FHE

First time in years that I have dyed eggs and we all had fun - hope you do, too!

New Piano!!

Ok, so it isn't new....and it isn't even ours, but it's still fun to have something so nice in our front room to distinguish it as something more than just the room to store all the toys! Robert's aunt and uncle who live in Idaho Falls bought a baby grand piano a while back and promised their old piano to their oldest daughter, but she is going to be starting graduate school next fall and doesn't have a place for it until she either graduates or gets married. It was taking up needed space in their dining room and jokingly Robert said we could take it off their hands and they jumped at the suggestion!! So, one week later this beauty is in our front room waiting to be used again (if I can remember how to play) (And yes, I realize that our hymnal is in Spanish, but that is all I had for now) It also gives us the chance to formalize this room further by completing our family wall I mentioned a while back. We are still working on Kaylie's frame and what to do with the large lettering to top it all, but it soon will come together and we will be sure to show you the final look. I am hoping to have enough room above for all the pictures and then to have my Willow Tree figurines and the molds of Kaylie's hand and foot on top of the piano.

You Feel Like A Better Mom When....

You notice all is quiet, so you go sneaking around the house to catch them in the act of being naughty, and you find him on your bed, flipping through your scriptures.

And the cutest part of all of this is when you ask him what he is doing, he says "Looking for pictures" :) Hope it brightens your day like it did mine!

Nice Weather

With all this nice weather we have been having, it has been too much to stay inside.

So the other night Robert and Sam went out to visit the good old combine and the cows, even though they come to visit us in our backyard often enough!

As you can tell, they both love each other so much!

Sam getting to drive the combine. The other day Robert got off "early" at 5:30, so we hurried over to the farm to try out Robert's new clay pidgeon thrower he got for Valentines/Father's Day and we had so much fun! Sorry no pictures to show, but it was fun to shoot again and to now have an activity that we can go do outside together! After a little bit of shooting, we walked around to all the tractors to let Sam drive them and Robert told me all about the farm and the things they are working on for this year. It was good family time.

A Good Day

Thankyou to those who sent/gave flowers, they were so beautiful! When Robert got home from work we were able to go over and place them at her headstone.

And the birthday cake. I'm still very amateur as you can tell, but sometimes it's fun to go at it with no plan in mind and see what comes out the other end. It is a double layer white 8 inch cake with strawberry glaze for filling and cream cheese frosting on top (the red part is leftover glaze) But no matter how the cake looks, it always tastes great!!

We want to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers, calls, e-mails, comments and text messages reminding us how many people love us and Kaylie. It brings great comfort on days such as today. We would like to reflect back the love and support you all have shown for us!

Happy Birthday Kaylie!

One year ago today, I woke up in a groggy haze from the sleeping pill the hospital gave me the night before to "get a good night's rest" even though I was in labor. We took Sam to Robert's aunt and uncle in Idaho Falls and headed back to Rexburg to have our first baby girl.

Upon arrival, it was determined that yes, I was in labor and I could probably have the C-section now. But they wanted to know if I could wait until noon (this was at 8 or 9) to have it because they had already done two since midnight and were a little tired. EXCUSE ME?! You just sent me home IN LABOR to get a GOOD NIGHT'S REST even though you KNEW I needed to have a C-section and now you are ASKING ME TO WAIT?!! I don't think so! (I was in hard labor with no epidural or anything and dilated to a 7 by the time they got me in to have my spinal - can we say cruel and unusual punishment?)

So at 11:15 am Kaylie Renee Skousen was born. Things went well for the first little while. Her head is a little lopsided not from the normal squeezing, but because she was breech, her head was smushed up against my ribs, poor little thing! And, she had one leg up by her head, so when they laid her down on the table, it would automatically lift up to go back to its "normal" position. Kinda cute, actually :) Look at all of that dark, beautiful, curly hair! So fun to play with! Happy birthday, Angel!

One Year

Has it really been a year since we welcomed our first daughter to our family? And nearly that since we had to say goodbye? Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday.

We love and miss you, Kaylie.

Tender Mercies

Today was a day of tender mercies for me and I am here to tell you all that the Lord is truly aware of each one of us and what we need and He blesses us with key people in our lives to make those things we need happen. I woke up this morning feeling simply awful. All I wanted to do was stay in bed, be a bad mother and just feel sorry for myself. But thankfully I listened to the other half of my mind and got up and got to work. By the end of the day, I feel so grateful to be who I am and for the people that surround me and so many other things, my heart is just so full. So even though life literally sucks at times, it can still be great and beautiful! Thanks to all those angels in my life who bring me back to what life is really about and help me get through the hard days.

Not Much

Sorry, but not much has been happening this week, just the usual cleaning and spending as much time with Daddy as we can possibly manage. He has been working late, but not as late as during harvest, so again, another adjustment.

Don't you just love how cute this hat makes him look? We were at Wally World shopping and I saw it hanging on a clothes rack and thought it would help keep him happy and Robert ended up buying it for him (what a softy :))

And here is the little tyke showing off the great new skills Daddy is teaching him (rolling my eyes) My gardening class has been really great and I think I am going to take a stab at square foot gardening this year, since there are so many things I would like to grow and I don't really feel like ripping out grass or trees to expand our current garden. We will see how it really works out, I've heard good things about it. We will still use the garden space in addition to the square foot box, pictures to come soon!

