Her Family Picture

Aubrey came home with this picture after church on Sunday.

I asked her what it was a picture of and she told me "It's my family", and she proceeded to show me who each picture was. Part of their lesson was about family and so they were asked to draw a picture of their family. Aubrey always is drawing pictures of some of us, but I don't think she has done a whole family picture before. I just thought it was cute. All the little squigglies are the girls blankies apparently!

This was on the other side. I asked her who this was and she said "Oh that's Nana and Papaw". I love that she is figuring out we are all one big family! She also told me that big purple blob in the middle of the picture is an airplane. Funny she associated that with Nana and Papaw!

Journey Church

After being in Kingwood for quite some time we decided on a church about 2 months ago. It took us a while to settle for some reason. We LOVED our church in San Diego and we had a really really hard time not comparing every where we visited to that church. But God clearly led us to Journey and we are so excited to see what God has in store for us here. The people at Journey are just so great and friendly, and made us feel at home the second we walked through the door.

Journey is a brand new church and actually meets at a high school here in Kingwood. This past weekend they celebrated their first anniversary. Saturday night they invited the whole community out to Town Center here in Kingwood, for Toy Story 3 in the Park with free popcorn and snow cones. Our little church, that probably has an attendance of MAYBE 200 on a given Sunday, had close to 1,000 people out at the park. It was a great event, we had a blast and it was so fun to watch our new church enjoy serving our community just like our old church always did in San Diego. Sunday was a wonderful service as they reminisced about what God has done in a year. This weekend I really began falling in love with our church and that makes me happy! Anyways, I only got a couple of pictures which is a big bummer. The girls all looked so cute that night and I wish I had gotten a picture of them in their big sister, middle sister and little sister shirts.





On Sunday morning, before we headed out the door, I decided to snap a quick picture of Avery since I hadn't taken her 8 month old picture yet (8 months already, I know). Well after I quickly got a few the sisters had to squeeze in. Funny how when I WANT to take a sister picture they protest, but if I am taking a picture of just one the others think they need to be a part of the fun!

My 8 month old baby girl. I'm getting more and more sad the closer we approach that first birthday! I love having babies!


And here's when the girls decided to make it a sister picture.

A New Adventure

This past week we began a new phase of life in the Skains household.The girls began preschool and they both got me as a teacher, imagine that! So yes, we have entered the new phase of homeschooling. I could not be more excited, and more sure that this is the path that God has led our family to. Jeff and I both feel strongly about this decision and are not taking it lightly. We began praying almost a year ago for God to help us come up with a mission statement, a vision for our family. We didn't want to get sucked in by the mundane day to day tasks, and loose sight of what our purpose is. Over and over God has led us to this decision of homeschooling and we know we want and need to be obedient. I think this is really going to be great for our family and the more and more I learn and research the more I know that this is exactly the path that Jeff and I want to lead our family down. So pray for us as we begin this new adventure!

We have been doing school three mornings a week, while Avery takes her morning nap. It has really worked out perfectly. About an hour and a half and we are done. We read books, we make a craft, we do a devotional, and sometimes we play a board game. It's really been fun and the girls have loved it. Aubrey especially loves it. Every morning she asks "are we doing school today?". She never wants it to end and is always anticipating what the next craft will be. Here are some pictures of our first week of preschool!



The first day we made "Me Books". A book about them and things that they like to do. They turned out really cute. We also played "The Ladybug Game".






The rest of the week we made our names out of cereal, we practiced writing the letter "A", we played a jigsaw puzzle couting game, we made little houses and learned our address, we made a pizza and learned about the letter "P", we made a family tree and practiced recognizing their names, we went to library, and we read tons of books! What a week.

Adalyn's Three Favorite Words

She literally says this all. day. long! After a meal, before a meal, after she wakes up in the morning, before she goes to sleep, driving in the car, playing with her sister. You get the picture. It doesn't matter what she is doing these three words "I hungry still" are always coming out of this girls mouth. It's cute sometimes, and by sometimes I mean maybe the first time!

Slow Down Avery

Now that we are home from vacation and I have finally blogged all of it, it's time to catch up and blog all the fun and new things that have happened since we have been home.

And this is the first new thing that happened right after we got home. Literally two days after we got back, I walked in to get Avery after her nap and found her doing this!

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Aubrey of course had to jump in and be a part of this moment!


And now she continues this pulling up on things where ever and when ever she can. This first year is flying by and leaving one sad mommy :( . Slow down Avery, you are only 7 months!

Our Last Day of Vacation

On our last day we decided to spend the day at Sea Port Village with my parents and the Thomas's. It was a little chilly that day and actually started rainy of us. But despite the weather we had a blast walking around, eating a yummy lunch with views of the bay, taking a ride on the carousel and then taking all the kiddos to the candy store.












San Diego was a blast and we loved our time their with my parents, with other family and with our friends. We feel so thankful and blessed and that we got to spend almost three weeks there. This picture was our last morning there, but Nana reading to the girls was something that happened often. I'm sure my mom has most of these books memorized by now!

Just Cute

These were just a couple of cute pictures we got one evening while hanging out with Lance, Jaime and Devyn. Love that family!

A Busy Sunday

On our last Sunday there we first took the girls to see the seals in La Jolla. The girls had been talking about the seals for awhile so we knew that we had to squeeze that in on our trip. They loved it and had so much watching the seals. There were only a couple out there, but they didn't care! La Jolla is of course beautiful, so we got lots of cute pictures while we there.






Oh those sister pictures! They are so hard to get!





It really is so beautiful in La Jolla!


After La Jolla we went out to my aunt and uncle's house for a little family party. We were celebrating September birthdays and everyone wanted to get together to see us. We always have fun out at their house and it was so nice to be with the family again.

The girls were in heaven getting to dress up with all the dress up clothes!




Swimming is always a fun part of going out there!