Jensyn's First Day of 4K

As unbelievable as it may sound, Jensyn started school today!!! She's going to 4K in the mornings; tomorrow will be her first day riding the bus as it will pick her up in the morning. Phil snapped some pics of her today and she was pretty darn excited to be going to "real" school!

Phil's Weekend Project

We finally got a playset!!! Phil got started last Wednesday with the help of Randy, and worked for the next 4 days and finished it yesterday! I was back in MN with the kids so he had 4 days totally uninterrupted to work. Jensyn was pretty excited when she got home and ran right out into the backyard to play!! Jacob likes the slide A LOT!!

Jacob's B-day Party

The kids and I headed back to Worthington for almost a week; I needed a change of pace and Jacob's birthday seemed like a good excuse. There was also a lot of garbage sale stuff to haul back for the August garbage sale....Phil brought that later in the week. We had a pretty good week while at the farm. Jensyn got to play with Layne and Levi quite a bit; Jacob discovered that he liked cake; my house got cleaned out of all the junk; Jacob also grew two more teeth. Enjoy the pictures!!

Our Little Man Turns 1!

Happy Birthday Jake! It's hard to believe that you made your appearance, rather unexpectedly, a year ago!
For the Skaar clan, it's been quite hectic the past month. We closed on our home a month ago and then I spent 11 days painting....and I'm still not done! The packers spent 2 days packing our "stuff" up followed by a day of unloading. Unloading was quite the challenge. Apparently the hill to our house was too steep and the semi couldn't get up our driveway. So it was parked down the road and the movers had to use our four-wheeler and trailer to get everything to the house. On top of that it was about 95 degrees and high humidity. Now, 3 weeks later, we are mostly settled. Phil is really busy at his new job, Jensyn loved swimming lessons for the past two weeks and swims like a fish, and Jake is almost walking. If we could only get him to take that first step without holding onto something....As for me, I am looking forward to getting pictures hung on the walls. Eventually this will get done!

Happy Birthday, Jensyn!

Well, I'm a little bit late getting these pictures uploaded, but better late then never! We made a quick trip back to Minnesota for Jensyn's birthday a few weeks ago, and also went to Sioux Falls to see Phil's mom and grandma who was recovering from a broken hip and couldn't make the trip to the farm. Jensyn enjoyed the cake, played with her cousins, and (of course!) loved all of her presents. Jacob just tried to eat everything. He can really motor around now, crawls up steps, and occassionally crashes. On a happy note we're done with baby food completely. He only wants real food and can't get enough of it! He's much more curious then I ever thought he would be, maybe more so then Jensyn was! In comparing him to Jensyn at this age, he drools more then she did and puts everything in his mouth, something she didn't do so much. All in all, Jensyn really likes her little brother. She sometimes takes toys away as soon as he starts to play with them, but is always willing to entertain him and help with diaper changes, which are getting to be nearly impossible.
On a sad note, we made another trip back to SD for Phil's grandfather's funeral last weekend. He had been battling an infection for over a month before passing away.
In the month ahead I'll be finishing up with school. Phil's a full-time ER doc until he starts his new job at the end of June. Jensyn is pretty excited to be able to spend so much time with daddy. Jensyn is also enrolled in 4-year-old kindergarten for the fall. And, most importantly, we'll be closing on our house June 10 and then the movers are coming June 19. YEAH!!!

Happy Easter!

Wow! I just realized it's been over a month since my last posting...I better get on the horn here! We've been pretty busy. We closed on the house in Barron and got moved to Rice Lake into our temporary home. Jacob spent 4 days puking and has sprouted 3 teeth with 3 more on the way. He's also crawling and getting into all of Jensyn's things. He has even managed to stand up in his crib on one occassion and almost fell over the side. It's amazing how quickly things change! Jensyn is eagerly anticipating her birthday and asks every day how many more days away it is. With Jacob now crawling she's also learning how to "share"; although that means she gets his toys whenever she wants and he never gets hers, or even his own! She's also busy at school learning her letters and numbers. As for Phil and I we're both busy at work. He did a 5 day stint in the ER so we hardly saw him during that time. I'm busy at school but looking forward to the end of the school year. We started our househunt on Friday but so far not much luck.

Florida 2009

I recommend going on vacation, to somewhere sunny, in the dead of winter! We spent the past week doing just that. Our destination this year was sunny Florida. All four of us flew down to Tampa and stayed with some friends for 3 nights. While there we relaxed, enjoyed good company, and went to the zoo. We also brought the flu bug to them...Beka got sick (she's also 7 months pregnant) so that was no fun. Then off we went to Orlando for 2 nights. We stayed in a really nice hotel right across from Downtown Disney. We went down there one night, took in the sights, and ate at T-Rex. It was really loud and Jensyn was pretty scared at first. Jacob didn't know what to think--stimulation overload! Overall it was a really cool restaurant and suggest you eat there sometime! The next day we went to Magic Kingdom. Jensyn said in the tram on the way there that "it was going to be the best day ever!" In her case it definately was. She met 3 of the Disney princesses (Cinderella, Belle, Princess Aurora), as well as Mickey and Minnie. She loved the rides, hated Pirates of the Caribbean, really enjoyed the parade, and really wanted a Sleeping Beauty dress. Unfortunately, $60 is just too much when we can go to Target and get one for $15. She'll never know the difference! After Disney, we went down to Ft. Myers Beach for 2 nights. My mom and dad were there for Twins spring training so we stayed at the same beach resort as them. We spent quite a bit of time on the beach and saw some dolphins one morning. Jacob loved the sand, Jensyn built some sand castles and chased the seagulls, I got sunburned, and Phil talked to some old guy at the pool about life. It was a great way to wind up our vacation. We were glad to get home last night, although the temperature difference was quite extreme. When we left Tampa it was 84; when we got to Minneapolis it was 10. Both kids were great the entire week. Jake discovered he can sit on his own and Jensyn actually went to bed pretty easily every night. I guess the trick is to wear her out every day! Now we'll spend the next week and a half packing and moving as the closing date on our house is next Thursday. Then we'll finally get to start looking for a new house to buy!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow! Time sure does fly! We've been super busy the past month, most notably selling our house. We accepted an offer at the end of January and we have to be moved out by March 12 so we are busy looking for boxes and packing up what we're not going to need for the next 5-6 months. We found a place to rent in Rice Lake, and then when school is out we'll move to Chippewa Falls. We haven't even started looking for a new house yet....too busy! Next Saturday we head to Florida for a week, and then we move into our rental house, so I suppose we won't start looking at homes in Chippewa until then. There hasn't been a whole lot in terms of what we are looking for. We are hoping that the market will pick up since spring is right around the corner and people will start listing their homes. Other than that, the kids are doing great. Jensyn is her crazy self, Jake is getting bigger every day and eats enough for 2......boys will be boys!