A Little Bit of Everything

Sam saw me taking pictures of things this morning and asked to have his picture taken. Turns out it was great because now you have a before and after picture of his latest haircut by Mommy

He really knows how to turn on the charm, huh? I always cut his hair a little on the short side so we can go longer between haircuts. Thankfully this time around he was great at holding still and being patient - probably because I promised him a bathy afterwards! :)

I never wrote back about how my first gardening class went. This is to prove to you that I learned something :) It was great! The couple who teach the class owned a nursery for years and years and are so cute! This tray is starts for my tomatoes and flowers I hope to plant in the front instead of forking out for ones already blooming. We'll have to see how they turn out, but I'm optimistic!

And lastly, wanted to show you all the last and final addition to our "movie watching upgrade" The TV stand we bought is fantastic, we both fell in love the minute we saw it, but, we already had too many DVD's for the drawers. So I went to Fred Meyer to look for something that would work with the limited space that we had on the recommendation from a friend. Turns out, I bought the same shelf they have, but hey, it works, right? I was also sooo excited to find it in the same dark brown that everything else is in our living room, so now everything fits, matches, and is just perfect!

Cupcakes and Fun

The huge box from our TV stand has been so much fun for the kiddos to play on as a slide. Here are Sam and Lily climbing up the slide.

Josh and Sam having the time of their lives climbing and laughing together

Sam shows us his frosted cupcake.

And Josh's cupcake

The whole gang (except for me behind the camera, of course!) Sam got in to a can of frosting and Josh had been nagging Julie to bake something, so we quickly threw together a cupcake frosting party at our house - so much fun!!

Calling Out for Help

Ok, so I am reaching out to all of you crafty, do-it-yourself people out there (Blair, I am especially keen to hear what you have to say) For Kaylie's birthday, we have decided to complete what I am dubbing our "Family Wall" Basically, this will be a tribute to the family and really recognize every member of our family for all to see. We want to do this on the wall you see as you enter our house. On top will be "Families Are Forever" in vinyl lettering (thanks again SO MUCH to Ashlee and Nate for doing our vinyl) still to be determined whether on a board or on the wall. Below that will be a large family picture. Then below that will be two smaller pictures side by side; one of our wedding pictures and the other will be a current picture of the two of us. Next below that will be 5X7 pictures of our children. This is the main part I need help with. I got vinyl wording for Kaylie's picture that says "Our Angel in Heaven" as you can see above so it kind of explains in a loving way where she is. I bought a wood frame so I can put the vinyl on the top and bottom as pictured, but I am having trouble deciding how to go about painting the frame? I would like to make it look really good, like, almost as if I had bought the frame, because I am planning on buying nice frames for all the other pictures. The idea I have in my head is either a black with worn pink edges showing through with maybe pink flowers glued on the sides, or painting the frame pink also with the worn look but with dark brown showing through and maybe still something like a flower or butterfly glued on either side. What do you think? Any suggestions to help me achieve the look I want? I'm leaning a little more towards the black with a touch of pink because I think I want all the other frames to be black, but the vinyl lettering is black (not your fault, Ashlee, MINE) so maybe I need to paint a thick layer of pink and a thin layer of black and sand it to have lots of pink showing through? If anyone has suggestions please let me know! Thanks so much and I will let you all know how the project goes! I am really excited to be doing this for my Kaylie and to make a nice, entirely planned and coordinated space in our home.

Happy New TV

Check out our new setup everyone!!!! We are so excited to finally have our new TV and tv stand/entertainment center - whatever you want to call it! I finally convinced Robert that a 46" was just as good as a 52" and you saved $400, so we went a little smaller and splurged on the tv stand because it truly was the perfect one for us. It matches our living room furniture perfectly and the drawers are perfect to have all our DVD's with the titles face up, so you can open the drawers and see all of your options. Only problem is we already have too many DVD's for the drawers, but that solution is to come later. For now we are just in heaven enjoying a much larger and HD tv (and yes, that is Thomas, Sam's favorite)

And just one other random picture I forgot to post. My first attempt at "cute" cupcakes for my friend, Andrea's, birthday. I love having the time and tools to do fun things like this now! Anyways, have a great "hump day", as Robert calls Wednesdays (middle of the week, downhill slide to the weekend, you get the idea) and I'll let you know tomorrow how my first gardening class goes tonight!

We Are Here, We Are Here

Sorry to be MIA the last week, oh how the time flies! We took off for the weekend to go visit our good friends the Southwicks at their new home in Meridian, Idaho. It was a fantastic weekend seeing each other again, eating yummy food and visiting the old Boise prison. Thanks to Ashlee and Nate for a great way to send off the "lazy days" of winter before the craziness of spring planting, then summer watering schedules and finally fall harvest. Gotta love being a farmer's family!
On a side note, don't you find it interesting that just as you find yourself thinking that maybe things are ok and you are finally able to handle what you have been given; you know, just feeling on top of things when suddenly an avalanche of things to do and plan and help out with comes down and you're right back to barely treading water? Some days I feel like that, some days.