April

Events from April included a scrapbook retreat for me, and a farm field trip for the Bean. I have pics from neither, so onto April's main event - Easter! These pics are all out of order, but we celebrated Easter w/ my family the weekend before Easter with a yummy dinner and traditional egg hunt for the kids. The kids and I did Resurrection Rolls and the Resurrection Eggs during the week before Easter. We had lunch on Easter Sunday with some good friends from our Sunday School class.

How's that for a quick Easter wrap-up??

Sweet friends at our Easter lunch...
We enjoyed probably the best carrot cake I've ever had at our Easter lunch, courtesy of Green Eggs in the 'Ham.

The kids table at our Easter lunch

I forgot my camera Easter morning (who does that???), so here are our two lone family pics. :)

I think I was 7 months pregnant in this pic??

We did Easter baskets the night before to cut down on the Easter Sunday morning madness...

The biggest hit in the Easter baskets were probably the princess socks for the Bean, and Cars socks for Bubs.

Resurrection Rolls...tasty!

My sweet sticky-fingered helpers. One marshmallow for the helpers, one for the rolls...

Fun at Mimi and Grandpaw's nearby park while we were there celebrating Easter. Puddles and sticks...fun times for a boy!

The daredevils riding down the ramp at the park...

Bubs actually has a big boy bike now...he was way too tall for the tricycle!

Examining the loot...candy and cold-hard cash! (Coins, but that's big time for a piggy bank, of course.)

Cousins

Pretending to be shepherds...a little more Christmas than Easter, but it's all Biblical!

March

March was all about preparing for and taking a trip to visit RR's family near Seattle, WA. The kiddos were really pumped about the plane ride. They actually did very well too! A little squirmy-ness at times, but for a 4 and 2 year old, they did great. We had such a wonderful time visiting with family. The Bean REALLY loved her cousin Ella (age 5). RR's nephews Nathaniel (age 13) and T.J. (age 9) were very sweet to Bubs and the Bean. Bubs would have moved in at their house...there were 3 dogs and 2 cats (I think that's right...), plus all the kids. Never a dull moment. :) The first thing Bubs wanted to do each morning was pet the doggies. It rained each day (typical Seattle weather), but that gave us lots of time to catch up and visit. Plus RR's sister had a hot tub, which was a hit. Cousin Ella was very sweet to let the Bean borrow her clothes while we were there. I'm pretty sure that all of the Bean's clothes (except what we wore on the plane) were clean when we got back. The Bean cried and cried when we left. We should have gotten a family shot, but these pics are mostly of the kids. To all of RR's family, we love and miss y'all!! We had a great time!

Here are some pics from our trip!

The hot tub...it was like the Mini-Bachelor in here or something. Just funny to see preschoolers in a hot tub. I couldn't get in since I was pregnant. :(

The Bean wearing Ella's tw0-piece bathing suit...I'm tellin' ya, she loved Ella's clothes!

Grandma PJ crocheting...she crocheted a Rapunzel blanket for the Bean and mailed it to us after the trip. The Bean had gotten to pick out the fabric, and that blanket was highly anticipated. You'd have thought it was Christmas morning at our house when the package arrived!

Sweet Ella gave these Tinkerbell jammies to the Bean. Let's just say she was excited. :)

BFF's

T.J. and Bubs

See the Bean's cool get-up? No wonder she didn't want to wear any of her own clothes! Pink cowgirl boots and a sequined cowgirl hat??? What more could a girl want!

No, we're not dead/Stuff from February

Riding the bus on the way to the cookie factory...I was a bus chaperone. :)

Rockin' the hair nets getting ready to tour Bud's Best Cookies...we rode a train through the factory, and even got some fresh warm cookies!

Ok, so here's my attempt to do a little catching up on this blog. I think I've said it before, but once I got a smart phone last Fall and could check email and surf the 'net, I really did not want to get on this slow computer. Really all I do on our home computer is print stuff, download stuff, and blog...all of which are rare occurances. But with a new baby coming in 18 days or less, here's my attempt at catching up.

So, February was pretty boring, at least looking back at pictures there was not much I deemed camera worthy, I guess. :) I know one thing missing is pics from the Bean's class Valentine's party, and that's because those pics are on my phone and I still can't figure out how to download them to my computer. Calling Verizon is on my to-do list. :)

The pics above are of us playing at a park with some good friends, on the Bean's class field trip to Bud's Best Cookies, and also of the Valentine's confection (brownies) that the Bean and I made.

February done. :) One month's post down, four more to go...

Menu Plan Monday and Gender Reveal!!

Because I know some of you don't want to wait until the end of this post to read if we're having a boy or girl, I'll be nice and not make you read my menu for the week or even scroll down the page! We're having a...

GIRL!!

