Instalife March edition

Today I am thankful for Instagram, because without it my poor blog would still be stuck in October. (I pulled out the r e a l camera this morning to take Easter pictures and noticed the Halloween pictures are still on the camera! I vow to not give up... I will catch up, I will not fall a full year behind. Well, here is to wishful thinking at least =)

Our house has had the never ending, constantly cycling cough/crud since Christmas vacation.Ainsley ended up with pneumonia that required 2 different antibiotics then I ended up with a terrible sinus infection. This momma is just plain wiped out. And I don't ask for help, or even receive help well. But on this specific day, I had to just embrace the love of friends who delivered dinner and beautiful flowers to my front door and my neighbor who gave me the tea out of her cupboard. Thankful for such wonderful people in my life!! 

Soakin' in the sun!!

Today I choose grace. Grace to smile when I find this mess because the heart of it was, she was just trying to make mommy a cup of coffee...sometimes lids just get in the way! And besides, I really needed to clean under the Keurig before work this morning.

Spring break, Oregon coast. Its so rare to get a blue sky, no wind day at the Oregon coast. Its even more rare for that day to be in March, and be so warm that the children take off their wet clothes and continue playing!!

We found hermit crabs, tide pools, fell into the ocean looking at tide pools!, build sand castles and had an overall great time! Who doesn't love the beach?!?!

The perfect end to a day at the beach... squeaky cheese and ice cream at the Tillamook Cheese factory!! I have to admit though, the trip didn't live quite up to my expectations. For 2 years, I avoided every ounce of dairy. I'm not a huge ice cream lover like the others in my house, but Tillamook has this ice cream called 'sticky bun' that is heavenly!!! The caramel-cinnamon mixture from the inside of a sticky bun swirled throughout the ice cream and chunks of dough. Y U M! We arrive at the ice cream factory and I'm ready for a B I G scoop only to find the flavor was discontinued, 2 years ago.
tear

We rounded out spring break week with a little fishing trip with Grandma Cindy and Jon. Ainsley was super excited to be fishing...not so sure when we actually got a fish!

Ella loved the idea of fishing, however, did not realize that it was not an instantaneous event- you don't just put the line out and pull a fish in. She decided to take a little nap while we waited for a fish.

My favorite picture of the day is the top right!! Aubrey wears her emotion clearly on her face!! She loved the fishing, loved reeling the fish in, but as soon as it fell off the line and flopped in the boat...she looked pretty sure it was going to get her!!!

We made a little scavenger hunt for the girls to find out we are going to Disneyland when we go to California for Grandpa John's birthday in May. Unfortunately the video in the upper lefthand corner didn't load into the blog. On the video you hear the girls say, "Its a countdown to Disneyland. Aubrey, its a countdown to Disneyland. Countdown to Disneyland." They weren't quite making the connection so Neal asked, "What does that mean?"
"AAAHHHH!!!! WE ARE GOING TO D I S N E Y L A N D!!!"

The morning after working on this countdown calendar, I came downstairs to find that someone had wrote all over the sign. I can't lie, I was a little frustrated. I asked Aubrey if she did it, to which she replied "Mom, I can make my 'y' better than that!" Ainsley chimes in, "I did it! I made it look like yours!"
When did my baby become big enough to write letters that actually look like letters? It's a struggle to embrace the new season of 3 big girls rather than mourn the end of my baby season.

 

Wow, when you put it all together...March was a busy month!

Top moments of July

Its March and somehow I'm just finding time to look back and record all the fun we had in July. But I refuse to give up, I'm not a year behind yet so that's something...right?!?

1. These girls!!

Ainsley Rae
Such. A. Ham! Definitely the baby of the family. She has cuteness that just spills out of her and she knows it!

Aubrey Grace
She can talk for hours about everything and nothing. She has the sweetest, most tender heart. Being around people and feeling loved is what makes her happiest.

Ella Marie
Adventurer. Limit-tester. Reading extraordinaire. Imaginative and intelligent. Life is always an open book, choose your ending!

