Sisters

Seeing these three girls together of course makes my heart melt. Aubrey and Adalyn are being such good big sisters to Avery. It is so precious to see my girls kissing and hugging on their baby sister. Aubrey especially would rather sit on the couch or my bed and hold Avery then do pretty much anything else. She asks me all day "Can I hold Avery for a long time now". We have even started using it as a reward for her. And anytime they hear Avery cry they both say "It's okay Avery". I can already see Aubrey taking her place as the protective big sister. Adalyn on occasion asks to hold her but she still just needs a little extra attention from mommy and daddy. I love my girls and I couldn't be more blessed to be the mommy of these three sweet girls. Wow, sometimes it still hard to believe I'm a mommy, let alone a mommy of three girls!
Adalyn lovin on her baby sister!



Or course Baby Rhea always has to be part of the fun.


And I will leave you with a sweet picture of Avery sleeping.

Avery Brenna Skains

Our sweet little baby girl is finally here and she couldn't be more perfect. Everything went very smoothly with her birth. The c-section was no fun of course, and I was laying there on the table I looked at Jeff, and said "I'm not doing this again!". But then two hours later when my dr. came to check on me one of the first things I asked was "so can my body handle another one?!?!". After she was born, Avery really didn't cry very much so they were right away concerned about her oxygen. Unfortunately she had to spend the first 3 hours in the NICU, and I was pretty emotional about it. They told me I could pump but she wasn't ready to nurse and she may have to spend the whole day and night in there. Of course I called my mom crying wishing she was with me like she was with the other girls. It just felt so anti-climatic. I waited and waited for my baby girl, and then they just took her away and I was sitting in recovery alone. Jeff was with Avery the whole time which was some special bonding time for them. Finally a couple of hours later they wheeled my bed down to her and they actually let me nurse her. So I didn't have to pump, and an hour after that we were all together in my room. It was a huge answer to prayer and we had lots of people praying! And the rest is all history. We slept, she ate, she cried, she pooped and peed and Jeff and I spent two whole days together cuddling our new precious baby girl. So without further ado, here is our precious Avery Brenna, weighing in at 7 pounds 10 ounces and 19 3/4 inches!

Morning of her birth. Bright and early and ready to meet her!


Here we go!


And here is my baby. Our first mommy daughter picture! So worth it.


Avery Brenna. So in love with this sweet girl.




Mommy and Daddy's first picture with our baby girl.




Meeting her big sisters. They were a little apprehensive at first but then Aubrey couldn't give her enough kisses. It took Adalyn a little bit to warm up to her.


Our first family picture as a family of 5.


Aubrey and Adalyn got new babies too.



Thanks again Alicia and Mike for everything!


Now we are home and couldn't be happier to all be together again!

Here She Comes!

Tomorrow is the day. I think I can officially say we're ready for her to be here now. My house is clean, her nursery is ready, my wonderful best friend and her fiance are here to watch the girlies, the fridge is stocked, bags are packed and we are ready to head to the hospital is approximately 8 hours! I have a bunch of emotions, but I am mostly excited to hold my sweet baby girl for the first time! So next post will have beautiful pictures of our new baby girl. Here we go!

The girls are ready to spend the next few days with Mike and Alicia. And of course Alicia had to bring the girls new shoes!

Avery Gets a Room...finally!!!

So here we are, two days away from welcoming Avery into our family, and last night we finally got her room set up for the most part. We still need to put her name up on the wall, and hang the curtains. But her crib is put together, all her little clothes are washed and hanging in her closet, her dresser is filled with all sorts of sweet baby things and on Friday I finally get to hold my sweet baby girl! Here are some pictures of Jeff (and Aubrey and Adalyn of course), putting together her crib.




And here's her room!

Looks just like the older girls nursery, I know!

