catching up: april

The days really picked up some speed over the course of this last month! I've been waiting and waiting for May to finally get here and now I can't believe that it already is. I've reached 36 weeks and can officially say we'll be having a baby *this month* (due date is the 31st!) ((assuming I'm not overdue, please Lord!)).

That nesting instinct is in full force which is kind of unfortunate for Deric seeing as most of what I want to get done before the baby is some sort of house project that I can't do, like painting, spraying garden beds with weed killer, planting our gardens, cleaning out the garage, etc. He's a trooper though and is knocking things off the to do list for me. But while he does those bigger projects, I've been trying to get Jake's room pared down and organized enough to fit all of the baby's stuff. Its proving to be more challenging than expected, but we'll get there!

Some friends from church threw a baby shower for me this past weekend so we are about 90% ready for the baby now! We got the two big items we needed most--a video monitor and a carseat--plus some new baby clothes, diapers and wipes, and other paraphernalia, and what we didn't get we are more than covered for with gift cards. Much of this week for me has involved putting away and organizing all these gifts, which I am all too happy to do. Its fun to hang up all those teensy newborn-sized onesies! I've even cleaned out and restocked our diaper bag for d-day.

On the big brother front, we're way overdue for an update. Jake turns THREE next Friday and I just can't wrap my mind around it. (He asked me a few weeks ago, "How old will I be at my next cake?") He's so big in some ways and still so little in others, its a good balance. Lately he's started telling us he's "berry tired" and this morning he kept asking to lay down on me. So we compromised and he laid *next* to me while we read books. But if we're not at home, he'll tell us he's "berry" tired and try to lay down in the most ridiculous places, like in line at a restaurant or on the playground. Maybe its a growth spurt?!

Growth spurt or not, he so wants to be like his dad! I caught him trying to put his shoes on like this and he said he puts his foot on the bench because that's how Daddy puts his shoes on. :)

Jake is still the biggest helper for both me and his dad. If he sees us doing some sort of chore, he'll run at us literally yelling "Can I hay-lp you?!" (He sounds as southern as can be sometimes!) I really need to buy him a child-sized broom and vacuum because then we'd really get this house clean.

The question-asking is through the roof right now. I know kids ask a ton of questions but for some reason, lately it is just non-stop. Every answer I give is followed with "Oh why are they?" or "Oh why do they?" I do my best to answer him but seriously, sometimes I just don't know what to tell him!

^"Mom, can you tickle me?"

He's started to reference things he does or needs by saying "Boys need/want...." For example, he put his head on his shoulder the other day and said "Sometimes boys take naps on their arms." Another time I had to spank him for who knows what and after he stopped crying he said, "Boys don't like when you spank them!" Hilarious but also heart-breaking in that instance.

Deric and Jake think its just too funny right now to say that they're going to eat either dog food or goose poop. So the other night at dinner we were having cous cous for the first time in a while and I told Jake what it was called. A second later he (genuinely) asked, "Mom, do you like goose poop?" I about spit out my cous cous from laughing.

He constantly wants to play on the playground next door but when he gets there, he beelines for the swings and we can't get him to play on anything else. Deric is much more gracious and will push him for half an hour on end... but I taught him to swing on his belly. Number one parent, I know. But now he loves to "belly swing" and pretend he's a jet, or a duck, or superman. I also taught him to twist the swing so he can spin and he thinks its a pretty sweet trick.

Jake's really amping up the charm at night and spends about an hour trying to sweet talk us into laying with him for "just one minute". Or once we leave the room, he'll pitifully say "Mommy I just neeeed you." He kills me but also...no. Go to sleep. ;)

Yesterday Jake and I made a paper chain to count down the last month until the baby comes. I'm not sure he totally understands the concept but maybe as the chain gets shorter it will start to make sense. At the very least, he really enjoyed operating the stapler.

^he got "berry tired" by the end so he just handed me the strips and let me put it together

While Deric and I were on a student retreat, Jake spent the weekend with friends of ours and learned the "God is great" prayer. Since then--about a month ago-- he's prayed that prayer for dinner, bedtime, and any other time. He'll ask me to ask him if he's prayed so that he can say it again. Its cute, especially when he's got the lyrics wrong so he sings "God is good, God is great, let him thank him for our food, amen!" Add in his squinty eyes and I can't stop laughing during his prayer.


Praying for dinner from Ashley Skinner on Vimeo.

And to wrap up this surprisingly long post, a little video of the guppy song that Cana passed down to us!

I am a guppy! from Ashley Skinner on Vimeo.

odds and ends of February

Monday morning was warm enough to head out to the park for a run (ok, walk. I tried though!) and time at the playground. And oh my gosh, it did us both so good to be outside for a few hours. I've been checking our ten-day forecast a little too often just hoping that these slightly warmer temperatures are truly going to stick around, and I think they just might!