2. Fourth of July

Fireworks and cousins. Beautiful weather, BBQ, neighborhood water balloon fight.

The many faces that made up our fun-filled day. All the cousins at the parade. Ella and her instant new best friends with the new neighbors.

3. Being outside

This picture is just an example of the creativity and teamwork these girls can have when they want to ;-)
We had some friends over for dinner, and after dinner all 4 girls went outside to play. We needed a flashlight to see their final project because they worked on it so long...A fairy house!! Attention to detail was just amazing- blankets from scraps, branches to make planters, rocks for a path, putting it under the old water table so Tyson would be less likely to destroy it.

4. Swimming lessons

Sisters passing the time during Aubrey's lesson

There are worse things than spending beautiful sunny mornings hanging out with these girlies!

Ella and Aubrey both improved greatly this year during swimming lessons. I think Ella is officially a competent swimming!!! Aubrey is doing much better and with a little more focus, she will be swimming this next summer without her life jacket.

5. Crafts

If you want to know how different in personality these 3 girls are, give them each a blank canvas and paint! Aubrey jumped right into painting and asked for help in the middle. Ella thoughtfully drew out her entire painting, in fact she spent S O much time drawing the other 2 were practically done with their paintings before she had put down her pencil. Ainsley is still in the "free form" artistry category, a little black here topped with all the other colors over there!

6. S'mores!!

We've waited all summer for this moment!! Ella officially moved up to "own marshmallow roaster!" Aubrey much rather preferred having mommy help roast it just right. Ainsley, oh Ainsley, can you believe her mother let her eat looking like that? There was not a clean part on that child and then marshmallow goo and melted chocolate was added to the mix for extra effect!

7. Waterfalls
This year we took the entire Paulina Plunge, 7 miles downhill with 3 waterfalls. 6 adults, 2 bike trailers with 3 kids in them, 1 kid on a ride-along bike, 6 kids on bikes. And we made it without any causalities.

Getting there was half the fun! We had quite the group. Ainsley and Declan shared the trailer. Aubrey and Mommy stopped for a quick picture! Ainsley found mommy a "crown" or a branch...depending on how you look at it! Aubrey conquering the downhill trails. Ella and Zane waiting on everyone to get ready.

Ainsley was fearless. She jumped into all of the waterfalls and had a blast.

Aubrey may be only 5, but she rode the entire ride on her 2-wheeled bike without crashing, she hiked down into the falls without complaining, she jumped in ready for excitement!

Ella remembered the waterfall sliding from the previous summer so she was excited to get to visit the other 2 waterfalls. When it comes to riding, this girl can go on and on for miles!

Final waterfall! This one you backed into and there was a small ledge that allowed you to just sit under the waterfall while being able to breathe.
Kerners, Zane and Stampers. Not everyone ventured to this last waterfall.

Hope you stuck with us til the end! July was lots of fun. And summer isn't over yet!!!

2015 is here....Instalife January & February

The start of the new year means Girl Scout cookie sales! Ella sold over 600 boxes of cookies last year so she decided she needed to top that this year. Her goal...1000 boxes of cookies!!

No school day means everyone gets to enjoy the morning at the Children's Museum. Each girl definitely has their own creative take on the face-painting station. I'm sure you can imagine the looks other mothers gave when they saw Ainsley with her choice of black face paint ALL OVER her face.

Betcha wouldn't believe this was the Oregon coast at the end of Janurary!?! The moms snuck away for a few nights to recharge the mommy batteries. We were so fortunate to have this beautiful view from our condo.

This girl and my coffee....both fill my heart so much!!! Ella is turning into quite the young lady and I'm trying so very hard to take special time with her and embrace these moments.

860... That was the final total of boxes of cookies sold. I think she would have met her goal, but the troop sold out of cookies. 11 girls sold 4100 boxes of cookies!! Wowzers that is a lot of cookies.

Transformation day! Aubrey has been wanting her hair cut for quite some time. She really wanted a pixie cut but I didn't think that would be a good compliment to those cheeks =) Thanks to some advice from the hairdresser, we found this cute and she L O V E S it! We still hear almost daily, "I don't even look like myself. I mean my face looks so different! I love my new haircut!"

