kitty hawk and more beaching

My sister-in-law Madison wanted to head into town (we were staying all the VERY bottom of the Outer Banks, so we were an hour and a half from Kitty Hawk) sometime during our vacation, so we opted for a rainy day since the beach was already out of the question. It worked out perfectly, and the kids loved the small children's museum since we had the whole place to ourselves!  April is a perfect time for vacation :)

Colby got his work-out on, haha.

Brooke and Kevin did some deep sea fishing.

Uncle Jeffrey took a nap, haha.

Following the museum, we went for ice cream at a local ice cream shop.

And we ended the day with some miniature golf.  We really had such a blast, and Colby was hilarious with the golfing.  We have a classic video of him (sitting) trying to hit the golf ball.  When it wasn't going where he wanted, he picked it up and bum-scooted over to the hole to drop it in.  Then clapped for himself, hahaha.  Seriously, so funny!

The next morning, we were ready for more beach time...

We tried to get a picture of Mom and Dad with all the grandkids, but Owen just wanted to pick at Brooke's hair :) I loved being all together, but wished that Kimberly and Josh could have been there as well to join in on the fun.

I love the way Brooke adores Kevin, and I love that I was close enough to capture this moment in time.

That night after dinner, we headed back out for a little campfire and s'more action.

I'm writing this post almost a year after we went (I forgot that it was a draft this whole time), and I am filled with gratitude for such an incredible trip as a family.  Having time around a camp fire, on a beautiful (almost private) beach, was pure bliss. I just want to go back!!

crew was complete

Mom and Dad arrived late that night (just in time to kiss the kids and tuck them into bed), and in the wee hours of the next morning, Jeffrey and his family arrived at the beach house to complete our crew.  They drove all the way from Pittsburgh, and we were sure happy to see cousins in the morning.  This was the first time we all met Owen, so it was extra exciting!  One of the big perks of driving was that they could bring a bunch of stuff, including toys for everyone to play with.  

But there was still time for good old fashions games, like hide and go seek, haha.

Once we all had food in our bellies and sunscreen on our skin, we were ready to hit the beach!

I ordered the kids those sweet shell collecting bags, but some shells were just too big for the bag!

Do you love how we really had the whole beach to ourselves??  It was amazing!  We spent some time flying kites as well :)

We were happy to have Nay Nay and Papa on this trip as well. They love to see their grandkids experiencing new things, and this trip was chock full of memory makers.

The air was a tiny bit chilly since it was April, but the warm sun made it bearable to be in our swimsuits.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip!  He was a little scared of the waves at first, but he was fine as long as he was holding someone's hands.  Once the waves receded, he noticed that his feet were sinking deeper and deeper into the sand, and he thought that was HILARIOUS!  His giggles were infectious, and Kevin captured the moment brilliantly.

The girls got right to work burying their legs in the sand...

Over the next few days, we took many walks along the beach, and collected too many shells to count.

Kevin brought his hammock as well, which he strung up between the pillars of the boardwalk. This was definitely a favorite spot for the littles to cuddle up to Daddy.

Kevin really is the best Daddy and loves his one-on-one time with Brooke and Colby.

Colby still wasn't walking on this trip, but he was a champ at standing and I wanted a picture of him in his adorable fedora.  He, unfortunately, wasn't keen on the idea. 

So, we opted for a picture together, haha.

The second day, we raided the beach house shed and carried this inflatable raft and boogie board over to the beach.

Kevin and Jeffrey were the only ones brave enough to go catch a wave.

These cute beach explorers had a blast on the sand dunes.  They slid down a million times and had all sorts of sand in their swim bottoms, but all for the sake of fun, right? (Also one of my favorite pictures from the trip!)

One evening after dinner, we took a stroll down to the beach to watch the sun set.  It was super windy, which made for quite the adventure.  We all had sand in our eyes by the time we walked back, but it's just so peaceful and calm at night!

Nay Nay had a cute idea to write the kids' names in the sand and take their picture with it, which was adorable.

