Merry Christmas

The Pictures (no collages this week...oh well):

Everytime Cannon gets in the car (in Santa Clara) he says "Tows, Tows, Tows" (Cows) He LOVES helping feed.

We attempted gingerbread houses with Ann...

Pop "Sicles" with Grampa!

Sneaking into Grampa's computer...this kid loves technology!

Cannon was helping Sharley carry decorations out from church...and maybe the biggest reason this picture had to go on was the Red Mountain in the background!

Christmas Morning! Santa found us!

New Trucks!

Stories with mom

How do I sit in Grama's new Grandkid chairs AND ride my horse???

Opening presents at Grandma Ison's He's telling us this is "Big Bird"

Playing in Kate's new tent. He LOVED running into the sides and tipping it over. -He broke one of the poles :(

Kate painting my fingernails

Playing with a motor on Grandpa's work bench

Sledding with the Aunts Uncles and cousins.

Playing ball with Ethan on the stairs

Drawing on his new little tablet

Thursday we went to the Wave Pool in Price, it was really fun.

Still Chewing on that Silky! But with smile like that, why not?

The journal.
I need to write about this last SATURDAY. Cann Man would not go to bed, so finally I just laid him in his crib at my mom house hoping he'd give up and trying to keep myself from getting frustrated. Isaac was in the bedroom laying down faking like he was asleep. So I text him and said basically are we making any progress (with Cann falling asleep) well he heard his phone but ignored the text and a few others thinking it was just a friend texting him and taking this faking sleep thing pretty seriously, the good news is we were making progress. Well I'll give you 2 guesses what faking sleep turned into... and then my dad came home and Cannon heard him and well one of my boys ended up asleep and it was the wrong one. So I just got Cannon out of bed, shortly after my mom came home, and Cannon was hilarious playing with Grama. They had a pillow fight and he kept saying "I fight" "I fight" it was so funny. It was late and he was SO TIRED he was laughing so hard he could hardly breath then he'd make this funny noise as he sucked in air. Oh it was great. Then all of the sudden he got tired of that and started riding the legs of the ironing board like a horse and making all of his horse noises. This kid is SO FUNNY. I was cracking up. Of course we woke Isaac up laughing but he just stayed laying in bed and the good news is we really did tire Cannon out. So I finally got him to sleep, Victory!!! Then the next thing I know Isaac is on the phone... at 11 o'clock at night, I may or may not have been a little annoyed because I'd text him and no response-asleep, or so I thought- anyway he went out to the garage so he wouldn't wake anyone up but then he came back in still talking on the phone but very quiet. So heard him and headed that way mostly to see what the heck was going on then he held out the phone and said "Its President Boone, can you talk to him?" So what happened was not only my text got ignored but so did one from our stake president in Mississippi, (and one or 2 from the friend) Anyway he text back then called back (cuz it was even later there) but Isaac has a new calling, he's going to be the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric. Wow huh? Its pretty wild reflecting on the past few months and how Heavenly Fathers hand has guided us to this point. When I posted, a while back about things getting better in Mississippi I had definitely felt like that was where we were needed, which as HUGE progress for us because ... well if you read the blog-you get it.  But there are a whole chain of events and important conversations -even as recent as last Monday- that we have had that have led us to or prepared us for this point. Its wild but I feel really good about it. Oh and it was also really cool that we'd been to the temple Sat. morning. Anyway, I had to write it down.

Christmas was good-see the pictures post :)
Cannon says "Oh shoot" all the time... I guess that means I do too.
He says "Santa" and "Ho Hoooo" We had so much fun.


Whenever we drive by a church he says "Bum-ple" "Bum-ple"  which is how he says "Temple" he started doing it in Mississippi but here we drive by SO MANY more (LDS) churches. He can says "Temp-le" when he's just heard it and he got a cool book about temples from Grandma Ison usually we just try to explain that its a church but both are Heavenly Fathers houses. He can kind of says "Church"

I watched my kids play basketball this weekend but I don't feel like a coach anymore. I think that's a good thing since I'm not, but I just feel more like a parent. I hope they know I care about them.

