Bouncin' Bears & fun in TW

Ri and I had a fun-filled day with the Hoffs in TW Friday. We started with a little bootcamp workout action then headed to Bouncin' Bears. After BB was lunch and cousin playtime. Good times had by all! Here are pics from the day:

R poses for a pic - she's so easy to take pictures of...unlike one particular nephew of mine!

Blurry pic of Wy due to him refusing to stop for a nanosecond for me to take his picture!

Big Bad Kyle

Cooper really enjoyed jumping on this big jumping thing (no clue what it's called)


Wyatt needed to work on the flooring a bit...can you say Mini-Jacob???


My attempt at getting a pic of Em and her wild child!

Riley also enjoyed jumping - these action shots crack me up.


Head first! Notice her legs in the air...

Lookout Wy - Gary tosses kids in the air!

Having a good time on the tall fast slide!

Big kid Skinner and little kid Skinner enjoying the tall fast slide

Coop-a-loop

Quick snack break

Big Bad Kyle again

Coop jumping again

Two of my favorite little faces!

Riley wanted to take a few pictures...here's her photography skills:

I believe I was saying "hold the camera still Riley" because she was moving all over the place while talking and taking pictures. Crazy girl.

G & me!

The boys weren't really having any of Riley's photo shoot!

Playing at home

Ri & G hanging out on the playmat


Hugging goodbye/have a good nap Wyatt!

Kisses goodbye! Wyatt wasn't in the kissing mood.

Love this big round face and double chin!

R & G posing - how cute are they?!

Whew! Good times. Isn't summer fabulous?!

Not-so-quiet car rides

sound a bit like this:

Crazy counsins


Raw talent



Until your eyes are about to cross because of the noise level and you resort to making up a story about having a pet mouse that lives in the back of your car and likes a VERY quiet car in order to sleep during the day...sound weird? Well whatever. I had to stop the madness! I made up a (not very clever) story about my pet mouse, Sassy, that lives in the back of my car and sleeps during the day but is awake at night. In order for Sassy to be able to sleep, the passengers must lower their volume about 28 levels. It totally worked. Riley was most interested in hearing about Sassy and quieted down to respect her naptime. HOWEVER, three million questions were shot my way and I was scrambling for answers. In the back of my mind I was thinking I'd have to go to Target, PetCo (or somewhere) in the near future to buy a stuffed mouse and put it in the back of my car. Said stuffed mouse would be Sassy and all would be well.

Fast forward to the next day. Luckily Riley temporarily forgot about Sassy, therefore the questions temporarily stopped. I went outside to check the mail and low and behold, in the front yard was a dead mouse. A real one. A real dead one. No need to go hunt for and buy a stuffed mouse since Sassy died. I hurried to grab the mail and brought Riley outside to see the tragedy that was Sassy's death. She asked another three million questions, including "Can we bury Sassy? Is Sassy going to go to mouse heaven? Can we go to PetCo to buy a new pet mouse?"

Here's a pic of dead Sassy.


We did not bury her and we did NOT go to PetCo to buy a new pet mouse. We do, however, occassionally have a moment of silence in memory of Sassy (and to quiet down in the car!).

Quiet car rides

are quite fabulous! Here is what Riley looks like after a fun playdate:
(moments after leaving Casa Hoff)

Yep, still asleep.

This HAS to hurt! It hurts my neck just looking at it!

Soooo tired!

1 little monkey jumpin' on the bed

Caught this little monkey in the act...jumping on big brother's bed while he's away at camp! BUSTED!

Pool time!

Does anyone else start sweating just from loading the car? Man-oh-man it's hot! I wish I could have brought the Colorado weather to Texas but that just didn't happen. Consequently, Ri and I have gotten very good at packing a small cooler, towels, suits, SPF 50, book (for me) and some pool toys and heading to the pool! This happens almost on a daily basis! We love our pool time :) Here are a few pics from recent pool trips including a couple from when Wy visited:

Chatterbox

This child is a MESS! We went to Barnes & Noble a couple weeks ago...what an appropiate book for Ri to have picked out! And please notice her shirt - Uncalissa...err...Aunt Mel gave her this shirt a while back. Describes her to a T.

My VBS babies

A couple of weeks ago I helped out with VBS in Pearland. I was originally supposed to be teaching one of the three year old classes, but they needed more help in the two year old class so I spent the week with these precious little two year olds. They didn't actually have VBS, it was pretty much just nursery (they are two year old children of volunteers that needed child care) but we had a great time! There were a couple that aren't pictured here because they didn't come on this particular day. I had a hard time not taking a few of these kiddies home with me. Aren't they cute?!?!

Gdad goes to Colorado...

True story - I tried to update my blog before actually traveling to Colorado but it never posted. I think it was because I was in Oklahoma...that was probably the problem. Hopefully the Oklahoma folks (you know who you are) will move soon :)

Anywho...to sum up, Gdad got the Go-ahead to go to Colorado so off we went. I drove the grandparents to Oklahoma and then we drove to CO with the Merrills and joined the Todds & Hoffarts. Good times had by all! More Currys joined us later - but we were still missing some Currys! I think Granddad surprised himself by how much he has been able to do. He has been all over the place - South Fork, Creede, North Clear Creek Falls (between Creede & Lake City), up Wolf Creek pass, went river rafting, fishing, played golf, etc. etc. etc. Talk about living it up!

Here's a pic of Gdad fishing at Big Meadow (one of my all time favorite places). He told me "take a picture of me with the snow behind me," and if you look closely you can see some snow up at the top of the mountain. There wasn't much, but I tried to get it! He was fishing, enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery and eating a granola bar. What a life!




More to come of the CO trip...there are approximately one million pictures, so it may take a while to narrow it down...

Quick update on Gdad

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers for Granddad! He went home last Wednesday (had the procedure on Monday) and has been home and resting. He seems to be doing ok but says he feels weak and is not so sure about going to Colorado. The problem is he REALLY REALLY wants to go and has been wanting to go for some time now. And we leave next week, so he just has another week or so to get to feeling better and stronger! We'll see, though. Really looking forward to being up in the mountains and taking a break from this Texas heat! Plus it will be Garrett's first Colorado trip!!!

Monkey cupcakes

Last Sunday, Mia (pronnounced "Na") and Wyatt made monkey cupcakes before having a little College World Series game-watching fiesta. They turned out super cute. Mia made the banana cupcakes and prepared the hot chocolate sauce. We covered the top of the cupcakes with the chocolate and then put the ginger snaps on the chocolate. The ears of the monkey are mini oreos (without the cream) and then the eyes are mini M&M's. Yummy! Wyatt helped by licking many of the cupcakes and taking a few bites out of them along the way too. He's really funny in an assembly line because he says "mine" for each one as he licks and/or bites. He was a total mess - I'm not sure how he managed to get chocolate on his shoulders and in his hair, but he did! He was so proud of his cupcakes later and was excited to share with the Herrmanns! Too bad the Aggie baseball game didn't turn out like we would have liked :(

Here are a couple pictures of Wyatt "working" on the cupcakes and then a pic of the final products!





Na is really good at coming up with cute, creative and tasty activities!

Hanging out with Kyle

We got to hang out with Kyle last weekend while his parents went to a couples shower. We had a good time with this little dude. First we played, then he ate dinner, then we went for an evening walk and played outside. Before we knew it his parents were back from their party! Good times :)




Hope to see the Skinners again soon!