A lesson in patience

**Disclaimer** This post was originally started last week in a real attempt at more frequent blogging ;-)

Being a momma of 3 beautiful little girls has proven to be a lesson in patience the last few weeks. Not in a bad way, but just all those little reminders to be patient and all will be ok!

The 1st lesson in patience of recent is technology, and the inability to make it cooperate! My time to sit and blog these days is sporadic at best. I either haven't downloaded pictures, forgot to edit them, can't form an intelligible sentence, etc! Last week I finally had all the peaces in line, typed out an entire blog with cute stories and cuter pictures only to find out that the blogger had frozen and auto-save had failed to boot.

Cleaning, more like the lack there of, has been another lesson in patience for me. I'm the 1st person to say, "Oh well, the xxx will still be there tomorrow and I'll clean it then!" But seriously there are days when I am beginning to question the color of my floor/walls/etc. I finally muster enough energy to tackle one of the many items filling my 'to-do' list and that is the afternoon that Ainsley insists we snuggle. How can I say no to those chubby little cheeks?! 

And then there is patience as we begin yet another new routine. Summer vacation is upon us. Hard to believe that Ella is old enough to be having a summer vacation! And while I am very thankful to not have a place to be at a certain time so early in the morning, I find that we have many mornings where its closer to afternoon before we are all ready to head out to do something. Time will definitely make this transition easier, but I have to just remember to be patient.

Now onto the real reason why everyone checks in with our ol' blog....pictures of our insanely adorable children =)

Ms Ainsley is getting so big that she has outgrown sink baths already

Ainsley- 1 month old
Her personality is starting to really form!

Nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby

My 3 favorite girls

Ella loves her role as biggest sister.

Doug and Myrna came up one evening to meet Ainsley. They brought special desserts that were a HUGE hit with Ella and Aubrey!

Ella, Aubrey and Ainsley are so lucky to have such wonderful people in their lives.
Doug and Myrna play games, wear crowns and give the girls so much love!

Ainsley-- 6 weeks old
I love the little sing-song sounding noises you have started making.
And those smiles...they melt every heart in this house!

Here's to patience and more frequent blogging! Happy start of summer!

If I could just bottle this moment...

Life as we have transitioned from 4 to 5 has been more than I could have hoped and prayed for. Its been almost "easy"! There are days lacking sleep, full of timeouts and questioning whether or not my children have functioning ears ;-) But still, I couldn't be happier and freeze this moment in time. Ella and Aubrey have such an overflowing love for Ainsley, and the bond between the two of them is growing stronger and sweeter every day.

Aubrey has embraced her role of big sister with open arms. She LOVES to be a big helper. Each morning, she gets up, comes into our room and heads straight for the pack-n-play. She looks at the pile of diapers from the previous night and says "Ah, time for me to do my big helper!" Then she gathers an armful of diapers and carts them into Ainsley's room to put them in the diaper champ. Apparently I thank her with the same phrase each time, and didn't realize this until I changed up my thanks. I said "Thank you so much for helping Aubrey" to which she replied, "No, say you really appreciate it!" =)

Ella loves to help in bigger sister ways. She asked me to teach her how to pick up Ainsley, and I showed her but with very specific instructions (she can pick her up and walk from the swing to the couch or chair). When Ainsley starts fussing and I am busy, Ella will come in and ask if she can pick up Ainsley. Then I come in and find Ella "shh-ing" Ainsley, rocking her, giving her the pacifier, wiping up spit-up...she is such a wonderful mommy's helper! One of our first days home, Ella looked at Aubrey very seriously and told her "Aubrey, you need to be a good listener when I go to school on Monday because mommy doesn't need a 'not-good-listener' AND a crying baby!"

I could go on and on about this subject and how wonderful our little family is. These really are moments that Neal and I are cherishing more than words can express.

So here are some of the latest pictures of these 3 little girls that make us smile =)

**Warning--there are just a few pictures**

Bed time story 

Ella and Aubrey LOVE to be thisclose to Ainsley whenever possible! Most of the time Ainsley is a good sport ;-)

Aubrey being her usually self!

Grandpa Rick came up to meet Ainsley

And love on the other girls too!

Aubrey was trying to steal my chapstick ;-)

Poppa hanging out with Ainsley

Grandma Marian with her 3 great granddaughters

Something so sweet about a sleeping baby

Ella roller skating at her end of the year celebration.

Ella receiving her certificate at the end of 4 year old preschool with her teacher Mrs. Nolan

Ella received the "most outgoing" award for her class.
So fitting!!

Its hard to believe that tomorrow marks 4 weeks since Ainsley joined our lives. We fall more and more in love with her and Ella and Aubrey each day. God truly blessed us with the best three little girls ever!

She has arrived!!

Ainsley Rae Kerner joined our family on May 2, 2012 at 11:08PM. She was 8 lbs 12.6oz, 20 3/4" long and absolutely perfect =]

 She was welcomed with big open arms by her big sisters!

Wide-eyed and ready to go home!

Happy to have all 3 girls home together.

Our family of 5!!