That's right...we're having another girl! And because we're weird and this is our "thing", we have already chosen a name. Our "thing" is, on the day of our ultrasound, RR and I go to lunch and decide our child's name. I do the research and compile the list of names for each sex that I like, make name combinations that I like, then make a list and bring it with us. We whittle down the list and usually end up with 2-3 names that we like. Then it's just a matter of discussing the nuances of those names...meaning, femininity/masculinity, how it sounds w/ our last name, etc. So, without further ado, our third child and second girl will be named...

Audrey Claire Skinner.

We will call her Audrey. I know what those of you who know the Bean's full name are thinking...we went with the same initials. Obviously, that's true, but it was not on purpose. Claire was one of the names we really liked for the Bean, so I've liked that name for years. So it was a frontrunner on our girl list this time around. But I was having a hard time coming up with a middle name for Claire. So I started thinking we could use it as a middle name, and I came up with a few combinations for Claire as a middle name. Audrey Claire was one of those. Once RR started whittling the girl list (which was much shorter than the boy list, btw), it pretty quickly became clear that this name was both of our faves. But we weren't sure if we wanted to be "locked into" using the same initials. We may have a fourth child, and if so, we will probably feel compelled to use our girl initials (ACS) or boy initials (HGS), depending on the gender. Yep, we are all weird like that. We like things symmetrical, even, the same, in patterns, etc. After some debate, we decided we'd rather just go with the name we both love than be concerned about the initials. So, as it turns out, we love our girl name, AND I will get to use all of the Bean's old monogrammed clothes. BONUS! Also, as a side note, everything looked great on the ultrasound, and it looks like we have a healthy little girl.

On to less exciting matters, our weekly menu...

Monday (beef night): sloppy joes, baked beans

Tuesday (breakfast): Western Scramble, bacon, toast

Wednesday (chicken): Chinese Chicken Salad, grapes

Thursday (leftovers): uhh...leftovers :)

Friday (wild card): red beans and rice with turkey sausage

Saturday: Global Missions Conference dinner at church

Sunday: fried chicken salad

Check out Menu Plan Monday for more menu ideas! I'd love to know what you're cooking for dinner this week. Also, I've thought about posted my cleaning schedule, mainly hoping that somebody else might do something similar and post theirs too??? I love getting "spurred on" by other's ideas in the areas of housekeeping and general housewife-ery!

January Happenings...

Sorry I'm such a blog slacker! When there's lots of things volleying for your attention, the blog tends to get put on the back burner. That being said, I am trying to update the blog at least once a month. So without further ado...here's what we did in January.

The first January happening: RR's annual b'day party! The kids had a great time helping with this. We put up a few decorations, bought him some gifts, and made a yummy dessert (cherry dump cake with ice cream...cherries are RR's favorite). We had a great time celebrating RR's b'day...his 37th...creeping ever closer to the big 4-0!

I let the kids each pick out a gift for Daddy. Bubs was intent on getting him fish. I asked him a dozen times, and his answer was always fish. And Bubs founds just the right thing: bathtub squirting fish. RR loved it, of course. :) The Bean picked out a more appropriate gift: jammies for Daddy.

The kids made some "door decorations"

On to the next thing: the Bean's K-4 circus party! I cannot begin to express how excited the Bean was about this party. The kids in the class all dressed up like circus performers. The Bean initially went back and forth between acrobat, elephant (what?!?), and clown. We ended up deciding on clown, largely b/c her friend Lynley was going to be a clown too. We went to the fabric store and let the Bean pick out her fabric for the clown outfit...with a little guidance from Mommy, of course. (FYI, if any of you are looking to make a clown outfit, I used a basic pants pattern, just made them a little bigger, a "peasant blouse" type shirt pattern, and this clown collar tutorial. Oh, and we found the coolest sequined turquoise sneakers that matched!! They were $6 at Hancock's...it was meant to be.) We painted her face with Crayola markers. Hope that's not bad...they are washable!! A real clown and a juggler were the class entertainment, and they had popcorn, cotton candy, and lemonade for snack. There was a face painter there too. How fun is that???

The Bean and her BFF, Lynley

The whole K-4 class...the boy with a whip was a lion tamer...how creative is that?!

Last happening: snow day! This was the most recent one, which was technically in February, but I'm putting it on this post anyway. We went outside all bundled up, and we threw snow balls, slid down our snow-covered slide, and went for a short walk in the neighborhood. We had a ball! And finally, the kids get to put there cute hats and mittens that I "splurged" on. (Splurged means I spent less than $10 on items that we used very infrequently...I just hate spending even 50 cents on stuff we hardly ever use. I'm cheap that way. I do not mind some sock mittens.)

Other un-photographed January events: Bubs first dentist appointment. He did great! We love our pediatric dentist. They have a fun play area to wait in, then they give you lots of cool stuff, like stickers, the obligatory toothbrush and toothpaste, and tokens to the "Treasure Tower"!! (Basically the Treasure Tower is a vending/gumball type machine of little trinket-y kid items like sparkly bracelets and bouncy balls, etc. But the kids love it!)

