Also, we are expecting another child at the end of July and are soooo excited about it. It's a boy! His name is going to be Logan Dean Skabelund. I had to work really hard to convince Nick to let me name him Logan, which has always been my favorite boy name. He thought it was weird because he grew up in Logan, to name his son that. I told him to get over it. I told everyone two years ago who asked (and didn't) that our next child would be a boy. I was totally right! Hah! When we bought our new house, it had three kids bedrooms upstairs already painted pink, purple and blue. Of course, Madison got the purple room, Emma got the pink room and we conveniently had a blue room that was all ready for a boy. Am I good or what? Don't answer that! I feel great right now, at 22 weeks. But the first trimester was so not fun. I was sick a lot! I was never sick with either of the girls, but this one was way different. I crave the usual things that I crave when pregnant. Oranges, green apples, and any other fresh fruit. This time I had a while where all I wanted was cottage cheese and pineapples. Not so much anymore, though.
Madison is now 6 and has had a great first year of school. We love her school and teachers and it has been so great for her to learn new things and meet new kids. She loves kindergarten and is upset that Spring Break is coming up because she will miss school. They recently had a school science fair and allowed kindergartner's to participate. So, I meant to start it a lot sooner because she was so excited about it, but it ended up being the night before and scrambling to get all the odds and ends together. It turned out great and we just thought she would enjoy the experience. To our surprise she won 2nd place for kindergartner's! She was telling everyone about for weeks and I'm glad she enjoyed it so much. She kept showing people her ribbon and telling them that she was the only one to get 2nd place. Cute girl!
Madison hasn't had a real birthday party in a few years. So, this year since we are actually settled into a house, I told her she could invite as many friends over as she wanted. WOW! That's what I have to say about that. Total, including Madison and Emma, there were 15 or 16 kids. Pure insanity is what it was, but they had a great time and it was worth the extra effort. But I won't do that many again.
I took the girls to the local library one afternoon and I'm sitting in the kids area reading a book while the girls play, when Madison starts screaming her head off! I couldn't get her to calm down enough to tell where it hurt. She had been punched, yes PUNCHED, in the face by some little girl! I couldn't believe it. Next time, she should deck her back, little punk. By the time we got home, this beautiful bruise had appeared and she looked like she had make-up on one eye for a couple of weeks.
Recently, I took Emma to get her first real haircut at a salon and she was sooooo good, she loved it. She sat still the whole time and watched everything the lady did. It turned out great! That is until a few weeks later, she found some of Madison's craft scissors on the floor of her bedroom (where else would they be?) and decided to cut her hair. Luckily, her hair was in pigtails and she only cut a tiny chunk from the side. Disaster averted, you couldn't even tell....until a few days ago, so found the scissors again! This time she cut her bangs as short as possible, then she proceeded to cut both sides of her hair to ear length and then a little bit from the back on top. I proceeded to yell and try to explain to her how "naughty" it was to cut her own hair and even put her in time-out for the first time. Since Madison was upstairs already, I put Emma on the couch. She proceeded to sit there for 45 minutes until "daddy got home." She thought it was great. She actually enjoyed it! The twirp! I kept trying to tell her that she made mommy very sad and her hair wasn't pretty anymore, but she didn't seem to care or maybe she just didn't understand, I don't know. It was just starting to grow out long, too! I can't do anything about the bangs, but she will be wearing pigtails for quite a while. I knew this would happen eventually. Madison did it too at her age.
We took the girls to Grandma and Grandpa Skabelund's house this Halloween. Emma was a flower and Madison was a bumble bee. I swear I didn't even plan that. Flower and Bee, haha. Aunt Alaina had sent us some stuff from Hawaii, so I used the girls' grass skirt for my costume at the last minute. Yes, it was super tiny, and yes my butt was hanging out the back. Who cares? We had fun. Grandma Skabelund had pumpkins for us to carve and Nick spent about 1 1/2 on his ONE pumpkin and I helped the girls with three others in the same amount of time. Slow Poke!
We finally got our ping-pong table set up in the basement! It only took us three years and three houses later before we had the room or the time to set it up. It's been really fun to have friends over to play.
We have finally started to get around to hanging most of the pictures up on the wall. They have been unpacked and sitting in the front room for months. That's right, I'm lazy! What are you gonna do about it? I still don't know where to put them, but Nick was sick of them on the floor, so I just hung them up. Hope they look alright.
I've been working in Young Women's for the past few months and I love it! I was sooo relieved that I didn't get put in primary (Nick did, though!) and I'm happy with it. I'm in charge of Personal Progress and sports. We had sooo much fun doing basketball and we'll start softball soon. It's been great to be able to go to the temple with the youth, even if it is at 5:30 AM!
Madison did Jr. Jazz basketball this winter and it was so much fun to watch kindergartner's dribbling and shooting and attempting to pass the ball. Pretty funny. She did good and really enjoyed it. She also is doing soccer and has been having a good time with it, too. She scores a lot of goals, although some for the other team! I love watching her team play, it's so comical.
Madison definitely has my running form, with the low arms. She could be a good distance runner if she wanted to be.
Emma has been growing up so fast. She is now 2 1/2 years old. She is talking so much more lately. She sleeps in her own room every night and has sleepover's with Madison on the weekends. They love to play together, too. When she wakes up in the middle of the night and needs a drink of water or something, I'll help her and then she'll tell me to "get out, I sleeping." She woke up crying a few months back and I finally got her to tell me why. She said the sun was gone. I explained to her that the sun sleeps at night when the moon comes out. She thought about it for a minute and decided that the sun must be "getting gas." It was hilarious. Then she told me she was sleeping and I had to leave. Every time we say family prayers, she says it's her turn. I crack up every time she prays because when she says "Heavenly Father..." it sounds just like "Harry Potter..."
Since I'm so far behind, I might as well throw in Christmas 2008. We went to Grandma and Grandpa Skabelund's house. We always try to take pictures and it is always hard to get a good one with more than one person in it. These two of Nick and Madison were so comical I just had to show them.
We always try to make a gingerbread house on most holidays and the Christmas house was quite the experience. I think Emma was sleeping through this one, but Madison, Nick and I put our best effort at making it look, well, decent. This one didnt' turn out as planned, but it was sure fun making it.
This year, we got some pretty good family pictures taken at home. Besides the fact that I hadn't yet showered after a long drive and the girls hadn't napped or eaten dinner yet, we did pretty good.
Here are some pictures of Christmas 2009 which we spent at home in our new house. The gingerbread house was really fun this year and turned out pretty good. The best one we've decorated yet. No family pictures this year, we forgot, but we got some cute shots of the girls in their Christmas pajamas.
During the fall of 2009, our three year old Malamute/Lab Big Daddy died of lymphoma. We were devastated. It was especially hard on Nick and Madison. Madison still starts to cry every once in a while and say's that she is thinking about how much she misses him. He was a great dog. Every picture I ever took of one of the girls, Big Daddy was always close by. He protected the girls better than anyone could. He was the most adorable puppy and acted a lot like Sweet Pea does as a tiny dog. He always loved to snuggle and would climb up on our laps even though he was huge. We'll miss him for a long time to come.
Nick was pretty proud of his "dogs" on the side of the house made out of icing. They did turn out pretty good. They were our dogs Big Daddy and Sweet Pea.
(Yes...this is my "Bzinc" shirt from high school for those of you who would recognize it.)
