What we have been up to!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy over here as we are preparing for Christmas. I can't believe Christmas is only a few days away. We are all excited and trying to not get too busy to remember the whole point in celebrating. I have to admit it's hard to not just fall back into preparing, and checking everything off the list and forget to just slow down and enjoy and focus on the birth of our Savior. I think I need a refocus and we enter the last week!

So anyways, here are a couple of things we have been doing at the Skains house!

Of course crafting is always going on here. We have had lots of fun making some new Christmas crafts.

(she seriously loves that headband!)



They loved painting these cute snowflake ornaments we got from Hobby Lobby. They turned out pretty cute with their pictures inside.




Our Jesse Tree is in full swing. It's been a little rough trying to do it every single night after dinner since we have had things going on during the week nights. So once it's all said and done we may be missing a few. But I love doing this, the girls love it and are very sad if we end up missing a night. We will definitely be doing it again next year. They (and Jeff and I) have really learned a few new things. Here they are hanging the paper ornaments on our very festive paper Jesse Tree! It's all we could do for this year, but hopefully next year we will actually have a tree.




This week the girls had a Christmas party and ornament exchange at dance. When making our decision to home school, one thing I was really having a hard time letting go of was being involved in my kids classrooms. Going to the parties, on field trips, being the room mom, etc... I guess it was the elementary teacher left in me. So I was so excited that we all got to be a part of the party in their dance classes. I had a little glimpse into what it would be like, and that was good enough! They had so much fun and the second Daddy walked in the door that night they talked to him a mile a minute about their party.

Before their parties.


Adalyn's party. They let Aubrey have a snack with them.



The girls with Ms. Stacey. She is so great!

Aubrey's party. Unfortunately my camera died right before her party so this is all I have for hers. Here she is exchanging her ornament.

Their First Dance Recital

*Beware of picture overload!

I have been waiting for this day since the day I found out Aubrey was a girl! I always looked forward to having little girls in dance and seeing them all dressed up in their dance costumes! I love having my girls in dance and I was so excited for them to perform at their first recital. I should mention that they love it too and it is definitely one of their highlights of their week. When I asked them a few weeks ago, who they wanted to come watch them at their recital, Aubrey immediately told me Aunt Alicia. It was right after the wedding so she was still pretty excited about it. Alicia and Mike came down and made the weekend that much more special.

Adalyn went first. Her recital was in the morning and Aubrey's wasn't later til later that afternoon. Adalyn looked super cute of course, but when it was time to perform she basically stood there and just stared at us and her teacher through both dances. We got a laugh out of it and kept crossing our fingers that she would join in, but she didn't it. We of course are still so very proud of our girl!

Alicia and Mike took some sweet pictures for us while we were trying to get out the door.



Her class right lined up, ready to perform!

This is how she looked through pretty much the whole show. Silly girl!

Except when they pulled out the chimney's, then she just hid behind it. We were all cracking up! You can barely see the top of her head.

And here is her class after the show.

They were supposed to be striking a pose!

Flowers from Daddy.

The girls babysitters came to watch the show. So sweet. They used to go to the same dance studio.




Then it was time for Aubrey's! She did such a great job on both of her dance's. She was so cute out there and Jeff and I were beaming. We were all so proud of her.

Getting ready to perform.






The whole class.



Her friends. She loves these two!








The girls loved that Aunt Alicia and Uncle Mike came. They had so much fun with them all weekend and actually cried when they had to leave on Sunday.

Preschool Choir Christmas Show

A few weeks ago the girls started going to preschool choir at a baptist church right down the street. It's not the church we attend but through the girls dance class I know the choir director and she invited them to come be a part. They absolutely love going on Wednesday nights and Jeff and I (along with Avery of course) get an hour and half midweek date! It works out great for everyone.

This past Sunday evening they had a Christmas program where they performed the songs they had learned. I will just say this, Jeff had to take the video camera away from me because since I was laughing so hard the camera was obviously not steady. It was so very entertaining! Adalyn almost didn't go on stage, but between Aubrey and her teacher they managed to her on stage. Since she was not very happy about being up there she refused to sing or even smile for that matter. She just sat there the whole time with a very unhappy look. Aubrey did a good job, sang her songs like she was supposed to and was such a good big sister to Adalyn by holding her hand and helping her. We were so very proud of both of our girls!

Unfortunately none of our pictures turned out too great. We really need to invest in a good camera :( .

Our Visit with Santa

Getting a picture with Santa has always been quite the ordeal. And this year proved to be the same. Aubrey for the first time actually smiled, talked Santa and was not scared of him! Wow. That girl is maturing and growing up *tear*. Adalyn, on the other hand, didn't cry, but she wanted no part of seeing Santa. We had to coax her to go stand by him, and she actually did tell him she wanted a Belle book for Christmas, but she did not want to touch him and she was for sure not going to smile. Now Avery... oh dear. I guess if someone wasn't screaming, it wouldn't be worth documenting right!
Here we are in 2008, 2009 (scroll down to the bottom to see the Santa picture), and 2010. As you can see, this year was pretty good!






Eating their cupcakes they got for sitting on Santa's lap.