3 1/2

 How come my baby looks so big now?!

Earlier this week we went shoe shopping for some church shoes.  We got some, but we also came home with "feet shoes," as Cannon calls them.  He is in LOVE with these funny shoes!

 He has really grown-up these past few months.  Since his birthday six months ago he has:

1.  Greatly improved his speech and communication!  He has big ideas and lots of stories to talk about.  He has lots of questions too.  He recently invented a game called "Story Game" where we switch off telling parts of a make believe story.  He also likes to talk about dinosaurs, which is a new interest of his.  I love to see his imagination blossoming!

2.  Learned to swim!  That has been so awesome!  It's nice that he can have his independence in the water.  He is definitely a fish out of water and it's nice that we can swim here most months of the year.

3.  Learned to ride a two-wheeler!  This is a very recent accomplishment and he is still mastering the bike.  I couldn't believe he did it!  One of the best gifts as a parent is to watch your child succeed and see their hard work pay off.  It's the best feeling to watch your child feel proud of himself.

4.  Learned to pour his own milk and water.  I bought two small glass pitchers, one for water and one for milk.  They are the perfect size for Cannon and now he can get out his own cup and pour his own water when he's thirsty.  He craves independence and having that autonomy has really made him feel good about himself.  I am trying to revamp some things around the house in order to make things more functional and user-friendly for him. 

5.  Become a good friend.  It makes my heart happy to see him share his toys and take care of his friends, by his own choice.  He definitely still has times where he is dead set on a toys or idea or tramples over the little kids to get something he really wants, but I see improvement.  He is the more dominant child in his group of friends (future leader I am hoping) and it's usually his way or the highway, but we are working on using words to solve our problems and to talk about things that bother us instead of pushing or hitting.  I think he is really going to like preschool next year!

Love this guy!