beach vacation {a film}

can you believe we are finally sharing our beach vacation video?? finally, right?! haha. well this one was a labor of love, and i hope it shows. these things take a lot of time! as always we had fun shooting the footage, and i think we may have even learned that there is such a thing as overdoing it on the shooting. sometimes there was so much pressure to take video of everything that we had to stop ourselves and remind each other to relax and enjoy our VACATION. haha. sometimes being creative means you can't take as many breaks, but i think having this video to look back on it all definitely makes it worth it! what a fun vacation, can't wait to do it again!

enjoy!

xx

hilton head, part 4 (mornings on the beach with the kids)

so i took a lot of photos while we were at the beach, and i hope no one is bored of beach photos, because there are a lot of photos in this one, but i promise it is the last! haha not sure why i feel the need to promise that, but there you go. we had so much fun on this beach trip, and we really packed a lot into our three full days there. it seems like every trip we take we are kicking ourselves for not planning one more day/night than we think we need because inevitably, the trip always feels way too short. but even though we would have loved another day, every single day was completely maximized, helped in no small part by the fact that every day at nap time grandma and grandpa (my in-laws) stayed at the beach house while the three littles napped (even wilder!) and we got to go back to the beach sans kiddos! this made a huge difference in our beach time! as anyone with little kids knows, when you go somewhere with your kids, it is always mostly about them and their needs (as it should be) and so getting to have two full hours every afternoon to ourselves where we got to lay around and talk/read/explore was amazing! it really felt like we were there for much longer than 3 days.

here are some of the photos i took of our three mornings on the beach with the kids, chasing them around with my big camera, haha. they really had a great time flying kites, building sand castles (and destroying them), getting buried in the sand (and eating the sand), running around, collecting shells and drawing with sticks in the sand, and i had an even better time watching them have so much fun. :) we also hit up a splashpad that was a short walk from our beach house on our last morning, and again, evie mainly had a blast running around. it was pretty hilarious my trying to take pictures while simultaneously trying to herd her back towards the group and away from the street, etc. her energy was truly a thing to behold. ;P

the happiest girl alive!

grandpa is king of the drizzle sand castles! w was not thrilled about evie knocking it down haha.

sampling the sandy water...naturally...

flying a kite! 

you can never have too many sticks. ;)

she kept trying to sit inside the holes they dug for building sand castles so j finally dug her a hole of her own. so happy. haha!

the cutest little man ever!

he was over the beach by the third day, ha! takes after his papa;) 

how does my baby suddenly look so old?!?!

cute cousin Beau!

that tongue kills me! also, this kid's instincts clearly leave something to be desired...yes, let's see what happens when we stick our fingers in this hole...

see what i mean about the running? 

bye bye beach! until next time!

hilton head, part 2 (a sunrise)

on our last full day at the beach, we woke up before dawn so we could sneak out and watch the sunrise. since wilder was sleeping in our room (the sleep situation is always the hardest part of vacationing with kids, isn't it?!), we woke him up, pulled a jacket over his pjs and brought him out, too. he was so happy to be included, and it was great that we got to take him with us on a little adventure. after we watched the sunrise, we went back to get evie up and brought them back to the beach for a few photos. we were really trying to hit that golden hour, but were just a tiny bit too late to get the perfect lighting. it was still pretty magical, and evie was in HEAVEN. that girl. i swear she is part sea creature! i first tried to set up one of those sweet little sibling photos but evie felt a little strangled (and held back;), so we quickly ditched that attempt and let them roam around free while we scurried after them, trying to make sure no one fell in the water. i love the series of evie running from her papa. she loves to be chased. mostly she loves to get away though. ;) i wished we could have done this every morning, but we are sooo not morning people. maybe by next year we will be! haha, a girl can dream right? i love these photos so much.

wilder bonded with his uncle gordon this trip, especially after uncle gordon took him to get a star wars sticker! def highlight of w's trip!

i feel so bad that i didn't get nearly as many photos of wilder as evie, because i was constantly having to run to keep her from running straight into the ocean! 

wilder and evienne's cousin beau! he loved the beach too:) 

running from papa! hahaha

this is evie. complete wild baby and loving her freedom! :D