Thankful for Family!

Oh Boy! Gma and Gpa Cannode are back home for the Holidays!  And boy, are we thankful!

Don't Ever Leave, Grandpa... OK?

We are looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving at David's home later today.  The only thing that would make today better??? If we had both sides of our family closer!  Missing the Mattsons/Woodards today!  Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Hunting in Sterling?

Pheasant Opener Weekend sure has changed over the last few years ~ Just ask Jim.  Kris, Amy and Jim used to get a hotel room together up in Sterling/near Ft Morgan, grab a pizza and a few beers and enjoy a relaxing evening in the hot tub the night before a hunt.

Ha - Long Gone are those days.  Now, we chose a hotel by the Pool Location and we arrive with Kiddos!  The pic above is our room in the background of the pic while we eat our pizza.  Karsten is thrilled with the pizza, but poor Kasey never even saw it.  He was sleepy from the car ride and was Fast Asleep in the room with the open door.  Good thing he woke up for Pool Time with Daddy and Uncle Jimmy!

Jimmy and Karsten playing football
while Kris and Kasey relax in the hot pool

The next morning, the two older boys headed off for their hunt.  No pics of their pretty hike, but I guess that gives you a clue on how the hunt went.  Oh well, at least they got some male bonding in.  The Super Ks and myself?  Well, we started the morning with orange juice and leftover pizza for breakfast while we watched a few cartoons ~ I know ~ just call me super mom.  Pizza for Breakfast???  Wow.  In my defense.  They also had a bagel and cream cheese.

Next was running of some steam before the pool opened.  Good thing we had this huge garden area to play in!  Playing football is fun, but we were just killing some time till our company arrived!

YES!  Annie, Braylon and "TBD" made it!  Who is TBD you ask?  Well, Ms Annie is expecting her 2nd little boy this spring!  So Excited!!!  It was a great morning catching up while the boys worked out the wiggle worms.  It was fun to see the boys play, but I am looking forward to when Braylon can keep up a bit better (He is still working toward that first step).  It did give us a hint of what our future looked like though.  I also think we scared Annie showing off how crazy two little boys so close in age are.  Good Luck, Annie... Good Luck! :-)

Pool Is OPEN!  Oh Boy!  With so many hunters occupying the rooms; we were the only ones left to enjoy the pool.  Perfect!

Goodbyes are always the toughest.  We are just looking forward to our next visit together!  I love this pic below because Karsten is always the 'small kid' of our group.  This is the first pic where I realized he is Totally a Little Man!  Look how tall he is! Wow.

Goldilocks and the 3 Beds

Goldilocks was very tired, so she went upstairs to the bedrooms.  She lay down in the first bed, but it was too hard.  Then she lay in the second bed, but it was too soft.  Then she lay down in the third bed and it was just right.

Ever feel like a storybook? We sure did recently at the Cannode house.  After the cribs were taken out of the rooms, we put in two toddler beds.  At first, each kid had their own room - then they wanted to room together.  Kasey got rather tall; rather quickly and chose to go back to the room with the Futon in it.  That was his "new big boy bed" for almost a year.

Well; the Adults in the house decided Saturday morning cartoons were a little too cozy with four of us in a queen and went shopping for a king size bed.  That meant the beginning of the rotations!  Our queen went to the guest room (as it is too high for the kids).  The guest room queen became Kasey's new bed and the futon became Karsten's new bed.  It was an amazing transition for all!

 Our King mattress came in faster than the frame, so we were 'slumming it king style' for awhile.

Then, the day finally came where we got our frame in.  After a little elbow grease, we had it fully put together.

Yep, that looks better!  A comfy new king size bed, a beautiful cedar chest that was Amy's Great Gma Al's under our window and a fun new picture above the bed from Amy's Aunt Marilyn.  I think this Master Bedroom finally looks like an adult lives in it! ... Now we might need to upgrade our nightstands.  :-)

Kasey's Cams Club

CSU vs Nevada was another match up we had this year.  Amy and Kasey don't remember much about the game as they were too excited for halftime!  This is Kasey's first year in Cam's Club!  Poor Karsten has to wait one more year, but he totally understands and was excited and supportive of Kasey's big day!

What are the cool perks of being a Cam Club Member?  Well, first is an awesome shirt and of course your backstage pass.  That backstage pass gets you entrance with the famous and elite players of CSU.  It also allows you on the field during halftime.

