by Mindi Artherton
For those of you that know me personally, you know that this has been a summer of change. From selling our home of eight years and having the opportunity to build something we love, to leaving neighbors and friends we adore, to finding out we would be adding ten little fingers and ten tiny toes to our crew in November (click here to read about baby #3), to losing two very important men in our lives that forever changed the dynamic of our family. This has been a summer of change that has included both exciting and heart breaking highs and lows.
Thankfully, last week we were given the opportunity to sneak away to the beach for a week with our two kiddos and my (oldest) younger brother. We ate entirely too much and enjoyed days full of sun, sand, swimming and priceless family time.
With our second child, we decided not to find out the gender of our baby. It was such a fun surprise and I would highly recommend it to anyone that has the opportunity! However, with this growing bump and all the change we have currently been facing, Robbie and I decided we needed some certainty in our life and some good news!
A few weeks before vacation, we handed over sonogram photos in a sealed envelop to my brother, Vinee, and asked him to surprise the four of us while on vacation with the gender of baby #3!
As expected, he did not disappoint! One evening, Vinee set up a scavenger hunt all over the beach that included parrots, swords and gold! At the end of the hunt, we discovered a sweet little treasure chest chalked full of surprises for the kids and a big black balloon tied to it. The scavenger hunt was fun for both our kiddos and mom and dad!
Much to my surprise, we popped the balloon and were sprinkled with pink confetti! Briley was super excited and, of course, claimed that she knew it was a girl all along! Rhett’s response? He just liked playing in the sand and spraying silly string on mom and dad!
Looks like our addition will be a sweet baby girl and for that, we are incredibly thankful and excited!
Shout-out to Vinee! As expected, you surprised us in the perfect way and we were so excited to have you with us to help celebrate this sweet baby girl! Thanks for being so kind, thoughtful and one heck of an “Uncle Denny!”
Three years quickly turned into four, which turned into seven years in what seemed like overnight. Two kiddos, nine birthday parties and countless memories later, we have sold our first home. It’s a little bittersweet. As excited as I am to make new memories in our next home (that we will be in for a looooong time!), our first home, and this precious neighborhood, will always be special to me. I’m trying not to get too sentimental because this is what we wanted, but it is crazy to leave behind these walls that have so many memories for us.
Briley is over the moon! She could barely contain her excitement and is constantly loving on tummy! It is pretty sweet! Rhett,on the hand, well, he is a three year old boy that is still my baby! I think he will learn to love him or her, but for now, he is happy playing in the dirt with his new dinosaurs.
I promised the kids we would watch a Christmas movie together and drink hot chocolate. While they were playing in their room I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook and stumbled upon yet another ad or post about a Santa app. You know what I am talking about! The apps where you can add a few details about your child and Santa magically calls you!
After a quick phone call to my husband and an early bed-time for my kids (Santa was coming, after-all), I scrambled!
Why Elf on the Shelf is not for me:
