Moving!!!

This house is under contract

and if all goes well

it will be our home in a few months. 

Still a bit of red tape to sort through

but we are under contract and

Dad-O is a principal no more.

Yes, we are moving to St Louis!

Des Peres to be exact. 

We are very excited

and a bit scared {iam}

but this is an amazing opportunity for our family

and I am so thankful

and so proud of my husband!!!

Thanks to those of you who have listened to, supported and loved me through this journey

A long road ahead, 

but great things to come!!!

Some favorites..........

MOVING on..................

Although I feel like I could post about the beach for the next several weeks.

{Not only do I have that many amazing pictures I could post, but also that many amazing memories}

It is time to close that chapter on this blog and focus on current life.

So........THANK YOU MiMi and PaPa for the magical week in Florida!

We love you and appreciate all you have done for us in making a great vacation come together!

and..........SCENE!

I use this blog for many things, and one is to record our lives and how I am feeling at times with our children, what they are doing, what our family is up to etc.

And because our journey is about to take a major turn, 

I want to write about it and photograph it

and record it on this blog.

so I will begin to do so.............

tomorrow

A moment to brag a bit

I did a session last night that included these boys.

4 month old, 2 year old, 4 year old and 5 year old

I sweat and squatted and knelt and stood on very high chairs

and mom and mimi worked just as hard

I must say this one made me proud of all our hard work

4 boys, this age, all looking at the camera and looking precious as well!

I impress myself:)

A short walk

to get to a place where the shoes all watched the waves roll in

and the crabs hid from the tiny hands that held them

and tunnels peeked out from our spot on the beach

we had to take a little walk...

our house was a block from the sea

but we found a way to make even the simple stroll an event to enjoy

we stopped at "mr.Gecko's" palm tree before we crossed the street

and said said hello

and always visited {but not to closely} "mr. cactus"

to wish him well

and the littles got to choose what big would hold their hand

....or  their body

I am not sure who loved it more............

there are no words..............

looking back.....

Coming home is always nice, 

especially when your mother in law allows for you to come home with clean laundry

and your parents take care of the house and stock the fridge for your arrival

{wow are we lucky! Thank you guys!!!}

But we came home to a whirlwind

and things have not slowed down.

So, today I forced myself to look back and record a few things about the beach.

This blog works in many ways to jog my memory for scrap booking

and just when you think you will always remember something, you won't

So a few things about the beach I want to remember.

My view from the 18 hours in the car

Pipe cleaners and laptops (zip-up lap bean bags that have white board and magnet boards and room for stuff inside) serving as entertainment for the kids.

I was so proud of my babes. Ben threw up the first day of the trip and was such a trooper through it all. It was a rough start! (I had a horrible UTI and had to call a gracious friend to call me a prescription for meds an hour away the second day) 

 MiMi had lots of great stuff for the kids to play with...she thinks of everything! They loved making stuff out of the pipe cleaners, playing with magnets and decorating their special beach cups on the way there. The first "Are we there yet?" came when we were literally 30 minutes from our destination....pretty amazing for an 18 hour drive and two over night stays in hotels.

I had the pleasure of seeing a triple rainbow while I was driving back to our beach house by myself, what an amazing site! 

The precious local ice cream shop with the best ice cream EVER....

Having ice cream EVERY night and most days too! The kids were in heaven, and I found myself wondering if the three sets of stairs in the beach house would work off the abundant amount of cream and sugar! I think.....probably not!

Sweet Ben discovering root beer, and "santa claus root beer" at that. When he wanted root beer he asked for a root beer float every time, even though that meant just plain old root beer to him. Adding ice cream was not his idea of making it better.

Locating ourselves 20 minutes from Tyndall Airforce Base AND right on the line where central and standard time zone meet. Getting to see countless jets in the air and laughing about what time it was the entire stay will be a memory for sure. Mimi's phone could figure out where we were, when we were or what the weather was most of the time.

And the weather was amazing, except for the last day, but it did not slow anyone down. Swimming in the rain and hanging out on the awesome fish chairs was a highlight as well. This was our own beach house salt water pool:)

So many other amazing memories..........

more to come....

but for now, back to the chaos

Does it get any cuter?????????

Tonight at Toucan's

Tonight we ate dinner at this joint

toucans

Cold beer and seafood....... right on the beach

while the seagulls longed for us to drop something, and we watched the waves

with a jungle gym right under our noses...so the kids could play 

while the last bit of beer passed our lips

the baby beach bums slid down the slide....over and over

and Ben looked as cute as they come in his toucans shirt and plaids

discovering that a teeter totter is really fun for ONE

and preciously pointed out to all of the adults at the table that the seagull in the foreground is an 

"old seagull"

{the guess is because his head is white instead of black like the majority on this beach}

I love the way my boy thinks!

overlay fun

Some favorite moments captured

Emme is keeping up with her talent of making anything into a "person" to play with.

In this picture, she is dancing with her seaweed friends Jeannie and John.

This picture was taken RIGHT before he leapt out of the sand and ran to the water to get it all off! No, I am stretching a bit on that statement! I was very impressed that they were both even willing to be buried.

A rare glimpse of the four of us together. And even more rare, me in a swimsuit willing to be photographed! I placed Ben very strategically, and black and white makes everyone look better, wouldn't you agree?