Instalife....December

Rounding out 2014 (At least as far as Instagram is concerned!)

We started day 1 of December getting up early and heading down to OHSU surgi-center for Ainsley to have her adenoid removed. In October I really started noticing that she sounded like she was snoring, even when she was awake. She woke up multiple times a night, she was tired all day. After seeing her pediatrician, she was referred to ENT for evaluation. A quick scope was done in the office and after looking in just one nostril, the doc said "See this mom, this is her airway. The adenoid is blocking the entire thing!" 2 weeks later we were scheduled for surgery. I cannot say enough good things about doing a surgery with a team that works only with children! They talked to her, even though she is only 2, and explained that she was going to use her special mask to blow up a big green balloon with the special doctor. The mask was sprayed with a flavor (watermelon and grape were the options today) so it was fun to put over her face, and then she was allowed to play with the mask for a good 45 minutes before surgery. She kept asking if she could take all of the equipment home....blood pressure cuff, pulse ox, mask, special jammies. We decided to not premedicate her as they said kids tend to wake up crankier if they had the Versed pre-procedure and it takes longer for them to wake up. She had no anxiety issues at all going back. The crib looked like a "coach" and the nurses played right along with taking her for a ride in her coach.

Sweet girl did amazing. She woke up before they left the OR and she was quite cranky, they gave her a little more medicine and then once in recovery she just wanted mommy. I held her for 30-45 minutes and we walked back to her room. She slept the entire time and the nurse told me "I'm going to go get some juice and a popsicle for you to have in here once she wakes up." And just like that, she popped her head up and asked "Do you have chocolate?" After the nurse gave us the popsicle (it was the twin pop kind) Ainsley looked at me and said "You can have the other one, I don't need 2." She was awake, she was back to herself and at 11 o'clock (surgery time was 9AM), we walked downstairs to go home. They told us in our discharge instructions to not worry if she doesn't eat much today, just make sure she drinks. She proved them wrong, ate an entire coffee shop muffin before we got home! Then had some of Aubrey's sandwich and cheese at home. If you asked if she had an ouches she would say no, its all gone (the IV was the only thing she ever said hurt her.) She had the pain medicine all of maybe 4 times total and once she woke up in the middle of the night asking specifically "I want the cough medicine from the doctor." I was definitely surprised that such a young child would notice the difference in the narcotic pain medicine.

You know you are a nurse's child when....you take home the medical equipment from the hospital and then play with it in its intended form!!! Ainsley wasn't detoured by the fact she didn't have a monitor to hook her blood pressure cuff into, she just used her mouth to pretend to inflate the cuff. Ella. Now I have to say how impressed I was watching her. During swim lessons, the very last day of each session is safety day. She has moved through the levels of swim lessons to a rather advanced level and that level includes rescue breathing with their safety day. Sorry, little bit of back story! Ella took swim lessons in July and this is the beginning of December. I look over and not only is Ella using the mask correctly, but she is counting out the correct rescue breathing!!! Makes this momma nurse so very proud!

Oh thank you internet for such simple, yet sanity saving ideas!! I had read multiple people comment about setting up 2 Christmas trees- one was mom's pretty tree with the ornaments placed JUST.SO; the other is a blank canvas for the kids. The girls strung their own lights, placed their own star, clustered ornaments here and there. In the end, we had 2 beautiful trees which wonderfully represented our family.

Quick weekend trip to Sunriver. Love spending some quality time with these girlies. We didn't get much snow to play in but it was still a fun weekend away with Grandma Marian.

"Looks like everyone made the nice list this year... I'm shocked I made the cut! Santa HQ is definitely not what a visit to Santa used to be. 🎅" Who knew that a visit to Santa could be so much fun!!

Zoolights with our neighbor friends! Ainsley, Aubrey, Keira, Erin, Ella and Ali!

