Insta-life January

January means Girl Scout cookie sales!!

After we came home from Riddle, our dishwasher decided it was worn out. Given that we had just put money into fixing a part last year, we starting thinking this may be a pattern we didn't want to pay for. We were able to find a year-end clearanced dishwasher that would be delivered the next morning. In preparation of not having to wash dishes by hand another day, I let the dishes from the morning and lunch pile up. And then....the new dishwasher didn't work! AAHHH! Thankfully Neal came to the rescue and tackled this massive pile of dishes =)

Well our new dishwasher required a new control board, so that meant another week of washing dishes. I tried to be deliberately grateful for these 4 mouths to feed and enough food to keep their bellies full, with every dish I washed!

Daddy's workout crew! Pushing that load around will definitely burn a few calories!!

Sadness and taking time to reflect on each blessing in our life has reminded me to s.l.o.w. d.o.w.n, embrace each snuggle and enjoy these moments, because a moment can be so fleeting.

Ainsley has discovered how to take her own pictures and post them to Instagram! If you ever are curious what the world to a 20 month old who is trying to be sneaky with mom's phone looks like....well now you know!!

A little late...Christmastime photos

So much to say, so many reason...instead of going into each one of them, I'm going to focus on sharing the wonderful memories we captured from Christmastime. When I go back through the photos, I always realize that we only captured a small portion of the memories, but we will be grateful for each photo and each moment!

Christmas eve- treats for Santa and the reindeer; Kerner Christmas 2013

Kerner tradition- Christmas morning on the stairs

Reading the story of Christmas; Ainsley's stocking is almost as big as her! Ella loves her gifts.

So full of expressions!! Thank you G-G for the purses =)

 Christmas in Riddle was extra special this year! Everyone came over for the 1st time in a long time; Uncle Sam, Aunt Shannon, Porter, Wyatt, Auntie P, Zoey, Uncle Patrick and his girlfriend Mindy, Grandma Bernice, dad, and the 5 of us! Lots of gifts, lots of people, lots of wonderful smiles and memories!!!

Ainsley quickly loved Mindy. She sat with Mindy reading books most of the morning =)

Aubrey- 4 1/2, Wyatt- 4 1/2, Porter 5 1/2, Ainsley- 20 months, Zoey- 8, Ella- 7

I love everything about this picture! A lot of time and a lot of distance has brought us to this point and I am so happy to call each one of these people my family!

Going to see Mickey Mouse!

Its the happiest place on earth....with Christmas lights!!! Lets be honest, I was just as excited as the kids were to go to Disneyland. Once Neal and I began the idea of going to Disneyland, I instantly chose a date when I would be able to see Sleeping Beauty's castle covered with lights! Unfortunately for us, we chose the one week that California barely touched 60 degrees and we even had a day of rain, but it didn't damper our fun.

Luigi's flying tires in California Adventure

I L.O.V.E. this picture! You can see how much fun Ella and Aubrey are having dancing in the street in Radiator Springs. As a parent, watching them dancing and now almost 2 months later looking at the pictures, these memories are priceless!

Ainsley did her dancing in the street from the comfort of her stroller while standing on dirty baby ;-)

 

We learned a few lessons from our 1st trip to Disneyland. The biggest lesson learned was that you will wait LONGER to see characters than most rides. Who knew??? This time, we added a character meal to our itinerary and it was worth every penny! Having a princess come to your table and asking "What is your name princess? Would you like to take a picture with me?" is probably the coolest thing you can fathom when you are 4 and 7 =) We scheduled our lunch with Ariel for the very 1st day we were at Disney so that the girls would get their character fill right off and save ourselves lots of time in line ;-)

Welcomed by Ariel herself!

Belle and Snow White

Cinderella

Sleeping Beauty. Notice this is the only princess that we could get Ainsley to focus for ;-)

Our second lesson was to buy the photo pass. This saved us time and headache as we wrangled 3 children while capturing as many memories as possible. Last time we tried handing over our camera, but if the setting wasn't quite right, the photo pass people didn't have the time nor were they probably allowed to adjust our camera settings. Seeing all the pictures we got, plus the fun borders we were able to add made the photo pass a fun souvenir.

