Waiting for Santa

So we were really lucky to have my mom come up last weekend and stay with us for Christmas since I was starting to get really lonely. She decided to keep it a secret from Kennedy and boy was she surprised when Grandma knocked on the door. It's been nice having her here and I'm sure she loves spending time with her grandkids. She's even been nice enough to help make Christmas goodies that we will bring down to share with those of you in Gillette. For the rest of you, sorry... they're all pretty good. Right now we just heard from Lucas and he is on schedule to be home for Christmas Eve tomorrow. Let's all pray that there are no hold ups in the Seattle airport that would prevent him from getting home. It would be really sad to spend the day without him. We'll update again once we open presents on Christmas morning to let you see how our day goes.

Love you all!

Kennedy and Grandma making German Sugar Cookies.


Kennedy and Rowan helping Grandma.


Kennedy all dressed up for church.


She loves dresses. She would wear them everyday if I let her...

This is Kennedy getting all dressed up and ready to play in the snow. It takes her 20 mins to get it all on and only 5 to go outside and realize it's too cold to be out there. We've been spending alot more time in sub zero temperatures than not. I don't envy our heating bill this month.

I know it's been a while...

So I can't really remember the last time I posted up here and I don't really have a very good excuse other than I was abducted by aliens and because none of you will believe that you'll just have to get mad and get over it. Here's 5 mins for you to do so......................................................

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are you done? Good! Now I can move on. The past 5 months have been a blur but I'll try and catch you up on some of the fun things that have been going on.

1. We took a vacation to Yellowstone.

This is us at at stop on the Beartooth Highway from Red Lodge to Yellowstone. It was the most beautiful (and scary) drives I've ever been on and I recommend that you try it if you ever have the chance.

This is us at a really cool waterfall that we found on the way into Yellowstone.

Self-explanatory....

We just couldn't resist getting these photos... whoever left them was a huge animal... or Lucas.

Dad and the kids in front of Yellowstone Lake.

We saw this on the side of the road on the way from Cody into Yellowstone. It was just sitting up on the top of a hillside. I thought it looked so interesting so I grabbed a photo. If you know what this is, please let me know.

This is Kennedy in the hotel catching up on her current events.

We had a good time there even though we didn't get to see it all. We thought we could fit everything in in 2 days but you really need 3 or 4. We bought an annual pass so I guess we'll go back and do it again when it gets nice.

2. Kennedy started 1st grade.

This is her with her new haircut. She wanted it to look like "Trixie" from Speed Racer and I'd say it's pretty close. She loves it short and so do I because now she can do it every morning. My little girl is growing up just too fast.

3. Grandma came home.

Grandma Rena finally got to come home from Germany. She came up to see us as soon as she did. Boy did the kids miss her. Let's just hope this is the last time she has to leave us.

4. Kennedy had her 7th birthday... and Halloween.

Little Miss Kennedy was none other that Hannah Montana for Halloween. Here she is with her best friend Addee who was the same thing. They just looked too cute for words.

And here is Rowan... Yoda of course. He hated the ears we put on his head but I managed to get a picture before he figured out how to rip them off.

Here she is showing off her skills from one of her birthday presents.... her Easy Bake oven. It doesn't even seem to phase her that it takes us 30 minutes to make a cake the size of a cookie. She even made Dad one while he was home.

These are some photos we took one fall afternoon her in Billings. I wanted to try out my new camera so we went down by the river and took some pictures. I don't think the kids enjoyed it as much as me since it was really cold.

This afternoon Lucas and I took the kids to feed the ducks down at the duck pond. You're not actually supposed to feed them but everyone does so we do too. There were so many and they stuck around even with Rowan chasing them everywhere.

Rowan loves his John Deere boots. Thanks Grammy Tammy. He'll even wear them with his PJs.

We always wonder what it's like on Rowan to have Lucas be gone for three weeks at a time but everytime we pick him up at the airport Rowan still remembers him and it's back to business as usual in no time... like here. He loves his Daddy.

There are two things that Rowan absolutely loves around the house. Laundry and dishwashers. Whenever I do laundry I dump it all out in a large load in the living room and he immediately runs and jumps into it. Then he takes turns getting in and out of all the baskets as they are getting filled. It makes my job a little tougher but it always makes me laugh.

This is him hanging out in Ang's dishwasher. You have to be careful because anytime you open it up he immediately is going for anything and everything he can grab. He'll even stop and have a visit if you let him...

I know that this really doesn't cover the last few months very well but it's a good try. I promise to keep up on this more often so I don't get harassed anymore. Love you all!

The Food Channel

It's close to dinnertime and I ask Kennedy what she'd like for dinner. I walked her though the pantry, the freezer and the fridge naming off about 10 things I could cook. When I got done she asked me to turn on the "food channel" so she can decide what she wants. I go over to the TV, turn it to the Food Network and they are showing a cake building competition. "No!" she says... "the 'food channel'.... that channel that shows you what you can have for dinner and let's you choose!" I told her there was no such thing as that and she swore that she had seen it before. When I said again that I didn't know what that channel was she stormed off to her room telling me that I'm wrong and I just won't show her. I wish there was.... and they delivered!