Anything to keep the calm while waiting in line at the grocery store. Its this or he rearranges every packet of gum in the checkout line. Thankfully he can reach up to the belt now so once we get close enough, I can occupy him by having him hand me every single item from our cart. It also helps (only temporarily) to divert his attention from the bowl of suckers they have under the register.

This was taken a week or so ago when Jake was in the annoying yet cute habit of sneaking out of his bed after we leave the room and falling asleep on the floor. His favorite spot was to be wedged in between his bed and the chair. How is that comfortable?! It was cute to find him  like this, but also drove me crazy because we talked every day about how he needed to stay in his bed. Then one night late last week, we found him asleep curled up in the chair. All I can think is that he had taken it to heart when we said not to sleep on the floor...so he got into the chair instead. But thankfully lately he's been staying in his bed.

Jake thinks it is beyond hysterical to try to blow raspberries on Deric's face before Deric can do it to him. Usually this happens while Deric's holding him so Jake doesn't stand a chance. Every time Deric gets him, Jake belly laughs and makes us both start laughing. The other night Jake snuck up on Deric and successfully beat him to the punch. I can't stop laughing when I see these photos! The way his head pops up with that maniacal grin...hilarious.

In other news, Jake is about 90% potty trained! We started last week and Jake did great. Besides some accidents because he doesn't want to stop playing, Jake has things under control and knows the routine. I'm looking forward to a few diaper-less months before we start things all over again!

50/50 split

Lately Jake has been all about puzzles. He had just one puzzle of a train that he would put together at least ten times each day until I found these Ninja Turtle puzzles for two bucks at Target. So now he rotates through the turtle puzzles and the train puzzle daily. And as he finishes them, he lines them all up together, as pictured. Solid proof that while he looks 100% like Deric (except his nose!), his personality is 100% from me. Oh boy. ;)

life lately

So glad January is over! Both Jan and Feb are my least favorite months of the year, with the exception of the very few days of snow I cross my fingers for. Halfway through winter and onto spring! (I should give credit where its due however, and mention that it was warm enough to go to the park this morning for a good long while before it began to rain incessantly. Even a little break from cabin fever is so appreciated at this point.) Nothing too exciting to report about over the past month, just a smattering of new crafts and activities to keep our sanity.

Practicing with his new toddler scissors...


These scissors are brilliant! I don't know if I'm late to the game or not, but they're spring-loaded or something so Jake only has to hold the outside and squeeze them together. It took less than a minute to help him figure them out, and then I cleaned out the entire linen closet while he confetti'd his room, so big win for the scissors.

Lots of baking happening. I'm not very creative when it comes to making up games to play--I leave that to the fun parent-- but I'm good at including Jake in cooking and baking. So we made cinnamon rolls one afternoon, and then I had a cinnamon roll for breakfast (ok, and for a snack..) for like a week straight.

Helping fix his broken bed rail. As soon as he saw Deric bring in his tools, Jake told me he probably needed to get his tools too to help Daddy.

Nothing fancy, but I forget about playdoh so often that its pretty exciting when I remember to pull it out.

I finally put all that pinning to good use and actually did one of the activities I'd saved. Jake drew the snowman's face, complete with a "pickle nose" based off the book Snowmen at Night that Grandma read to him over and over at Christmas.

And another idea from Pinterest...a car wash/bubble bath for some toy trains in the sink. I've done this twice now and each time Jake was totally into it for an hour and a half! I pour in his bubble bath, add some trains and every so often, give him another kitchen utensil to use. Then I go about whatever kitchen prep and cooking needs to happen and when we're both done, we sop up all the water on the floor, change Jake's soaking wet clothes, and move on. The car wash idea is going to be in my back pocket hopefully forever. Jake always wants to help me in the kitchen but sometimes he just can't, so this is a lifesaver because he gets to be right next to me but doing his own thing.

Looking back, I guess January wasn't so bad. But we're still ready to hustle spring here a little quicker and get back to enjoying parks and playgrounds on a daily basis!

Christmas season recap

I'm obviously way behind in posting Christmas happenings but I'll get through it all eventually! This is a collection of odds + ends from the month of December, like...

Jake's first time decorating a tree, and he did it all by himself! He was so proud. All I assisted with was placement of ornaments so that the tree didn't topple over onto one side. Most of the ornaments were Deric's, given to him by his grandparents when he was a kid. Jake decorated his little tree before we got around to our big tree and he continually referred to the little tree as "Jake's tree" and the big one as "Mommy and Daddy's tree", even when I insisted that the big tree was his too. The ornament on top of the star just cracks me up!

