And the Dr said, "No more monkeys jumping OFF the bed!"

Well, just a few hours after I posted my last blog post, I was getting ready to head out for a first "girl's night" since Brinley was born and Ailey casually hopped off our bed to say goodbye and fell to the floor crying. It was the kind of cry that made Michael and I's hearts sink. After trying to walk it off and be brave, we headed to the ER early the next morning. After 3 X-rays, an MRI and hours sitting in waiting rooms, she is in a walking boot to heal 4 broken bones and a strained ligament. What a bummer of a way to end the summer! No swimming or other fun water plans for us for a few more weeks yet. She has been so tough though. If it was going to happen to one of our kids, she was the one for it to happen to. Each and every nurse and doctor we have encountered has commented on her toughness, positive attitude and overall happiness. She thinks the X-rays are so cool and although thinking the MRI was a bit too long, I loved listening to her hum along to the Frozen soundtrack while laying surprisingly still for a 3 year old! 

I have learned a lot about my sweet first born and myself through this process! First of all, she has a crazy ability to find silliness and fun in any situation. As she was telling someone about the MRI, she said, "I got to go in this big tunnel and they took cool pictures of my foot. It was so exciting!" Haha! It has reminded me that sometimes it's good to look at life through the eyes of a child as I was negatively thinking, "Oh no we can't swim anymore!" and "Ohhhhh the medical bills!" All while the person who it was effecting the most was giggling and asking for more pink Bubble Guppy stickers to make her boot prettier! 

I've also been reminded that although she can drive me up the wall with how hyper & silly she is sometimes, she also has a very sweet, sensitive side. Behind the tough exterior, inside she is also upset. Proven by the quiet sobs last week while she sat beside the pool watching her sister during swimming lessons. 

So for now we drink tons of milk and cross our fingers that all will be healed in time for our beach trip in a few weeks!! 

Let's Get Caught Up

Attempt at keeping a blog, Take 3! Haha! Wow has life thrown me for a loop lately! A good loop, but a loop nonetheless. Blog life took a backseat as we prepared for baby #3 and navigated the ups and downs of parenting a 2 and 3 year old. Not that blog life won't always take a backseat to more important life events, but the past 9 months or so have been non stop. 

So, in attempt to get caught up since the last post, here we go! 

Baby 3 arrived May 24. Another beautiful, incredible baby girl, Brinley Sue. We all adore her. She's two months old today, smiling like crazy and sleeping through the night, HALLELUJAH! 

We love having three girls. I can't wait to watch them all grow up together. From playing on the same sports teams, to developing their own interests and hopefully supporting each other to someday attending prom together! We've had more people than I would care to admit actually feel "sorry" for us that we didn't get a boy. Shame on them! I like how Michael put it, that there is a perfect, divine reason why we were blessed with three girls and who's to question God on that!? And coming from another dad of 3, Michael just has all the manliness that our family needs. :)

And that leads us to the exciting, yet more daunting task of attempting to successfully raise these three girls! I'm learning more and more that it truly takes a village to do it right. I won't lie and say that our plan was to have three kids in three years, but that's what we've been blessed with. And I do truly mean, "blessed". As a result though, we can't really fumble along with number one in hopes that we figure it for numbers 2 & 3 because we're kinda doing all of it at the same time! I'm a perfectionist people pleaser by nature, which is not a good quality to have as a parent. I have to fight the idea that misbehavior is a direct reflection of me as a parent. I have to fight the negativity that I can get from others, even though they may see it as encouragement from the "i'll pray for you" comments or the parenting advice columns sent to my inbox. Michael and I are learning to show grace to each other and to our girls and that God is the ultimate Father. A Father who not only daily shows us examples of grace and forgiveness, but then allows us to turn our failures around in ways to glorify Him. It's hard and embarrassing when your 3 & 2 year olds decide to throw tantrums at the same time, all while your infant is screaming and your back is burning from the looks of people around you. It's easy (for me anyway) to assume the thoughts of the onlookers are negative ones and get down on myself, down on my girls and turn a rotten situation into an even more rotten situation. Except that God, through some really wonderful friends and moms themselves are helping to teach me those are the exact situations where God wants me to show my children grace and to be an example of God's patient, merciful, but also firm love.  

These children keep us on our toes and crack us up daily. So the next time someone says they'll pray for me and my parenting, I'm going to ask them if they could pray that I cherish every single good and bad moment with these three beauties. That I care only what God thinks of me and my parenting style and that more important than anything else, these girls might one day invite Christ into their hearts as well. 

Until next time...

A New Year

It's 2015 and no resolutions for me, other than maybe survive this winter at home with two cabin-fever filled kids (and mom)! Oh how I love Spring, Summer and Fall and pretty much despise all of winter except for the initial snow shower.
We're gearing up for Michael's travel to increase and our home preschool "take 2". We had a perfect Christmas. Michael had almost two full weeks off of work. We were healthy, happy, rested and together. We finished our Advent Activity Calendar mentioned before with a sleigh ride and visit to "Santa's House", Christmas cookie baking, a video from Santa and lots of Christmas movies.

 Not a good picture of the fam with Santa to say the least, but shows Callie's complete fear of him. She refused to take her eyes off of him, almost taunting, 

"Go ahead and try something. I have a blood curdling scream ready."

Christmas Eve is always my favorite. We start the day with brunch with Michael's family at our house and then nothing but lounging and playing with new presents until our Christmas Eve service. This year, Ailey was too old for the nursery and attended "big church" with us. She was skeptical, as were we, but I knew she'd love the candlelight singing at the end. Other than twice announcing, "what's next", during a silence, she did pretty well and did indeed love the candlelit songs, and much to our surprise did NOT try to grab the candle out of our hands. For the second year in a row, rain has squashed our tradition to walk down Main St and look at Christmas lights, but the girls were famished after church anyway. Shown here downing a bowl of blueberries while waiting for our Christmas tree shaped pizza to bake (a new Cmas Eve tradition we started). 

We snuggled and read books before setting out cookies for Santa and calling it a night! The girls got bikes, baby dolls, books and tons of other fun games and toys. Below Callie is playing with Ailey's singing Elsa doll. From now on Santa will be instructed to buy the girls the same gifts; same color, size, shape etc., Poor Elsa has been fought over and spent more time in timeout than she has being played with.

I am so blessed! 2014 was a year for the record books for our family! Excited for 2015 and next Christmas with THREE kiddos! :)