Birthdays and Trampolines

Tomorrow my best friend Hope will celebrate her 29th birthday! To celebrate, a bunch of us headed to Downtown Raleigh Saturday night to grab some dinner and drinks at Mellow Mushroom.

This meant we had a room full of Pirates in the land of the NCSU Wolfpack on a night that NCSU was playing in the NCAA tournament. Twas fun.

My amazing friend even let me and Josh steal a little of her birthday thunder by giving us a cake that said "New Adventures" in honor of our upcoming move! So sweet.

We had a great time with our crew and were so glad to celebrate my girl/s last birthday in her 20's!

Sunday we had a lazy day. After church we grabbed some takeout, ate at the house, then all four of us played outside before heading to Josh's grandma's for dinner.

my two almost-bald guys playing with the Sookie monster

I swear Santa bringing that trampoline was the best thing that's ever happened. It is so fun for everyone and it makes Sawyer SO TIRED at night (is it wrong that him being tired at night makes me that happy?).

I hope your weekend was great too! Please continue to pray for our family as we try to sell our home and find one for ourselves at the coast!

Mr Edmondson: Real Estate Snob

As we prepare for this big move to the coast, we have had to make a lot of decisions about our options for housing.

We currently live in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with about 2200 square feet and a big, fenced in backyard. We knew immediately that there would not be options like this at the beach for the price we paid for this house in Edgecombe County. However, we also know that a fenced-in yard and an area for the kids toys were two things we can't sacrifice.

Then we went back and forth about renting or buying before realizing that a mortgage and a rental payment at the coast were almost equal. Not to mention finding someone to rent us a house with our giant chocolate lab in tow would be quite the task.

We also immediately decided that a condo or apartment was out of the question considering the amount of yard we'll need for Sookie, the trampoline, and the swing set.

Once those decisions were made, I started searching Zillow and other coastal realty sites trying to find our new home. I sent Josh a few links and that is when I made a discovery, my husband is a beach house snob. He thinks every beach house needs to be as awesome as the giant ones we stay in for just a week every summer.

Josh not only wants the big things that we need like storage space, a fenced-in yard, and a play area for Sawyer (and Brody one day too), but he also wants the house to...

1. "look like a beach house"
He doesn't want brick. He wants siding or shingles. He doesn't want it to sit flat on the ground. He wants big porches and lots of steps.

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2. have an open floor plan
He wants to be able to be in the dining room, living room, and kitchen all at the same time. I might sound strange, but I actually don't love this concept. While I like a semi-open plan, I also don't like furniture floating out in open space, I like a defined area.

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3. be built on stilts with cement underneath so he can "store stuff"

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4. have a view of "some kind of water"
He actually said "I mean it doesn't have to be on the water, but I want the sound or the ocean to be RIGHT THERE by the house".

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Mind you, this all has to be accompanied by at least 1600 sq. ft., three bedrooms, a fenced-in yard, and a play area of some kind. Oh, and it needs to be less than $250,000.

So, I took a page from one of my favorite HGTV shows, Property Brothers and sent him a listing that had every single one of the things he wants....

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.... and showed him how much it would cost. This house is $720k.


Needless to say, we won't be purchasing it.

Pray for us as we try to find somewhere to live and pray extra hard that we can actually sell our amazing house in Tarboro (read more about the house here: laurenhedmondson.blogspot.com)

this guy.

I feel bad that my poor Brody Bean hasn't gotten the blog time that Sawyer got when he was a baby. Friday he was four months old and I am in awe of how quickly time has passed.

Homie is such a happy baby. He smiles and giggles all the time and the only time you'll hear him cry is when his tummy is full of gas, his tummy is empty, or he has reflux. He also hates a wet diaper, even the slightest bit wet.

Speaking of reflux, he is still taking baby Zantac and is still spitting up pretty good and arching his back after eating like he's trying to escape the acid, but it is MUCH better than it once was.

He is still drinking breast milk from the bottle and getting two formula bottles at night. This has been quite a struggle because the big guy is weighing around 15.5 lbs and eating 5-6 oz. every 3 hours. Well, I've been off and on cold meds that are just drying me out everywhere and making my milk supply pretty low. I just started Fenugreek and I hope that is going to help!

Sleep-wise he was champ, being put down around 9p or 10p and sleeping in his crib until 3a or 4a, but this latest growth spurt has got him all off his schedule and he's been waking up a bunch. I'm not even going to pretend like I don't just go to his room, pick him up,  and then lay him down in the crook of my arm and go back to sleep. #judgeaway

He loves to be tickled and always wants something in his hands (or his hands in his mouth). I am still swaddling his hands down because if I don't during the night he wakes himself up flapping his hands in his face or scratching his forehead!

He is rolling over from his back to his belly and seems to enjoy "tummy time" for the most part (unlike his brother who hated it!)

We can't wait to raise him as a beach baby :)

big steps.

Josh and I are moving. This time it isn't just 15 minutes down the road to another small town in our county. This time, we're packing our things and moving a little over two hours away to the beautiful coastal town of Emerald Isle, North Carolina.

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Joshua's career goal has always been to end up at the coast since being a planner and zoning person around the beach is a lot more adventurous than being one at home. Well, when Josh was invited to apply for a planning position opening in Emerald Isle (where we have spent many a week/weekend during the summers), he jumped on it and yesterday morning he accepted it.

our first summer in EI together in 2005

This is a huge step for us. While I've lived in Wilmington for one year for college (two hours from home) and we've both lived in Greenville (30 minutes from home), those were temporary situations, this is a very permanent one.

Not only is the distance from our families a big deal for us, but it's also a big deal for our kids. Josh and I were blessed to live just minutes from both sets of our grandparents and we cherish the memories of spending every weekend having "sleepovers" with them growing up. While I hate to deprive my kids of having their grandparents living close, I also think that the weekends we drive up to spend time with them will be even more special since they won't see them as often, and it is only a two hour drive.

Not having grandparents nearby will also be a big challenge for me and Josh since we will no longer have family just a phone call away when we having meetings and need someone to pick up the boys or one of them is sick and we can't miss a day of work. We have been so grateful that our parents (and grandparents) have stepped right up whenever we've needed them, so that luxury will be sorely missed. We will also have to hunt for a daycare and preschool for Sawyer & Brody which is honestly the biggest worry I have about this whole situation. Our amazing babysitters are like family to us and we hate to pull the boys from the great environments they have, but I trust we'll figure something out.

Speaking of meetings, daycare, and work, this big move also means I will eventually be leaving my job at ECU. While it has always been my dream to work at my alma mater and I have truly enjoyed every month I've spent at my current job, I know that this opportunity for Josh is once in a lifetime and the thought of living at the beach and raising my children in that atmosphere sounds amazing. There are a few job openings I'm interested in on the coast, so we'll see where they go. For now, I will stay on ECU and even commute if I have to until I find something at the beach.

This is such a giant leap for us and a great chance for our boys to have a better education since the schools in Carteret County are amazing and we were struggling with where exactly we were going to send Sawyer & Brody once the time came for school in Edgecombe County.

Honestly, I thought I'd be a lot more anxious about how we're going to actually make this happen, but I'm not. I am a little stressed over finding a new home (since there is NO WAY we can afford a house at the beach comparable to the house we have now for same price) and selling ours, as well as figuring out the logistics of when we'll move and the timing of a move, but I feel like it's meant to be and God will make a way for us.

So If I'm a little absent from the blog, it's because I am trying to figure out what our next steps are and preparing for this adventure. Please pray for us!