We are experiencing Double Trouble!

We have found that Audrey and Hannah just love to be dangerous. Hannah is usually more fearless than Audrey, but if Audrey feels that something is safe, she will join in wholeheartedly. Tonight, both girls decided it would be wonderful to jump from the arms of the couch onto the couch. They both loved it. Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment, or possibly to give you a heart attack.

Hannah and Audrey getting ready to jump.

Audrey in mid-air.

I couldn't figure out how to adjust the rotation on this video. However, I love how Hannah says "Watch!" Greg is talking on Skype in the background if you are wondering about that conversation. As you can see the most dangerous time in the jump is while the girls are balancing on the arms of the couch.

Night at the Civic Center

On Tuesday evening we took the kids to the Civic Center to see the lighting of the trees. They had a lot of fun activities. All of the kids got a cookie. One of the rooms was decorated as a winter wonderland. Isaac loved the soap snow they were blowing into the room. He also was able to decorate and draw on a cardboard house and castle. Mostly, the girls just ran around. However, when the switch was flipped to light all of the trees, they also had a fireworks display. My favorite part was that we got to see the whole thing from the warmth of the indoors. Isaac and the girls loved the candy they were sent home with.

Isaac tries to catch some snow.

Isaac really loved drawing on this house.

Isaac added some stickers to the castle.

Halloween 2009

This ea was a lot of fun. On Friday night we went to our neighborhood party. There was a lot of good food to eat. The older kids carved pumpkins, but there was painting for our younger ones. Audrey and Hannah really enjoyed the painting because it isn't very often that they get to play with things that messy. Isaac also enjoyed painting, but we didn't take a picture of that. In these pictures Hannah is a penguin, Audrey is a bear, and Isaac is a cow. On Saturday night, Greg switched the girls outfits and the neighbors did not think that was very nice of him. We took the girls out on Saturday for their first Trick or Treating. They just loved it. A few times, they tried to run away and I was very glad I had the neighbors around to help keep track of them. Audrey and Hannah did not understand why they were not allowed to go inside any of the homes. Isaac also enjoyed trick or treating, but he wouldn't go to any doors on a street with a scary house. Overall, it was a wonderful weekend.

Audrey paints her pumpkin.

Hannah gets a chance to paint her pumpkin.

Daddy poses with a penguin, cow, and a bear.

Pumpkin Patch with Jaime and Jackson

We went to a pumpkin patch with our friends. This pumpkin patch allowed you to cut some pumpkins directly from the vine. The only problem was that it had frosted and most of the pumpkins weren't in very good condition. However, we were able to take some really cute pictures.

Here is Jaime holding Hannah and Audrey.

This is the best picture we were able to get of Hannah, Audrey, and Isaac. Unfortunately, Hannah wasn't looking at the camera.

Jackson looks on as Isaac tries to cut a pumpkin off of the vine.

Jaime with Audrey and Hannah.

Playing around the house

October has been a strange month. Our entire family got a nasty flu bug at the same time. It was pretty hard to have everyone feeling terrible. We are hoping that as the kids get older, we are able to contain germs more easily. We have been trying to return to a routine after the summer and early fall of having family in town. The girls have decided that they no longer need a morning nap. They really love playing with their brother in the mornings, especially now that we have made the main room of the basement into their playroom. It has been really fun to see the girls play with Isaac. They won't be babies much longer!!!

Isaac is pretending to drive to work drinking his coffee.

Hannah and Isaac snuggle on the couch before bedtime.

Isaac can brush Hannah's and Audrey's hair at the same time.

Visit with Cousins in September

We packed a lot of activity into one week while we had so many cousins in town. Last Monday we took the kids to Colorado Springs to enjoy time with Beccy's best friend Lindy and her new baby Lorien. We took all of the kids to the visitors center at Focus on the Family. The kids loved it. On Tuesday while we were waiting for Rachel's kids to come into town we took the kids to an indoor bounce house warehouse. Beccy planned a really fun Mexican Fiesta on Wednesday for Cousin Camp. On Thursday, Grandma Pookie took the Hoff family to Garden of the Gods. Grandma Pookie then took the Thompsons on the Georgetown loop on Friday. Saturday was a day of family. We had brunch with our cousin Debra. In the evening we went to a cook out at our cousin Todd's house. We really enjoyed the whole week spending time with so much family.

This is the inside of an airplane inside of Focus. Audrey and Hannah spend about 15 minutes running back and forth in here yelling "Go, Go, Go!" and giggling the whole time.

