I look at this picture and think that maybe Anthon will turn out to be that guy who walks around town carrying a boom box against his ear.

Anthon and his Grandpa Daetwyler

While we were in Indiana, Anthon's Grandpa Daetwyler treated him to a lot fun activities: catching worms, fishing, playing in the water and hanging out with the horses. It was good bonding time.

Click on the thumbnail to the right for a funny video that you won't want to miss. Halfway through the video, there is a minute-long segment that involves Anthon a hose, water, increasing water pressure and screaming.

Anthon and the iPod

Like most kids, Anthon loves watching TV. His favorite show is either Baby Einstein or Baby Signing Times. Or, if I'm watching sports, he likes to cheer at the screen. Shelley also has a video iPod. (Do you see where I'm going with this?) and ahead of a particularly long flight that Shelley had to take with Anthon, alone, I thought I'd be a good husband and rip a few of our Baby Einstein DVDs and put them onto the video iPod for Shelley to use with Anthon. I thought that would pacify him...and it does...as you can see from the photo below. It's like catnip for our child. It just puts him into a calm, sedate state.

But Anthon loves the iPod. Shelley told me a story of how she had just come downstairs with Anthon and was doing something when she realized that it was pretty quiet. She looked around for Anthon and eventually walked upstairs to find Anthon sitting in our black swivel office chair. He had pulled Shelley's iPod out of the cubby it was in...which is hard for Anthon to reach...unwound the earbuds, stuck them in his ear correctly, turned on the iPod and pressed the right combination of buttons to get the Baby Einstein video to play. This kid is determined to watch his Baby Einstein. He looks at Shelley with a proud look on his face and says, "Mama, TV!"

We flew home from Indiana last weekend when I snapped this shot. Anthon was asking for the iPod long before the flight even took off from Evansville. But it works magic. Our child was quiet and eventually fell asleep for a nice flight home.

Anthon's Busath Photo

So this shot was taken by Busath Photography a studio in Salt Lake City. We've used this studio for family photos, wedding and baby shots. These were originally taken back in November and after some mishaps on both sides we're finally getting the picture below printed.

What Shelley and I love about this picture is Anthon's cute little smile and his bare feet exposed. The picture seems to capture a sweet part of Anthon's personality.

Three generations of Anthon

I never really knew my Dad's Dad...the first Anthon. From what I hear, he was an amazing man. He served in the FBI during World War II, then ended up being a Sociology and Criminology Professor at the University of Utah. He even taught a marriage and family relationship class to my Mom before she married my Dad. He died, however, before I could remember him.

Anthon IV, my son, has a great relationship with my Dad, which makes me very happy. It's pictures like these that I know one day will be a great memory for me and my son. It's not often that you can get three generations of Anthons together! This picture was taken at the Dodger game a few days ago.

My son is, like, TOTALLY centered

Shelley snapped this photo of Anthon and his friend Charlotte doing some yoga...the downward facing dog to be precise. As much as I'd like to think that my son and his friends are THAT much more in touch with their inner being, I think they just got bored with what they were doing and decided to copy Shelley.

Dodger Game, Cotton Candy & the Taco Truck

These pictures are a week old, but they are nevertheless classic. That night, Anthon had two major firsts. At the Dodger game he had his first taste of cotton candy. And as you can see, he has a big smile on his face. He really, really liked it. The cute thing about Anthon is that he likes sharing the food he thinks is yummy. So while he ate his fair share, he enjoyed grabbing a handful and shoving it into Dad's mouth. And he's pretty persistent...like his parents, he won't give up until we eat what we feed him.

After the game, as usual, Shelley and I went to the taco truck, which is here Anthon experienced is second "first". Now I don't think I've ever explained my love for the taco truck. It's nothing more than what I've said it is. It's a truck that sells tacos, only tacos. And I'm not talking about those gross hard-shell tacos with chopped up lettuce and ground beef. No. Warm corn tortillas, carne asada, chopped onions & cilantro, lemon and salsa roja. Street tacos. Anyway, my family has been going here since I was 14. You park your car on the street and walk into a shallow parking lot in front of an auto mechanic. There is parked the taco truck at night. You stand in line for a while, get your tacos and walk back to your car and eat them on the side of the road. And it's not just any taco truck...because there are a lot of them in Pasadena. This one is on Fair Oaks, just North of California in the Nishikawa Auto Mechanic's lot.

Needless to say, it's a family tradition. Anyway, I ordered my tacos and Anthon seemed really interested in what I was eating. So I grabbed a small piece of tortilla and placed a chunk of carne asada in it for Anthon to eat. I thought he'd spit it out since he doesn't like chewy things. But he ate it down and said, "Yummy!" and wanted another bite. Yes, he is a Cannon after all!

Click on the thumbnails to see more pictures.

Anthon sings the classics

I think I'm turning into one of those Dads who has to talk about everything that their kid is doing. And I really try not to be that way. I'd like to think I have other things to contribute to conversations other than, "Ok, but did I tell you that Anthon did..." But looking over the last three posts on this website and I find that they're all about our boy.

