Pre-School at Home

Now that Aubrey is three I decided it's time to start setting some time aside each week to do a few learning activities. Not that we havent' worked on stuff in the past, but I needed to put it our schedule to make sure it gets done. We have been working on letters, counting (she is still stuck on only counting to 11), and shapes. And since Adalyn of course wants to be involved she has been doing most of it too. As we were reviewing counting to 10 I discovered that Adalyn can count to ten. Haha, I had no idea! So far Aubrey has her 'A', 'U', and "B' down. She is well on her way to learning how to spell her name. We are putting together an ABC book, so by the time we make it throught the whole alphabet she will have her own ABC book. It's been so fun for the past teacher in me to start thinking of projects and activities and the girls love to do any type of craft. So here's to pre-school at home, until we are in the real deal next year!



Showing me she can count to 10!

Hidden in My Heart

I have a wonderful new find that I wanted to share with all my mommy friends. I came across this cd from a highschool friend of mine. Hidden in My Heart is a lullaby cd, but it's scripture put into song, but beautiful relaxing music. I listened to a little bit on their website and I was sold. I'm always looking for sweet biblical music for my girls, to have on around the house or in the car or even when they go to bed. I was so excited when I received it in the mail today. The girls and I went straight to their room to listen. They were not too interested, as they just got up from naps and playing was their top priority. But I turned it on, sat in the rocking chair, closed by eyes and just listened to the words. It was one of those moments that I felt was honestly sitting in My Father's lap just resting. We have some major decisions going on right now that have been causing tons of stress, worry and anxiety. I have had a hard time thinking about anything else and I have felt like I have been constantly arguing with God. But this is what He had to say about all of that...

Psalm 37:7- Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.

Phillipians 4:6-7 : Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 13:5-6 : For He Himself has said 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' So we may boldly say Lord is my helper, I will not fear.

These are just a sneak peak! These scriptures are put to music and so easy to listen to and to really just rest in Him, to trust in Him and to know that He will always be right here with me. I love the idea of my girls listening to God's promises like this. It is definitely going to be played a lot around our house. I just wanted to encourage you to check out their website, listen to a couple of songs and see what you think. So excited for our new music! Now I just need to remember these promises in the next few weeks.

Pet Bug Rocks

What could possibly be more fun than painting rocks? How about making them into pet bugs! The girls had so much fun finding rocks to paint and then making them into lady bugs and bees. They turned out pretty cute and kept the girlies entertained for quite some time.

Looking for the perfect rock.


Painting the rocks. Definitely the most fun part!






The finished products.

A Visit with Friends

Last week the girls and I had such a fun day meeting my friend from Houston Melissa and her little girl Anna at the beach in Oceanside. I'm so glad Melissa's family lives her so at least once a year I get to see her. Anna and Aubrey are about a month and a half apart so it's always fun getting to see them play together. The day started off great and we actually got to talk quite a bit, especially since her mom was there so we had more eyes on all the girls. But as the day went on it got a bit more interesting.

This is where the story gets long, but I wanted to record it for myself to remember! About an hour after we got there we noticed this little boy playing with our kids. He was wearing a huge heavy jacket, even thought it was really warm out, and we couldn't figure out who he belonged too. Long story short, his grandma ended up showing up but slept in different slides all day and paid absolutely no attention to him. We actually fed him, gave him some food, took his coat off and basically took care of him all day. We finally got the lifeguards to call the cops because this situation just wasn't right and how in the world could we leave with this poor little guy having nobody to watch him. We found out that she had taken him from her son 3 days before and he had no idea where they were. Crazy! His name was Auto and Aubrey talked about him for a few days and even prayed for him that night. I still feel so bad for him.

If you are still hanging in there to this super long story, the day gets even a little more interesting. After Melissa had got to the beach we decided to move our stuff down farther towards the park. But was I didn't remember was that I had taken my wedding ring off and put it in my beach chair while I sunscreened the girls. So when I moved my chair it fell out and I unfortunately didn't realize this til about 2-3 hours later, right during the mist of the "Auto" crisis. I then of course panicked and began the search. I found a man out there who had a metal detector so he helped me look for it, and two other couples plus Melissa. We looked for about an hour but it just seemed I could look forever and never find it, a needle in a haystack. Thank goodness for Melissa's mom who watched the girls for me! Well at some point I had to give up, so we headed home and I was so not looking forward to telling Jeff. Fast forward to the next day. I decided to take some "Reward" signs back out to the beach and post them with the life guards and the police department. When we got there I saw another guy with a metal detector so I headed straight for him and told him my sob story in hopes he would help me look for it. Turns out he was there the night before looking for my ring with the other guy with the metal detector and had found it! He came back the next morning hoping I would come back looking for it. He was going to post something with the police department there and put an ad in the paper. What a good man! I was so thankful and just kept crying. I wish I had a great way to thank him, but it all happened so fast and then he was gone. What an amazing answer to prayer. I was devasted to have lost it and hardly slept that night. And there you have it, our very memorable day at the beach.

This Moment...

