Arnold Family Gathering

Last Saturday, we got together with Shaun's side of the family to celebrate his grandmother's 94th birthday!! We all gathered at a beautiful piece of property owned by Shaun's cousin, aunt and uncle. We had a lovely time and Pierce got to experience a couple of firsts!

Here he is devouring homemade ice cream. What a treat on a hot July day!

First time on a paddle boat

Shaun's Aunt Sandy was gracious enough to help Shaun with the paddling.

Cate and Nan also went out on the boat.

Cate's baby brother, Brett

Cate getting dirty playing with Pierce's dump truck

Shaun and Grandma

Another first: fishing! Too bad they didn't catch anything...but Pierce did get to see and touch a fish that one of the older kids caught.

I love all of these pictures of Pierce and his daddy fishing.

This kid was so hot, sweaty and dirty by the end of the day. In my book, that's the best kind of fun summer day! :)

We are so thankful for (Great) Grandma! She has been such a blessing to all of us and we really enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate her life and be with family.

Beach Trip: All the other stuff :)

I promise this will be my last beach post!

This is the house that we stayed in. It was called "Amazing Grace" and it had everything we needed and more! 7 bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, pool, hot tub, outdoor showers, wireless internet, pool table, ICE MACHINE, you name it! It was truly amazing.

We only had neighbors on one side because our house was the last house along the road before the road ends at the 4x4 beach. We saw a lot of wildlife, including some wild horses. Pretty cool.

Our routine was pretty much the same every day. We spent a couple of hours at the beach after breakfast.

Then, home for lunch, kiddos down for naps and us adults relaxed by the pool.

We cooked dinner in every night, but one, on a rotating schedule. Each family only had to cook twice and all the food was incredibly delicious!

Once the kiddos were down for bed, the adults did more playing and relaxing. Here are pictures of a Wii game going on:

We spent a few late nights playing some board games, too. Cranium and Catch Phrase were the most popular. Lots of laughs!!

I really like this picture of Pierce, Mike and Shaun at Jockey's Ridge.

Our last night there, we did a family photo shoot on the beach. It was perfect!

God is SO good and we are all SO very blessed!!

If you really haven't seen enough, you can view more of my pictures HERE.

Also, my sister put together a wonderful slideshow of pictures HERE and my sister-in-law did an awesome post with more great photos HERE.

Baby, baby

I'm taking a little break from my beach posts to do a baby/pregnancy update. I'm 30 weeks today and saw the doctor this morning. Everything continues to look great. The heart rate this morning was in the 140's/150's and this little peanut is a mover! When I think back on Pierce's pregnancy, I don't remember him moving as much as this baby does. The other night, Shaun had his hand on my belly and felt several kicks/jabs/rolls and asked me "how do you sleep?". Well, not very well these days, but that's par for the course, I suppose!

My total weight gain is 13 pounds so far, with which I am quite pleased. My food poisoning experience caused me to lose a few pounds, but I completely made up for it on vacation last week!! I hope to keep my weight gain steady and reasonable over the next few weeks.

We don't have our names picked out, yet, which at times does cause me a little anxiety. We really need to buckle down and get to work on that. If this baby comes early like Pierce did (38 weeks), that means I could only have about 2 months to go!

I haven't had too many uncomfortable symptoms now that I've entered my third trimester. Last week at the beach, I started to notice some swelling around my ankles, but it has gone down since we've been home. I really think it had to do with the high-sodium, unhealthy (yet yummy!) foods I was consuming. My wedding rings are pretty much off more than on these days. I don't want to take the risk of them getting stuck on and they have been feeling tight, especially with the heat.

I have started having some headaches this week, which is not common for me. Not exactly sure what the cause is (dehydration? exhaustion? caffeine withdrawal?). The doc recommended Tylenol (which she assured me is completely safe...I don't really like to take much medicine, especially pregnant) and a little caffeine. I found her "treatment plan" interesting, but I appreciate her laid-back attitude and reassurance that headaches are common and it's okay to take something to help yourself feel better.

All in all, I'm feeling really great and getting really excited about meeting our newest son or daughter in just a few short weeks. I've found myself feeling really clingy to Pierce (I just LOVE being with that kid!) and I'm wondering if I'm just preparing myself for all the changes that are about to happen. If I think too much about it, I do start to get a little nervous about balancing two and how I will deal with the sleep deprivation while caring for a toddler. But I know so many who have gone before me and handled it all so beautifully. I trust that the Lord will give me just what I need during those early days and weeks.

Tomorrow, I'll get back to the great pictures and hope to do my final beach post!

Babes at the Beach

It was so fun having three little ones on our beach trip. Pierce and Sierra love to be with eachother even if they don't really play together, yet. It'll come and I just know they'll be close playmates as they grow. We're talking about making this trip an annual tradition and it's exciting to me to see how our family will grow as we add babies, and to watch our children love to be together as much as the adults do.

Here are some of my most favorite pictures of the precious beach babes:

It's tricky to get two good smiles out of the toddlers and make sure the baby isn't fussy!

My sun lover

Flying a kite with Aunt Karen

More to come... Can you believe it?! :)

Beach Trip: Time with Daddy

I'm breaking our trip up into several posts and trying to categorize a bit. It is time consuming, but I really want to get all these memories down.