He's a walkin!

Well, this is the best video I've caught so far but he's been crusing around the house today so I'm sure I'll get some better ones soon.

Happy First Birthday Rowan!

Our little Rowan James Skinner turned 1 year old today! Even though Dad wasn't able to be here, we wanted to make him some cupcakes and open the present from Kennedy and myself. Kennedy chose one of those phones that ring and you drag behind you with a cord. I'm sure most of us played with one when we were kids. I decided to top Oddies "Redneck Ballpit" with the "Ghetto Ballpit". It's a childs inflatable pool filled with 300 balls. Rowan absolutely loves it but I am really starting to regret it... balls may start dissapear when no ones looking, but you didn't hear that from me.

I decided that cupcakes would be the better choice for the day so here they are.



It took Rowan a minute to figure out that the cupcake is good...



But only a minute...



And this is the outcome...



More ended up on the chair....



And the tray than in his mouth!



He hit the shower to be hosed down after that.

I've decided that Rowan has good hair kinda like Brad Pitt. You can pretty much do anything with it and it looks good.



Now here is Kennedy's first birthday cake. She wasn't too impressed.



She did it pretty gracefully compared to Rowan. He has no problem getting dirty...

Gosh... those two look at lot alike at this age.... we'll have to see how this progresses.

Check back tomorrow for a little tribute to his first year.

The Week in Review

Tooth #3 came out this week. As you can see here, she was playing around with it trying to get it to come out and she completely twisted it all around. Then she said it hurt too bad to turn it back so she was left like this for a day.



Early the next morning though she had played around with it a bit more and out it came. She was so excited for the tooth fairy to come. She decided to leave her tooth on the counter so it would be easier for the fairy..... and it was. She left her some sugar free gum, 2 dollar bills and 8 quarters.... the tooth fairy must have been on hard times that day. It didn't matter though... Kennedy was thrilled. Now we've got one more on the bottom that's about to come out too. She can't wait.



One thing I've done for Kennedy to keep her from being so bored this summer is buy her a pedicure and nail kit for little princesses. Then I let her pick out some of the $0.99 nail polishes for kids that dry quick, and then I picked out a black one for Rowan as you can see below. It took a bit of trickery to control him long enough to get it on but I think he looks rockin! Kennedy just wanted pink with some star stickers on top. I'm also trying to use this to make her quit bitting her nails. One can hope...





Rowan really likes those Gerber pasta bites but they cost like $1.50 for 1 so I am finding other ways to feed him. Bertolli started making mini pastas like the bowties and the penne so I loaded up on those and we'll start figuring out some healthy pasta recipes for him. I really don't have to worry too much because this boy will eat whatever you stick in his mouth... just like his dad.



Besides that, Kennedy got to have her first sleepover this week. Wednesday night we invited her friend McKayla over for the night. We ordered pizza, had juice and popsicles and watched movies. I was expecting the worst from how Kennedy is when she sleeps over with Taryn and Tristen but she did really good... good enough that we will do it again soon.

We also (finally) found a regular babysitter. Her name is Riley and she is 14 years old but she has 5 younger siblings so I trusted her with the job. I brought her over yesterday and showed her around the house and let her know what she needed to do for the kids and then I went and ran some needed errands. When I got home everything was great. She is a very sweet girl and I'm glad that I can use her 2 or 3 days a week for a few hours to get out and get things done and maybe have a bit of time for myself.

Now that the sprinklers are fixed this has been a pretty good week after all. Rowans birthday is tomorrow so I am going to make him some cupcakes and we will have a little party and I will give him my gift. When Dad get's home he can do his special time with him and then we will still be coming down to do the family party on the 12th. We'll figure out how to handle that soon. Check back tomorrow for the birthday post!

The Sprinkler Problem RESOLVED!!!!

That's right! I fixed it. You may have been wondering why there were just a bunch of pictures up of our sprinkler system. Well, I came home one afternoon and noticed that one zone of the backyard was soaked... I mean it was practically a pool leaking down into the rest of the yard. I freaked out and called Lucas in the middle of the day (the time he sleeps now cause he's on nights this trip), and he was so out of it he just told me to turn off the water and we'd figure it out later. Well three days later I figured it out... with a good bit of assistance from Jeremy! I owe you one buddy. He told me to check on thing on the valve and I unscrewed it and did but noticed that it wasn't screwed on very tight in the first place. I cleared out all the dirt and tightened it back on and viola!... all is working! Now I have to run the sprinklers like crazy to make up for the days we missed. Let's just hope the grass still comes in... it's pretty covered in weeds at the moment but if we all pray like you've never prayed before for the seed to start growing... there may be hope yet. Get to it everyone!

The sprinkler situation

I went and turned on the water in the basement and nothing came on. I manually set the zone to turn on in the box and it did but it never tripped the on/off lever. I turned on the lever and then turned it off and the water still wouldn't go off, so I finally shut off the water in the basement.