World's best and proudest big sisters

Its hard to believe its been 2 1/2 weeks since Ainsley joined our family! Neal was able to be home the 1st 2 weeks and ease the transition for everyone. Here's to the beginning of a wonderful new chapter in our story!

Down to just days...

Its beyond crazy to me to think that we are to the point where we are counting the days and not weeks until our newest little girl joins our family! This past Wednesday marked the 38 week mark. So now we just wait!! I've made more trips to the store this week than I'd like to admit trying to make sure that everything is stocked up- diapers for the baby, summer clothes for Ella, shoes that fit for Aubrey, and then of course a few groceries to make sure that we don't end up coming home from the hospital to an empty fridge ;-)

In my travels, I can't help but be beyond shocked/baffled/amazed at the comments complete strangers so freely make. I wish I could say that people are inconsiderate with their comments about my size or something of that nature. But its not! Instead, the comment I seem to get FAR too frequently is, "So is this a boy?!?" Followed by, "Well are you going to try again and hope for a boy?" I'm not sure, strange person, why you feel the need to assume that I am somehow disappointed that I am added another little girl to our family! Before having our 3rd little girl, I had no idea that people would assume that any additional child would be merely a hope at having the opposite gender. The thought has crossed my mind more than once to create a little necklace to wear in public that says, "Yes its ANOTHER girl. And for the record, we couldn't be HAPPIER!" 


I'll step down from my little soap box now ;-)

So now we will just continue to happily wait the arrival of our 3rd little bundle of pink, frilly, princessy joy to make her appearance! Her big sister Aubrey is getting a little antsy and asks at least twice a day when the baby will come out.

{{{{{Stay tuned for pictures and a name for this little lady}}}}}

Our last vacation as 4!

We decided it would be nice to get away for a few days for a little mini-vacation before we are back in the routine of life with a newborn. Don't get me wrong, we are very excited for our little miss to join us, but as with everything, a new person creates a new dynamic and new norm! So we thought a few days when we could give Ella and Aubrey lots of undivided attention would be fun for everyone. And off to Great Wolf Lodge we went!!

Now we thought that if getting away for a few days would be fun, surprising the girls about the entire thing would be even more fun! Well, the best laid plans don't always turn out exactly how one expected =(

Before we left town, I tried my hardest to get the registration and DEQ taken care of for our new van. We had been waiting for the title to arrive so we could start the process and in the meantime, we were driving around looking like we had a hot van! (No plates, no temp tag [too cheap to pay $20 for less than 2 weeks!!] and not even a dealer logo where the plates should be.) I was getting a little nervous to drive to another state with a vehicle looking like this. Aubrey and I set out Wednesday morning feeling like we could easily do DEQ and DMV before it was time to pick up Ella from school, after all it was a random Wednesday morning in the middle of the month. WRONG!! Us and 50 other people were at DEQ this Wednesday morning. Then at the DMV it only got better. We had to leave DMV 2 numbers before our turn to get to Ella. Bummer! After lunch, we were able to pack the car very inconspicuously without the girls even noticing. Everyone loaded up under the assumption that we were off to DMV. As I walked into DMV, I knew our quick stop was not going to exist! I left earlier with 2 people ahead of me...now there were 35, and only 2 people working!! Long story short, after over an hour at DMV with the girls waiting in the car with Neal, we were off for our vacation.

Due to the extra long delay getting out of town, neither girl slept or even rested in the car on our way to Great Wolf lodge. Ella began whining she wanted her bed, Aubrey was so tired she just cried....it wasn't the surprise we had hoped for!!! Fortunately when we got there, the girls got excited that we were actually staying at Great Wolf lodge and not just driving by it ;-) Again, we had figured middle of April in the middle of the week would be a great time to go up there-spring breaks were over and it should be fairly empty. WRONG again!! Seattle has spring break extra late we found out so the place was packed. But we had finally arrived, surprised the girls and this was going to be our fun mini-vacation before the baby comes!!!

Without further ado, our vacation photos!

Evening storytime with Violet!

Aubrey didn't like the purple slide much, she said it was scary. However, the yellow slide that was longer/faster/and spun her around backwards was FUN! And she is such a ham for the camera =)

The lily pads were tons of fun for Aubrey the monkey! Daddy helped keep the lily pads stable but she worked hard too. And just like her sister, she LOVED swimming and playing in the wave pool.

Ella liked going on the really big water slides, but I wasn't able to get the timing down for a picture on those. She humored me and went down the red slide so I could get a picture! These were a select few photos that I was able to get her to slow down long enough to get a picture of her smiling face instead of the back of her head ;-)

Ella did really well on the lily pads, she even got to the point where daddy didn't have to help hold the lily pads much!

Storytime on night 2 with Wiley and Oliver.

Each time we passed Sprinkles the bear (which was every time we went to the water park!) we had to stop and take a picture!

Daddy even made a stop with Sprinkles!

On our second night, the girls slept together on the pull-out bed. Then Ella read Aubrey a story before going to sleep!
{Insert melting Mommy's heart!}

Family time!

Aubrey and Ella sliding together =)
Ella and Aubrey both using their magi wands to make the creatures of the lodge come to life.

Great Wolf Lodge Vacation 2012