bath

This girl loves splashin' in the tub. (Dan, have I told you she loves the tub animals you gave her? She's adored them since her first dip.)

this christmas

It was a white Christmas in Champaign this year, we got around 8 inches of snow on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we had some of Brad's classmates over for soup, paninis, and gingerbread house making. It was really fun to see what they did for their houses because they had no concept of what it is usually like since this was their first American Christmas celebration.

Jane in her Christmas apparel.

A parenthood rite of passage, assembling toys on Christmas Eve:

merry christmas from the skousens

Is this what your Christmas card photo-shoot looked like too?

p.s. Thank you Kellie for being an extremely good sport.

plan & simplify

I was over the Relief Society Christmas Dinner in our ward this year, and despite trying to channel my inner Caitlin, I am terrible at event planning. Please don't argue with me in kindness, I'm just stating the simple truth here, I know I have a lot of room for improvement. Last minute location changes, unintentionally offending, volunteer drop-outs, oh boy. I was done with this thing before it started. Then the program began, and it was so wonderful, I was willing to do it all over again just to be there for the stories and music that was shared.

I already have an idea for what the decorations will look like next year too: