Happy Thanksgiving! 

(I figured I should get this post up before Christmas comes.)

This Thanksgiving was a special one for us.

Here's Kai in her Pilgrim Play at school.

My parents and my sister were all able to come out and celebrate with us.

But the best part of the whole Thanksgiving Break is that while the kids were lying around reading and watching movies.......

Brett & I got to get away for 5 whole days!  

Thanks to my parents, we were able to plan and take a trip to Breckenridge for Brett's 40th Birthday.

(I really hope it didn't take years off of my parents' lives because it was a giant task.)

It was SO fun.  We highly recommend it.

Mostly we went hiking, running, sat in the hot tub, went Christmas shopping & did not cook.

There are not a lot of pics to show, but we were too busy to take any really.

When we got home, had Thanksgiving dinner and said goodbye to my parents life came back at us at full throttle.  It is amazing how out of tune you can get in 5 days.  

Then we got some family pictures taken.  My sister told me that it reminded her of our family pictures when we had matching sweaters. (that was the most "made fun of family picture" in Downey history)

  I tried my best....I guess I shouldn't try to coordinate outfits.  It would probably be better.

It doesn't look cold, but it was FREEZING. 

Lainey would not smile or even sit for anything.  So we are a four kid family for most of these pictures.

Cody and Benjo

Ben and Kai

the Girls

 Note - Lainey has a sucker in her mouth, but still crying.  I feel bad, it was so cold.

Kai's own interpretation of a "good pose"

We will probably send out the pictures of the fam in our Christmas Cards when we get them.

After Thanksgiving it was REALLY cold.  Snow and 20 degrees for a week.

But at least this time, we had equipment for it.

Apparently Lainey got over feeling cold once snow was on the ground.

I know the twins love it.  They sled and "snowboard" out back in the green space for at least an hour everyday.  

That's our story in a few pictures.  We are looking forward to Christmas this year.  We get to spend it in Utah with Aunt Laura!  The kids are excited and hopefully we will get to ski! 

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas.

Happy Birthday Boys!

Happy Birthday Dane & Ben

It is so hard to believe that it was Three Years Ago that you came.   45 minutes apart, but together nonetheless.

Dane is the chocolate cake.  Ben wanted white.

So a tradition that we have is that at dinner on the actual birthday day or night Brett and I tell our own versions of the kid's birth story.  After telling them that Dane came right out and Ben had to be taken out of my stomach, Cody had some pertinent questions......well, how did Dane come out?  Needless to say, we had a talk with him a little later.  

One of the best parts of an October Birthday is Halloween.  I had to include this picture of Cody and Kai coming to visit the twins when they were in the NICU.  One of my faves.

Here are a few more from October 2008....

Who knew they would be so capable of destruction now.

This is hard for me to believe.

On to HALLOWEEN!

Ben and Dane wanted to be their favorite things ever - a Fire Truck and a Front Loader.  Though most people said - "Hey its a School Bus" - Dane took the time to inform them what they were while Ben sprinted to the next house.

Mom and Dad took some time this year to make everyone's costumes.....except Kai's & Lainey's.

It was a lot of work but it was so fun to see them running around holding these boxes on.

Here's the whole Larsen Clan.  Pam and Randy are the scary ones with the masks.

Church party with "Jim Bob Grooms" (family joke.)

Cody wore a tennis skirt and was a Roman Soldier.  His father dressed as a girl for many a Halloween and Cody continued the tradition of wearing girls' clothes in October.

The day after Halloween he asked if he could have a store bought costume next year.

Kai and her cousin Abby.  Kai was a girl with an Asian Dress.  Sometimes she called it a China Doll, sometimes she called it a Japanese person.  She just liked the pretty dress.

Lainey the Lion.  

Gma D made that costume for Cody when he was two.

She is not always a Happy Lion.

I am so glad Halloween is over.  I can't tell you how glad I am.

Thanksgiving and Christmas is right around the corner!

Trail Race and More

Lucky

Lucky us....Aunt Laura and Gma D made a visit this weekend.  Aunt Laura and  I signed up for a race in Colorado Springs this past weekend so Gma D made the trek with her.

Dane and Ben thought Aunt Laura's boots and hat looked better on them.

This is Friday night before the race at the cabin.  We got lucky and saw a bear and a fox.
The next morning there was so much snow that the van couldn't make it back up the hill after going out to breakfast.  It was a complete whiteout. 

Lucky for us, the race only had a little snow......

 This is us after the race.  See the fog and snow in the background....there is actually a mountain back there.  We made it....that is all I can say.  Well, my sister was much more capable but luckily she stuck with me.  It was so cold standing in line to check in that we really almost wimped out.  They had moved check-in into the only indoor building there - the bathroom and the line wound around outside.  Everyone was shivering and wondering what we were all doing there.  Rain, wind, snow and mud were our future for the next several hours.  I was not sure that I was prepared - clothing or otherwise.  A cup of hot chocolate and some fuzzy blankets sounded much more inviting, but I was reminded of something that I had read a while ago in Kristen Armstrong's book Mile Markers.  Here's the quote:  "It really makes me feel alive to feel this bad."  Click here for the whole story that goes with the quote.

Once I thought of that quote, I really wanted to give it a try.  And the rest is history. 

 Thanks Laura for being with me on this one.  It was one of the best adventures of my life!  I feel lucky to have done it with you.

I am also lucky to have a husband who actually is a runner....a really good runner.

He supports me running even though I am not very good.  

Happy 40th Today Brett - I got Lucky in love.

Great Aunt Helen

This is Brett's Great Aunt Helen.  

Isn't she beautiful.

She was a sister, a teacher, a great baker, a friend, a loved one, an integral part of our family and a wise, wise woman.

She passed away a month ago.  As I was going through some pictures, I decided I should post some. She always followed our family blogs and emailed us about them faithfully.  So here's to Aunt Helen.

Aunt Helen was a wonderful teacher.  She had perfect penmanship and grammar.  We knew this because she would send cards often or write us notes.  She was succinct - never minced words and yet her notes were thoughtful and heartfelt.

Darling.

Here's Aunt Helen with Dane.  She loved to canning and baking.  We all enjoyed the fruits of her labor and of course, I always appreciated her goodies.  At Christmas we received frozen Peaches and Corn.  It has not been until late - when I have finally started to preserve food for our family that I realized how tedious it can be and how much she must of loved us.  Whenever I freeze peaches or other things, I think of her.

Just a week ago, Brett and Dane made a trip out to Minden to put Aunt Helen's ashes next to her mother and father - David and Eva Larsen.  It was a short trip, but so much of his family's history is there in Nebraska.  Helen's mother and father lived on the Elmdale farm, which her grandfather owned when he received a homestead in about 1878.  Her grandfather was a first generation Dane.  She said that you knew she was a true Dane because she always ate her sandwiches open faced.  Plus she made great abelskiver.

This is the original schoolhouse where Aunt Helen and her brothers and sisters went to school.  Her mother was a teacher there.  We have a picture of her and her brother and sister in this schoolhouse where Dane is standing.  (I don't have it, but others do).  We also have two of the original desks that they used there. (again - I don't have them, but some of the family does). All these things are preserved in Pioneer Village in Minden, NE.

Here is Dane on one of the tractors at Pioneer Village (there are MANY).  That place was as good as Legoland for him and much cheaper.

Aunt Helen was a special lady.  I will miss her.

Picture Perfect...

We are never picture perfect.....at least not at our house.

But sometimes pictures capture a moment that isn't so bad.  In fact, often they are good.

Here are a few good ones from late....

Cody and Kai on Picture Day.  We missed First Day of school, so I thought this was a good substitute.
Doesn't it seem as though everyone is groomed, organized and ready to go - on time even?  

Dane gives us away when he enters the photo.  The rooster tails tell the real story.  At least 2 of the 5 were looking like they had it together.

This was one of the best days ever.  Kai and I got to go to a Rockies Game by ourselves.  Its true.  Brett stayed home and watched all the other kids.  What a man.

It was tough for her to sit the whole game, but we did it and even got slurpees after.

I don't know if she'll remember it, but I always will.


Preschool Pictures

The twins are doing a preschool where we rotate going to each kids house once a week.
This week we learned the letter "C"so we made some cameras from check boxes and they took pictures of "C" animals that we put in our green space.  Brett even drilled a hole in them so they could see through.  It was so funny to watch them.  They still walk around with them around their necks from time to time.

Classic.

That's pretty much it from our end.  We are doing the same stuff and I am trying to keep it all together. Lainey is getting some teeth and they make her pretty grumpy, but mostly the boys go full throttle all day and Lainey tries her best to keep up.  That's our schedule.
Oh yeah....next Saturday, Laura and I will be running a Trail Half Marathon in Colorado Springs.  We'll see if I can keep up.  Doubt it.  Should be fun.