You get to check out the players practicing their touchdown passes and of course field goal kicks.  I love Kasey's face in the picture below where he is watching #93 practice kicking a field goal.  Kasey is Amazed to say the least.

Yep, this is a smile from one Happy Kiddo.  This next part was Kasey's favorite.  He got to watch all the cheerleaders and players storm the field.  And ... if you ask him about it you will hear him gladly shout "I got to give high fives to all the football players in their helmets!"

As to not be excluded... Here is a pic of Daddy and Kasey's supportive brother, Karsten.  No worries, Karsten ~ you will be here next year!  Get your High Fives Ready!!

Minnesota Minnows!

Wow - Our kiddos are flying through their swim classes lately.  We started out as a Tadpole, moved quickly to Guppy and then Minnow!  Here is the first day of class.  The extra fun thing about this class was that Gma Sandy was still in town!

My handsome men (with Rammy tattoos)



We have been astonished by how much the boys have learned in this specific class.  The other classes were just splashing and getting used to the water.  Kasey's favorite now is flutter kicks after learning them in this class!

Karsten's big point was going all the way under water.  Previously, he would put his whole face in the water, then the back of his head and then look at you and say he went under water and was all wet.  Um, no... you forgot your ears.  Karsten's ears have been rather sensitive his whole life.  He had tubes put in Aug 2011 and we noticed this summer that they had officially fallen out as planned.  Now, getting water in his ears feels totally funny.  He faced his fear and now LOVES showing you how he goes under!

On the last day of swimming the boys get to go down the curvy water slide with their teachers.  Such Fun!  They both went down about 4 or 5 times and then the teacher asked the class if anyone wanted to go by themselves!  Our boy's hands flew up so fast, but we really didn't think they would follow through.  Boy, were we wrong!  They both did Great!  I'm bummed I didn't get a pic of them going down alone, but we enjoyed watching it so much that we forgot to take the picture! Next time!

Can you believe it? My little Minnows are no more... Next we are going to try to be a Sea Turtle!  Can't wait till spring to get into the next class!!!

Mattson Fall Visit

How do you qualify a Perfect Fall Day?  Is it a leaf fight, a quick bike around the culdesac, drawing your Very First Rainbow?  Yep, all of these things make for an "Almost" perfect day... how do you add two more things to make it Perfect??

Add a Papa and a Grandma Sandy of course!  All of the activities were done with the supervision of Gma and Papa Mattson.  They were too busy taking pictures to be in any of them, but I did wrangle them into a few shots below!  Nothing wins over a little guy like offering to push you on the swingset!

We also were blessed with Fresh ND Tomatoes from the Mattson garden!  Kasey has claimed for awhile that he Just LOVES tomatoes... ha... sure, Kasey... have you ever had one?  Gma Sandy (and mommy) were both Amazed at how much he Really Loves them!  See the box below?  Those disappeared at a rate of one/two a day and the adults got very few of them.  Kasey wanted it with every meal (including breakfast one morning!).  How can a mom say no to a veggie?  We even had "Skelly" come over for a meal and he was very pleased with the tomatoes.

Yep, we do not go hungry with the Mattsons in town.  We had fresh asparagus, wonderful steaks, salmon... you name it!  Good thing we have such great helpers while we cook!

Safety First, Papa!  Safety First

It's not all fun and games when they visit you know... oh wait... yes it is!  Hopefully Dad won't kill me for including the pics below, but hey ~ I look goofy as Raggedy Annie too! 

Cool New CSU Ram glasses

Raggedy Andy

Raggedy Annie

We also had many opportunities to let the wiggle worms out for the kids.  This included chatting as we watched them at their favorite place, Jumpstreet! *sorry for the blurry pic, but they wouldn't stop moving!

The boys really love their new art center.  Kasey has been working on his dinosaur picture for about a month now, but it is sure coming along!  Karsten is getting really good at drawing shapes.  Here he is working on circles.  Notice that Kasey is using his right hand and I point out again that Karsten is still using his LEFT!

We recently had two Cabelas stores move to Colorado.  Of course we had to stop by and check it out.  Kasey and Karsten ran over to this big dude and said "This is what Daddy is Hunting!"  We just might have future hunters in our family!  Can't wait for Papa and Daddy to take them up to Elk Camp 8 years from now!

Practicing for Elk Camp!