Ella can count

Poor Ella. Because she is the middle child, we barely notice her developmental milestones. For example, because we play "hide and go seek" a lot, Ella has memorized how to count from 1 to 10. And I think she has known how to do it for a while now, but we're just sort of realizing that she can do it. Nevertheless, it is really cute as this girl is exploding in terms of the volume of words she can speak. And might I add she is exploding in terms of the actual decibel volume of her voice, too. Man can she scream.

Here's a brief video of Ella showing off her counting skills. She just woke up, so her hair is everywhere.

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.

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.

Like Mother, Like Daugther

Shelley has been working on a project to make a "flirty apron." If you don't know what a flirty apron is, see the picture above. Anyway, as she was finishing it up, she decided that there was enough fabric and ample motivation to make a matching apron for Ella. As you can see by the smile from ear to ear, Ella was very pleased.

The apron will get its first use this weekend when we belatedly prepare for and celebrate Thanksgiving here in Tokyo. As I write this, it's technically Thanksgiving Thursday. But on certain important American holidays there's more than a 16 hour time difference between LA and Tokyo...it's more like a two days difference. We have to wait until the weekend to celebrate. But alas, we will at least have turkey and stuffing and everything that goes along with that. Thank you Costco and friends that have military base access.

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!

Ella is talking...a lot

Ella is growing up and becoming quite the talker. Shelley and I have always talked about how great Anthon's was verbally growing up, but Ella is starting to really ramp up her words and sounds. We took a video when Anthon was 18 months old and quizzed him on certain words. Now that Ella is days away from being 18 months, Shelley took a quick video of Ella talking and making noises.

On a personal note, it's been within the last month, month and a half that I've been able to develop this nice father-daughter relationship with Ella. She is quite a charming little girl and I am smitten. She wants me to sing songs to her at night and will try to sing along with her favorite ones. When she wants to give you a kiss she'll place her hands on my cheeks and guide my face to hers so she can kiss me. She loves giving tight squeezes around my neck and will grunt like she's squeezing so hard. She loves reading books. At night when I come home I can hear her yelling "dada, dada, dada" as her little feet are running towards the door. She can't quite beat Anthon to the door. He's pretty swift. But Ella isn't far behind. She's so polite. She says thank you for everything. She'll fold her arms and listen patiently through the prayer, even long ones and give out a very enthusiastic "AMEN!" at the end.

We're amazed at what new things she is saying, learning and doing from one day to the next.

Ella Loves Ice Cream

It's been hot and humid here in Tokyo the last week. It's definitely ice cream weather. But you have to eat it quickly, or else it will melt all over you. The great thing about being a kid is that you don't care that your ice cream cone gets all over you. And really, I think the greater the mess, the higher the level of enjoyment for the child. Watching Ella eat this ice cream cone makes me think she really, really enjoyed it.

All girl: Ella in High Heels

Sometimes you look at what your kids do and think that they were born with that disposition. Ella is showing an affinity for all things girly. She likes to preen in the mirror when you tell her she's pretty. She loves her toenails painted and she now has a fascination with Shelley's high heels. Ella will go straight for the closet and put one or more on and clog around the apartment. I'm sure it creates quite the distraction for our neighbors downstairs, but it is pure entertainment watching her act all grown up with her feet that fill barely a quarter of Shelley's high heel shoes.

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.

Ella is starting to walk

Right before the family left for the U.S., Ella began to take some steps on her own. So while we'll be away from each for the next month, I'm full anticipating seeing Ella make the transition to walking full time.

Up until the day they left, she never would walked for me. Whenever we tried to get her to walk, she would end up walking on her knees with her arms outstretched and grunting - looking a lot like baby Frankenstein.

But here she is walking around and enjoying the laving praise we pour on her.

Our girl sleeps in the closet

These are the instructions Shelley left for the babysitter last night. Brush teeth, say prayers...and don't forget to put Ella in the closet! There's part of me that feels guilty about putting our daughter to sleep in the closet. I mean, what loving parent puts their children in the closet for 10-12 hours at a time? Ella isn't the deepest sleeper and the slightest noise seems to wake her. To exacerbate matters, we don't have blinds in Ella's room and with Tokyo getting light at 4:00 AM, we've had a spat of days where Ella is up at 5:00 or 5:30 AM. Not good. So we've resorted to putting her in the closet. It's at least a walk-in, and we have a crib there for her. But we do feel bad, because we are putting her in a closet. In the movies, only unloved kids with mean parents put their kids in closets. I mean, is she going to develop some complex that will take years of therapy to unwind because her heartless parents put her in a closet at night, turned out the lights and closed the door? We're willing to risk it to give us a few extra minutes of sleep. Well, there goes parents-of-the-year honors for 2009. Better luck next year I guess.