I think one of the very best parts about vacation is having Shaun's company and attention for an entire week! Pierce just eats up time with his Daddy and I love it, too. The extra set of eyes and hands really lightens the load and I just adore watching my guys together!



Here are some of my favorite pictures of the two of them:



Shaun made a giraffe out of sand. It may be hard to see from the pictures, but it was pretty cool!






Karen and Brian treated us to crabs one night (Brian tried to catch some himself, but didn't have much luck, so bought a bushel). He did get one that he brought back and it was mostly alive still. Pierce was brave enough to touch it. Well, when Aunt Karen put a cooked crab on Pierce's plate just a couple hours later at dinner, he had a total meltdown. It was pretty funny to all of us adults, but not so much for Pierce!




Pierce was up at the break of dawn just about every morning (6-6:30ish), which is early for him and hard on us adults who had usually been up too late playing games and hanging out! Shaun was such a blessing. One morning, he took Pierce for a nice long walk on the beach and I enjoyed a great quite time with the Lord. Another morning (or two), he and Pierce hopped in the hot tub while we waited for the rest of the house to awaken. I'd say Pierce's favorite thing all week was the hot tub!!

Pool time with Daddy:

Taking a run along the beach

Playing in the ocean

This might be my all-time favorite picture of Shaun and Pierce (on top of Jockey's Ridge).

Boy, do I love these two incredibly special men in my life and praise God for them!

The best of times

In my book, it really doesn't get much better than an amazing week at the beach with my most favorite people. We returned home yesterday from our family beach vacation in Corolla, NC on the Outer Banks. We've been planning and looking forward to this trip for almost a year and I can't believe how fast it went by!! We praise the Lord for His protection and provision from beginning to end!


Our days were packed full of sun, sand, salt water, lots of laughter, fabulous eats and many, many wonderful memories made. I tend to get sad when things like this come to an end and I am so glad there are literally hundreds of pictures to remind us of the sweet, sweet times from this past week.



The Lord has blessed my family so abundantly and I am beyond grateful that we are so close and just love, love, love to be together. I have a ton of pictures that I'd like to share and plan to in the next several days. Stay tuned!

Pool boy

We hung out at the pool yesterday with Kirsten and Jacob. She remembered her camera (which I always forget!) and got some great photos!

They don't allow arm swimmies in the pool, so we borrow a life vest whenever we're there. Pierce has gotten quite used to swimming with it.

He loves to jump to me, but must be holding my hands!

Taking a break for snacks and lunch. He loves to lay back on the chair, wrapped in his towel, soaking in the sun.

Aunt Kirsten spent quite a bit of time swimming with Pierce while I enjoyed cuddling with my nephew. :)

I think they are having a discussion here...maybe about the lifeguards. Pierce has a TON of questions about everything/one!!

Jacob did so great and we were there for over 3 hours!

This was my first time away from the house since last Wednesday. It felt so good to get out and have some fun with my little man. I am feeling much, much better. Not all the symptoms are completely gone, but I am well on my way! Thank you, Lord!!

Land of the Living

After 5 days of food poisoning misery, I feel like I am finally coming up out of the fog. Last Tuesday evening, I attended a party with several of my girlfriends. It was catered by a local Italian restaurant and the food was very tasty. Early Wednesday morning, I just knew something had been wrong with the food that I ate. That's when it all began and it is the sickest I have ever felt. I'll spare you the gory details, but I am just today starting to get my energy back, keep small amounts of food down/in and lead normal life again.

I am not being dramatic about this at all. I felt like I had it pretty bad because of how pregnant I am...it's hard to be so sick and pregnant. But then, word started coming in from my friends and almost every person there was affected. And some very badly, having to be hospitalized, on oxygen, on morphine and their symptoms far worse than mine. The tests have confirmed Salmonella and an investigation is being done by the Health Department. I spoke with one of the nurses there this morning. I'm not exactly sure what gets done about something like this; I just know I want to feel back to 100% very soon.

We had to cancel our Fourth of July plans, which involved us traveling to Binghamton, NY for the laying of my grandparents' headstones and a mini family reunion at my great uncle's lake house. I was extremely disappointed about this and our whole Fourth weekend was pretty much shot.

The baby seems to have handled everything well. I think I did a good job of staying hydrated, which is what everyone told me was the most important thing. I have been feeling continual movement and I have an OB appointment on Thursday where everything will get checked out. I'm pretty sure I lost some weight during all of this -- not eating for 4 days straight will do that -- but it's not exactly what I had in mind in regards to keeping my pregnancy weight gain on the lower side. Oh well.

And I cannot fail to mention the amazing support of my husband over the past several days. He had to take Thursday off of work and has been such a trooper caring for both me and Pierce, and doing household stuff as well. I know it's a change from what he's used to and he did it phenomenally! I am so blessed by him.

I plan to spend this week doing some major catch-up on all things life as we get ready for our vacation coming up. I hope to find some time (and energy) to share some pictures (and a really cute video!) here. Thank you to all of those praying for me and for your kind words of concern and encouragement!