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!