The five cousins with Jude, Lily and Anna featuring various cats on their faces

All five cousins were together to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Des Moines. One of the reasons we make the effort to visit so regularly is that they really do love each other and get along so well. And now the twins are three they are starting to play more together. Although for outings it is usually just Lily, Jude and Anna – as was the case with the Science Center celebration where the kids all got their faces painted.

The kids toasting in the New Year at 6pm on December 31.

The highlight of the trip was definitely New Year’s Eve. We did an early celebration so the kids could all do a countdown and then a toast to the New Year. They get quite into the spirit of the evening. We even did a balloon drop that was very exciting – see the video below.

There was not much outside time on this trip, it was too cold and unfortunately not enough snow for sledding. And the five days were over too soon and then it was back to Denver. Where we had one night at home before heading up to the mountains to Keystone.

Marcy and Chloe sharing some quality time

Jude and Anna are booked in for ski school every Saturday in January. It was bitterly cold on Saturday – Marcy and I skied a couple of runs and decided to call it quits but Jude and Anna did great. They tooled around on the kids slopes in the morning and in the afternoon went up the mountain to ski down. The instructor said there were no tears and no tantrums and all the kids did great. They are already looking forward to doing it again next weekend.

Anna and Jude all bundled up and ready for ski school.