What a week! SO FUN. We headed to SLC and went to the Christmas Concert at he conference center. Very Cool. Isaac's younger brother works there so he hooked us up with tickets. The music was awesome especially the bells and the guy who sang Tenor was awesome to. Then Tom Brokaw told the story of the "Candy Bomber" Hal Halverson in WWII. Then as they introduced him (now 92 years old) they "bombed" the conference center with parachutes and little pieces of candy and that part of the show was totally Bryan's doing. It was really really cool.

He wasn't really up for a photo shoot with the parachute :(

Link to Desnews story where I stole this pic from

Levi and Staci tended for us but we stayed with Grama and Grampa Kenworthy, Cannon sure loves Dolly Dog but she's not so sure about him. We went to church at Isaac's Aunt Marjorie's ward then headed for Huntington. One of my favorite things was when we sat down at Grama Ison's kitchen table Sunday night and Isaac started humming or singing or something "there's no place like home for the holidays" it was great, he so adventurous that sometimes I think he doesn't even miss home (as opposed to me) anyway it was really fun to have him so happy to be home. And we had a blast.
Let the projects with dad begin...
At first it was just screwing screws into a board then they decided they could turn it into an airplane. Then "How a Sponge works" experiment. (and the bottom corner pic is just Cann riding Grandma Kenworthy's exercise equipment. 

Grandma Ison loves having the toys out for the kids to play with and she just kept bringing more and more fun stuff. Then we went made some cookies and took down to the Parrish crew when we went to visit Buck. We always have so much fun there.
Originally we were going to go back to St. George Tuesday but then Buck had a lion hunt lined up for Wed. Isaac was SO excited. It turned out really great to because Tuesday it snowed ALL DAY. It was so pretty! And SO FUN.

 I wish the bottom pictures were on top on the above collage but I couldn't figure out how to do it so oh well.  Anyway...see the bottom left pic up Isaac pulling Cann up the "little hill" I tried to remind him that our son is only 1 1/2 but to no avail. The top pics in the above collage are how it turned out and little wonder that Cannon was clingy to me the rest of the time. He wasn't about to get back on that sled unless I was holding him (next collage top left pic) and even then he wasn't real sure.

 There was snow on the ground in Salt Lake too so  it was like we just got this great taste of winter on our trip north. We  had such a good time.
Here's a quick movie of the snow in SL

the lion

No place like home for the Holidays!!!

Oh it is so good to be home. I'm in heaven. We went to our ward party last Saturday, then taught our lessons on Sunday and headed out Monday.
We flew out of Shreveport and it was SO NICE to have Isaac with is. Plus he was a ton help. 2 seats for Cannon to tromp all over is way better than one. Then it was just home stuff-feed the dogs-feed the cows-play with Ann and so on, check on the house.

Carrots from out garden!

Tuesday we got to watch by girls play basketball, Wednesday went to the temple, Thursday I got to go to basketball practice, I had a blast it was just like old times and I think my cute players loved me being there as much as I loved it, it was just great. We've been staying up watching the National Finals Rodeo, its so fun. I used to do it all the time. Grandma and Grandpa Ison stopped by on their way home from Hawaii, and we're headed to SLC then down to Huntington this weekend. Keep the good times coming!!! :)

 

Before we left Cannon found some mega-blocks that I'd bought him for Christmas and stashed under the bed (note to self- under the bed will not work for hiding presents from him in the future) I figured he's not going to get to play with them until after Christmas anyway so what the heck-he had a blast. He'd hook them together then tap on the top to make sure it was secure, so cute. Then the bottom center and left pics-all yellow blocks! It was so fun to watch him color sort all on his own. I wouldn't have guessed that yet-but then again I don't exactly read the books. :)

So for our fun date we went to the State Championship football game Friday night because Brandon was playing in it.  (we don't technically live in Brandon but close enough)  It was really fun though and Cann Man-he might have had more fun than us!