So, because I can't deny it any longer, I might as well feed the fire, right? Here's Anthon singing along (kind of) to Dad's horrible rendition of the old Mormon classic, "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree." It was taken on Easter at my parents' house.

Ben Folds...watch out!

So, I captured this little video last week. Anthon loves to sit on the piano bench and play the piano. I'd like to think that he gets it from his Dad who really likes listening to guys like Ben Folds who are amazing pianists. But more than likely, Anthon just likes to mimic what he sees his Mom doing. So, he'll sit there and hit the keys a little bit, then push some buttons on the control panel and then turn the pages on the sheet music before doing it all over again. It's really cute.

While he's still raw, the talent and the showmanship is there...for sure.

Shelley, Anthon in Houston & Utah

February and March were busy traveling months for the Cannons. While I was in Japan and India, Shelley and Anthon visited family in Houston, Utah and Evansville. Shelley then left Anthon with her parents to come travel with me in India. Is that clear as mud?

Anyway, the two trips to Utah, I think, was a big hit. Anthon was introduced to snow, his really, really large snow suit, and the joys of sledding. Click on the thumbnails below to see the pictures.

Fight On!

One of the perks of being a student once again is the chance to relive collegiate sports. Part of the fun this time around is introducing Anthon to these great sporting events. And lest you think that Anthon really isn't aware of what's going on, rest assured...he is.

Case in point - Saturday's game. USC hosted Arizona St. When Shelley and I woke Anthon up and put him in his USC t-shirt, I think he suspected that something fun was going to happen that day. While I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, Anthon ran into my room, opened up my t-shirt drawer and grabbed the only USC t-shirt I own and ran it into me for me to put on. He did the same with Shelley's shirt. This is a boy who was excited to go to a game!

While at the game, we were feeding Anthon goldfish crackers during a timeout. Mostly, he took them from Shelley and then tried to feed me, instead. While he was doing this, the arena cameras focused on Anthon and he was on display on the jumbo-tron above center court. I stood Anthon up on my lap and he saw himself and began to blow kisses to the crowd. He's becoming a total ham.

Here are two pictures: one of Anthon at the ASU game and one of the family at the UCLA game.

More Random Shots of Anthon

Over the space of a few weeks, I was allowed to test out my Dad's 70-300mm zoom lens made for Nikon dSLR cameras. I was lucky enough to capture Anthon in two different spots in rather funny moods. The first four shots are of Anthon in a cemetary not too far from Shelley's parents place in Indiana. It was a cold afternoon and I thought Anthon looked so cute bundled up. On the way home, I cupped his hands and blew on them to keep them warm and I held Anthon against me. He didn't last five minutes before he was out like a light and felt like a dead weight against me. It was one of those moments where I wished the walk home was a bit longer.

The second set of photos were taken in mid-January on the tennis court by our condo. Anthon had received a set of balls for Christmas: a basketball, football and soccer ball. So we took them and some tennis balls and ran around for a while. I especially love these shots because it captures some of the unique personality quirks that Anthon has.

Please click on the thumbnails below for more pictures.

Busath Photos

We finally got the proofs back from Anthon's 1-year portrait that was shot by Busath over Thanksgiving. You can see the shots by following the link below:

Anthon's Busath Photos

Anthon's New Suit

For the wedding of Shelley's sister, Diana, Shelley bought Anthon a black three-piece suit. A little trick that we use with Anthon to get him into some clothes that he might like - after we get him dressed we have to bring him in front of a mirror and tell him how cute he looks. He usually cheers up. We've probably created a vain child in the process. But we'll worry about that later. For now, we think he's pretty cute in his his suit.

Thanksgiving in Utah, 2006

For the first time in nearly 18 months, Shelley's entire family was in one spot - Woodland Hill, Utah for Thanksgiving. This was a big occassion, since the last time we were all together, the two grandchildren had yet to arrive. It was also nice to see Anthon endure two 9 hour trips in the car from Pasadena to Utah and back to Pasadena. We were truly grateful for that.

Anyway, at most points during the long weekend, there were 17 - 20 people hanging around the house. Lots going on - a family dinner with 28 people, lots of football on Saturday (sorry to say my Utes didn't win) and a visit to the Salt Lake City Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. Clik on the pictures below to see the photos from the long weekend.

Recent picture

Shelley took this picture of Anthon a few weeks ago and I think it captures his emerging personality really, really well. Anthon has this hearty belly laugh and continues to show his really friendly disposition.

There are four pictures like this of Anthon on the lawn. Click on the picture below to go to the gallery.

Anthon gets a haircut

Ahead of Anthon's big photo shoot in Utah at Busath, Shelley and I wanted our friend Erika to give Anthon a haircut. I was surprised to see that not only did he not cry, but he also sat relatively still.

Twins!

For Father's Day, Shelley's Mom, Sally, bought Anthon and me matching Polo button downs. Anthon's now just able to fit into his. I think we make a pretty good looking twosome.

Anthon turns one!

Anthon recently turned one years old. He devoured the defenseless piece of cake and had a great time smearing the frosting all over his face.