Christmas In....March?!?!

Well yes...since I am just now finding time to post pictures from our Christmas! It was such a fun one this year! Both kids were so fun to watch. Kayden was SO excited he couldn't sleep or open any of his presents fast enough. Keirsten loved opening her presents...well until she opened her cabbage patch doll; then she only wanted to be mommy!

I am also really late on posting pictures from Kayden's 7th Birthday Party. Yes I said 7th...my oh my where have the years gone?!?! Kayden decided he wanted to have his birthday party at Delta Skating Rink. It was a lot of fun! Sorry that there isn't any pictures of the kiddos skating but the rink was so dark none of them turned out.

The week after New Years, Ryan's sister from Las Vegas flew out to visit. We tried as hard as we could to do as many fun things we could think of (reminder we live in Pocatello, Id.) The kids loved spending time with her, and Kayden cried on the way home from the airport...such an emotional little one! We loved having her here and can't wait seeing her again this summer!!

We haven't been up to much since the Holidays passed, but I promise to try and post more frequently! Oh I also uploaded all the pictures in the wrong order and didn't want to attempt at moving all of them. Sorry!

Love,
The Downs Family

They fell asleep like this!

We took Brittany to OuterLimits!

Having Oreo's with Aunt Brittany

Kayden's friend MaKenna (oo-la-la)!! She loves hanging out with Kayden; they have a blast together. We always tease them about getting married some day!

Recap...

Wow! It has been such a long time since
I have posted anything here. I am so far behind... We have
been doing some wonderful fun things
the past couple of months. I will start off with Halloween. We went to
a pumpkin patch and we all went through
a corn maze and then the kids picked out
some pumpkins. They had such a blast picking out
there very own pumpkins!

Kayden in the corn maze!

Keirsten in the corn maze

Since Keirsten is to little to carve her pumpkin we
decided to let her paint it instead! So much fun but what
a mess she made!! It was worth it though :0)

This was Kayden's first year carving his pumpkin on
his own, and I must say for a rookie
he did a very good job!

Working hard!

The end result!

Both so proud of their masterpieces!!

Then came the big day! Keirsten was Cinderella and Kayden was Scooby-Doo.
They had so much fun, and I think we
finally were able to get Keirsten to say "Trick-or-Treat"
by the end of the night. They ended up with so
much candy!

Kayden played Jr. Jazz basketball and at the end of
the season they had Utah Jazz tickets you
could purchase. Of course they were in
the nose-bleed seats but Kayden was still ecstatic to get to go!
We showed up at the Energy Solutions Arena and of
course had to get some souvenirs and food.
On our way up to our seats a nice man
who worked for the team approached us and offered us
better seats...27 rows from the floor (which was
A LOT better then where we were headed)!!
It was so much fun getting to spend some one on one
time with just Kayden. He is such an amazing
little boy and we are so proud of him!
Oh, and yes he had a blast at the game!!

Our last adventure (for this post anyway) was traveling down to Utah to spend
Thanksgiving with my Mom. We had a wonderful
time and ate some yummy food! Ryan and I braved the
Black Friday shopping and although we didn't get the
deals we wanted we did have a lot of fun. Huge THANKS
to my mom for watching our munchkins so early in
the morning!!

After a wonderful couple of days with my Mom we headed
over to my Dad's for a night. We ended riding the train
into Salt Lake and walked around the Temple
to look at the lights. The kids had some
much fun riding the train! It was so cold by the time
we got to the Temple we decided to stop and warm up
with some hot chocolate. My weird son informed us
that he didn't like hot chocolate so we got him some apple cider
instead and now he is in love. Has a mug of warm apple cider almost every
night!

Me on the train ride to the Temple.

Keirsten all bundled up!!

The lights at the Temple were amazing!! It is some much
fun to walk around and look at them. I cannot imagine the time
and patience it takes to put up some many lights! It was
beautiful and was the perfect way to get
everyone in the Christmas spirit.

We hope that everyone else was able to have a great
Thanksgiving and were able to spend time with family and friends.
We are so thankful for all the wonderful people we have in our lives. Thank you
all so much for all your love and support!!

Love, The Downs Family

Patty Cake

Keirsten loves to sing patty cake and is now finally starting to remember the words. We decided to take a video of her tonight...so cute! Enjoy!

Basketball, Visitors, and (yes another) Owwee

Kayden has started playing basketball in the Jr. Jazz league for 1st and 2nd graders and boy does he love it! Ryan was brave and took on the task of coaching his team. He loves the extra one on one time that he and Kayden get to spend together. Kayden in turn thinks its awesome to have his Dad as the coach. Kayden is such an amazing little boy, he puts his heart into everything he does and gives it his all. It is so wonderful to watch him put so much dedication into playing. He is very "into the game" and has really excelled from practicing and learning the game. His hard work has really paid off; he is really a very good player.

The pics aren't great...he's number 47.

Bringin' it down...

D-Fence

This last weekend my Dad and his girlfriend Wendy, my brother Tony and his wife Sarah, and my Uncle Rick were all in town. We all went and watch Kayden play in his basketball game on Saturday (Rick was working and couldn't make it) and hung out at the house visiting and watching movies. It was great seeing everyone and I am so glad they were able to make the trip; it was a very nice visit!

Then on Sunday after everyone left to go home; Keirsten decided to give us another scare...this time she went to reach for something she wanted at the store and lost her balance and fell out of the shopping cart. (Ahhh!!) Ryan and I couldn't react fast enough to catch her fall. Needless to say we ended up leaving our shopping cart and rushing her to the Urgent Care. Instead of giving her stitches for the cut on her head (that she got as she hit the store shelf on her way down) they glued it together. The picture looks like she has a really big bruise around her cut but that it just the glue...it has a blue tint to it. She will have a little scar since the cut was so deep but hopefully we can minimize it as much as possible and style her hair around it. Little kids amaze me with their resilience. A half hour after we left the Urgent Care you would have no idea anything had happened to her. She sure keeps Ryan and I on our toes!!

Between basketball practices and games, school, work, and all the other activities that come up we stay very busy! We love every moment of it though!