Saturday morning we went to the Baton Rouge temple. A trip to the temple is a good 10 hour project here. We had to be gone by 5:30 in the morning to make the 9:00 session but it was really really cool. They had this temple day planned all year as one of the ward goals (We found that out later, all we knew was it had been announced since Aug when we got here so we figured it was kind of a big deal and made plans to go.) They had a nursery in the adjacent chapel so Cann Man hung out there. I had an old timer in our ward snap a quick picture. I'm thankful he did, I just snapped the one on the right to get the Angel Moroni and spire in it. :)

It was really really neat, ward temple days seems to be a little different here-I guess that it takes so much time is probably part of it. And we found out that our Bishop will be moving at the end of this month. I'm sad for us, but so so so excited for their family. Bishop Jordan totally holds a special place in our hearts already, and we have grown to love his is family so quickly, great people.
Sunday Annie took some family pictures for us. The 10 minutes before we walked out the door it wasn't looking good but Isaac was SO super cooperative, I was so proud of him and happy happy happy. Most of my favorites are in the new blog header (We've needed a new once of those for a while.) If I really get after it I might even get Christmas cards sent...
Then since we live right by the Nativity Lutheran Church and they were having a live nativity-we checked it out before listening to the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional. It was no tuachan, that 's for sure, but it was still fun cool and they had a camel so Isaac had a great time talking to the camel owner.

 

The Christmas devotional was good, it was just a good day.
Then we did normal things, story time at the library, the play date at the park-so wet and muddy...little boy heaven. We also made Christmas tree ornaments with Ayla and Henry (another little boy from our ward) one day, it was really fun.

Apparently Cannon thought they should be edible...

He runs to the window every time he hears and airplane. I feel like we live in a good area and a safe part of town but when my kid picks up the word "Siren" then makes a very accurate siren noise I'm very aware that we live in the city. We hear them all the time.
I know there was one other thing he's been doing a lot that I wanted to mention and was sure I wouldn't forget but...
Isaac is all but done! One semester down. YEA!!!

Sunday when we were out for a walk we saw a huge column of smoke and we got to see the fire trucks come rolling up and everything, it was just some trees in a back-or side- yard so not a big deal but it was pretty cool after just having been to the fire station but lets be honest-Cann man was way more interested in the dog some little girls who were also watching had.

I love always having the diaper bag camera handy-even if the pictures aren't that great it helps remind me of some of his antics on what really seams like a pretty uneventful week.

 Like this pic is of our late night cookie making project when the little stinker wouldn't go to bed (it was one of those late nap disasters) but I actually got the camera out to try and catch a pic of  him spread out on the kitchen floor trying to eat uncooked top ramen (he loves that stuff cooked or not) with no hands. It was one of those deals where I thought "gross stop that,... oh wait I want a picture first" but I missed it-and the picture wouldn't have had the vacuum sucking slurping noises that are what got my attention in the first place. Anyway. I'm tell'n ya-never a dull moment with this kid around.
The next missed picture was him dancing in the mirror after he climbed up on the table. And after that... I know he loves to look at animals on the computer and he loves to play basketball so apparently he decided combining two of his favorite activities would be a good idea.

Truthfully I missed this one just heard him grunting and asking for the ball afterward.

We're making  progress on eating!!! Yipee!  PB and J AND Apple slices both made it down his throat and on the same day-hooray for progress! His little vocabulary just keeps getting bigger and bigger. He's a pretty good little parrot but the ones I can think of that he's added this week are "dog" instead of just woof, "silky"...kind of, we get "sss-EEE" and "excited"  or "eh-sigh-d" because we always ask him if he's excited to go see Ayla and such.
Isaac...stressed-probably as much as I've ever seen him but Blake and Annie are tending and we're going to go on fun date tonight so hopefully that will be relaxing for him. Me...I miss basketball and I just think I end up cooking a lot. Not that it turns out great it just gives me something new to try. Don't be confused, life is not dull-not with Cann Man around, and  the other thing I do is constantly dream up projects, most of which don't happen. Oh well.
Anyway I better go, I should be cleaning the kitchen...Blogging is just way more fun. I am going to stop but don't bet on the kitchen getting cleaned. :)

Had to throw a cute picture with dad on!