Ainsley was so fun to watch with the characters. She ran up to Pooh, who was hiding behind the Christmas tree waiting for us. Well then she decided she should hide behind the tree too ;-)

Beautiful castle!! There is always more to learn. We stayed the first evening in Disneyland (Thursday) to watch the fireworks because they started at 7:30 instead of 9:30. We did not realize, however, that the castle is only lit up after the fireworks and we didn't stay at 7:30 our a picture =( I became that mom!I really wanted a picture in front of the castle all lit up. Saturday night, our last night in the park we napped so that the kids would be more likely to make it til 9:30 for the fireworks. It was beautiful, yay for fireworks! Then we turned into salmon swimming upstream while holding a sleeping baby, corralling 2 other children while daddy pushes a stroller head-on into the masses. Finally we make it to the roped off area in front of the castle where the photo pass people are setting up. Trying not to seem impatient or pushy, I ask them how exactly this process works for the pictures. Well, we have to wait until all of the fireworks are cleaned up from the castle....only about 30 more minutes :-0 In the end, the nice photo pass man must have felt some love for us because he told the masses gathered around the rope that the line for photos would begin behind ME!!! Thank you kind photo man for helping my photo dream come true =)

California Screamin' was Ella's favorite ride! This was the one ride Aubrey wasn't quite big enough for. And a nice setup for a holiday photo!

Radiator Springs ride and a few more family photos.

Nice photo pass man even allowed us to do a couple of different shots in front of the castle! Ella and Aubrey were such good sports; you would never know that moments before they were begging to please just go back to the hotel!!

Its Mickey Mouse!

Ella and Ainsley loving Pooh.

Ainsley was SO EXCITED to see Mickey Mouse and have him sign her book.

Splash mountain- 6 times for Aubrey!! I love that we were the only ones in our boat, no random guys large head in these pictures!!

Welcome to Pixie Hollow! Tinkerbell is always a favorite.

Can you believe how fancy the Minnie ears are now? I just love Aubrey's choice. It definitely fits her =)

Ella chose the fanciest of ears, only the finest for the princess herself! Hers had a crown and a veil!

This face sums up the fun we had!

Its a small world

We were able to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa Dodge for lunch!

This made me laugh as I was editing pictures. We had the top picture in a frame in our family room. As I was editing pictures from this trip, I noticed Neal is wearing the exact same shirt almost 4 years apart on the same ride ;-) LOL!! And wow, Ella looks the same but so completely different- such a beautiful young lady she is.

 Okay, I could post even more pictures but I'll refrain. After getting home, it occurred to me that probably the best part of this trip is that as parents we spent 4 days completely focused on the girls and making these wonderful memories. A coworker said it perfectly the other day, "we need more memories and less stuff!" This trip was full of memories!!!

Christmastime, tradition time

Christmastime is a wonderfully busy time. Add school, work, a trip to Disneyland (that will get its own post) as well as all the favorite Christmas traditions and we have a very FULL month! Poor Aubrey also ended up getting a really bad UTI the week before Christmas so she missed her preschool Christmas program =( Fortunately she was back to her happy, bouncy self by Christmas week so she was able to enjoy the holidays.

On our way home from Riddle after Thanksgiving, Amah and G-daddy met us to go Christmas tree hunting. The weather couldn't have been nicer!!

Ainsley and G-Daddy with her "tree"

Ainsley giving the tree a hug!

Aubrey helping Amah and G-Daddy carry their tree to the car.

Ella's perfect tree for her bedroom. Maybe next year Ella.....

We set the tree up while the girls napped. Ainsley could not get over the idea....she kept repeating "Tree...House." It was as if she was saying, "There is a tree in my house?!?!?!" The amazement of trees in the house continued for the entire season, wherever we were, if there was a tree in the house she would repeat, "Tree....House." =)

Aubrey took her tree decorating job seriously

Ella pointed out to Ainsley all of the Dora and Boots ornaments on the tree (sorry for the blurry picture! Our camera is dying a slow death...)

While we were in Disneyland, it was SUPER cold at home. I think there was a day or 2 with a dusting of snow. While we weren't sad to miss the 5 degree mornings, we were a little bummed to miss out on the snow. Fortunately there was a morning after we got home that gave us a dusting of snow...just enough to play in for about 10 minutes ;-)

Ainsley wasn't sure about something...

Aubrey having a blast in the snow!

Snow baby

She was trying to get the snow off her gloves ;-)

Who doesn't jump on the trampoline when its covered in snow?

Gingerbread house decorating and visiting Santa were condensed into one holiday tradition filled Saturday. Thankfully Grandma Marian had prepared all of the gingerbread house pieces prior to coming up so that meant we just got to spend the morning decorating =)

Ainsley had a hard time understanding that the candy was supposed to just sit on the house. "Ainsley eat it!" she kept telling us =)

She was so proud of her gingerbread (or graham cracker if you want to be technical) house. All month long she would point to it and say "Ainsley's house!"

Aubrey creating her gingerbread masterpiece.

Ella meticulously decorating her house. Can you tell who our type A personality child is? The perfectly straight patterned rows of candy may be a hint ;-)

Beautiful girls with their finished gingerbread houses!

We finish out our month of Christmas traditions with a visit to Santa!