What a precious moment it was. The three of us were eating lunch outside, just like we do most days. Aubrey asked Adalyn if she wanted a hug and of course that made my heart melt. But what was said during this picture made me over joyed and so thankful for my two sweet precious girls (and also thankful my camera was sitting right by me, excuse the shadows). After Adalyn came to get her hug Aubrey said to her "I love you so much Adalyn". It's the moments like this that I am so thankful for all the times I drill into my girls to be sweet to each other and to love each other. It's the moments like this that I am so thankful that God has made it possible for me to stay home with my girls and allow them to play together all day and learn to be the best of friends and to get to see these things happen. And it's the moments like this that make all of the other not so fun moments disappear. I love these girls and I especially love when they are so sweet to each other. After Aubrey told Adalyn she loved her, Adalyn said "I uv you dis much", and she put her hands super close together. Aubrey always does this as a joke to Jeff and I and we pretend to be sad, and then she changes it to "I love you this much" and stretches her hands out as far as she can. So when Adalyn said that to Aubrey, Aubrey said "that make me sad Adalyn". So Adalyn changed it to "I uv you dis much" and also stretched her hands out as far as she could. Oh my goodness! I had to laugh and hug my girls as tight as I could!

On a side note, that's not really important, Aubrey is not that much taller than Adalyn. They are actually almost the same height, weigh the exact same and wear the same size. She just happened to be wearing some Cinderella high heels!

Family Pictures

About a month ago we had a little photoshoot to capture our family at La Jolla Cove, one of our favorite spots here in San Diego. We got a fabulous deal that we couldn't pass up. I orginally felt like it went well, and I still think it did considering trying to take pics of two busy little girls. But when I got the pictures I was pretty disappointed. I really wanted some good pictures of the girls, since this was for their 2 and 3 year old pictures, and some good family pictures. He hardly took any of the girls, and the only reason he did was because at the end I reminded him that I wanted some of just them alone. He took a few family ones but seriously nothing too great. I thought I communicated what I wanted but maybe I didn't. He seemed to like action shots but I tend to like the posed ones better where everyone is looking at the camera. I was honest with him when he asked for feedback, so they are giving us another shoot for free in October, which I thought was so nice. The only thing with that is that in only 3 months after that our family picture will be missing one, but it is what it is. So here are a few of the ones that we liked.

Labor Day Beach Time!

Finally finally the weather warmed up a bit and we were able to spend some time on the beach without freezing. We went on Sunday for a few hours before we had to go to a birthday party, and then we went to another beach on Monday and just stayed in the grass but had a perfect view of the ocean. Gorgeous! Our friends, the Perkio's, came and spent the day with us on Sunday which was great since the girls love to play with Gavin. Here are some moments from Sunday!




This was really funny. The girls weren't listening very well and kept climbing on Jeff and I. Jeff told them to go sit down and play with their sand toys but still not listening. So he physically took them over to sit them down so they would play with Gavin, and then the water works started. Danielle and I both immediately took out our cameras. How mean are we!



Yummy doritos.


Now on to Monday. The girls got these suckers at Devyn's birthday party on Sunday, and it was seriously all they talked about for 24 hours until we finally let them eat them.



Aww, they're sharing...


And a prego picture for those who are always curious! This is at 19 weeks. You should see me at 19 weeks with Aubrey. No where near this big!

Celebrating Jeff's Birthday

We started celebrating Jeff's birthday last weekend. I surprised him with an overnight date. I dropped the girls off with my parents friday afternoon. When I got home Jeff was already there and the first thing he said was "Where are the girls?". How fun to tell him we had a whole 24 hours to ourselves just to celebrate his birthday. I had made reservations that night at Jakes in Del Mar, which is a fabulous seafood restaraunt overlooking the ocean. After dinner, it was only 8:30 and we had no idea what to do. We were both so tired and actually contemplated just going home, but we talked ourselves into not being lame and going to do something fun. So we ended up at Dave and Busters. We had so much together and was a great way to end the night!

Ski ball!



Saturday morning was fabulous! We got to sleep in, in our bed. How glorious. Then we headed out towards the coast. We walked through Solana Beach, then we headed to Encinitas for lunch. After lunch we had 3 hours left, which was just enough time to sit on the beach. We ended up in Cardiff by the Sea and enjoyed two and a half fabulous hours of sitting quietly on the beach. We even both took like a 30 minute nap. It was a great birthday celebration. We missed our girlies of course but it was sure nice to have a break!



And then we were on to Jeff's real birthday. We actually had another "date" on his day also. Thats the day that we found out we were having another girl, so before the dr. appointment we went to PF CHangs for lunch, just the two of us! It was a great birthday present to Jeff to get see his third little girl squirming around. That night, we went to Outback for dinner with the girls and my parents.

Dinner at Outback.

Adalyn really enjoyed her ice cream dessert.


And then we headed back to our house for presents. I even made Jeff's very favorite dessert, but we were all too full to have any! Boo hoo!



Of course Daddy had to get some last minute birthday cuddles in before bedtime. Right after I took this picture Adalyn started singing the sweetest version of Happy Birthday to her daddy. It was so adorable!

The Question is...

Pink or blue? But all of this PINK can only mean one thing!



That's right, another girl is being added to the Skains family! The girls celebrated with a pink cupcake, how perfect! Now since we told the girls that we were having a baby Aubrey was very particular that she wanted a girl baby. Well I was convinced it was a boy so I kept telling her that it might be a boy, we just have to wait and see what God gives us. A couple of weeks ago she finally started saying she wanted a boy. Fast forward to today. When I told her it was a girl, this was her reaction:


But, by the time she was half way through the cupcake, she was all smiles again.

To poor Aubrey's defense it was right after nap and she does not wake up very happy!

Here is a picture of our newest sweet girl. I can hardly wait to meet her!

Check out this girl's flexibilty! You can see her feet way up by her head.