There's a lot MORE than I could ever post but I'll do what I can.
We went to Memphis and spent Thanksgiving with Ryan and Sara. It was so fun! We had a blast! There is so much that is worthy of documentation but my mind is drawing a blank. Max did ask if we were going to stay until Christmas, no but not because it wouldn't be fun! We definitely have a lot to be thankful for. I do have this picture to help me remember Max looking down the butt of the bird and yelling "I see its bladder!" it was hilarious. I love that Ryan has his scrubs on too. Isaac looks like he's getting in on it with Cann Man here but the truth is those two were standing back while Max and his dad did the operating.

We let the shopping crowds be and enjoyed a little hike and picnic Friday. As we were hiking around at this little park that kind of in the middle of suburbia I kept thinking of that Christmas song about a "tender Tennessee Christmas" it will be fun for their family -they came home last Christmas but are staying this year- but I'm SO SO SO Thankful we get to head home for Christmas. 

The only bummer was that we had wanted to/planned on/and had taken Sunday clothes to be able to go to the temple but it turns out the little temples aren't open just any time. So we weren't able to catch a session. I guess we'll have to plan better next time.

The rest of the week was pretty routine expect Isaac didn't have to stay at school so long. We played Tennis -that our new little hobby since moving here, we're terrible, but its fun...and we're getting better.

Cannon always makes me laugh. His own language its something else..."Ut mmm ut mmmm" its "Up please." It so weird but he can say please, so usually I make him say that right before I pick him up. He was calling both Max and Calvin Max. But it was more like "MAAAA....X" it was was funny. I don't know what else, but there's always something.

This was Cann Man trying to wait up for his dad to get home. We just in a tough spot where 1 nap is not really enough but if we go 2 the second one ends up foul'n up the night. Oh well.

 

Monday is laundry day (who am I kidding? laundry day is really ALL stink'n week) Anyway cute little Cannon boy was bringing me laundry one piece at a time. I would fold it and put it away while he toddled back into the dryer. It was SO CUTE then he figured out he could grab it by the armful and I wasn't able to keep up quite as well. The kid melts my heart and makes even the most mundane tasks enjoyable. (It worked once at least) I love this kid.

I'm positive it was the first time in my life I've every enjoyed doing laundry-it wasn't near as cute when he was emptying his drawers and trying to put the clean clothes in the washer but he sure is fun!

It seems like this week has been super super busy. Isaac's pretty swamped at school but we're looking fwd to next week and Thanksgiving break. For our little playgroup this week we went to the fire station, it was pretty cool!

Monday's Isaac's late day, so usually we do Family Home Evening on Tuesday but this week there was a RS activity, then Wed we fed the missionaries and went to Book of Mormon Class oh and this is what we gave Pres. McDonough because he was doing interviews here at our building along with a double layer coconut cake.

 

For some reason my pictures of the cake didn't turn out. But supposedly he really likes coconut so we did our best. I told the sister missionaries I wanted to do it and they said I should have him in his big bird costume-that's why its on there. The sisters delivered it for us and took a video of him reading it but I still need to snag it from them.

Anyway back to the week. Thursday we had dinner with Isaac's friend from school Omar and his family it was really cool. Totally different, because they are from Turkey and of the Muslim faith. SO totally different but very religious. Like the boys ate in a different room than us-and sat on the floor. Blake just thought there wasn't room at the table but I think it had more to do with their beliefs. Omar told Isaac his wife didn't speak English but I thought she did really well. They have a little boy that is about 6 months older than Cannon -so Ayla's age, and Blake and Ayla came too- he's a cutie his name is like Joseph but with a U -I have no idea how you'd really spell is but you say "U-seph" it was cool to talk to his wife (not even trying to spell that one, I kill it enough trying to say it) anyway just to visit with her and see how her greatest joy is being a mom too. It was neat. Oh and Bubba in Turkish means Father so while I was calling Cann Man Bubba, U-seph was calling his dad Bubba, just a funny little thing we learned. The only scare was when Cann man tried to ride one of U-seph's toys down their stairs. It was a big time rough and tumble fall clear to the bottom but thankfully he came out with a little bloody lip, shaking and scared crying but nothing else. I hope we get to do more with them. She was really nice, oh and I can pity myself all I want about living in Mississippi -which I did mention last week is getting better though right- but this poor girl moved to the United States 1 week after they got married they were in Delaware before here. UG


