Kasey's Big Boy Hair Cut

Not like this is Kasey's first Haircut, but ... it sure was an eventful one.  Kris took Kasey to get a trim... Here is the Before and After... Does that Look like a Little Trim?!?!?

Truth be told - Kris was told to get a short cut for spring and summer.  Kasey Definitely had fun with his new style.  As you can see... he LOVES his new dew.

Showing off the side and top view

I know this is a little blurry, but I couldn't resist
putting this pic on our blog. He is Such a Ham!

Yep! Loving it!

Together 15 Years! WOW!

Who would've thought these two crazy kids would stay by each other's side for FIFTEEN YEARS!  On March 20th, we celebrated the 15th Anniversary of our First Date.  Yep; we are That Lame.  We totally celebrate our first date. Ha.

When we first met in college we were head over heels for each other. We went out to movies, dinner, scavenger hunts, hikes... you name it.  We spent Lots of quality time together just the two of us, talking about our future, dreaming and kissing. Hmm.. what has changed in 15 years.  Well; we are a whole heck of a lot busier and have two beautiful kiddos hanging off of us.  Has the romance died? Nope!  One of my favorite quotes is "You can never drift together; you can only ever drift apart." It takes a conscious effort, some planning and of course some great babysitters (Thanks, George and Pat!) keep our marriage fresh, fun and romantic.

We decided to celebrate this wonderful event at The Capital Grille.  Amy set up the reservation and they asked if was a special occasion.  Um - YES!  When they brought us to our table; there were red hearts strewn across the table and two fresh roses.  They even brought us some champagne and strawberries and gave us dessert to help celebrate.  I am not kidding. The only thing they were missing was the red carpet.  We have never been taken care of so well.  Everything was perfect.

Cheers to Another 15 Wonderful years together... and 15 years after that... and 15 years after that... and 15 years after that...........

Lets Celebrate our Heritage!

Amy's family is Irish - she is a Mulvaney and a Sullivan and proud of it.  We LOVE celebrating St Patties Day and hope to pass that enjoyment onto our kids.  By the looks of Kasey... Looks like we Did!

This year, those crazy Leprechauns came to visit the kids at school... then came home to the Cannode house!  If you ask the kids, they will tell you that the Leprechauns dumped the toys out at school and caused all kinds of mischief.  They even turned the boy's milk green, right before their very eyes!  The biggest giggle we got though was from Kasey when he realized the Leprechauns used our bathroom and turned the water green in the toilet!  Those Crazy Leprechauns!

For the past Six years we have been celebrating the "Final St Patties Day Celebration in Karsten's place"  Each year was "final" as we assumed the place would be sold by the next year.  Well; this was that year.  Karsten sold his place last fall and moved to Phoenix (sniff, sniff).  As a result, we were looking for a new pad close to downtown and were excited to hear Kyle volunteer to host.  We couldn't believe how cute the hosts were.  They made little gift bags for the kids and a wonderful breakfast for all!  A tradition Karsten has lived by at his St Patties Day parties was to pull off the shorts and boots look.  Well; we couldn't let this tradition pass.  Kris carried on the torch proudly (and pulled it off quite well if you ask me).

Cheers, Karsten.  We miss ya!

Can you boys just try to be serious for One Minute!?!

That doesn't look like Kyle's dog...??

Kasey with his favorite girls - Bella and Addy Newman

A Perfect Family Photo
...Wait!... Geoff? Is that you?!?!

We were supposed to go to the parade, but... time slipped away from us and instead we headed straight from Kyle's to our next adventure.  Kris' company gave him tickets to the CO Avs vs MN Wild game!  Did I mention it was center ice and the 10th row!  Too Cool!

32 seconds into the game... first fight

Um... 3 min into the game.. Another one?

Well; the Avs did Not win, but we sure did enjoy the game with the wonderful seats!  And, if you ask Dad... the game was a win win either way.  Always fun to watch a MN team do well.  OK, I guess.... but I still won't cheer for them against my Killer Avs!

Keeping up with the Grand Kids

The big hype in the entertainment world now is Keeping up with the Kardashians (just ask George - He LOVES Entertainment News).  In this house we would Much rather Keep up with the Grand kids!  They just LOVE when their grandparents come to visit!

A tender teachable moment...  Is there a hole in this ball?

Arizona T-Shirts?!? COOL!

 

Kasey enjoyed showing off his trucks that were working together to hold up his mini van in the air.  He also wanted to show Grandma ALL of his cars.  What better way to do that? Line them up!

We also got some nice weather outside.  Oh What A Weekend!

Don't forget those yummy meals!  Gma and Gpa were in town for 2 1/2 tiny days... and Amy only had to cook ONE meal!  Her Awesome Guests took care of the rest!

Cold Winter's Day?

What to do when the plan is to get 8- 14 inches of Cold Snow?  Stay inside of course!  Gma and Gpa Cannode had stayed overnight on Friday to watch the kids while we went to Jeff "Fa-Fa" Dun-Ham (comedian/ventriloquist).  Thankfully, that meant they were snowed in with us on Saturday!  That meant Lots of indoor activities and some short stints outside when the sun peaked out.  The grown ups spent lots of time doing tasks around the house (no pics of this, but trust me... we were busy).  The kids kept busy playing with plato and putting together puzzles while we worked.

Then, we pulled out a colorful art project that was provided by Gma and Gpa Mattson for Valentines day.  Colorful markers and a cute wooden cupcake and robot.  Karsten was all about putting colors everywhere and did a good job staying in the lines when he wanted to color in the circles on his cupcake.  Kasey was pretty funny about his robot.  He Carefully drew one line with his marker, recapped it, chose another color and drew another small intricate line.  This continued on for almost 45 min.  At this rate; it would take him over a month straight to color in his whole robot.  He did decide the robot needed eyelashes (more careful lines), but we must admit the finished product didn't have too much 'color' on it.  He thought it was Perfect though and as an added plus... we can use his robot to color on another day too! 

Another big part of this weekend was that Karsten officially began potty training.  We had tried a different weekend, but with limited success.  A couple weeks later; we thought we would try again.  We have "Karsten's Potty Board" in the bathroom where he gets to put stickers when he is successful and of course we got to pick out some fun underwear.  Yep - He is going to kill me later for including these pics, but ... since we have similar ones of Kasey when he met this milestone... it was only fair to embarrass both boys equally!  Here is a Big Congratulations to Karsten for moving to this new phase.  We know it will be a journey for a bit until we All get a hang of this, but Kris and Amy's savings account couldn't be happier!  No More Diapers/Pull ups!  (To be fair... both kids still use them at night, but you still see our excitement!)  Oh - and Karsten LOVES his new slippers! Wouldn't take them off; even for the picture!

I'm A Big Kid, NOW!

Here is a picture of Kasey's Big Kid transition for comparison.

On Sunday, it warmed up a bit and the sun came out.  So; we headed to the Cannode's Motor home to 'dig them out'.  Kasey chose to stay inside and build Popsicle stick forts with Gma; while Karsten did the "Heavy Lifting" with Gpa.  As you can see from the pictures - we Did Not get the 14 promised inches. Thanks for the accurate forecast, Weatherman!

Afterwards... We decided to take a walk and sled in the snow we could find.  Don't forget the fun of throwing snowballs!  These snowballs were especially fun to throw as they were nice and wet!  All in all.  It was a memorable weekend that we hope the boys don't soon forget.

Get Ready, Dad... I'm coming for you!

Freeze!  ~  Don't Move!

Got Him!