I bought some Christmas books last year on clearance and this little pop-up nativity was in the back of one of the books. It obviously didn't stay set up for long but surprisingly we didn't lose any pieces!

The park near our library always decorates for Christmas. Last year when we visited it was bitterly cold, but this year it was almost warm enough to go without jackets. Jake was so excited to see the lights and run around the park. The candy canes lining the path were his favorite, and all month long he would point out every candy cane decoration he saw while driving or in stores. Candy canes and nutcrackers were a big hit!

Each year I've taken a picture of Jake in front of the Christmas tree and this year was nearly impossible to get a focused, un-blurry shot of that child! I tried three different nights and ended up with some decent ones. Sadly the best captures of his personality were blurry, but a few will be worth printing out for next year. After this year's marathon attempt, I'm already exhausted thinking about next year when I'll have to wrangle two kids in the photo!

First, all the blurry shots that are so cute but won't look great blown up to 8x10s...

And the three winners, this first one of which I'll print out to keep the tradition going.

Blurry or not, I love these pictures and the goofy personality showing through!

Jake's Christmas play

I still can't believe Jake is old enough to participate in the kids' Christmas play now! He and the other preschool boys got to be on stage with the manger while the big kids sang their final song. I really thought we'd have to carry a crying Jake off stage since he's pretty shy, but you could tell he had a great time up there with his buddies. When I ask him about the play, he tells me about how he pulled the sheets off baby Jesus. Yes you sure did, buddy. ;)

(The video below is wobbly thanks to my trying to watch him in real time and not just through the camera, but its not like the kid's got a solo so it will do!)


Jake's Christmas play from Ashley Skinner on Vimeo.

all of fall at a glance

Well, I'm finally back after the black hole that was October and November around here. We found out in September (actually, I found out while Deric was in Ethiopia!) that we are pregnant! Due May 31st, about two weeks after Jake's third birthday. I was ecstatic for all of a week and then bam, sick. Forever. I don't remember anything about October or most of November except for laying on the couch and watching so many hours of Netflix trying to keep Jake occupied so I could lay still. I'm just now starting to feel normal for the majority of the day and I am so thankful for that. Pregnancy is so much worse with a toddler around! ;)




Since I took the pregnancy test while Deric was in Ethiopia, I had some time to think of a creative way to tell him. I was trying to step up my game since with Jake, I blurted out the news at like 6am after taking the test. No creativity there. So this time, Jake and I took a trip to the library and I found a few books about being a big brother or having a new baby. Turns out the selection was almost nonexistent and the books I did find were so lame I never actually read them to Jake. But all we needed were the titles to get the point across. I just put them in a pile on the coffee table and when Deric got home, I prompted Jake to get a book and ask Daddy to read it to him. He obliged, surprisingly, and the book he chose was "I'm Going to be a Big Brother". Deric picked him up, turned the book over and stopped, then jumped off the couch and semi-shouted "Really?!" His reaction scared Jake half to death but it was pretty funny. Then I told him not to bother actually reading the book...seriously terrible.

Let's fast forward through weeks of laying around, not cleaning or cooking, feeling terrible....up to Deric's birthday. I'm realizing now that I can't remember at all what we did for his birthday, so apparently we really went all out. I think he understood though. ;) He did get peanut butter cup chocolate chunk chocolate [overload] ice cream instead of the usual German chocolate cake because much less cooking went into the former. Both guys still appreciated it. (Oh, and Deric took me to the UT/Georgia football game. My first game in eight years of living in Knoxville and we did it up right thanks to a friend's tickets to their box seats.)

On to Halloween. I thought I could still manage to sew Jake's costume in spite of how I felt but I could barely get it together. I got about 50% done: made some boots and turned a short-sleeve shirt into long sleeves...and I didn't have the rest in me so he got a headband and a belt to hold his sword. So he's a pirate on Casual Friday. ;) Still cute though, and he loved his sword.

Jump ahead a few more weeks to Thanksgiving which we celebrated with Deric's family in Indiana. Jake was in heaven with all the attention from his grandparents and cousins, especially after weeks of me not being able to play with him as much as he likes. I definitely enjoyed the chance to curl up in an armchair and relax knowing Jake was getting plenty of attention from family instead of plenty of tv time for a change.

^Nothing like trying to take a peaceful walk through the woods while your dad's kicking leaves on you ;)

And just like that, we're in the holiday season! I'm very grateful that I'm finally feeling somewhat better so I can enjoy Christmas traditions, even if it did take us three nights to muster up the energy get our tree fully decorated. More pictures to come of the festivities!