And (sigh) now its Friday and I'm taking  dinner to a family our ward and who knows what else the day holds...blogging right? I love that.

And  MAYBE I ordered some food storage stuff and had it shipped to Utah. Great that's where we left all our other food storage. Sometimes I'm not very smart! Oh brother. Lucky for me I still have the best neighbors there and they found it. Good Grief.

Cannon and I set up the $3 Christmas tree I bought back in Sept when Annie and I went yard sale'n- we're totally getting a jump on the holidays!

So I wanted to add more pics from our trip but I take too many pictures. I'm just tired of making collages so it is what it is. Not organized but overly documented...Oh well.

My little Trick Rider-he climbs on everything!

Grampas Dogs are Cannon's Favorite So  FUN! We were teasing my dad about his nickname evolving from George to Chip and now "Woof" Poor guy seems to be digressing.

Hang'n out with the Allred's during the funeral. Still not sure how Becky got him to eat that much of a sandwhich...and love the  big cheese with Court.  So maybe he's used to the picture thing :) Too fun.

Cann Man was loving destroying the dominos with the cousins!

When he wants to color he is say. Doe Doe Doe, this baby translation stuff is hard. So I pretend he's saying "Draw" and we go with it.

His new work gloves are good for everything!
Fun at the feed yard. We sing "Oh my grampa's have a farm"

And fun with Ann (And Elsie)

Oh I had so much fun at home. The day after I got back the cute sister missionaries asked me if I missed it here, I shrugged, smirked, and asked if they would like me to lie? But that we did miss Isaac. However I must admit that as the week progressed for the first time I have felt the blessing of being here, I know that some of the things that have and will happened here will forever change my and our lives for the better and that some of our associations will be life long (or longer) friendships. I am grateful for that. Good attitude from me on the blog, WHAT??? This is unheard of,  I know, its been a while. But anyway I felt like it was important to post and I am super grateful! So now... the week:
Sunday we got to go to the 2nd ward. So fun. So many great friends. Loved the all three meetings! I am coming around on our ward here though too-its getting better, or I am--whatever. Then Monday we headed for Vegas around 8:00 AM and finally got back home here around 11:30. Oh brother, good thing I love being home so much because that day of travel is MISERABLE! Luckily after 2 hours in Dallas we as least found this little play place

On our flight to Jackson there wasn't anyone in the seat next to us. Hallelujah I love that. So Cannon piled in his chair. The only problem was it was a 10:00pm flight and most people wanted to sleep. But from the second he sat down in his own seat he just kept saying "Ice. Ice. Ice. Ice. Ice." We just get Ice when the flight attendants bring around drinks because it cuts down on the mess but Oh man-it was cute the first 30 or so times after that I didn't know how or if I was ever going to get him to be quiet. I did finally get him on my lap again and distracted for a minute until the flight attendant was about 2 rows in front of us then I let him sit there again and ask for Ice, then of course win her over by saying "Pease" and "Deek Dee" his consistent perfect inflection version of "Thank You"

Then it was kind of back to the swing of things. Cann Man had a Dr. appointment. 18 months-time flies!
He's starting to jabber and he knows exactly what he's saying...too bad I don't.
We dressed him up in his cute little Cowboy outfit-and here he is giving his little toy Monty Horse a lick. Silly kid. Oh and after dad shaved Cannon needed a turn. My two boys definitely missed each other! Its good to be together as a family again.