Anna Missed Her Nap

On Friday, Pete and Sarah's family came down the mountain back to our house. In the excitement of arriving at our house again, Anna could not calm down enough to take her afternoon nap. While I was cooking the dinner, we noticed that Anna was not playing with the rest of the kids. This is where we found her.

Anna on the stairs.

She is so cute when she sleeps!

Swimming at the Rec Center

I have never taken all three kids swimming since I have been nervous about keeping an eye on each of them while they are in the water. Last week we went to the Brighton Rec Center with the kids along with a couple of families from church. It was nice to have extra hands and eyes helping me keep Audrey, Hannah, and Isaac safe. Isaac was so excited as soon as we were at the pool. He jumped right in and started playing. At first, Hannah and Audrey were nervous around the water, but before long, they were having so much fun playing in the pool that they didn't want to get out.

Here Hannah is at the top of the alligator water slide. She loved to put her hands in the water at the top of the slide.

Audrey loved this little bench that had all kinds of jets. She loved the bubbles. I was so thankful for Janese as she helped me keep an eye on the little ones.

Here Isaac is playing by the pipe fountain. The wheels on this could be turned to change the water flow.

Hannah loves to find things to hang on so she can do "pull ups." She loved hanging on this wheel for a while.

Here Isaac and Hannah are both at the top of the alligator slide.

All three of the kids loved this big water slide. I was glad to have help as they each wanted to slide over and over again.

Here Izzy was taking Audrey down the big slide. The stairs up to the slide were my exercise for the day. I took all three kids down the slide at least 4 time each. Izzy and Deidre also took each of them down quite a few times.

Janese is holding Hannah after we got out of the pool. The girls were so worn out from playing so hard.

Isaac and Max would have kept on swimming all day long if we would have let them.

Audrey wrapped up in her towel.

Here Hannah and Audrey are resting in their towels after the whistles blew for the first break in swimming.

Reservoir

After the Willow Creek drive we drove to this reservoir. It was pretty and the mountains were stunning in the background. We stopped for a snack and let the kids enjoy trying to skip stones on the water. We had to cut this stop short because a nasty storm rolled over the mountains to our west and were quickly approaching us.

Leah, Pete, and Beth

Isaac throwing some stones.

Here are my kids and I.

Greg took this picture of us checking out the lake.

Willow Creek Drive

We decided to take the drive none of us had ever taken before. We found the Willow Creek drive in a brochure in town and it said that it was a favorite haunt of moose. We couldn't believe it when we actually did see moose along the trail. Sarah has even clearer pictures of one the moose. It was a very easy drive, but it was fun to see different wildlife.

Moose!

Pete, Leah, Isaac, and Beth enjoy getting out of the car.

The older three cousins.

Beautiful creek photo.

Pete and Greg arrive at the condo

Sarah and I went up to the condo three days before Pete and Greg arrived on Friday. After three days alone with six kids Sarah and I were ready to have the daddies with us. The kids were so excited to see Greg and Pete. It was a mini celebration when they first arrived.

All of the kids had fun wrestling with Pete. By this time, Beth and Leah just wanted to snuggle with their Dad, but Audrey wanted to wrestle.

Before long, Audrey wanted to snuggle as well. It amazes me how quickly Audrey warms up to her uncles.

Here Audrey and Hannah are so excited to have Greg that they can't stay still.

Isaac's self portraits

Isaac decided he wanted to take some pictures on his own. Most of the pictures he took were of the hallway at the condo and the ceiling. I didn't find these pictures very interesting. What was fun was the many self portraits he took. Here are two of my favorites. I decided not to include the super close-ups of his nose!

I love is smile!

His eyes get me in this picture.

Hail! Hail! Wherever I go!

While we were hanging out with Uncle Dave and Aunt Dottie one afternoon it started to hail. This was the first hail storm for Beth and Leah. The hail was small, but it was still a very loud storm.

Beth took this picture during the storm. One of the crazy things about Colorado storms is that you can see beautiful blue skies from the middle of a nasty storm.

A picture of the deck during the hail storm.

Hail after the storm had passed.

After the storm, Aunt Dottie and the kids tried to throw hail balls into the river.

Beth gathering a hail ball.

Anna is picking up some hail. I wonder what she is doing...

Anna LOVES hail...

and so does Hannah!

Cute cousins at the condo

We really enjoyed the time in the mountains at the condo.  At times it was crazy with 6 kids in one small space, but it was so wonderful to have everyone play together.  Isaac loved playing with Beth and Leah.  Audrey and Hannah enjoyed time with Anna, but I think they were more unsure of the new situation.  The kids definitely wore the adults out, but it was worth it for them to have the chance to play together.











Audrey

Leah

Keeping Kids Safe at the Condo

Every time we visit the condo in Fraser, we think of the best way to keep the kids safe. The scariest part of the condo is the staircase and banister in the loft. The posts are about 10 inches apart from each other. Before we arrived at the condo cousins Mark and Debra used $14 in rope to create an elaborate safety system. They also draped a blanket over the top rails. This system worked pretty well. We still had most of the kids try to go through the ropes. We had a couple of scares, but this seemed to work well considering we had 6 very curious kids at the condo.

The kids enjoyed wrapping extra laces around the ropes.

Here is a better view of the whole contraption. Mark did a really good job with the knots.

Anna and Beth explore the ropes when we first arrive at the condo.