One more note if anybody is still reading - we find out the gender of our baby next Tuesday! I do not have a "gut" feeling about this one. I was pretty sure I knew with both my other pregnancies, and I was right both times. This time it's anybody's guess. Speaking of, anybody have a guess?? I will be 18 weeks tomorrow and am feeling great.

December fun

So as to not get any further behind on blogging, I decided to post all our December stuff in one post. This is kind of picture heavy...sorry!

We started off the month with a fun morning at the Robertson Reporter for our annual gingerbread house party. Or in this case, Pop Tart houses. :) Mom E was kind enough to prepare the houses and icing...I just had to bring a little candy. Last year Bubs had no interest whatsoever in decorating a gingerbread house, and he pretty much played with trains the whole time. This time he did much better and was more into the decorating. And neither of the kids ate as much candy as you might imagine, which is pretty impressive considering what a big sweet tooth the Bean has. The Bean's roof collapsed and Mom E had to do a little repair work, but other than that, their houses turned out very nicely. The houses were pretty much destroyed and salvaged for parts by the next day, FYI. The Pop Tarts and candy just sitting around was way too tempting!

Fast forward a few days in December to Christmas. We went to Mimi and Grandpaw's house for a few days and had a blast. The Bean got a lot of princess stuff, including a princess "laptop", princess sleeping bag, Beauty and the Beast DVD, and princess dolls. She also got a big doll house and doll house stuff...and she pretty much loved every single present! Bubs got mostly vehicle-related stuff, including a remote-control car, Thomas the Train stuff, a small racetrack, and toy golf clubs. And he loved it all. I got a Cricut, which I am super excited about trying out! RR got mostly money b/c he is harder to shop for. :) We had a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas morning and read the Christmas story from Luke 2. The kids actually sat still and listened!

Listening to Grandpaw read from Luke 2

Bubs stuffing his face with birthday cake...don't know what happened to his pants! As a side note, my brother is notorious for taking the last bite of desserts, or just plain being a dessert hog. So for fun/just to be mean, I grabbed the last half of his piece of cake and scarfed it down. This was followed by a small food fight between my brother and I. SOOOOO glad the kids weren't really paying attention. Didn't get any pics of my face or my brother's bald head smeared with icing...sorry!

Eating birthday cake for Jesus

And let's not forget about the snow! Sadly, the one thing I left at home during our trip to Mimi and Grandpaw's was our coats. Oops. So we really had to get creative to let the kids play in the snow. They have on a hodge podge of clothing/mittens/hats belonging to various people. Bubs caught on very quickly to the idea of throwing snowballs and was pretty good at it! He liked being hit and hitting others with the snowballs pretty equally. And I think he is part Eskimo. It's like he doesn't even feel the cold! He could've stayed out there forever if we would have let him! AC helped build a snow man and made snow angels. We all had a great time!

The glorious snow man (mostly the handiwork of Evan and my brother)!

The glorious snow man being tackled to the ground about 30 seconds after he was finished!

I have on my dad's sweatshirt and jacket, and my mom's shoes...the Bean has on Grandpaw's ski mask, Aunt Marianna's sweatshirt hoodie, and Grandpaw's tube socks for mittens. And I had even bought my kids cute hats and mittens this year!

Last little happening for December...Bubs is potty-trained! He had been showing a lot of interest and asking to use the potty from time to time for the last couple of months, and the week after Christmas he just refused to put on diapers. So I went with it, and he has had very few accidents since then. He's done really well, even when we're out and about. And he was accident-free his first day back at MDO, so that's a good sign! He's truly just trained himself. I've been very proud of him! And just in time, since baby #3 is due in July!

Menu Plan Monday

I'm sure all of us have new plans/resolutions/goals for the new year. Among my goals was revamping my menu plans. RR likes the good old stand-by recipes like spaghetti, taco salad, and breakfast for dinner, but I get tired of those things and like to try new recipes. So I came up w/ a schedule to give us the flexibility to do both of those things. My new plan is this:

Mondays: chicken
Tuesdays: breakfast for dinner
Wednesdays: beef
Thursdays: leftovers
Fridays: Wild Card night
Saturdays: sandwiches, soup or salad
Sundays: crockpot or eat out or leftovers

Hopefully this plan will work for us. It gives variety, but it also makes it easier to insert recipes each week. With that preface, here's our menu for the week. I love hearing what other people are having for dinner...what's on your menu for the week?

Monday: Italian Chicken, rice, lima beans
Tuesday: Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel sandwiches, grapes
Wednesday: Taco salad
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: grilled pork chops, creamed corn, steamed broccoli
Saturday: chicken salad, yogurt/berry parfaits
Sunday: Drip Beef sandwiches (crockpot) - (not my recipe but similar...got mine from the Robertson Reporter), oven french fries

Find other menu plans at I'm An Organizing Junkie!