Hello everybody! Tis me Savannah. I understand that you are confused why I am here and not the usual Katy Skinner (mom) but I have been given permission to give my random happiness a form of life upon this page. I HAVE FINISHED NANOWRIMO!!! I have done it 50,000 words and even before the month ended. I feel like I have been set free and given the prize of a lifetime. What a great sense of accomplishment my mother would say. I say "YES! I proved that a 13 year old kid with enough determination can do it. Also during this month I had my piano lessons, participated in three different choirs, went to school, and still managed to stay (mostly) sane. So now that I have finished I for some reason still feel like I should be typing... Yes that's why it says mostly sane. Well I must get some sleep now or I will combust. Till... Well I don't know when my mother will let me talk your ears off... So for maybe the last time I say goodbye.




wait your still here... go away

Week of November 23 - November 29

It has been a busy and exciting week for us! On Tuesday, Mariah was in a reader's theatre at her school that talked about Squanto the Indian. Here she is up on stage, that's not her with the microphone, though, she's two more children to the left. She did a great job! They even sang "Over the River" when they were done. Cool! Did you know that was a Thanksgiving song?



On Wednesday, Grandma and Grandpa Elton arrived from Las Vegas. We were so excited to see them! They always bring sweet love into our home. Beth crawled onto Grandma's lap to help her with her phone.

She also crawled onto Grandpa's lap to help him with his homework. (He's taking college classes at UNLV. Cool, huh?) It was pretty nice of Bethany to help!

On Thursday, I had to get up early to put our 23.35 lb turkey into the oven. That is one big bird!! Around noon, my sister, Amy and Paul and their three girls arrived also from Las Vegas to help us celebrate. We finished our part of the "fixin's" and carted everything and everyone over to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's where we had a terrific Thanksgiving feast! Here's the little girls at their table:

And the bigger girls up at the counter:

And the grownups at the big table:

I still can't believe we all fit so nicely! Amy and Mandy are missing from the pictures. It was kind of hard to get everyone sitting down at the same time! Whenever you eat with kids, you get up and down a lot. This is an inescapable fact.

On Friday, we went to downtown Salt Lake City to see the lights on Temple Square. None of my pictures of the lights turned out too clear and it was hard to get our big group together since there were a MILLION people doing the same thing. I did get this really cute picture of all the cousins in front of the giant gingerbread house in Little America, though. I think the gingerbread was even real! It sure smelled good!

On Saturday, everyone LEFT! Horrible, I tell you. That's when I read too many books and didn't get anything done. The days before it, though, were wonderful, and I was so glad that so many of my family got to spend so much time with us! What a blessing! What a happy Thanksgiving!

If you think our week was over, though, you'd be wrong! Mariah Marion Skinner turned nine years old today! Today is her birthday! So, this evening we went again to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's house, this time decorated in balloons, and had ham and funeral potatoes for Mariah's birthday dinner (her request). Her favorite gift was a stuffed pig which she asked for at least a month ago. Funny, huh? As soon as the twins saw it, they both wanted a stuffed pig for their next birthday too! ?? I guess it is kind of cute. She got some cute clothes and a computer game and a gumball machine AND a ukulele. We are standing by for some stellar new performances!

One little, two little, three little indians . . . Actually, just two. But aren't they cute?

It was Indian week in Kindergarten. So they got to make beads and necklaces and weaving things and leather pouches and headresses. They also got to shoot a little bow and arrow at pictures of buffalo and deer. Watch out! They are fierce hunters now! They also got that cute face paint. What fun, huh? No wonder it's so much fun to be a kindergartener! Somewhere in there, they also learned the letter "I." Wow! It's magic!

On Saturday, Savannah had her first concert with the Hobblecreek Singers. It was in the morning in the art museum and featured Thanksgiving music. Fun, huh, since there are so many Christmas things to do in December. Here is the choir singing as they walk in:


I wish you could see Savannah's face when she sings. She's so animated. It's a beautiful thing to watch her sing -- especially because I'm her mother and I love her so much!

They did a great job and she really enjoyed it. I did, too!

Kevin and I took Megan out this week for her night alone with Mom and Dad. She wanted to go to the Art Museum. That's kind of easy when you have one down the street, huh? So, we went and walked around and picked out our favorite ones. Kevin's favorite was one of the temple spires, mine was of a mom teaching her little toddler to pray, and Megan's favorite was a victorian marriage scene with a lot of detail. We had a fun time together. Megan is a sweet girl.

I went to see my midwife again this week and heard the little heartbeat again. It makes me so happy to hear that little heartbeat! We scheduled my ultrasound, too. We will know if it is a boy or girl on December 14 around 12:30. We are betting on a girl!

Speaking of girls, look at what our youngest little girl got into! Isn't that a riot? I can just hear her little mind thinking, "Cool! These stick to your pants!" She is crying because I kept trying to get her to stand away from me to take her picture. Poor thing! Being adorable can be such a trial.

Week of November 2 to November 8

I have been trying to talk Kevin into going on a trip together for his big birthday that is coming up. He finally agreed and we have booked a little cruise to Ensenada Dec 19 - 21. Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik have agreed to watch the kids. We are so excited! This will be our first ever cruise and we are so looking forward to it! So, if any of you cruise afficiondos out there have advice for us, send it this way!