Here is a picture of Lindy holding Lorien. Seth and Isaac are on the step above. Hannah is climbing up to join them.

Here is a picture of Gavin, Hannah, Seth, Isaac, and Audrey.

Beccy and Grandma Pookie are dancing a Mexican Hat dance with Seth, Katie and Ben. The kids really loved Cousin Camp.

Cousin Comedy Club

Last week Rachel and Beccy both came to visit with their kids. The kids really had us laughing much of the time. Here are a few of our favorite stories.

Beccy and I took our children to a bounce house place while Rachel stayed at home last Tuesday. The kids were very tired by the time we arrived home for lunch. Audrey and Hannah had fallen asleep in the car. Seth got out of the car and Beccy asked him to go inside and wait with Aunt Rachel while we got the other kids out of the car and inside the house. Then we unbuckled Isaac and Gavin and also told them to go inside. While we were pulling out the sleeping girls from the car the garage door started to go down and then back up again. When we headed into the house we found all three boys standing on the steps in the garage with the door to the house closed. Beccy asked Seth why he didn't obey her and go inside to stay with Aunt Rachel. Seth explained, "Aunt Rachel isn't home. I rang the doorbell, but she didn't answer the door!"

Greg recently bought a used car that had the engine die after a week and a half. While the kids were playing the other day, Isaac decided to "go to work." When he came back into the room, I asked him if he was home from work. Isaac said "Yes, but my Stinkin' car blew up!" in his most grumpy tone of voice.

Grandma Pookie took the Hoffs down to Garden of the Gods last week and ended up driving behind a red BMW sports car that was going significantly below the speed limit. Grandma Pookie says to the car "You are a sports car, you are supposed to want to go fast!" Later when they were leaving the Garden of the Gods they were following a red car and Rachel hears Ben in the back seat say, "You are a sports car, you are supposed to want to go fast!"

It was really entertaining to have all seven cousins together last week and we will miss them greatly.

Lots of fun

This week before David left we took the kids to the museum with a couple of Isaac's friends. It was fun to spend time with friends.

Audrey and Hannah are no longer content to stay in the stroller and watch Isaac and his friends play. Here the girls discovered they could push the stroller around. Emily had to look out so that she wasn't hit by the girls.

Here is a picture of Hannah, Greg, Audrey, and David before David had to leave. All three of our kids loved having their Uncle David here. They were very sad to have him leave.

Audrey and Hannah were really tired, but still decided to ham for the camera when Greg tried to get a picture of the two of them laying down on the floor before bed.

Hiking at Mount Falcon

Greg's brother David came to visit us and we all had a lot of fun while he was here. The kids and I went hiking with David in the foothills on Mount Falcon. It was a really beautiful. We had wonderful views of the mountains and the plains. Also, there are the ruins of a castle that burned to the ground almost one hundred years ago. Parts of the trail were a little steep for pushing a stroller with three kids in it. However, the kids loved the whole trip and really enjoyed climbing on the rocks. We started with a picnic and ended with the hike. We really loved the park.

The kids started their hike right after the picnic. Isaac even found a walking stick that he kept for the entire hike.

Here is part of the ruins. We let the kids roam free around the ruins for a while. Here, David and Isaac are looking at the walls.

Isaac, Hannah, and Audrey loved climbing on this rock. The view was beautiful from here.

Here is a picture of the girls climbing the rock. As you can see, they both fell on their bottoms quite a lot. It was funny seeing Hannah try to get up on the ground without getting her hands in the dirt. She really preferred the rock to the dirt. Audrey really loved getting dirty and was picking up handfuls of dirt to give to me. It is so fun to see what all of my kids enjoy together as well as to see how different each of them are.

Fun in Seattle

We just returned from our trip to Seattle. We really had a lot of fun visiting Grandma. Unfortunately, we were having so much fun we didn't take very many pictures of the fun we had. Isaac really loved being with his Great Grandma. He was willing to stay there while the rest of the family left. All three of the kids did a great job in the car on the way there and on the way back. The kids loved exploring around the house and playing with Great Grandma, Aunt Ruth, Uncle David and my cousins Daniel and Luke. Isaac has discovered a love of ping pong and golf. He also loved playing cards. The girls loved to play with water on the deck and they loved to get into EVERYTHING! Mom and Dad loved having an unexpected date night. We really enjoyed our trip and we are so thankful that we were made so welcome in Seattle.

Here is a picture of Grandma, the girls and me. The girls were drying off after soaking themselves on the deck.

Audrey and Hannah are playing in a bucket of water they found. They would have done this for hours if we would have allowed them and we weren't worried about the cold.

Hannah loved drinking the water. (we don't let ourselves think about what is in the water.) Audrey loved watering the plants.

Audrey is standing in the bucket of water. This bucket made a great pool. Our kids just loved being at Grandma, Aunt Ruth, and Uncle David's house.

Favorite pictures from the summer

This has been a busy summer and I have been terrible about posting pictures to this blog. We had a lot of fun having so much of our family come to visit. Here are a few of my favorite pictures we took this summer.

Isaac was able to fly this remote control airplane with the help of this pilot and co-pilot. He really loved being able to move the controller.

One of the men at the miniature airplane show let Isaac borrow his aviator hat for this photo.

Isaac drives a helicopter at the county fair.

Audrey, Isaac, and Hannah goof around on the couch.

Anna, Hannah, and Audrey all coordinate!

Beth, Isaac, and Leah are all ready to go to the library.

Audrey, Isaac, and Hannah are ready to swim.

Audrey and Isaac at the condo.

Isaac is three!

We are so excited to celebrate Isaac's third birthday.  He is getting to be such a big boy.  He has been doing wonderfully with being potty trained.  He also had a fun birthday party with his friend Jackson.  Isaac requested a race car cake.  I was able to find some instructions on-line that I was able to modify so that I felt I could handle it on my own.  The most important thing is that Isaac loved it!

Here is Audrey enjoying some of the party food.

Hannah had a lot of fun at the party.

Isaac wanted to wear his new helmet from Grandma Pookie and Papa Buzz while he ate his birthday dinner.

Here is Isaac posing with the race car cake after he blew out the candles.

Isaac really loves his new bicycle.  He is still learning how to peddle, but it shouldn't take long for him to master that.

Hannah is walking!

Hannah is a full fledged walker now.  We are so proud of her.  This was taken last weekend with the whole family in town.  She is even better now.  Also, Greg tilted the camera so you get to see her walking sideways.  She normally only walks on the floor, but you can imagine she is walking on the wall.  Audrey is still waiting to take her first steps.  It is wonderful to see how our girls each enjoy learning at their own pace.

1000 Gifts 1-5

I discovered a new blog that I have really enjoyed at www.aholyexperience.com.  At that blog Ann asks her readers to become a part of a gratitude community.  She challenges us to come up with 1000 things we are thankful to God for.  I am going to try to write down 1000 of the gifts God has given me.  I don't know how long it will take me, but I believe the practice of being thankful will be a wonderful exercise for me.  Here is what I am thankful for today.

1.  I am so thankful for the legacy I have from my own family and the family I gained through Greg.  So much faith, generosity, loyalty, and love have flowed down to me, my husband and our children.  I am overwhelmed at how blessed I have been through birth and marriage.

2.  I am grateful for the gift of breath and life.  Today we walked and jogged in order to give to people who have lost the ability to easily breathe and many have lost their lives to lung cancer.  Too often I have forgotten that my health and life are gifts of grace from God.

3.  I love the belly laughs of my children.  They may be the happiest sounds I have ever heard.

4.  I love days when we can open up our windows and enjoy the breezes of cool Colorado spring/summer afternoons.  It always makes me happy to listen to our neighborhood waking up from our winter hibernation.

5.  I am so thankful for weekends spent outdoors and enjoying family time together.  I always enjoy our time together, but it seems more special when we are doing something out of the house and breaking up our usual routine.

Stay tuned for the continuation of 1000 gifts.

New Fire Station

We took the kids to the opening of the new fire station this afternoon.  All of the kids enjoyed playing on the different equipment.  We ate lunch there and we even saw a few friends who had also decided to check out the festivities.

Here is the whole family with the life flight helicopter.  Hannah is the one standing up inside the helicopter.  Audrey and Isaac are sitting.

Audrey really loved driving a fire truck.

Isaac stands on top of the fire truck.  Those steps were steep.

Isaac got to put out a little fire on his own.

Our very first 5K race

Our friend Troy asked us to be on his team for the 5K race to raise money for Lung Cancer research.  We really enjoyed our time doing it.  We walked most of it, but jogged about 1/3 of the race.  We did find that it is harder to jog pushing strollers than doing it solo.  It was a great way to start a weekend. 

Isaac and Greg celebrate that we finished the race.

Riding in the stroller really wore the girls out.

Troy and his daughter Madison are ready for the race.  Troy's team was more than 200 people.

This is Hannah eating her breakfast as we get ready for the race to begin.

Isaac was really excited about wearing numbers for the race.