5 matching dresses and a coordinating suit all made by Great Grandma Marian. Those are some seriously cute kids!! Ainsley, Aubrey holding Bailey, Kolby, Ella holding Aspen

Christmas caroling in our neighborhood then ending the evening with cookies and hot chocolate. I love this time of year!! And this was our first time caroling, but definitely not the last =)

As if the Christmas season wasn't busy enough, add in yet another tradition... Elf on the shelf. Basic concept is this, Santa sends the Elf to check on the kids before Christmas. Elf tends to create a little bit of mischief (makes snow angels in the flour, wraps Christmas tree in toilet paper, etc). Here Twixie (our elf) decided to have a little tea party with the Brownie elf.

Here's hoping that I post the rest of our Christmas fun before summer vacation!!!

Instalife---->> November

Its not only the blog that has been a little quiet over the last few months, even my Instagram has had just a few chosen moments on it.

How is it possible that my 'baby' is now in a big girl bed?? She was climbing in and out of her crib which I was ok with, but the day I walked into her room to see her spanning the end of the crib as she climbed up onto the top of her dresser (EEK!) it was official...Time to get rid of the crib. We got a surprise "snow day" the beginning of November that ended up being nothing more than an icy morning, but nonetheless it gave me the time to disassemble the crib and assemble the big bed.

2nd Grade and Kindergarten.....Wow! Time is flying with these 2. They look so similar but have such different perspectives on life. It is so much fun (and so C H A L L E N G I N G at times) to be their parents.

Gingerbread house making with Grandma Marian. The first of many holiday traditions!

Sunset in Riddle. I was looking back over my pictures while listening to a podcast from our church one day at work. I was challenged by a statement that was made....When your words change, your faith changes. Wow. Made me wonder, would I see the same beauty in this sunset if it marked the beginning of a storm as I do marking the end of a sunny day?

Again, these are just partial glimpses. How can one equally spend as much time capturing life as spent living life?

Remembering June...sorta

Oh my dear long neglected but not-completely-forgotten blog. I honestly cannot for the life of me remember where my blogging time has gone. I love this outlet, I love remembering, I love capturing those funny/don't-want-to-forget-this moments. But somehow, life has evolved with our family of 5 and my time is, well...less free. I refuse to give up, I refuse to just start from today (oh how easy that would be...new year, new start) but then we would be missing 7+ months of life. The thought is overwhelming but I think I'm going to do a 'Top 10(ish)' for each month. Make it more manageable while still capturing us.

1. Schools out for summer!!

Everyone was excited for Ella's last day of 1st grade.

2. Great Wolf Lodge with Girl Scouts

As soon as school was out, we loaded in the car to head for a day of friends, water and fun!

3. Pool time!

When our crew descends on the pool, you better watch out! Lots of splashing and laughing will soon be coming. Ainsley got a "puddle jumper" life jacket and Oh.My.Goodness! How have I had 3 children and only just know found this product? Its coast guard approved as a life jacket but it doesn't flip the kid on their back, instead she stays upright, able to swim, kick and move freely in the pool safely BY HERSELF!!

4. Bowling

6 kids bowling. Some might call us crazy! We did finish a game...and didn't lose any children....and there were no major injuries. Sounds like a success to me.

5. Farmers Market

Favorite part of the farmers market by all children...honey sticks. Little $0.25 straw filled with honey...Selah glared if you mentioned taking hers, Jude and Jenna were all smiles, Ella and Aubrey's lasted maybe 30 seconds, Ainsely chewed her straw so much she couldn't get the rest out but out of fear it would be taken away, would not let us help her! The day ended up being much warmer and nicer than we hoped. Running through the fountains with clothes on and snow cones were a perfect way to spend the day.

6. Hanging out

Some days the most fun is had by just hanging out at home, passing the day with your cousins.

7. Visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Kerner...plus Miriam was born!!

9 Great grandkids with 2 great grandparents in 1 picture. It only took about 30 pictures to get one were most kids look like they are not being tortured!!! And everyone loves to hold the baby =)

June in a nutshell. Lots of fun, lots of family!