On Monday, we went during Kevin's lunch break to order our passports. We hope they will get here in time. Since they cost so much, I told Kevin we'd better use them a lot in the next 10 years to get our money's worth. :) Sounds like a plan, huh? The best thing was that it was a lovely, mild, fall day and the three of us (Kevin, Beth, and I) went out to lunch at this fun little cafe afterward. We got to play "newlyweds with one baby" for a minute!

Tuesday night was Young Women in Excellence, so Kevin and I got to go to the church with Savannah and Sarah and have a nice sit-down dinner. It was fun. I can't believe I have two young women!

Thursday night we had our Relief Society midweek activity. We had ladies quilting, making puppets for the humanitarian center, and another group learning to make hairbows. I was in the last group. Watch out world! Sarah and Megan helped out in the nursery. They did a great job and Sarah even got her first babysitting job out of it! She was on cloud nine! She babysat Friday night for four children for almost four hours and earned $17. She did great, I have no doubt.

Savannah got to go see Music Man at the high school with her choir on Saturday night. She had great fun and also came home on cloud nine. She is still going strong on NaNoWriMo, by the way and hit 25,000 words on Sunday! Holy Cow! She's lucky, though, because she can spend all day long on it if she wants -- and she does. We've started to make jokes about Savannah being down in her "cave!" I never really had that luxury when I did NaNo. Funny that!

We hope you are all well!

Since we weren't home for Halloween this year, the pumpkins that the girls got from school didn't ever get carved! Lucky for them, they have an accomodating father. While I was gone to a church meeting Tuesday night (as were Savannah and Sarah), Kevin carved jack-o-lanterns with Megan, Mariah, Cheyenne, and Calianne. Isn't that cool? Here's the enterprising crew:

I decided not to do National Novel Writing Month this year (nanowrimo.org), because of my pregnancy, but Savannah is giving it a go! If you don't know about nanowrimo, the goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. Oh, it is a killer. It is to a writer what a marathon is to a runner -- with the same feeling of accomplishment, let me tell you -- and you can still walk at the end of it -- but other than that, it's just the same. Savannah hit 12,000 words today. She should be at 13,336. She's pretty close, though, and determined to catch up! I think it's a great project for her. I just miss my computer . . .

The days here have been beautiful! I walked outside this week to find the trees had all turned orange! And they had sprinkled their orange brilliance all along the ground as well! And the sun brightened it all and the blue sky offered striking contrast. Ah! Gorgeous! Glorious! Every day has been like that. The orange trees take a long time to fall. We worked on the first piles on Saturday and found our lawn again (as did just about every family in our neighborhood!) Alas, though, by the end of the day, our lawn was sprinkled again. Such is the glory of fall! Here are some of our hard workers:

Even Beth got in on the act and tried to figure out what we were doing. Eventually she figured it out and would carry three leaves at a time over to the truck and put them in. What a helper, huh?

We hope you all are having a glorious fall, as well!

Week of October 26 - November 1

The girls had no school on Friday because of Teacher Development Day which translates into "Teachers need a day off after talking to parents in conferences all day long the day (and night) before." So, I talked to the teachers in conferences and they told me that all was well. To celebrate, we left town Thursday after school and drove down to Las Vegas to visit family and celebrate Halloween with the cousins!

We arrived late Thursday night after Beth spent about 1-2 hours crying at us in the car. (Which is 4-5 hours of her not crying at us, so that's pretty good, but it didn't really feel like it at the time!) Friday we hung out at my mom and dad's and walked to the park. Amy's family came over and we visited. Then we drove down and saw Pete's family as well as his new baby, Oliver, who is very, very cute. Then Savannah, Sarah, Megan, and Mariah went to sleep over at Aunt Diane's new house! Cousin Samantha went with them, too.

The next morning, Diane took all those nieces to work with her which meant swimming in UNLV's pool! Fun, huh? Grandma took Cheyenne and Calianne over to play with Amy's kids while she tended for them and Grandpa, Kevin, Beth, and I hung out in the quiet and got some things done and some more visiting!

That night we went over to Diane's house for dinner and then trick-or-treating! Look at that fun group of kids!
It was a little crazy trying to keep up with all of them going down the streeet, I tell ya, but with enough adults and a lot of determination, we managed it. Savannah was an indian this year, Sarah was Hera, wife to Zeuss, Megan was a Krispy Kreme Doughnut employee, Mariah was a cat, Cheyenne was a princess ballerina, and Calianne was tinkerbell. Sweet, huh?

The next day was Sunday and we all went to Pete's sacrament meeting to see baby Oliver get blessed. It was great. I was so proud of my brother and his big family and so happy I could be there with so many of my good family. My heart was full as they say.

Then we drove home and Beth didn't cry at us, but we did have to feed her candy and let her watch the nursery rhymes DVD over and over. She gets very excited whenever she sees a dog on the TV. She points at the TV and says, "Da! Da! Whoa!" It was very entertaining just to watch her!

We had a fun weekend.