While Jeff was working in Avery's room I was working on getting the big girls beds ready. Okay, so not really their beds, but the mattresses. We have a really long saga about the girls furniture which I won't get into. But the short version is we ordered them a new bedroom set a month ago, and we still don't have them and looks like either we won't get them for awhile or we are just going to have to order something else. So for now, they are sleeping on their new mattresses which they think is pretty great. Hopefully soon they will have a new room and I can finally post pictures!

Good night! Their first night in their new room. They finally got to move out of Avery's room and their toddler beds. They were pretty excited last night!

Sticker Chart Rewards

We started the sticker chart system a while back, and then with the move we kind of fell off the routine. This system has always worked really well for Aubrey. She loves rewards, and if she loses a sticker for misbehavior it really feels like the end of the world to her. Adalyn, on the other hand, doesn't really seem to care. She would rather get a jelly bean for good behavior and she could care less if I remove a sticker. Honestly we haven't quite figured out what gets Adalyn yet. Timeout... no big deal, spankings... again no big deal (most of the time). So we will keep working on that girl. But, when she finished her sticker chart she knew exactly what she wanted as her reward. She talked for days about going to Chick-fil-a with just Daddy. Nobody else could go and she wanted to ride in Aubrey's carseat. So funny! We were hoping that maybe since she was so adamant about her reward she would start caring more about the sticker chart. We shall see. Here she is with Daddy before their date!



Aubrey had a different idea of what she wanted to do. She wanted Daddy to take her to the park and then to get ice cream. Again, mommy wasn't invited. What am i!?!?!? Just kidding, I know they love their alone time with Daddy. So the plan was Jeff would take Adalyn on Saturday and Aubrey on Sunday. Unfortunately Jeff got really sick on Sunday, plus it has rained for a week and a half straight so the park has been soaked. I managed to convince her to pick out a new toy at target instead, and next time she filled her chart up Daddy would take her to the park. She reluctantly agreed, but once she picked out her new toy I don't think she would have it any other way. Here is what she picked out:

Of course she picked out something for Baby Rhea. This little swing was only $9 which made me happy, and this girl couldn't be happier. When she is downstairs so is the swing and so is Baby Rhea, and then when she goes back upstairs so does the swing. She even put it right next to bed last night with Baby Rhea in it. She loves this thing!

Now we are well on our way to filling up our next chart!

Sister Time

Aubrey and Adalyn are the best of friends and play together constantly. Sure they fight a bunch and pick on each other, but for the most part they are just truly best friends. Saturday morning, Jeff and I were working around the house and getting ready to run errands. I could hear the girls conversation from my room and had to go peak and see what in the world they were doing. And this is what I found:

Of course they weren't posed like this, but they did have all their dolls lined up like this. It was so cute and they were having so much fun together. I love these two and I especially love how much they love each other and playing together!

A Little Bit of This and That!

I haven't really been in the blogging mood lately, and honestly there isn't really much that has been going on to be blog worthy. Really all that has been going on has been lots of playing with the girls, getting ready for Avery and still trying to get settled. But as most of you know there are always fun things going on when a two year old and a three year old are involved. So here are just a few things that have been going on here at home!

A while back Aubrey drew her very first self portrait. It was super cute, but she never did it again. Well this week she rediscovered how to do it and that has been her favorite thing to do. Oh, and she began drawing flowers. When she is done with any picture she has colored, and I do mean any, she goes and hangs it on the refrigerator. She is pretty proud of all her art work!




I am very blessed to have great sister in laws who always give us their hand me downs. The girls found these two sweat shirts in our latest shipment, and they think they are pretty much the greatest thing. They love that they have hats and that they have a place to keep their hands warm in the front. Who knew a sweatshirt could be so exciting!



As I mentioned earlier, we have been doing some preparation for Avery, so all the baby stuff has been coming out. The favorite baby item by far to the girls has been the swing. Aubrey always has baby Rhea in the swing and often hush's me because Baby Rhea is sleeping. We have been working on the fact that hushing mommy isn't the very polite thing to do!

This girl

I have got to brag for a moment about this sweet sweet girl of mine! She has the kindest sweetest little heart and I could share story after story of the sweet things she does. Anytime Aubrey is upset about anything Adalyn is the first one to make Aubrey's world better again.

* Aubrey was so upset today as we were on the way to the doctor after she realized she left her Dora sunglasses at home. So my sweet Adalyn took hers off and handed them to Aubrey and let Aubrey wear them all day. My goodness, such a sweetheart!

* Again, Aubrey was upset after she spilled her lemonade all over jeans. You see, Aubrey can't stand to be dirty, or for her clothes to be wet (which is one reason she was SO easy to potty train). This all happened while they were eating a cookie after lunch. So Adalyn broke off a piece of her cookie and offered it to Aubrey hoping it would help Aubrey feel better. This girl melts my heart over and over.

* And one last story. One New Years Eve, while the Wilson's were over, Aubrey was upset again (do you see a pattern here) because Sydney was using her place mat. I had a long talk with her about sharing our things when we have company. Well, when I wasn't looking Aubrey snagged her place mat from Sydney, which then sent Sydney into a melt down. And then sweet Adalyn swooped in once again to the rescue, and offered her place mat to Sydney. Again, too sweet for words!

Celebrating the New Year!

We rang in the New Year this year with our friends the Wilson's. They came over early evening on New Years Eve, we enjoyed a yummy dinner together, put the kids to bed and stayed up way too late playing games and chatting. They spent the night since Spring is about an hour drive from Kingwood, so we had the priviledge of spending New Years day with them as well. We have this fabulous park that was just built about 2 weeks ago, and it's less than a 10 minute walk from our house. Saturday morning we took all the girls there and they had a blast. Aubrey loves Sarah and pretty much wants to be anywhere she is. So it was a great New Years! 2010 brought a lot of change and has been a wild ride of a year. We never imagined a year ago that we would be back in Houston, TX of all places, but here we are. He has taught me so much about COMPLETELY trusting Him and knowing His plan is way better than anything I have ever come up with. I feel so incredibly blessed to be married to Jeff and for my two sweet sweet girls, and of course baby girl who will be here in only 2 more weeks. God is good and I'm excited to see what He has in store for us in 2011.

All the girlies at the park.

Merry Christmas!

We really had such a great Christmas this year. It was just the four of us, much quieter than it has been in the past, but it was really nice just getting to be with the three people I love most in this world. On Christmas Eve we tried out a new church and went to their Christmas Eve service. The girls came with us and the first half they were mesmerized, and then Aubrey whispered to me "can I go to my class now?". But they made it through and really did a great job. Then after church we met some friends for dinner before heading home and getting in our Christmas pj's and getting ready for Santa. The girls woke up at their normal time on Christmas morning , about 7:45 (we figured this is the last year that this will happen), and we started our morning with the reading of the Christmas story from Luke. Then we headed down stairs to see what Santa had left and opened all the presents the girls has been so curious about. We took our time, enjoyed our gifts, ate some cinnamon rolls, and played all sorts of new games. It was a great Christmas with wonderful new memories.

Listening to Daddy read us the story of Jesus's birth.


This is what the girls saw as the walked downstairs. They were so excited to say the least. They both wanted all these cleaning accessories this year. Adalyn asked for a vacuum and Aubrey asked for a broom. So funny!!!



Opening the stockings.



So many presents to open!


Adalyn called this present her "pokey present" because it had polka dots. Every day for the last week before Christmas she would tell us "I wanna open my pokey present". That was the only thing she was concerned about.





Adalyn really was hoping for a new pair of Dora sunglasses. And she loved her new tinker bell house shoes!



Aubrey was hoping for a car seat for Baby Rhea, so she was thrilled when she saw that Santa got her one.


Vaccuming with Adalyn's new vaccum in her new snow white high heals. Our little domestic diva!


New comforters from Nana and Papaw. Now we just need our news beds!


Reading her new Pinkalicious book with Daddy.





















They loved their new tutu's from Aunt Melissa and Uncle Steve.



Merry Christmas! Time to get ready for 2011!