Ella turns one

Our little Ella has turned one, and Shelley and I are left wondering where the time has gone. Ella would have come into this world a few minutes earlier than she did had the doctor not been stuck in traffic and instructed the nursing staff to keep the baby from being delivered. But what started out as a nightmare experience for Shelley has resulted in us being able to raise a really sweet little girl.

At her one year mark, Ella is on the cusp of standing and walking all on her own. She can handle a few seconds of standing on her own before she falls over. She loves her shoes and uses the stroller as her personal walker as much as we use it for her carriage. She's developing quite a loud voice and exhibits random moments of extreme volume in the most unfortunate of places: airplanes, church, inside of cars and during family prayer where her loud voice really reverberates. She has learned one word from Anthon, "Don't," which sounds more like Homer Simpson's "D'oh." She says it quite often and at times can come across emphatically. She can follow a few songs with simple hand gestures and will even supply a few words here and there to songs that she loves. She's just in a great learning phase.

We celebrated her first birthday in Beijing during our trip. We found a local bakery, bought the only small cake they had, only to find that Ella had no interested in it at all, and wanted nothing to do with the peaches or the cake. But we sang and celebrated nevertheless. A pre-birthday celebration took place with Shelley's family when they were visiting us a few weeks back. Ella devoured her chocolate cupcake - it must be a chocolate thing.

We feel blessed to have such a cute young little girl in our lives. She brings a bit more of a feminine balance to the family, which is helpful considering Anthon is 100% boy. Anthon's a great big brother and is adored by Ella who seems to have a special smile and laugh reserved only for him.

Click on the pictures to see a small gallery of shots of Ella from her first birthday. As always, I've posted a video of her "party."

Ella loves the washing machine

I've not actually seen this in person - I had to steal this video off of Shelley's camera - but evidently Ella really loves the washing machine. When it's on and she's awake, she loves to stand up and look inside at the clothes, water and bubbles sloshing around.

Ella and her walker

Anthon likes to climb up on the counter in the kitchen to help Shelley with the cooking. He's quite a good mixer. He uses one of our kitchen table chairs to climb up. Ella, who freely crawls around and pulls herself up on things, especially the kitchen chairs, realized one day when Anthon was on the counter, that the chair is light enough to push it around while standing, yet strong enough to support her.

She can't quite steer the chair, so she'll walk until she runs it into something. Then she does these little leg squats to complete the work out. She is quite pleased with herself, as you can see in the video below.

Ella and the donut

I haven't posted anything new on the family for a while. I captured this little video of Ella showing off the other morning during breakfast.



Ella is 11 months old now and becoming this total character. she seems less and less like our tiny baby and more and more like our little girl. She can clap her hands to "Patty Cakes" and will 'throw it in the oven' by raising her arms up high. She's waving hello and goodbye. She's really good at feeding herself with her hands and is showing interest in using spoons and forks. She loves food and can't get enough. If she's sitting on your lap and you're eating food, she will reach for the arm holding the utensil, grab the arm with both hands, pull it towards her and forcefully guide the utensil with the food into her mouth. She's very determined. Ella is pulling herself up on almost anything and enjoys standing. She's crawling everywhere and just has a lot of confidence in herself.

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.

Crew or Butterfly?

Ella has this little motion when she gets excited where she waves her arms in a circular motion. Shelley and I can't decide whether we should be putting her into swimming classes to be do the butterfly stroke? Or perhaps put her in a row boat to have her do crew? Thoughts?

As you can see, she takes quite the face plant towards the end of the video, but seemingly cheers up when she starts waving her arms again.

Mamamama

Ella has started to say "mama." Shelley is rejoicing. I kid you not, this girl is exploding in confidence and curiosity. She's everywhere, into everything, saying new sounds and for good measure finds being awake so much more fun than falling asleep. We're not as big a fan of the latter development.

Ella Attacks Her Mobile

So now that Ella can crawl she suddenly is terrorizing everything in her sights. Shelley wrote on her blog that Anthon had to trap Ella under her toy basket, like a bear, because she was going after the toys he was playing with (no need to mention that it was her toys in her room).

She was supposed to be napping, but I caught Ella crawling up to the side of her crib and going after the animals in her mobile. She successfully, though quite accidentally, stopped the music and therefore the rotation of the mobile itself, which allowed her to prey on the innocent, multicolored elephant.


This is reminiscent of a video Shelley shot of Anthon at about Ella's age. He was transfixed on grabbing and shaking his mobile animals before falling asleep.

Ella is crawling

After a few weeks of looking like she wants to crawl, Ella has finally put it all together and is crawling. Shelley and I readily admit that our apartment is not ready for Ella to start crawling. I can't tell you how many times she has instinctively gone for the very things we're trying to keep her from - wall sockets, television cords, etc. Ella crawled over to Anthon's shelves and pulled down his camera...the old heavy one that missed her noggin by inches. Good times ahead.


I know the quality of these videos may not be better than what I've posted in the past. Youtube does allow you to watch uploaded videos in "higher quality." If you're interested in seeing that, click on this link to take you there.

Ella's Movements

Shelley took this video of Ella copying my movements. I would put my hand up and she would put her hand up. I would put my hand down and she would put her hand down. She was so tired, but thought that this little developmental milestone was so funny.

She's been shaking her a lot, as if to say no. She teases her Dad at the 45 second mark by shaking her head "no" when asked if she could indulge me by saying "Dada!" She's a tease!



I know the quality of these videos may not be better than what I've posted in the past. Youtube does allow you to watch uploaded videos in "higher quality." If you're interested in seeing that, click on this link to take you there.

Ella has a tooth

Ella finally has her first tooth. It popped through her lower gums within the last ten days without a lot of the tell tale signs of teething.

This obviously doesn't come as great news for Shelley, who still is nursing a baby girl who doesn't like taking a bottle. Let's just say the two of them have had a few "talks" about not biting.

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.

Ella the lip smacker

Ella is starting to exert more control over the movements of her face and mouth. She's starting to mimic a few of the facial expressions that we make. For example, she's discovered she likes the kissing sound we make when we smooch on her. She has learned to smack her lips, kind of, and does it over and over and over. Click on the picture to see a short video. You'll also see how close she is to crawling. She's about to get those legs underneath her, but hasn't quite put it all together.

She's also learned how to shake her head from side to side as if to say "no, no, no." We haven't been able to capture that, however.

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.

Ella Says Dada...I Think

Our cute Ella is 6 months old and continues to be a sweetheart. She's eating rice cereal, apples and pears. She's getting close to scooting around which should add another dimension to her life.

The other day I caught Ella on video talking in her soft voice - saying the beautiful word that is "dada." I'm try hard to convince myself that 1)she actually said it; and 2)she has associated that first formation of words to me. Click on the picture below to see the video and decide for yourself.

Ella finds her hands

Ella has found her hands and is learning that if she wants them to move, they move...and if she wants to grab, they grab. She will sit there and stare at them for long stretches of time as she moves her hands around - opening and closing her fists. She looks at her hands with such dreamy-wonder and fascination in her eyes, it's almost as if she's on hallucinogenics and is seeing "Strawberry Fields Forever."

Click on the picture below to see a brief video.

Ella is a talker

Ella is finding her vocal ability...and we're finding out that she can jabber on quite loudly! During these first four months of life Ella has actually been a fairly quiet child. She's certainly more active and VERY LOUD. It shouldn't come as a surprise, as I'm sure with Shelley and I as her parents she was definitely coming into this world hard wired for talking. Just as there are families who have to fight for food around the dinner table, we have to fight to get our time to talk.

Click on the picture below to see a a video of Ella talking about something - probably politics, or maybe her thoughts on the current financial crisis.

Ella Nadine Meets Ella and Nadine

One of the big objectives and highlights of our trip is introducing Ella Nadine to her two namesakes, Ella and Nadine.

Ice Cream Induced Coma

It gets so hot and humid in Tokyo that you really lose any will to live and all you can do to numb the pain is to work yourself into an ice cream induced coma. Ella's expression says it all...the blank stare and glazed-over look in her eyes, arms extended out motionless and melted ice cream drooling from her prused lips. Trust me, we've all been there in the Tokyo heat.

The ice cream was good, though. Base flavor in Japan isn't vanilla, it's milk flavor. It tastes like cold, thick, heavy cream with sugar. It's quite good. Ella concured.

Anyway, our little girl is growing and continues to be such a cutie pie. Click on the picture below to see more pictures of Ella from the past month.

Ella Rolls Over

Ella rolled over twice the other day...certainly the first time I've ever seen her do that. She was quickly frustrated with tummy time and promptly pushed herself over. Trying to do it a third time proved to be too much, however. She pushed and pushed but got too frustrated and cried. Click on the link below to see a quick video of one of her successful rollover attempts.

Ella hums...

Shelley and Ella share something in common - they both hum when they breathe in their sleep. This isn't an everyday occurence with Shelley, but Ella seems to be a noisy sleeper and hums quite a bit.

Ella Smiles...

Ella is almost two months old. As Shelley noted in her blog, Ella is a few weeks away from travelling back home to see the rest of the family, including her two namesakes.

