A Family Christmas

This year, the Skillin family celebrated a wonderful Christmas lunch at our house. As the family conitnues to grow larger (ok, our family keeps growing larger) I decided it would be easiest to take over our entire family room and dining room and celebrate together!

The kids enjoyed getting to play with their cousin, Wesley, and their second cousins, Sam and Sabrina. We all exchanged gifts, enjoyed a great Christmas lunch and some wonderful fellowship time with my dad's extended family.

Enjoy the pics!
The mom.

Sittin' with Santa

We took advantage of Scott getting half days for the last three days of school and thought we would find shorter lines to see Santa Claus. Thankfully, we were right!! The kids and I met up with Scott and some of his Cross Country and Lacrosse boys and ate lunch at Discover Mills with great anticipation of seeing Santa!!

We wandered across the mall to where Santa was sitting and were pleasantly surprised to see NO line! Lydia ran right up with no fear whatsoever and we had to pull her back and remind her that everyone needed to write their letters first. All the kids had a good time writing and scribbling on their letters to Santa and putting them into the mailbox. I was just glad that Harbin didn't question why we were mailing letters to Santa when he was sitting right there :)

Catherine had some hesitation when it actually came to seeing Santa. She has recently been in a stage where she is quite fearful of new things or new places, so I was impressed when I was actually able to get her to sit on the stool next to Santa.

I was able to snap some really good shots of the kids with Santa and they were so kind to let us spend almost 20 minutes with him taking pictures of each kid with him, picking out suckers, and telling him everything they wanted for Christmas.

Hopefully you all enjoy the pics as much as I did!!
The mom.

Milk and Cookies...Christmas Style

Each month the kids and I go to a "Milk and Cookies" concert. Pretty much it's a free Kindermusik lesson at the local community center where the kids get to explore different instruments, learn about rhythm and end each session with juice and cookies (I guess too many kids have milk allergies these days).

In December, they have a special treat where they set up a Christmas scene, the kids dance and sing to Christmas music and then they have a lunch and storytime. It's a wonderful thing the community center does and they only ask that you donate to the canned food drive. Santa flies in for a visit at the end, but this year, we waited to see Santa at another time when Daddy could share in the memories.

The kids enjoyed getting to play with their friends, Sam and Sarah and it was fun to see all the kids dressed up for the Christmas Season.

Stay tuned for a post featuring the Tinney kids and Santa!!!
The mom.

Preparing for Christmas

This week has been very long and we have been cooped up in the house A LOT!! All three kids have had pink eye and Harbin had a double ear infection. So, to fill the time we decided to do a few Christmas crafts and preparation for the upcoming holiday.

We attempted to make Christmas cards. Harbin, as usual, was detailed on each card and spent lots of thought cutting, painting, and gluing things onto the cards. This was the first time I let Lydia use the paint- she wasn't too keen on the paintbrush, but instead decided to fingerpaint. Catherine decided to fingerpaint as well, but as you can see in the pics, she brought a whole new meaning to fingerpainting.

The kids were feeling better when Scott got off work on Friday, so we decided to decorate the tree. Since the house is still on the market and most of our stuff is packed in the garage, it's probably the only decorating we will do this year. The kids love going through each ornament and either figuring out who's it is or why we got it. This was Lydia's first year really getting to participate in decorating and you can see that Catherine was kind enough to show her how. Harbin, being the oldest, got to help put the star on the top.

I tried to get a good pic of the three of them, but as usual they just wanted to be silly. I am sure I will try again when they are all in their Christmas outfits, but I think this one is cute for now.

Enjoy and be on the lookout for a lot more exciting Tinney Family updates.
The mom.

A Pilgrim Choir

Harbin had his second choir performance a few weeks ago. This time it was just the preschool choir singing and their were dressed as Pilgrims. They sang a few more songs this time and Harbin had a great time goofing off with his buddy next to him. They were all too cute- despite intentionally singing incorrect words :( His next performance won't be until the spring, and I will sure to keep everyone informed of the date and time of that!

The mom.