Happy New Year!

Yes, it's been a few weeks but it's still January so I figure I have time to talk about our New Year's Eve celebration! For New Year's we had a nice dinner and we ate on my Grandma's china. I have never done this before (used the china, that is, I've eaten dinner many, many times before). We've had the china for years but it was in the garage in California. I finally have space for it in our new house and decided New Year's Eve was a perfect night to bring it out of hiding. It was fun. It felt very special. We had a great night. Thanks Grandma!

I think eating on china will be a New Year's Eve tradition (hopefully we'll use it other times, as well!) Our other New Year's Eve tradition is to list the top 10 events from the year before, the good, bad and otherwise. I did it in 2007 and here's 2008:
1. Ok, the first is obvious but to put it in writing...the birth of our 4th child - Jillian Esther Skelly - the best birth ever! (I love my kids equally but the actual birth - she wins)
2. Moving to Georgia because Andrew's job transferred him. Leaving California was horrible. I still miss everyone and everything from there.
3. Lots of traveling - a weekend in Big Bear playing in the snow and sledding (first time for the kids), Jocelyn's first trip to North Dakota (where Grandma grew up) for her Great Aunt Esther's funeral, our trip across the country where we saw the Grand Canyon and family and friends we haven't seen in years, and finally our recent Christmas trip to NC, Pennsylvania, Maryland, DC, and Virginia. Our kids visited 8 new states this year, and I have now been in 44 of our 50 states!
4. Moving into our first home! Jason has asked to be in a house with two floors since he learned to talk, and we really just needed to get out of our teeny tiny rental back in Orange County. There's lots of work to be done (anyone like to paint?) but we really do love our house (if only we could take it with us and move somewhere else like NC or back to CA?)
5. New addictions for the family - Cable TV and Webkinz on the computer. Personally I watch too much Food Network and Andrew plays Webkinz too much. The kids have really improved their computer skills and having DVR on the TV means we avoid most commercials so it's not all bad :)
6. Bed Rest. This top ten event really mixes with the others as it became a big part of moving and leaving everyone and adjusting to our new home. I had to leave the safety of a world that took care of me for an unknown world here in Georgia where I knew no one!

7. First year of school for Jason...sort of. We're officially homeschooling Jason for kindergarten. We had a private school picked out in California where he would be at school only 3 days a week, what we saw as the best of both worlds, but life changed and here we are in Georgia with him home mostly full-time. We do attend one-day a week enrichment classes with other homeschoolers but otherwise we're all home together and I love it!
8. Our 1st Thanksgiving Hosting. Who thought it would be a good idea for me to host Thanksgiving at our house for Andrew's family when I had a newborn? I did :) It was fun, we ate a pretty good meal, and we were all together. I might even be willing to do it again, and maybe next time I'll remember to set the table, use a tablecloth, napkins, the nice dishes...

9. We added 2 nieces, Zemenay and Lydia, totalling 17 nieces and nephews for Andrew and me.

10. And finally, we learned that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He's the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. We found a great church here in Georgia and realized it's just an extension of the church body we knew and loved in California! Whether we're in California or Georgia, He is the same.

Jillian at 3 months

She's growing soooo fast, this tall, thin beauty we call Jillian, Jill, and sometimes Jillie. This month has brought grabbing at toys, recognizing faces (although it takes a few seconds of staring before you get the "oh, it's you, I like you" smile. You can see that on this video narrated by Adam...)

big smiles that we're all eagerly awaiting to turn into giggles, and strength to hold her head high. She loves faces and will stare at you and continue staring and staring until you finally have to turn away (she's a pro at playing the staring contest game).Beth loves making her sit or even stand up, and she's strong enough now to handle it!

Wow, Jillian, you are growing up too fast! What will next month bring? Maybe sleeping longer than 6 hours without feeding, maybe rolling over (does that mean I can't leave you on the couch anymore!) and maybe that giggle we all know is in there waiting to erupt!

I'm back!

Ok, maybe you didn't notice I was gone but I did! Our computer crashed in the middle of last week. Actually it crashed back in November. We bought a new computer during the after Thanksgiving Black Friday sales but then our computer healed itself! It's been working perfectly until last week. We gave it a week to heal but decided it was time to pull the plug on the ol' machine. We hooked the new one up this morning. It's great to be back although there's lots of work to do like pay the bills...and I have to get all my favorites saved and I need to upload lots of software and I need to learn Windows Vista. But I'm just happy to be back online! I have no pictures yet (some of the software I need to upload) but I'll give you a link to some fun pictures from our stay at the Salada's in Maryland back before Christmas: Linus falls in love (with Jill :) and the WTP and Daycare Center.

Too sweet, so simple

Tomorrow is Jason's birthday. Now, I've been a little worried that we're not doing enough for his birthday. We don't have any party plans, just a couple families hanging out at Chuck E. Cheese. We don't have many presents. And coming off of Christmas, I don't have much energy but I want him to feel special on his special day. Turns out I don't need to do much! He has basketball practice so we're making cupcakes to bring to the practice. While making the cupcakes, Jason declared, "this is the funnest part of my birthday!" Yippee! I'm on the right track. Then after washing off the chocolate mess, Jason tells Beth, "the best part of my birthday is being with you." And she responds, "thanks brother," and gives him a hug. Ok, if that isn't the sweetest thing ever, I don't know what is! I quickly wrote the words down so I wouldn't forget and then we took the cupcakes out of the oven. Oh how I like when life is sweet and simple!

On the 12th Day of Christmas we celebrated Epiphany!