Ella is growing quickly and is starting to give us some smiles. We've taken some video of Ella starting to smile...click on the picture below to check it out.

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.

Ella's Baby Blessing

Last Sunday at church we had Ella's baby blessing. I think cool that most cultures and religions have a rite they perform to celebrate the birth of a new, precious life. Even in Japan, you will see babies, dressed not unlike Ella here in these pictures, blessed at one month after birth in the shrine by a Shinto priest.

Certainly to us as Mormons, the blessing not only has meaning to the child, but it has tremendous meaning to her family. It's one of the great blessings of being a father to be able to hold your child in your arms and pronounce a blessing on this life that is so new and full of hope and promise. And to have my parents there, and my father to help me bless her, was a great thing. What a great reminder of the importance and eternal nature of families.

I should say a few things about the dress...because that too has a significant family tie. The dress was made by Shelley's Mom, Sally. As legend has it, the dress was made from 37 yards of lace. That's a lot of lace. And it was beautiful.

Here are a few pictures from that day. Click on any of the pictures to see the gallery.

Ella at one month

Sorry for the lack of updates.

Ella hits one month tomorrow and we've learned a little bit about her as a person during this time.

1. Ella's eyes are actually blue...my recessive genes are busting through.
2. Ella loves sleeping with Shelley...but sleeping in her her crib and with Dad? Not so much.
3. Ella seems to have a milk protein allergy...just like Anthon did.
4. Great eater.
5. Prolific pooper. And I mean forceful.
6. Can't stand the binky...much to our chagrin.

I've uploaded a few more pictures of Ella. Click on the picture below to see more.

Etymology of Ella Nadine

A few of you have asked, so I thought I would explain how we got the name Ella Nadine. Family names, and names of personal significance, have always been important to me and Shelley. When it came time to think about a name for our first little girl, this was the first name that was on our list.

Ella is my grandmother's name. She turns 91 this year and is one of the most beautiful and classiest women I know. She lives on her own in Northern California with a busier social life than I ever had as a single person! As an aside whenever Shelley and I wanted to drive up to see her, we had to book her weeks and sometimes months in advance because her days would fill up with bridge parties, lunches or dinners out, etc. She has a beautiful singing voice and sang with my Mom in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. More than anything she has had to endure a lot of personal pain and trials - losing two husbands. One of my favorite gifts is a personal account of her life written in her own words and handwriting. I plan to share some of those stories to little Ella to let her know of her heritage...class and grace despite significant personal trials.

Nadine is a very special person in Shelley's life. She is often referred to as Shelley's "Fairy Godmother" - a name that I think really fits. Nadine was a good family friend, and former patient of her father's, who was so grateful of the care her father gave her, that she unofficially adopted Shelley (and subsequently her siblings) and would spoil her with jewelry or the latest fashion when Shelley was a teenager. With no close family of her own, Nadine became an important part of Shelley's life. Nadine is a naturally generous person - giving up her time to volunteer at the hospital to help relieve the suffering of the patients there.

Both of these women are important people in both of our lives and while we know that Ella Nadine has come with her own set of personality characteristics, we feel excited to teach her about the heritage that comes with her name. To that end, here is a quick little video of Shelly starting that "training" - telling Ella Nadine about both Ella and Nadine.

Ella Etymology

Here's Ella...

It's been a fast few days. Shelley checked out of the hospital today after a very U.S.-like stay of only two nights. Usually they like to keep you for 5 days. But I think she was ready to go. We are glad to have her back.

I've leave the details of the delivery to Shelley. But I can tell already that you're a different parent with number two than you are with number one. After Anthon was born we strapped him into the car seat we had purchased months before and Shelley was wheelchaired out of the hospital and we drove a good ten miles under the speed limit for the two mile drive. We were very careful. With Ella, we couldn't get out of the hospital soon enough and we hailed a cab, no car seat, and just hoped for a safe ride home. I'm sure Ella will be juggling knives in no time.

But she is certainly a sweet baby. She's a good sleeper and eater and best of all she's a snuggler...which Shelley really likes. (Who am I kidding, no one is reading this...you've already clicked on the links below to pictures and a two-minute video).

Pictures

Video

Ella Nadine Cannon is here

Ella Nadine Cannon was born Saturday, May 3rd at 4:45 PM. Both Shelley and
Ella are doing great. She weighed in at 6 lbs 14 ounces and was 49 cms...if
someone wants to convert that for us, go ahead! She came out with lots of
dark hair, cute round head and big eyes. We think we'll keep her.

I will provide more information, including pictures, when I can.

--sent from my blackberry