Outer Banks- first few days

Back in January, we started talking about a family vacation.  Since Kimberly and Josh were taking a big two week vacation to Australia, they didn't have any more vacation time. Jeffrey and Madi wanted to join in, as did my parents.  So, we knew that we all wanted to go on a vacation together, and we knew it needed to be sometime between April and August, but we didn't have any plans.  We kicked around the idea of going on a cruise, but with all the Zika stuff, and the fact that Kevin and I were hoping to be pregnant by the summer, we decided that we should stay in the states.  We then switched gears and began thinking about a beach house vacation.  I have always wanted to go to the Outer Banks, North Carolina, and since Jeffrey and Madi could drive there from Pittsburgh, they were totally on board.  Obviously, my parents would have to fly, but they were also on board.  We spent one Saturday (literally, the whole day) trying to find the perfect beach rental, and we finally settled on a house called "A Pocket Full of Sunshine."  It was significantly cheaper if we went before school got out, so we opted for the first week of May.  Mom was willing to take time off from work, which made the whole plan fall into place. 

Then we just had to wait a few months, but it was fun to look forward to something. Packing is always the worst part of vacation, but I got us all packed, and we were headed on our way.  Colby was so adorable on the plane with Kevin. He loves the novelty of head phones, although he only sits still for like 5 minutes. 

The flight was almost 3 hours long, and Colby was back and forth between Kevin and I the whole time.  Brooke kept herself busy with some little paper dolls I bought her, and was totally easy the whole time. Once we landed, we went to pick up our rental car.  They didn't have any cars ready, so we waited an hour.  I know I sound totally impatient, but after being at the airport in Dallas for two house, taking a 3 hour flight, and then having to wait for a rental car, I was annoyed.  The kids were hungry, and we still had an almost two hour drive to the place we were staying for the night.

But, we survived, left the airport, and Colby was asleep in about 5 minutes.  We stopped at Chipotle for a late lunch, then made it to Nags Head, where we were staying for the night.  We checked in, dropped our bags, then headed out to the beach. Brooke was so SO excited to be at the beach, which was so adorable.

Brooke was amazed at the shells that were EVERYWHERE, so I quickly found a ziplock bag in my backpack to hold her collection. When it was dark, we headed up to the hotel restaurant to get some food. I had the most amazing tomato bisque with toasted gruyere cheese and crusty bread.  It was seriously delicious! The kids slept great (after such a long day), and even though Brooke fell out of the hotel bed, she never mentioned it the next day, so I think she was still sound asleep when it happened. It of course scared the heck out of me, but I quickly scooped her up and snuggled her in the other bed with me.

The next morning, we ate breakfast and headed towards the beach house!!  On the way, we picked up our keys and some fun goodies at the management office.

The house was seriously beautiful, and had a color scheme I was totally crushing on...

We took this picture from the third floor balcony.  What an incredible view! Each deck of the three story house had seating on both the east (the ocean side) and the west (the sound side) sides of the house.

I loved all the furnishings and accents in the house, and of course had to snap a few pics of the kids on our tour.

The bottom floor boasted a game room, a bedroom, and two bunk rooms. Brooke wanted to sleep on the top bunk of one of the bunkbeds, which surprised me because we were staying on the second floor (4 big bedrooms and a laundry room). I didn't think she would really want to sleep down there all by herself, but I guess she sleeps on a different floor than us at home, so it didn't seem weird to her.  She has never slept on a bunk bed before, so we were nervous about her falling off. We found a pack and play in a closet, and used the bottom board from the bed to create a little wall so she couldn't fall off, haha.

After unloading all our stuff, we knew that we should head to the grocery store and get all the food we needed, but I wanted to get out to the beach and just take a break from duty.  I also had coordinated our outfits for a family picture since I wanted to announce our pregnancy with this picture, and I just wanted that done before someone (the kids) spilled on themselves, haha. It was so incredibly nice to just walk out the door, down a short path, and be at the beach.

Brooke immediately started running towards the water, splashing, collecting shells, and laughing all the while. I was a little emotional as I heard the joy in her voice.  This was exactly how I envisioned our vacation, and I felt at ease knowing that she was so happy here at the beach.  Colby wanted to be held, but he wanted to touch the water as well. 

The beach was pretty empty, but someone finally walked by and we were able to get them to take a picture.  The beach was perfectly beautiful and mostly empty on a Saturday, which made me SO excited for the memories we would create over the next week.

Love these boys...

We made our way into town (about 20 minutes), ate at a delicious sandwich shop right next to the Food Lion (grocery store), then put our game faces on for the shopping.  I had typed lists of all the groceries we needed, organized by category.  I figured if I was organized, the shopping would go quickly and smoothly.  We went in with two carts, and each had a list of things to get. We stayed semi-close to each other, but the store was super packed (with beach combers in bare feet, yuck!), and it ended up taking us almost 2 hours to get the shopping done.  We were all a little frazzled as we made it to the check-out line.  Once bagged, it took three carts to get all of our groceries out of the store, which was hilarious.  I had to snap a picture to document the ordeal.  Once everything was loaded in the car, and the kids were buckled in, I told Kevin that I had definitely earned one of the devil's food donuts we had just picked up.

Of course, the kids wanted in on that deliciousness, and they were both a mess by the time we were done, haha. 

As we pulled back up to the house, I jumped out of the car to take a picture. Isn't that the perfect house?? So aptly named, as well, with it's yellow door, shutters, and adirondack chairs.

Unloading all those groceries to the third floor kitchen was a lot of work, but we finally felt like we were settled in and could wait for everyone to arrive so that we could start this vacation!! 

baby #3

We had a positive pregnancy test on March 9th, after two months of trying to conceive! This has been a true testament to me of the Lord's timing.  It took us two years to get pregnant with Brooke, with the aid of fertility treatments.  When we decided that we were ready for baby #2, it took 6 months to get pregnant, and we were in the process of starting Clomid, but the nurses switched my blood work with somebody else's. When we decided that we were ready for #3, it only took 2 months.  We may never understand why we had to do fertility treatments to get pregnant with Brooke, but it has been amazing how much that experience has helped me empathize with friends going through similar experiences.  It seems so common these days, but heartbreaking nonetheless. 

I called Dr. Northrop's office once I had several positive pregnancy tests, and they scheduled me for my first prenatal appointment on March 15th.  I was excited to take the kiddos in and to begin this new journey to baby #3!

Brooke understood what was going on, but Colby was oblivious, haha. (After the positive pregnancy tests, Kevin wanted to tell the kids. I was a little nervous to tell Brooke because once you tell a 3 year old, you never know who will find out!  But, we thought it would be fun to tell the kids first, so I went and bought the "Big Sister" and "Best Big Bro" shirt from Carters, then wrapped them up for the kids.  I was sure that Brooke would get it right away, but it took some explaining for her to understand that for Colby to be a big brother, we would be having another baby.  I asked if she thought that was a good idea, and she replied "Never." Hahaha.  I knew that she didn't really understand, because she kept saying, "But we already have a baby, baby Colby."  We then talked about how he is growing up, and that we were going to have a TINY baby.  She then seemed excited about the idea. )

Brooke was super helpful with Colby during the appointment, and tried reading him books during our ridiculously long wait. During my wait, my doctor had to go to the hospital to deliver a baby, so I was waiting on Dr. Zinnante.  The nurse came to let me know the situation, and asked if I was in a hurry.  I had already been waiting over an hour, so I said, "Yes, and my kids are getting to the end of their patience."  She went to check on how much longer it would be, then came back and said that the doctor would see all the other patients and then come to do my sonogram. I was pretty irritated, and felt like the doctor should see the patients in the order of their appointment!

When she finally arrived, she did the sonogram, and everything looked good, but she couldn't detect a heartbeat.  She was not concerned at all since I was only 6 weeks along, but she scheduled me for another sonogram in 2 weeks time to check for the heartbeat.

We went back on March 29th, and heard a healthy heart beat!  What a relief :) They determined that my due date was November 9th, although I was measuring a bit small.

Our next appointment wasn't until April 26th, which put me at 12 weeks.  I had experienced quite a bit of nausea throughout the month, which seemed more difficult when I had two kids to care for. I was eating toast around the clock, and worried that I was going to gain a zillion pounds in the first trimester.

Although Colby is still oblivious about what was going on, it makes me so excited to take the kids with me to these prenatal appointments. I love that Colby and the new baby will be exactly 2 years apart, and I am excited to see him love on that baby.  He loves Brooke's baby dolls, and always makes sure they have their pacifiers and bottles.

Brooke is sure that the baby is a girl and that she is getting a baby sister. I keep reminding her that it might be a boy, and she says, "I already have a baby Colby, I want a baby sister."  One afternoon she asked me where all her baby clothes were. I assumed that she was talking about her doll clothes, so I told her that they were in the loft.  She clarified that she was referring to the clothes she wore when she was a baby.  I told her that they were in storage boxes in her closet, then asked why she was asking.  "I want my baby sister to wear them," she replied. When we were picking out a backpack in the Pottery Barn catalog, Brooke picked one for her, then picked one for her baby sister, haha. I hope this baby is a girl, for Brooke's sake, haha.

Kevin has mentioned that he thinks it would be fun to have another boy to make mischief with Colby,  which I know would be great as well.  We are just thankful to be expecting baby #3!!