(Should have been written on January 6.) It's the last day of Christmas - Epiphany. We're back home, unpacked (mostly:) and now it's time to celebrate the Wise Men's visit. We had a special dinner, made Gingerbread houses and opened one last final present. We lit the candles and read the Christmas story again.It was a fun day that the kids looked forward to for days, and it gave a nice ending to the Christmas season (we don't pack up our tree and decorations until January 7 and this year it wasn't until the 9th of January!) Now the gingerbread houses are usually (but not always) part of the pre-Christmas activities but time got away from me (or I procrastinated because I didn't want to do it by myself as this is a huge family tradition for me) and we finally made our houses on Epiphany, the last day of Christmas! The kids all did a great job and they were very proud of their work. Jason had me cut a door out of his house so he could put a rug inside.
Beth made pink frosting and has a story about Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus to go with her house.

And Adam...I thought he'd just eat the candy and I'd do most of the decorating but no, he was really into it and did an amazing job! I was so proud :) Thanks Grandma for our Gingerbread mold! It worked great and took away any excuse I might have made to not do houses this year :) For pictures of last year's houses, click here.

On the 11th Day of Christmas we went home!

It was a great trip. Our kids were great travelers. We got to see sooooo many people. I would do it again. But...I was ready to go home! The drive home was more or less uneventful except for the huge accident that stopped traffic completely for almost an hour. We really didn't let it get to us knowing someone else was having a much worse day. And besides, it allowed Jillian and I to take a walk down the interstate watching the sunset over a sea of parked cars. How many of you have gotten to experience that?Back home we were able to open the rest of our Christmas presents that we didn't bring along in our very full car. What could be better than 2 Christmases! Here are more pictures of kids opening presents and being spoiled beyond recognition :)

On the 10th Day of Christmas we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus!

One of our Christmas family traditions is baking a Christmas tree cake, decorating it and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. We even have this cool silicone mold to make a three dimensional standing tree. Due to a fallout in the kitchen (literally a cake falling out of the pan), our tree cake was not as impressive as in years past. Nonetheless, we had half a cake and 5 kids ready and willing to decorate so we decorated.

We finished with a candle and a song,

and then we ate!

We also made, decorated, and ate some cookies in case there was not enough sugar ingestion from the cake :) The girls took a break from princess duty and dance sessions to decorate a few cookies.

On the 9th Day of Christmas we opened presents!

Ok, so yesterday was Epiphany, the 12th Day of Christmas, but I'm only on day 9...so I didn't post every day. Bear with me, only a few more to go and today's post is Christmas morning, how much fun is that!

We had a lot of fun with the kids on Christmas. There were lots of presents and lots of playing and overall, lots of happy sounds. We had a great Christmas dinner (I have to share a short story...we've been working on Jason's manners with food. He is VERY picky and doesn't like many foods but we make him try things, take at least one bite, and do so with a smile on his face. And most important, we're working on him being gracious ever since he told a family that brought food while I was on bedrest, "I don't like any of that food you brought." Well, Jason wasn't too excited about most of the Christmas dinner. He doesn't like sweet potatoes or broccoli or ham (so he thought at first sight). He stared at his plate and looked at me and I gave him one of those fake smile serious faces that said, "be polite or else!" Jason proceeded to sweetly say, "Thanks Aunt Marj for making all this food for everyone else!" We all laughed at his beautiful attempt at a compliment, and he did end up loving the ham. As for the broccoli...we're still working on that. Ok, back to our Christmas...) We finished the night watching one of Aunt Marj's new presents, "Kung Fu, Panda." It was a very relaxing and enjoyable Christmas in Virginia, and here are a bunch of pictures to show you just how much fun we had!

The Incredible Hulk hands were a big hit. I would recommend them. The light sabers were fun, too.
Mr. Grumpy got a hat that says Dwarfs fear me :)Cole was disappointed that the Wiggles bag didn't have a Wiggles toy in it!
Can you read Adam's present? Jason helped me wrap by doing the labeling. He wrote, "TOO ADAM" I thought it was cute and didn't correct him so all our presents said that.

Beth loved her cousins' dogs. Here she's playing with Daisy. Maybe next year we'll be ready to put a puppy under the tree for her...

Jill got very little (she doesn't need anything!) but she enjoyed watching everyone!

On the 8th Day of Christmas we celebrated Christmas!

From DC we drove to Virginia where Andrew's brother and his family live. After days of being on the go and driving from place to place, it was nice to arrive at our final destination where we could settle and relax for days just enjoying each other's company. We attended Christmas Eve services where the kids enjoyed a children's sermon(although Aunt Marj had to chase after Adam who escaped down the aisle). As for me, I enjoyed singing lots of Christmas carols. We finished the service with a candlelit Silent Night. Back home we had hot cocoa and cookies, left some for Santa, and headed to bed excited for the next morning! Jason hopes to someday be bigger than his Uncle Alan.

Isn't this the best family picture you've ever seen?!

On the 7th Day of Christmas we ice skated on the Mall

Driving from our extended stay in Maryland to family in Virginia (our Christmas destination) took us right through Washington D.C. I insisted we stop even though the temperature was in the 30's and the kids know nothing of the historic importance of the monuments. I lived in DC for three years while going to law school, and in that time I grew to really love the city. There is just something so special about our nation's capitol... There's plenty I could grumble about (like the parking) but being there walking along the reflecting pool, staring at the Washington Monument, giving our kids their first glimpse of the White House...it just felt special beyond words. So we found a parking spot, braved the cold and had a blast touring the Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Monument, and the frozen reflecting pool. I can't wait to go again!